Arryn plodded on, step after step. In his hand he firmly grasped the compass, one tiny golden needle pointing the way to salvation. He had entered the mountains a few days ago and his path so far had wandered between the towering peaks, where the howling winds could not reach.
For the umpteenth time that morning he tore off a tiny piece of jerky and gnawed it. He had found out if you didn’t swallow the jerky and chewed it for long enough, it sort of regained the consistency of meat, although by the time it did there was no flavour left in it. But if you added another piece to your mouth then you got both the flavour and the texture.
I wish the creatures here were small enough to catch and eat. I am going to run out of jerky within a week at this rate.
He came over a rise and met the morning sun. It beamed through the mountain pass he was traversing. Before it might have blinded him and been too bright to look at. But his new eye seemed to have none of those issues. After absorbing the Gryphon's eyes he had also enhanced both his night vision and his farsightedness.
Arryn stared at the sun. He might be able to look at it comfortably, but he could not see any details on it. I wonder how far away it is? Maybe Sae knows, it’s said he can channel energy from the sun.
A prickling sensation neared and he snuck behind a tree.
After a moment's wait; a snake-like creature shot through the forest, it was thicker than his torso and longer than a house, yet within a split second it was gone, testament to the sheer speed of it.
Additionally to being able to see the magic around him, he seemed to have gained an odd sense that let him feel the proximity of a gaze. You might think that this was a useless ability, but it let him evade even the most keen sighted of creatures in this forest. He had also smeared his cloak with dung, so that those creatures that saw more with their noses had a harder time finding him too.
This had allowed him to evade every dangerous creature he had come across so far. Although it was probably only a matter of time until something caught him off guard. The gaze sense could even wake him while he slept, though for now he slept in trees. While he was confident in it, he didn’t trust it completely.
Arryn waited another half a minute and sensing no danger, he snuck back onto the path and continued on.
Half an hour later the ground started rumbling and some debris became visible ahead. Some large boulders had been thrown into the trees ahead which had caused some of them to splinter and topple, creating a wide clearing.
Arryn crouched and softly snuck up to the nearest bounder. Peeking over it, he saw a fight between two colossal creatures. One was the snake that had passed him before, it was terrifying up close, sixty feet of winding muscle, with an armoured layer of emerald scales. The other creature looked like a tree that had come alive, it had a wide stocky body, with countless roots that it used to move and branches it used like giant whips.
Arryn surveyed the terrain, he would have liked to sneak round the clearing, but the sheer walls of the mountain pass seemed to narrow in this spot and he couldn’t see a way to get through without being seen.
If I skip this pass I’ll add three days to my journey. My remaining supplies are already strained enough as it is.
Deciding to take a break while he considered his options, he settled down to watch the fight, nibbling on another piece of jerky.
The great snake suddenly shot forward and wrapped itself around the tree-like creature in an attempt to strangle it. But the creature, being made of wood, seemed very resistant to this type of attack and calmly lashed it with its branches until it let go.
As Arryn watched, one of the tree branches moved oddly away from the fight, and focusing on it he spotted a voluminous red fruit at the top. The sight made him drool a bit. That snake must be after that, it looks divine.
The snake dodged another branch and tried to shoot for the tree's canopy, but the tree seemed to have been expecting the move and suddenly lashed out with three branches, two missed, but one hit the snout of the snake, pushing its trajectory away. As it flailed, trying and failing to turn midair, the tree whipped out two more and slashed them across the snake's underbelly, drawing blood from the less armoured skin.
Wiping out a crop of trees, the snake crashed down and hissed angrily, but seemed to recover a bit and decided to keep its distance from the tree. The tree slowly reeled in its branches, shaking torn leaves and bark off them.
I wonder how it sees the snake, I can’t feel its gaze so it must be another sense. Arryn pondered. Maybe it feels the snakes movement through the vibrations in the ground?
Either way, once the snake was gone he thought it wouldn’t be too difficult to sneak past the tree. He just had to wait for the snake to give up, and with the damage the large creature seemed to be gaining with each failed attack, it probably wouldn’t be too long.
Then the snake went still.
Arryn narrowed his eyes. Did it realise that it could hide by staying still?
The snake's aura changed and Arryn watched the waves of magic in the air suddenly get pulled in. The snake was doing something magical. He shivered at the feeling of danger that seemed to pervade the air.
Then there was a bright flash and a ray of green light shot out from the snake's eyes towards the tree. The light looked harmless at first sight, but where it hit the tree, the tree began to crackle and turn grey.
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That’s petrification, IT’S AN ADOLESCENT BASILISK!
The longer route seemed quite appealing now.
The stone spread across the tree's surface, causing some of its thinner branches to become brittle and snap off. Sensing itself in mortal danger, it shrieked and went berserk.
Roots and branches, some wood, some partially petrified began slashing and flailing in all directions. Although the Basilisk’s attack had been very effective, it hadn’t seemed to have taken into account that if you added heavy weights to the end of high leverage limbs then you ended up with a lot of momentum.
