Zalia stood with the rest of their little excursion group looking at the dead remains of the giant aberrant worm.
“It’s pretty foul, right?” she asked.
Leyra and Hedion were standing a bit back, watching Zalia and Boreal as they approached the corpse. Next to them were Ember and Aylie, though Boreal’s children hadn’t been allowed to come with them this time.
“It is an interesting beast, to be sure,” Hedion agreed.
Zalia huffed, looking down at her bare arm.
“Hey Ember, come stand next to me.”
She was about to try touching some of the strange warped flesh on the beast with her bare hand, to see if it would spread directly to her. The only reason Ember had even considered letting her do this was due to the Gold rank effects of mental and physical resistance.
Physical resistance - passive
Tin - You receive reduced damage and effects from physical attacks and physical related magics
Iron - You may manipulate earth and stone to a minor degree
Bronze - You become harder to move by force
Silver - Your ability to manipulate earth and stone is increased. You may alter your form to take on a stoney visage.
Gold - Your body is significantly harder to alter by any means.
Mental resistance - passive
Tin - You receive reduced damage and effects from mental attacks and mind related magics
Iron - You may perform minor telekinetic feats
Bronze - You may mentally communicate with creatures capable of understanding language
Silver - The power of your telekinesis is increased. You are able to create invisible surfaces only you can touch with this ability.
Gold - Your resistance to magical interference with your mind and thoughts on the Astral plane is significantly increased.
It was mainly Physical Resistance that mattered, though the creatures that had been infected had their minds controlled, which obviously wouldn’t be great.
Ember arrived next to Zalia, snow crunching beneath her boots. Zalia summoned her sword and handed it to her.
“If my arm starts… warping, cut it off would you?”
Ember just sighed.
Grinning, Zalia stepped up to the thing and tapped a warped piece of flesh with her finger, drawing it back instantly. Nothing happened.
“Okayyy, seems alright.”
She tapped it a little longer, like she was cautiously testing the temperature of a pan. A few more taps and she had her hand placed firmly on it. Still, nothing happened.
“Well then, all good!”
As the words left her mouth, the warped flesh broke like a blister and a liquid poured down her hand. Rippling pain spread up her arm at the same time as something tried to force its way into her mind. She resisted the mental attack easily and the pain in her arm stopped as Ember took it off with a single clean cut. Her arm slowly regrew and Zalia waited with gritted teeth.
“I guess I was wrong,” she muttered.
Ember was standing with a self-satisfied look.
“Knew it. You’re lucky you have someone to cut your arm off whenever you need.”
Zalia stared at her, blue glowing blade slung over her shoulder and fiery plate armour slowly melting the snow around them, and unsummoned the sword.
“No more armour ignoring sword for you, thanks. I like my arms where they are, most of the time!”
Ember chuckled and looked toward the worm.
“So, this is the threat that our... friend is defending against?”
Zalia nodded as Hedion and Leyra approached.
“So how are we going to get that back through your portal?” Leyra asked.
Zalia frowned up at the massive form.
“Well we could cut a bit off I guess? I’m not so certain we should bring it back, the more I think about it. It seems pretty contagious.”
Hedion raised a hand.
“Ah! But I have a power that can put whatever we cut off of it into a type of stasis, so that it might be preserved. That will also stop it from spreading to anything so long as the magic holds. Once it is in the hands of your people and mine, it won’t be a threat any longer. The people I know have plenty of ways to deal with such an affliction, I’m sure.”
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Zalia tapped at her leg, thinking.
“Doesn’t even look tasty,” Boreal added.
Nodding sagely, as if Boreal’s contribution mattered whatsoever, Zalia turned back to Hedion.
“Well alright, we can get something done with this. First though, you’ll have to make sure your people are okay coming up near the Grove to study it. My friend won’t really be cool with leaving the north.”
Hedion looked thoughtful, but nodded.
“Sure, I should be able to make that work.”
Zalia’s sword appeared in her hand as she turned back to the worm. Was this really a good idea?
She summoned her armour and started to cast a ritual. Getting any of the odd opaque liquid on herself would cause the warping, so she would just have to avoid that. The ritual she cast used Water Lily, Dodge-vine and Bitterbalm with the intended effect of protecting her from being afflicted. The purifying effect of the Water Lily, in addition to the protection from curses that Dodge-vine and Bitterbalm provided should be enough to prevent her from needing to remove a limb again.
Congratulations! Herbal Magic has reached Silver 20.
Congratulations! Herbal magic has reached Gold 1.
Her expression lit up at the notification. Another step towards Gold rank.
She put away thought of the new effect for the moment and focused on her task.
“Alright, step back everyone.”
Ember moved away, though Boreal didn’t bother, and Zalia began making cuts into the creature. She cut into the worm like it was a cake, making two intersecting slices downwards and one more along the bottom. It wasn’t blood that flowed out, but the same semi-clear fluid that had warped her flesh previously. She wrinkled her nose as a horrid smell rose from it, but continued her work.
