During my nightly log-out, after meeting and bonding with Ylva and Lenore, I remembered to check on my post about the highlight-reel, maybe my flame-bait had caused a fire. The reactions ranged far and wide, few were rational and some were hilarious. One guy accused me of cheating due to the way I used spells, a lot called me an attention-whore for coming forward, others said I was just a paid plant to promote the game and my separation from Amaranthine was because of it, and so on. Yes, there was negative backlash.
On the positive side, about a hundred wanted me in their guild, tons wanted me to help them, some promised real-world cash if I helped them, a few wanted to buy my account, an impossibility as far as I knew, it was bedlam. Mission accomplished!
The next day, all four of us started our journey north. During breakfast, I had talked with both of them and they had heard of the Druid grove we were searching and had an rough idea how to get there.
We set off as soon as the false dawn gave us enough light to navigate by, and I was surprised that Sigmir seemed to take the cold much better than before. I asked her and she told me that the Companion-Bond with Ylva had given her an ability named Wolf's Pelt, giving her increased Cold Resistance, no matter if Ylva was within her Hallow or not.
I got curious and asked what other abilities she had gained. She smiled and explained that it was considered impolite to ask something like that, similar to using Observe on others. Then she told me the skills she gained. While Ylva was in her Hallow, she gained access to the better senses of a wolf, letting her hear and smell a lot better if she wished to. While Ylva was outside, Sigmir was able to instinctively react to dangers Ylva could perceive, giving the two of them an awesome connection to guard each others backs.
A small part of me was jealous, guarding Sigmir's back yesterday had been interesting and once more, Sigmir had shown that she trusted me, Ruthless Trait or not. But once more, my rational side told me to be happy that we had gained two dependable companions that travelled with us. I had a feeling that both would be loyal to the end, if Sigmir and I proved worthy of their loyalty.
While we were walking, Lenore said she wanted to go out a bit and suddenly my left eye turned blurry for a moment, then Lenore was sitting on my shoulder.
Then, she jumped off and flew off, into the sky. I tried out the Raven's Eye ability and the sight of my left eye was replaced with what had to be Lenore's eye. It was interesting but a little disorientating but when I took Sigmir's arm to guide me and closed my right eye, it was an awesome sight, looking at the world from above.
Far too soon, Lenore left the range and my view returned to normal, I guess the distance I could currently use Raven's Eye at, was about a hundred feet making it useful but not too powerful.
We were walking along, Ylva sniffing around when suddenly a large, Black Wolf jumped out and growled. “We got you now, bitch. You will make fine breeding, giving us pups that can survive the northern cold.” Ylva jumped back to Sigmir and me, while I called Lenore back down to us. “Watch out, there are four more on the sides and two behind you.” Lenore told me in my mind. I used Raven's Eye again and saw the wolves in their hiding places.
At the same time, Sigmir readied her Lok'nar and Ylva stood next to her, growling in intimidation. I started to cast Ice Bolts trying to hit the wolves in the brush, aiming at the locations I had seen from Lenore's view and managed to hit one of them. The yelp of the hit wolf caused the rest of them to jump forward, attacking us. I used a new strengthen Spell on Sigmir, then the wolves were onto us and standing to cast would make it almost inevitable that I'd get my throat ripped out. So I used my Ice Magic, letting my Shuttle harass the wolves while observing them. They were Black Wolves, levelled between 30 and 35, with the large wolf that came out first being the strongest.
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My other mental process readied my Butterfly-Wings to fight physically, keeping Sigmir's back safe. The fact that we had not spotted the wolves made our normal tactic of me standing back, slinging spells and Sigmir holding them off impossible, we were surrounded from the start, after all. But still, it felt good to move with Sigmir and Ylva - it was almost like dancing, moving in concert with them so that we covered each others back at all times.
However, there are no guarantees when fighting and one of the Black Wolves managed to get a grip on Ylva's front leg. Sigmir struck at it and forced it to let go, but not before breaking the leg. We had wounded all of the wolves at this point, but they were still going strong. “Down and heal her!” Sigmir shouted out. I dove towards the downed Ylva while Sigmir took her Lok'nar at the very end, right next to one of it's blades and started a spinning strike, forcing all the wolves to jump back.
