MAGNUS

We didn’t doubt there was a fight coming as we moved deeper into the wooded region. There was barely any kind of trail to follow, but Jessica was able to keep us going in the right direction. I kept my Aether Sight active as Vara went over what we knew of Silver Trappers.

“Trappers are a metal aspected creature. Highly resistant to physical damage that doesn’t have an armor piercing quality to it. Lightning works well on them, but avoid hitting them with fire . Unlike most bugs these things like Fire unless you can heat them up so much you can melt steel,” she said.

Mai asked, “Spiders right?”

Vara replied, “Yes, they average about four feet across fangs to the main spinneret. They have two additional spinnerets on their forelegs that they use for direct attacks with their threads. Their thread is either standard adhesive spidersilk or metallic threads they use that has a bit of a magnetic property.”

Jessica said to me at the front, “How much penetration power does your pistol have?”

I shook my head and holstered the gun, “Not enough. It was just a prototype. I think I need to work on that a bit.”

She chuckled mirthlessly, “Yeah, hell of a time to take it for a test run.”

I tapped the headband I was wearing and channeled a trickle of aether into it to power the bindings. “I brought other toys I have been working on.”

A transparent pale blue visor dropped over my eyes before the color adjusted from within. The binding would run for two hours before I had to recharge the crystals. But while the visor was active I had a multitude of bindings worked into it, an improvement on the first version of the scan visor. This one used the Cat’s Eyes spell to improve my vision in low light conditions, had the trait scanning binding we had developed, and one additional feature that would make image binders happy. When paired with the belt and bandolier I was wearing, it functioned along with the runes tooled into the leather to keep track of the remaining cards in each small case. Each case, which could be swapped around to better fit the user, was inscribed with an identification spell of it’s own that would tell the visor what spell was in the case. I hadn’t yet been able to put multiple spells in each case and have it identify those, so one case simply showed up as Special Cards and held my Fenris card, and a gold bordered Amakakiri card.

Each case could hold ten cards, and I currently had cases filled with Firebolt, Wind Blade, Earth Spike, Lightning Arrow, Barrier, Lesser Regeneration, and partially filled cases with my Mist Falcons, Blood Wolves and Storm Drakes.

I also mentally reached out to my new summon, “Lina, are you up for a fight?”

“Fire and doom has come to this room,” she replied.

“Maybe avoid fire,” I said.

“Damn it all, I’m a dragon not some yellow bellied swamp ass,” was her reply.

Well that was the reply minus the parts I couldn’t understand beyond it being insults and swearing in multiple languages.

“To this day, I still know not what I say. Without fire, Ash shall be dire,” she continued a bit meekly.

“Does that mean you will be in danger?” I asked.

The deluge of swearing that she replied with had a definite tone of disagreement. I would have to assume she was inferring that she had attacks that weren’t based in fire, but I had to tune out her mental imitation of a grumpy sailor.

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Jessica had looked at the visor and was examining the bindings during my conversation before she cursed quietly and said, “Oh good grief, you made a HUD.”

I scanned around us as I asked, “A what?”

“A Heads Up Display. That thing probably scans for health, talents, and helps with targeting. Probably a few other things I didn’t think of,” she answered.

“No, well yes on the talents. I’ll have to keep health and targeting in mind for the next version. I designed it to help my vision and keep track of my cards though,” I disagreed.

“Yeah well, let me know when you start working on the next version. I have a few ideas, and I want one,” she said.

I chuckled a little before holding up a hand in a stop motion. I could see webbing about a hundred yards ahead that had aether flowing through it. What was odd though was that I couldn’t see the spiders that made them. I could however see the aether all flowing inwards, and pulling the aether from the air.

“Okay, that is strange,” I said before explaining what I saw.

We moved closer and I could see the threads all ran towards an obelisk about five feet tall and a foot wide on either side. It was liberally covered in runes that were moving the aether in dizzying patterns. I couldn’t tell what it was doing, aside from drawing all the ambient aether into it, along with.

“Shit!” I exclaimed as I activated a Lightning Arrow at where the nearest thread terminated.

The crackling arc of energy illuminated one of the trappers crouched in a tree about twenty yards away and eight feet up. As the aetherical lightning spread over the metal of it’s carapace it highlighted the monster in my sight. It was devoid of aether, what little it generated traveled along the webbing to the obelisk.

Screeches filled the air as pencil thick steel threads shot out of the trees towards us, to impact the glowing blue barrier conjured by Richard. I called out, “They are aether starved. The aether is flowing to the obelisk in the center, but these are in full monster territory.”

Bolts of electricity flew from Takahashi and Amakakiri along the path the attack had come from as Mai called out, “How many?”

“As gramps would say: A metric fuck tonne!” I replied, drawing and activating the combat card for a duplicate of Amakakiri.

The threads of aether gathered together and we could all see the spiders rushing at us in a wave. Jessica, with a cold laugh, shouted, “Are you sure he didn’t call it a target rich environment.”

Her crossbows were up and spitting bolts at the attacking spiders, each one punching through the metal chitin with ease. It still took multiple shots to drop a single spider unless she hit it in the brain though.

Varis popped out of her crystal and began using her aether to recharge my lightning cards as I quickly ran through them. We had figured out that her limit for recharging cards was fairly high, so long as it was a simple spell like that. I racked my brain trying to find a solution.

Professor Nacht had an aether starved monster displayed for class, a relatively weak one for us to examine. I had seen the shifted aether flow that let it absorb energy from death though. I couldn’t even make out the aether flow on these spiders beyond what was flowing to the obelisk. I also found it odd that they were working so well in concert, sometimes taking wounds for each other. That wasn’t normal behaviour for a wild animal, especially one that wasn’t pack or hive oriented.

Images floated in my vision as my aether sight faded away, my aether draining away like someone had pulled the stopper out of a sink. The image showed a section of the obelisk and the runes carved there, and a ghostly overlay of strings running up to hands. It reminded me of one of the puppet shows I had seen as a kid in Haven.

I gasped as my aether bottomed out and the images faded. Vara was at my side in an instant as I dropped to one knee. I wheezed out, “Aether drained. They are puppets. The obelisk.”

Vara stood and reached for another of her summoning crystals as Varis in my head, “What the hell did you do?”

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“It looks like you pushed past the restrictions on your main Talent for a minute there. I could see it active with your aether flowing through it, and your body looks like you ran a marathon without food or water!” she explained.

“I identified what that obelisk is doing.” I said.

“Kitsu, destroy that thing,” Vara said in a voice frosted over with malice.

For a brief moment I saw a humanoid figure in dark clothing, small round mouse ears, black hair, and a tail appear beside her; before it vanished from her side. It took all my strength to raise my head and look at the stone obelisk behind the spiders. I watched as a fast moving form passed if four times, and the obelisk slid apart into eight inert chunks of stone as the bindings were severed.

It was the last thing I saw as blackness crept up on me and I fell forward.