The ritual she had cast worked as intended, stopping any of the liquid from touching her as she cautiously grabbed the piece of creature and tore it off. She let it go and it hit the ground with a thud, even Boreal taking a few steps back as they looked at it.
“Well… there we go.”
Everyone stared at it, eyes looking one by one back to Zalia.
“Fine, I’ll carry it. The rest of you should go ahead then.”
At that moment, an Ironfur rabbit with a half warped body came flying from the nearby trees towards them with feral aggression. It barely lasted a second as Boreal reacted immediately, intercepting and tearing it apart. It occurred to Zalia then that it was strange that Boreal hadn’t been affected by the warping power but put the thought aside as a rumbling started beneath their feet.
“Run!”
She grabbed the chunk of creature and waited for the others to push through her vault portal before jumping in herself. A massive worm, almost twice the size of the previous one, that she identified as Emerald rank, burst from the ground, swallowing the entire section of land they had just been standing on. As it did, she closed the portal.
“I guess we aren’t going back there for a bit,” Ember said dryly.
“I think I would rather go back there never,” Leyra murmured.
Zalia stored the piece of worm in one of her storage spaces and took a moment to look at the new ability description for Herbal Magic.
Passive 2 - Herbal Magic - passive - varied
Tin - Minor herbal based rituals are a keystone of magical herbalists. You gain an instinctual understanding of herbal rituals of your rank or lower. Herbal magic you use of your rank and lower has slightly increased potency.
Iron - you may emulate the effects of herbs you have used in rituals of a rank lower than this ability.
Bronze - When applying a Herbal ritual effect to a target marked by Hunter’s mark, all other marked targets are also affected. In addition, you are able to combine certain herbs to gain a new base effect.
Silver - Your living rituals become almost indistinguishable from natural magic. The scale of your ritual magic expands, allowing you to now perform significantly larger and longer rituals.
Gold - The strength and scale of your ritual magic further increases. You are also able to establish a Herbal Nexus in one of your Grove’s which allows you to maintain rituals without cost in addition to giving you the ability to create rituals significantly quicker without the requirements of space for physical plants to maintain them.
As she read, her eyebrows rose further and further until she was reading the Gold rank effect multiple times through, to ensure she hadn’t misunderstood. The effect would be incredibly powerful for when they entered Cormaine. If she was able to quickly apply all of the ritual effects she had the first time she had been there, it would give them a foothold into Cormaine that would be hard to break. Protection from the aura there, a form of disguise or invisibility from the senses of the shades that clouded the air.
Part of her was looking forward to going to Cormaine just to see how much she had changed since she had been there. It had been a struggle to survive, death around every corner, the very air hard to breathe. This time, she doubted the aura would even reach her through Healing Presence and its incredible range. Even the shades probably wouldn't be an issue, more likely to be scared of her than to approach. The undead city wouldn’t provide any challenge, as Healing Presence would soon reach Gold rank and be so strong as to put to rest any undead long before it could approach. Perhaps even the Gold rank king wouldn’t do much.
Zalia left the vault with the others following before she closed it. Returning to the far north lands wouldn’t be a good idea until Glemp, and whoever Hedion’s people were, managed to figure out how to counteract the worm blood effectively.
“Okay, I’m going to go tell Glemp about our plans, will the rest of you be okay here?”
“Leyra and I are going to return to Endaria and see if we can contact my people. I assume this portal here is the one that leads to your place there?”
Zalia nodded and without further conversation, they left. She found herself hoping that returning to the kingdom wouldn’t bring back too many bad memories for Leyra. There had really been a change in the woman and returning to the way things had been would not be a good thing.
“Aylie and I are going to train a bit and hang out with Lumin while you do that,” Ember told her.
With that, Zalia turned to Boreal.
“Just you and me again, hey?”
Boreal’s children were nowhere to be seen, but neither of them were worried. They could take care of themselves now.
Bobbing her head in an imitation of a nod, Boreal jumped up and down until Zalia cast the ritual of flight on her. They took off into the sky towards the mountain that Glemp called home.
Zalia’s doubts about what they were doing came to the front of her mind as they flew. She wasn’t sure bringing a piece of the creature further south was a good idea. In addition to her doubts, there was also the chance that Rozestrazix would discover what they were doing and stop them. If that happened, there wasn’t really anything any of them could do to stop the dragon. Maybe she could find a way to get Glemp and Hedion’s people further north to study the worms at their source without getting attacked. It would be a much better alternative, if they could do it safely. At the end of the day, it was more important to stop the spread of the warping power than it was to potentially take back the far northern lands and eliminate it completely.
She continued to consider her options as the mountain home containing two of her dearest friends, Zen and Glemp, came into view.