Food, a sponge bath, some time cuddling with Dav, and sleep made Sophia feel far better that afternoon. It was still really too warm for anything other than some basic exercises, and Sophia knew she’d get plenty of exercise during their night shift hunting corpsevines in the forest.
She started to replace most of her normal exercise with some mana training, but ended up helping Dav with mana threading instead. It was different from her usual practice, but it was more fun to see Dav’s take on it. He didn’t quite approach things the same way she did. Today, he wanted to spin the thread instead of compressing it. It made the thread harder to control while also achieving superior compression.
Sophia was going to have to play with that.
They quit practicing when Sophia’s stomach rumbled. With the door to their room open, Sophia could smell dinner cooking from downstairs. It turned out to be stew, adequately cooked and decently seasoned but certainly nothing special. The bread that went with it was dense and filling but not particularly flavorful. Sophia suspected that this was probably as good as it was going to get while they were at a “remote base.”
The sound of the front door closing drew everyone’s attention away from the uninspired meal. Samuel stepped out of the entry room and into the dining room a moment later. He took a moment to look around the room, then nodded. “Good, everyone’s already down here. Matt stopped by and we had a long talk about where things stand and what we want people to do.”
It took Sophia a moment to remember who Matt was. Samuel had to mean the redhead with the Commander vocation that was coordinating the effort against the corpsevines. She’d expected a messenger again at the most, not the person theoretically in charge. Maybe Samuel had called him somehow? That was definitely possible, even if the Registry didn’t have good means of long-distance communication.
“He likes the distraction plan, even though we killed fewer corpsevines with it than with the single big bonfire; we pulled enough corpsevines away from Ahmed’s group that they didn’t take any casualties. We’re to go ahead and attack tonight just like last night, with the added note that we’re supposed to try to burn as much of the plant monsters as possible.” Samuel gave a cautious look towards Amy, as if he expected her to argue with the direction. He let out a silent sigh when she nodded instead. “After that, he wants me to send about half of us into the Conservatory’s Leveled Challenge. Since we’ve stirred up the corpsevines on this end, that means coming in from the city. I recommend heading to the Registry as soon as we’re done in the morning, so you can rest there. You can get a guide to the Challenge as soon as you’re ready, if Matt doesn’t guide you himself.”
“Who’re you going to send?” Amy’s chin rose slightly as she asked.
Samuel smiled. “You, Dav, and Sophia, if you’re willing. You three seem to work well together, and that means I can keep Moti and Rae to guard Essia along with me. They’re really more suited to working with large groups.”
Sophia glanced over at Rae. She had a huge grin. The grin on Moti’s face was smaller but still unmistakeable. Sophia suspected the reason was simple: they were being praised for their effectiveness and felt like they’d earned the praise.
“Is three people enough?” Dav voiced a concern that Sophia hadn’t thought of yet. Once he did, she wondered as well.
“It’s a Leveled Challenge,” Amy stated firmly. “They adjust based on who enters, not just on how many Levels you have, for the fights at least. Whatever the core of it is won’t change. People have tried flooding them with as many low-level people as possible and that just makes them harder. No matter how many people it will take, the best group for a Leveled Challenge is a group that can work well together.”
Samuel gestured towards Amy, clearly saying without words that she answered it as well as he could have. “If you’re all good with the plan, I’d like to get some food, then we can talk about the route for tonight and how we’re going to handle that bear.”
Taika Line Break [https://i.imgur.com/REUR9cx.png]
Why did I have to wish for comfort and safety when they wished for power?
The thought bounced around Taika’s head as he ran as quickly as he could. It meant abandoning his preferred plush shape for a larger one, but it was the only way he’d be able to reach the people he wanted to reach before the walking sea monster and the cloud-lightning monster got there.
He knew they had once been his friends Sadik and Akmir. He also knew that they were no longer his friends. That was very, very clear now that he could see their emotions as colors. All Sadik felt was hunger; Akmir felt that same hunger, but it was nothing next to the abomination’s lust for power.
Taika did not feel that hunger at all. Instead, he felt a different drive, one that was exemplified in the Sphere that was the only thing on his Status when he called it.
Sphere: Comfort Animal () was all it said other than his name. It didn’t give him any clues about what he could do or how. The empty spot gave him a feeling of uneasiness whenever he looked at it. He was certain that was why he felt a connection to six creatures when he woke up and condensed the refracted sunlight that surrounded him into a comfortable shape. It wasn’t his original human shape, but he didn’t care; chinchillas were better than humans.
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He’d figured out a lot of things about the Sphere in the weeks since he appeared. He could dissolve his shape and reform it elsewhere, as long as there was light and color and he could even make his own light and color. He could manage illusions, as well, but they seemed to be limited to things he thought of as helpful, rather than harmful.
