A disk of air flew out and sliced across the center of the large humanoid shaped compilation of rocks that seemed to be held together by nothing. The hit blasted the rocks apart and sent them flying back strewn out across the area behind the dense elemental.
[Target Vulnerable to wind] Extra damage inflicted!
"Ok! get ready to move!" Lurk yelled out to the whole of the camp, everyone including the archer group in the rear had begun to collect the gear as fast as they could. As Lurk looked at the remaining Rock elementals stomping their way slowly forward.
"[Wind spear!] [Wind Spear!]" Lurk cast out two spears at the other elementals causing their rocks to scatter far and wide, though still the first elemental he had scattered was slowly beginning to pull its rocks back together again, it was a slow process. Lurk had no problem delaying the elementals at the very least. At the same time, he put his hand on Sala and Aurk to collect mana from them as he was beginning to strain his reserves, even with both his and Sylvies faster mana regeneration.
"The next group is incoming Chief!" Aurk launched an arrow, that went over the pile of moving rocks slowly rolling together, the arrow struck into the eye of a large wingless bird, causing it to collapse and roll down right on top of the rocks, causing the rocks to violently smash against it and pile onto it, the poor bird getting pummeled by the few rocks trying to form a body. It was a group of bipedal wingless birds with blue feathers and a large rounded beak, now charging past the collapsed elementals and towards the camp, squawking loudly as they leaped and jumped.
"[Firebolt!]... are those dodos? " Lurk launched a firebolt onto the next bird, and now that looked at them, he thought they looked a lot like very large dodo birds, causing it to screech and stop its approach for a second, its feathers catching fire. causing it to run around in circles in a panic.
The rest of the dodo's numbering five charged right at the camp, when two of them instead of running through the front entrance they jumped up and over the rocks, the other three clashing into Emily, Aurk and Lurk. Emily smashing her ax into the neck of the first dodo slicing its head off the body, it began to flail around on the ground despite its headless state. Lurk on the other hand suddenly had an idea and leaped out towards one of the dodos body, catching it before the bird reached the front. he grabbed its neck and locked his other arm around its neck swinging up on it choking it causing it too to stop and buck underneath him. IT had no trouble carrying his weight as it jumped on the spot and tried its best to throw him off, giving loud angry Squawks as it bucked underneath him.
[Riding] Increased!
Sala seeing what Lurk did decide to do the same, leaping up onto the next dodo as she grabbed onto it and got onto its back, she grabbed its neck too but instead of trying to hold it she began to give it some Sala styled [BONK]'s on the head.
Aurk and Vorm, followed by Emily went back into the camp to handle the two birds that jumped over the rocks, that began to cause some amount of chaos as the other people were now running around in the middle of the camp, the birds screeching and charging through it, flailing their beaks and small wings around, squawking at people that were near them, the goblins trying to stab at them with the spears, the birds bouncing back away from the spears, the chaos in the camp increased.
"Try and catch them if you can!" Lurk yelled out as he tightened his grip on the bird's neck and yanked it to turn the bird away from the camp. Sala was about to do a proper punch to the skull of her dodo but instead gave it a lesser Bonk hit, the bird squawking loudly as it jumped and bucked to get rid of her.
Lurk and Sala's dodo´s were not pleased with having extra weight to carry and did their best to throw them off, Sala´s dodo much less so as it was getting walloped in the head now and again causing it to see stars, making it look increasingly dizzy.
Lurk tightened his legs onto the bird, while it ran around with him on it in seemingly random directions."[Wind Spear!]" Lurk managed to blast a spear into the first elemental he had hit as it was beginning to stand back up, causing it to once more scatter the rocks around.
[Wind magic] Increased to 6!
[Small Barrier] Learned
[Riding] Increased!
"Weeeee!!" Sala had gotten a proper grip on the bird and seemed to be having fun with the birds flailing and trying to get her off, Lurk tried to calm the bird down and force it to ride as he wanted. But it was hard as it kept wanting to go towards the camp.