The Tree slumped closer to the snake on splintering roots, a storm of deadly branches raining down on it. The Basilisk realised its mistake and cut off the eye beam attack, but it was too late. A barrage of hammer blows swung at it head on.
Arryn watched in morbid fascination as the snake was beaten down. A hammer blow to the head knocked the creature unconscious pretty early on, and the tree carried on beating the limp body, knocking scales off and bruising the soft skin beneath.
The tree eventually assumed the unconscious snake was dead and moved to the other side of the clearing before digging into the ground with its roots. It looked like a crab burying itself in sand. It was still partially covered in stone, but most of it looked like surface damage.
Arryn eyed the still tree and the unconscious Basilisk. I probably won’t get a better chance than this. Carefully, he removed his boots, opting to go barefoot so the tree would be less likely to notice the vibrations of his steps. He tied the boot laces together and strung them around his neck.
Then He held his breath as he left his hiding spot, wincing as splintered wood and shattered stone from the fight dug into his bare feet. Taking a few steps forwards, he shakily let out his breath. No gazes touched him.
Arryn efficiently worked his way across the clearing, trying to make as little noise as possible. However when he was half way, something made him turn. It was the Basilisk.
Its eyes were sparkling.
Not like the Gryphon’s, these were suns to his senses.
Instinctively he took a step forward, but stopped himself. If that thing wakes, I will die.
A small part of his mind begged to differ though and began to argue. If we take its eyes, it might disintegrate like the Gryphon, then it won’t be a danger.
But if it doesn’t, then I will have a pissed creature trying to kill me.
Imagine consuming its eyes though. All that energy. The Gryphon’s eyes felt good, but they will pale in comparison to this.
Arryn licked his lips greedily. He had grown too confident from his ability to evade all the forest’s creatures so far.
He crept over to the snake.
Up close the creature was even more terrifying. It could swallow him in one bite. He reached for its eye and delicately held open its eye lid.
Its pupil was a narrow slit and its iris was gold. Despite being out of focus, the orb exuded a sense of majesty befitting one of the most cursed creatures in existence.
Taking a breath he plunged his fingers in and pulled something out. Unlike the Gryphon, the blob he pulled out was gold coloured, and it was huge. About 10 times the size!
He was about to put it in his eye, when the snake spasmed. The creature shrieked as it started to wake, half of its face withering up. Deciding to escape first, he sprinted to the other side of the clearing. The Basilisk writhed around, seemingly in deep pain, although luckily it had not come to its senses yet.
Arryn looked down at the golden blob longingly, then he slipped his shoes on, and started running, keeping low and trying to muffle his footsteps.
Some time later he flopped down behind a tree. The golden blob was still as magnificent as when he plucked it from the Basilisk's eye.
Not able to hold himself back any longer he pushed it into his eye socket.
Energy slammed into him, shooting through his whole body and leaking out of his skin, before darting straight back in, creating waves of intensity. Arryn gasped as his core stretched, but instead of breaking, grew to expand the influx of energy. Illusory emerald scales appeared, pushing out of his skin before fading back in.
And at the centre of it all his eye glared with nuclear intensity.
Unbeknownst to him, its iris became gold and the two pupils became slightly slitted.
When the rush of energy stopped, Arryn leapt to his feet grinning. The exhaustion of running away from that clearing was completely gone, and he felt like he could fly without wings, or slither faster than any snake.
He felt flakes of something fall away, and was disgusted as scaly skin shedded away from his own, falling to his feet where it gathered in a pile. He looked down at his olive skin in concern, trying to see what had happened, but under the scaly layer it was completely fine and unblemished. The layer seemed to have appeared while he was absorbing the Basilisk's energy.
Arryn frowned. I need a bath.
He looked around, trying to see if anything had changed about his vision like after the Gryphon, but nothing seemed to have visibly changed. That was until he focused on his magic vision and instead of waves of white energy, he was met by a kaleidoscope of colour.
The colour bloomed around him, every flavour of the rainbow pushing against each other. He was confused for a moment, but then he realised he could differentiate the attunement of the magic in the air. As he watched; green energy condensed and flowed between the trees.
That’s life attuned magic.
The life magic seemed to be the most present. Arryn carefully examined the other colours as well, ticking off the elements he could sense. The only two that seemed to be missing were void and moon. Though that made a lot of sense to him, because it was not night and there didn’t seem to be any nearby time or space anomalies.
Arryn was broken out of his fascination by a roar in the distance.
Recognising it was the snake, he brushed off the scales and began running again. How could it follow me? I took precautions.
As he pondered, a thought sprang to mind that horrified him enough to make him freeze in his tracks. What if it can sense where the energy I took is?
He felt panic rise.
I can’t hide from it if it knows which direction I’m in at all times.
A louder roar sounded, it was getting closer.
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