That gave me the time to use my healing magic on Ylva, but it would take a moment to get her back on her feet. To give her that time, Sigmir and I stood back to back over her, fighting off the wolves, taking light wounds but it was enough. The wolves started to tire and made mistakes, mistakes we all exploited with relish. After two of the wolves went down, the largest of them started to run.
I used telepathy to tell Lenore to follow it, keeping out of sight and used Raven's Eye to gain her point of view. At the same time, I went between Ylva and Sigmir, trusting the two of them and my shuttle to keep me safe while casting a spell of cold, combining two Cold-Runes and one Freezing-Rune, creating a beam of pure, unadulterated Cold. When it was complete, I focused on my connection with Lenore, and heard a loud caw in the air above us. I looked up and my left eye saw a Triangle flash into existence in front of Lenore's beak, before turning into the Frost-Beam. My right eye showed it from the ground, the flying raven, the flashing triangle and the beam, it looked as if Lenore was spitting the beam from her beak, like a dragon. The advantage of having Lenore as point of origin for my spell showed instantly, her higher vantage let me strike the fleeing wolf without being hindered by terrain as it had taken great care to have something between us and itself.
My Frost-Beam struck true, causing the wolf to stumble and fall, giving me time to cast a second, more complicated, spell using torpor and cold-runes to send it into a deep sleep so we could deal with it later.
I thanked Lenore, ended the Raven's Eye and fully focused on the combat around my physical body, bursting forth in a flurry of strikes, combining both of my blades and the shuttle to create a truly unending stream of attacks, swiftly dispatching one of the remaining wolves. By now, Sigmir and Ylva had also taken two down, so only one was active and remaining. It saw the writing on the wall but did not try to run, it took it's death with dignity as Ylva ripped out it's throat.
We gained some EXP, enough for Lenore to raise in level but not enough for any of us others. I gained a few points in Dual Blade-Mastery, the system acknowledging the fact that I indeed was able to use weapons I had mastered in the real world.
“We have one more left, maybe it will give us answers.” Together, we all walked over. Lenore flew down to me, mentally complaining about the toll even a small spell had taken on her and re-entered the Hallow within me. This time, I only had to blink once for my vision to return to normal and as soon as she was with me again, I felt my connection to the Astral strengthen a bit, as more Astral Power flowed into me, replenishing my reserves. On the other hand I felt her weakness, casting more than single, simple spells through her, might kill her.
As we walked, I cast healing magic on both Ylva and Sigmir one after the other, channelling my power to provide a gentler, less taxing healing. Using the Blood-Runes to heal without channelling was not gentle on the body, I always had to be careful that the body had enough strength left to process the jolt it took when the magic flooded into it, else I might kill someone I was trying to heal. Channelling lessened the problem, reducing the jolt but it was not perfect - I guess I needed to learn more about the Blood-Runes, or there might be other runes to help with healing, maybe in areas like Life, Nature or something similar.
Theoretical Magic-Knowledge had yet to be posted anywhere on the web, I had checked. Well, maybe I'd learn about it at some time, it was incredibly interesting to discover new runes and craft spells with them, only limited by the rough guideline of the runes and my imagination. I had discovered, the closer my intent was to the meaning of a rune, the more power I got out of the Astral Power-Expenditure. If my intent was only related to the periphery of a rune, the effect I got out of it was greatly reduced.
My musing ended when we reached the sedated wolf. At first, I used ice to bind it, making sure that it could not move. Then I carefully channelled healing into it, first taking care of the wounds, then waking it up. Interrogating it was a bit hard, as the wolf was ranting madly, telling us that Geri and Freki would rip us apart, even torture only caused its mad rant to rise in fervour, cursing us all.
After some time, I had enough and made a small, almost insignificant cut into it's hide. Then I took out a small bottle I had found in Sigmir's Bag of Holding, cleaned and appropriated. I used a Formation of Blood-Runes and my Blood Magic to rip the Astral from it's body, giving me a small amount of magically active blood which I stored in the bottle. It wasn't a perfect solution, I'd much prefer some kind of solid item but the tar-like substance was the best I could do at the moment. Draining the wolf also gave me a point in Blood Magic, bringing it up to fourteen, there were simply not enough human resources out here.
We skinned the pelts off our attackers and went on, cursing the fact that it had taken precious daylight to deal with the wolves.