"These birds are almost harmless! it's only because they are charging like this they cause problems!" Emily shouted from the camp, holding onto one of the birds that Vorm had climbed onto, it stomping its feet in indignation over being held from its goal. and Squawking loudly, but it did not seem to "attack" in the slightest, though it had zero sense of what was happening and was still -pushing- to get to the camp.
"Let them get to the camp!" Aurk yelled from the rear of the camp, Lurk heard Aurk and began instead to allow the dodo to ride towards its target and its speed increased and jumped over the rocks landing inside the camp. Lurk made sure to guide it away from people, as Sala also came riding in with her slightly frazzled dodo it's head feathers quite ruffled up from a few bonks to its head, not running in quite a straight line, Emily had stopped restraining the bird and it too charged into the rear camp.
Lurk rode the dodo back to the camp and saw Aurk sitting on his dodo that had a stupid look on its face just looking around randomly, sometimes it did try to get Aurk off it but it seemed to ignore him mostly. The bird was simply standing right there in the middle of the weird fog that was seeping out of the air.
[Riding] Increased!
The other dodo's also came to a stop in the fog and began to Squawk and snap their beaks a few times at each other before they just came to a rest, sometimes bucking a bit to try and get rid of the extra cargo, but they did not put much effort into it. They seemed completely clueless to the fact they were in "danger".
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"Now that I think about it... dodo's did become extinct because of their complete lack of fear towards humans... maybe this is similar?..." Lurk pondered to himself, grinning slightly and looking with pity at the dodo Sala had given it some more Bonks to its head now and again every time it tried to buck under her.
"Ok! leave them here, back to the front!" Lurk said and everyone jumped off their bird and ran back to the camp, the dodos Squawking loudly as they had victoriously sent their enemies fleeing, they then promptly forgot that they had ever met the goblins and just stood there.
The two elementals were up, but one of them was busy smashing its rocks into the poor dodo that stumbled onto it. the last one stomping its way forward. A few of the rear guard goblins threw some spears at the elemental, but it did little if anything to them. Emily stood ready at the front and slice her ax into the golem as it reached her, causing some of the rocks to fly away from its body. It then slammed its shape into her shield sending her flying backwards from the force, despite her best to try and deflect it. The elemental seemed aggressive and not just focused on getting to the miasma, so it reared up and was about to slam its two arms down onto Emily, arrows, and spears being thrown/shot onto it deflected off it.
Lurk came running and he took notice that even the rocks that Emily had knocked away also seemed to be moving back towards the elemental, he looked at the elemental with his magic sight and saw that one particular rock in the center mass had magic flowing back and forth between all the other rocks.
["Wind Spear!"] Lurk sent the spear flying right into the center of the rock, causing the blast to scatter the rocks out, but they all stopped moving and just settled on the ground. Lurk quickly sent another spear into the Elemental that was wrestling down the one-eyed dodo causing the rocks to scatter and the dodo stumbled out and began to slowly move towards the camp, quickly overtaken by the dodo that had been hit by the firebolt, now with a lot of burned feathers, but the small fire it received had been put out.
[Lesser Rock elemental] Killed x2
"Careful! dodo's incoming!" Lurk warned the camp as they allowed the two dodo's to pass into the camp.
"Thanks," Emily said as she got back up, and looked on as Lurk sent another wind spear into the last elemental causing it too to scatter and collapse. Just as he as about to turn and give the order to leave he heard multiple loud Squawkings behind him.
"Your welcome, now what is the next incoming, are we ready to move out?" Lurk answered and asked Aurk who was just about to answer but then stopped as they heard Resti shout.
"The Dodo's are beginning to move around Lurk! the fog is clearing!" Resti shouted from the rock she was up on along with the bow goblins. He turned to look and yes he could see the Dodo's walk around looking and pecking at things randomly, turning and tilting their heads with, curious, but dim looking eyes seemingly not worried about the humans and goblins near them.
