Zoe sat in her enchanting room with a pile of moon rocks sitting on the table in front of her. She’d been staring at the pile for a few minutes now, trying to bring her hype down. They were rocks from the moon! Every emotional piece of her screamed that they must be incredible for enchanting, that they’d hold more mana than anything she’d worked with.
But her logical side knew better. Moon rocks were special to her, because they were foreign. Hundreds of thousands of kilometers away, very little that was within reach was anywhere near as exotic. To Zoe, there wasn’t any single material cooler or more interesting. Yet she knew that meant very little.
She wasn’t the one who decided how good a material was for enchanting, she wasn’t the one who decided how much mana it could hold or how well it would enhance different abilities it was enchanted with. Zoe wasn’t even sure that was a decision that could be made or if it was just a normal property of how things were formed and created.
All Zoe knew was that if there was a decision to be made, the one making it would be the system. And were moon rocks special to the system? Were they foreign and exotic? Did they excite the system in any way? Of course not. If the system had anything to say about it, moon rocks wouldn’t be any different to the normal rocks that Zoe found on Abyllan.
One of the moon rocks lifted from the pile and floated to in front of Zoe who grabbed it and pushed mana into it. Sitting around telling herself not to be too excited about it wouldn’t help anything, she had to get it over with. Embrace the mediocrity and enjoy the journey on its own right, rather than for what she got out of it.
Mana rushed from her hand and into the rock, a little more than she would have expected from the normal gray stone that surrounded her, yet less than even hematite. Zoe smiled and put the stone down. Enchanting it with some long lasting enchantments for the cats would be a challenge, but maybe she could embed some of the icy splinters she still had into it, or carve out a hole for a mana gem of some variety.
She put the rock back down on the top of the pile and leaned back in her chair. There were so many things to do, so many places to see. Kenzie and Sue wanted a trip to the moon, Peter and Lauren would without a doubt follow soon after. Zoe had learned from her last mistake and wouldn’t be bogged down with being a public taxi to the moon, but she still wanted to help out the people she cared about at least.
Brick and the others were somewhere, and Zoe found herself wondering if she’d ever see them again, and whether that bothered her or not. She’d had her fun with them, learned what they had to offer her and given back to them in her own way. Maybe one day she’d return to Foizo and see they’d moved in to one of the new buildings Joe was working on to the north of town.
Or maybe she wouldn’t, and they’d have died to exploring a dungeon they stumbled into.
Zoe vanished from her enchanting room and appeared far to the north of Foizo beneath the setting sun. She continued Cosmic Stepping to the north, jumping several kilometers multiple times every second as she raced across the ground towards the distant valley, and then down into the pitch black night.
She paused, floating above the trees as her Cosmic Vision’s sphere reached just down to the surface and then started flying to the north in search of a wanderer to follow. They seemed so interesting to her somehow, people who had given up their humanity to the darkness. By choice? By force? How did that happen, what was the process like?
Hours passed as Zoe flew along just above the canopy — and sometimes just below it as the trees grew taller in some areas, seeing just a small slice of the forest floor below until she found something. Deep grooves carved out of the forest floor, marks left behind by a wanderer her tracking skills told her. She chased after them, following the trail until she saw the being that left them and identified it. A bright red level three hundred forty five. The highest she’d ever been able to identify a level for, and already with its sixth class.
It was different to the one she’d seen before, though just as creepy and twisted. While the first she’d seen could almost be described as fibrous, with threads of blackness stretching across its form and dragging along behind it, this one was anything but.
The core form was there, the spindly twisted form. The black scabs that seemed to pulsate with each breath and the gaping hole in its torso. The almost slimy, pasty texture to its skin that felt like they’d slough off at the slightest touch. But in the place of the dark ropes that stretched across it were crystalline structures. The hole in its torso filled with some black gem that almost glinted in the blackness of night. Long, stiff strands of hair made from the same crystal fell down its back and scraped along the ground behind it, slicing through the odd stone as though it were no more than soft grass and loose dirt.
Zoe floated above it and followed it through the night. True to its name, it did little more than wander around the forest with no apparent aim. It didn’t make any sudden movements, it didn’t shift direction without warning. It just continued pressing forward, even as it passed the odd sleeping animal.
What was its purpose? Its aim? To consume light? To wander?
The temptation to float down to it and try to talk to it continued to grow as Zoe watched it. Could it talk? Would she find another opportunity to try sometime soon? If it went wrong, would she be able to avoid it? She could teleport away, and doubted that it would be able to follow her up into the sky, in particular if she went high enough to get back to the light.
But would she be able to do so quick enough to avoid its attack if it was hostile? The thought tore her apart as she floated along above it. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it also created wheels and carriages.
Zoe took a deep breath and teleported down in front of it so it was just in the very edge of her perception. The wanderer reacted with a slight jolt that raced up from the crystalline strands of hair reaching down behind it and tilted its head as it looked in Zoe’s direction.
“Hi!” Zoe called out to it. “I wanna talk. Can you talk?"
It tilted its head back the other way, the crystals that hung from its head scraping against each other and making a high pitched screeching noise.
“Are you hostile? Can you understand me?” Zoe called out.
It tilted its head back the other way.
Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!
“Don’t tilt your head if you can understand me.” Zoe called out.
It did nothing.
“Oh that’s awesome. Don’t tilt your head if you’re hostile.” Zoe called out.
The screeching of the crystals scraping on each other rang out as it tilted its head again.
“Eeee that’s so exciting. I’ve heard stories of you, the wanderers. You attack people? Have you attacked people before?" Zoe asked.