Sometimes he wondered if his shape was an illusion. The fact that he was currently running as a two-tailed fox made him think that it probably was, but the fact that he’d found very few shapes that worked seemed to say otherwise. Oh, he could change his coloration and general appearance easily, but so far he’d only discovered three base shapes he could assume. Oddly enough, the cat was almost as fast as the fox while the chinchilla was only about half as fast.
None of them were great for running all day. He’d tried. Fortunately, if he let himself dissolve into colored light to rest during the daytime, he recovered quickly and could run again. While he ran, he couldn’t prevent his mind from slipping back to the reason he ran.
The first of the six creatures he found was actually a trio: two humans and a third presence that seemed attached to the woman. Taika didn’t approach them. He watched from the light.
His favorite place to hide was the woman’s Magelight, when she bothered to light it. The rest of the time, he had to hide behind an illusory imitation of the landscape. He gave up after a few days; the place with the purple windows was safe but oppressive. He didn’t like having most of the available light tinted purple.
In any case, they seemed nice enough but they also didn’t seem to need him. He could still remember the last actions he’d taken before he was thrown into the terrifying darkness. He didn’t know how to approach them without admitting that he’d tried to kill them the last time he saw them.
He knew it was a dumb choice now; really, he’d known it then. That didn’t make him feel any better about it. Sophia and Dav would have to be foolish to accept his word that he wasn’t going to betray them again.
After that, he hunted for the creature that flew. It was a dark hawk and seemed to drip more of that darkness, which made him cautious. He was a creature of light now; should he try to protect one made of darkness?
The question answered itself when the hawk attacked Sophia from above and behind her without warning. It was quickly defeated and Taika did not try to interfere. He was not compatible with the hawk.
Taika let them leave without him, but he watched as they used the odd spire to vanish and landed somewhere far away. He could feel the connection and was fairly certain he could walk along it without the full light show, but he wanted to check on the two who were still nearby first. He’d rather comfort a friend instead of a stranger.
Sadik had been a friend since childhood. Looking back, Taika was fairly certain Akmir became “friends” with the duo partly because Sadik was easy to lead, but that no longer mattered. Taika was different now and he hoped Sadik and Akmir were as well.
They were, but in completely the opposite way. Taika rejected their hungers without a second thought. Sadik and Akmir were dead and these things that held some of their memories were not them. At least, he hoped they weren’t; if they were, he’d never truly known either of his friends. He preferred to think they were warped.
Taika regretfully snapped the link that remained between him and his old allies. He was completely unable to fight, so he snuck through the gate without truly opening it. That should delay the Hungry Ones he’d once considered friends, but he wasn’t sure how long it would last. From there, he ran as fast as he could. The only three people he could still feet, the three people who might be able to fill that empty spot on his Status, needed to be warned that danger was coming.
When Taika reached a forest, he kept going. He was tired, but he trusted that he could outrun trouble. They were close. He hoped that they’d survive. Without them, he wasn’t sure he’d ever get rid of the empty feeling that came from not having someone to comfort.
Or was it the fact that he didn’t have anyone to comfort him that made him feel so empty?
Feather Line Break [https://i.imgur.com/JcKTy4K.jpeg]
The full group headed for where they left the corpsevine-infested bear. They didn’t know if it was still there, but it seemed likely; as far as they could tell, the corpsevines didn’t move unless they sensed something they could kill and take back to be infested. With the Domain broken, nothing new should be getting infested.
Hopefully. If they were certain, they might not have to kill all of the corpsevines.
They all became more careful when they passed the line of archways that more or less marked the old Domain line; corpsevines were far more likely there.
Soon after that, Sophia heard a high yipping noise from ahead followed by a large crash. She paused for a moment to see what the others would do, but Samuel picked up the pace. “Hurry. I’d rather fight a distracted corpsevine than two of them.”
Samuel clearly didn’t have much faith that the corpsevines couldn’t spread. Sophia had to admit she didn’t either. There were so many of them that it just didn’t seem reasonable, even with the ten-year time since the last time they were culled.
The noise came from the clearing where they avoided the zombie bear. The clearing looked different, now, with the undergrowth trampled and torn. It was clearly the same clearing, however, because the zombie bear was there.
It seemed to be chasing an oddly colored fox with mostly dark fur that almost looked like it had been dyed multiple colors at the neck and along its sides. The fox kept dodging out of the way of the bear each time it swiped at it.
For a moment, Sophia thought the fox’s tail was injured. After a moment she realized that it wasn’t. Instead, the tail looked odd because it was split at the base. There was only one multi-tailed fox that Sophia could think of. “What is a kitsune doing here?”
Taika Fox [https://i.imgur.com/cwrYa2O.jpeg]