Lurk focused back out onto the field looking at the next incoming group, it was another group of boars, but the group had slowed down and begun to run a different direction, seemingly away from the camp.
"ah... phew... it stopped..." Lurk said quietly and relaxed, everyone else also giving a sigh of relief. "Keep watch to see if anyone approaches... Some might still come here to check out the miasma effect..." Lurk said to Aurk as he walked back into the camp giving out orders to now take their time to collect the gear instead of grabbing what they could.
Helping out healing the ones needing it and organizing the camp to leave Lurk suddenly felt a dodo near him as it gently bumped into him, it tilted its head down to look at him only to then ignored him. "These birds are utterly fearless!" He heard a goblin say, "... Or very very stupid, but I can work with stupid..."
Lurk went back to look at the rear camp, looking for the fog, and only miniscule tufts of it was floating around, slowly drifting away out of camp outwards toward the open plains.
"What are you looking at Lurk?" Resti had come down from the firing position and had seen Lurk look at the camp, tracking something as it went through it. Despite nothing being there.
"The fog we saw, it is still barely registering with my magic sense" Lurk knelt down and waved a hand through the tiny whiff of fog, that had dispersed more and more becoming even harder to see as it drifted outwards. it simply went through his hand only slightly disturbed. "It seems to be drifting out into the plains..."
"I wonder what it is... I have never heard of it before..." Lurk nodded to Resti, "I think it is a byproduct of magic, and perhaps energy from monsters... I saw it leave out from the ones we killed..." Lurk responded as he could no longer see the fog, it had spread out to thin now to be seen.
"Something else must be drawing it in, The ritual I did, released a very heavy load of magic in one spot, and that was just to ease the transfer of the fire element into Sala and Aurk... A requirement of the process..." Lurk suddenly opened his eyes wide and brought up his Menu. Resti saw him have a shocked look on his face.
"Crap..." Lurk looked down and kicked a small rock.
"What? is something wrong?"
"yeah, you could say that... The curse I mentioned about Sala's ogre magi race... It was not yet applied to anyone, except for Sala and Aurk's new child... The menu converted that into a new template... But... It did not -cast- it on Sala or Aurk, but they will receive the drake power once they change into their new species... So they are in the clear... But..." Lurk cast the light spell to project a part of his menu to be visible to Resti.
[Remove Ogre Magi Curse Ritual]
Cost: 10000 Mana. [Average local mana ambient area, the denser area will lower the cost]
The subject must remain still inside the Ritual Circle, with at least 1 caster channeling mana inside the circle at all times until all the mana has been channel into the circle if contact with the circle is broken the spell is reset.
[New updated information from learning about Miasma!]
The circle will project it's mana as if it is a miasma pulse until the ritual is complete.
"... Oh..." Resti said quietly looking at the menu.
"... Oh indeed..." Lurk grumbled looking over at Sala, who was trying to threaten her dodo to stand still, but it was ignoring her completely. "That ritual is 10 times my max mana capacity... and that led to this... -small- miasma pulse... because of the much smaller ritual for the fire element. What will that ritual pull in..."
Sala had given her Dodo a heavy push guiding it over to the others, she noticed Lurk and Resti looking and gave a wave with a big grin. As her dodo walked back behind her causing her to look away and leap up onto the Dodo giving it a weak bonk to its head for defying her, Earning her a Squawk in her face, causing a stare down between her and the dodo.
"We are gonna need somewhere safe to do that ritual... It would take days to channel that mana If it is even possible..." Lurk sighed and Resti nodded solemnly. "We will figure something out Lurk!"
The dodo's had eventually been wrangled in by tying a small piece of rope around their necks and then being gently pulled along, they just followed along with the gentle tugs, while Lurk and his crew had each taken a dodo to sit on, to make the dodo used to someone riding them while they were slowly being led by Emily.
The camp had gathered everything and continued its journey onwards toward the Valley city in the distance. Their journey to humans lands almost complete.