It remained motionless.
Zoe nodded. “You have then. Okay. I mean I have too, kinda. I guess. Why do you do it? Hunger? Fear? Anger? Is it some primal instinct?”
It tilted its head.
“Mhm. Too complicated to answer I guess. Okay, cool. Do you have some better way of communicating? Can you talk somehow?” Zoe asked.
It didn’t move.
“Okay, awesome. Can you show me? Could you do it?” Zoe asked.
It didn’t move, and a moment later Zoe grimaced as a flood of emotions and memories tore through her mind. Fear and anger at the light, an incredible pain as the sun burned into her skin. Its skin? Each of its blisters a painful mistake, or an intentional attack from some cretinous scum. Humans, she realized. Which she wasn’t, according to the wanderer.
Was that why she was accepted by it? If she were the same species as the humans here, would it have attacked her? Did it know she was a vampyre hybrid, or did it not recognize her because she was Earthian rather than Abyllian, or whatever they were called here?
A moment after the barrage, she noticed the Wanderer standing next to her. Its twisted face staring down at her. Its eyes covered in the same crystals, splitting and fracturing to fill out the voids left behind in the empty sockets.
“Woah woah woah.” Zoe said as she Cosmic Stepped back, putting the wanderer just in the edge of her perception again. “I just wanna talk, alright? Lets keep our distance. Do you have some home? A city of you people?"
An unsure feeling smashed into her mind but she didn’t let it distract her, watching as the wanderer’s legs twisted tighter and launched it forward towards her. She teleported back again and the wanderer stopped where she was then looked at her, tilting its head again.
“I don’t want any trouble, alright? You don’t know if you have a city, or you know of a thing but don’t know if it would be a city?" Zoe asked.
An image of darkness, with bits of movement shifting through the shadows hit her mind and the wanderer launched itself forward again forcing Zoe back once more. Was it trying to attack her, or trying to get a closer look at her? She wasn’t quite sure.
“Would I be allowed to come visit?" Zoe asked, watching as the wanderers twisted form began to compress in on itself again like a coiled spring. A feeling of help, of assistance, smashed into her mind and the wanderer launched forward at her.
She teleported up and the wanderer looked around, its head swivelling on its neck like a ball floating on a bed of water rather than connected to its spine.
“I’d appreciate if you stopped doing that. I just wanna talk.” Zoe called out to it.
Its head snapped up, the crystalline hairs smashing into each other from the violent move and ringing out with painful cries. The wanderer screeched and stretched its hands out. Crystals exploded from its hands, smashing into the ground, pushing the wanderer upwards to Zoe.
She teleported to the side and its head followed her movement, the crystals in its eyes almost seeming to shine with a bright, black light. It slammed into a crystal wall that formed in the air and rocketed off of it towards Zoe.
Its sharp claws raked across her gut just before she managed to react and teleport away again. She didn’t bother staying nearby this time, going as far as her Cosmic Step would take her, and then Cosmic Stepping again even further into the sky.
Her stomach burned from the pain and she looked down at it. The black crystals clung to her and expanded as they crawled up towards her shoulder. She stopped her Cosmic Steps and pushed all of her excess mana towards Restoration, but even that only managed to slow the drain on her health.
“Shit.” Zoe whispered to herself. Approaching the wanderer was no wheel, no carriage that would revolutionize the world. It was death and pain.
A flash of blackness entered the edge of her vision and she teleported away just as the wanderer raked its claws across her calf.
She teleported further up, trying to stagger her ascent to avoid the wanderer’s pursuit and didn’t stop until she landed on the edge of the cliff. By the time she did, the black crystals had covered her entire right left and her entire lower torso along with her left arm and shoulder.
Restoration flooded her with healing, but it wasn’t enough. As the crystals spread, they accelerated. Panic rose within Zoe as she tried to rip the crystals off with her Earth skill, or chip away at them with enchanted Frost, but all she could do was slow it. For every chip she cut off, another full crystal formed, creeping up her neck or down her other leg.
Fire burned around her from her Fire and Cinders skills, trying to slow the process down with light. Which worked to an extent, and had she thought of it earlier might have even been enough when combined with her Restoration. But there was too much for it to make enough of a difference, now.
Zoe grimaced as the crystals continued to creep up her neck, the first ones touching the bottom of her chin and screamed. A massive blade of frost appeared above her and she flashed it with an enchantment of Archery, Dagger-fighting, a cutting focused Elemental Arsenal and Cooking then fired it off at her neck.
The icy blade sliced clean through, cutting her crystal laden body off from her head and she Cosmic Stepped a few feet to the side, leaving her body behind. Her body reformed from the mana she was already pushing into Restoration, starting from her neck and stretching down in a disgusting display of flesh and bone that twisted together.
A combination of her Fire and Restoration fought back against the final remnants of the black crystals clinging to her chin and she gasped for breath, grasping her neck with both her hands.
She looked to the side where the black crystals continued to eat away at the body she left behind, then seep into the ground. The ground it was on ripped away then floated over to the valley where she let it tumble down the cliff face.
Zoe waited at the edge of the cliff, staring down into the dark valley for hours. Waiting for the faintest glimpse of the wanderer that was pursuing her. A few times, she thought she saw it, but if she did then it never came up far enough to threaten her anymore.
If she dragged that thing back to Foizo, she’d never be able to forgive herself. She shuddered, the pain of decapitating herself kept coming back. The thought of the body she’d tossed over the edge plummeting to the ground, becoming food for some disgusting creature. Her body. Her old body.