Elijah sat cross-legged on a boulder, his eyes closed and focused almost entirely on One with Nature. During his previous attempts at cycling his ethera in an effort to begin the process of advancing his Core to the next stage, he had begun to feel something that he’d never felt before.
Or rather, that he’d only experienced a single time, when he’d first tried his hand at cultivation and very nearly succumbed to what Nerthus had referred to as the Call. Back then, the spryggent had described it as giving himself completely to the Mother. Or to nature itself. Though, Elijah hadn’t understood it at the time.
Now, he was beginning to.
Because nature wasn’t just some ephemeral concept. Certainly, it could be referred to in that way, but there was an underlying structure. Not an awareness, per se, but a desire. A need. An influence that Elijah couldn’t quite categorize or understand. But it was powerful, he knew, and he expected that it was partially responsible for some of his more questionable decisions.
Like when he’d killed those hunters. Or when he’d nearly lost himself to his animalistic instincts during his first tower run. As he sat there, he traced that influence back to the very first time he’d laid eyes on Ironshore. Back then, he’d felt outraged at the deforestation and the billowing clouds of smoke that had come from the budding town. It wasn’t until later that he’d moved away from that snap judgement and to something more reasonable.
But he hadn’t forgotten his initial anger.
That, he attributed to his connection to nature making itself known. It should have been obvious that his class would influence the way he saw the world. Or maybe it was his attunement. After all, nature was listed right there on his status.
Regardless of the origin, Elijah felt that he couldn’t truly progress until he understood the influences working to dictate his actions. In a few years, he didn’t want to look back and realize that he’d begun to walk the path of some lunatic eco-terrorist. Nor did he want to lose his connection with something so powerful, largely because he felt it would prove necessary in the future.
He didn’t know how.
Nor did he know why he believed it to be true. Yet, he did believe it, and that meant that he needed to understand what was going on. So, he meditated, focusing his attention on One with Nature.
He felt every last detail of his surroundings, and for a fifty-foot radius. When he truly concentrated on that deluge of information, Elijah felt overwhelmed by the sheer scope. Billions of microbes. Thousands of insects. A few animals. A host of vegetation. The list went on and on. However, beneath it all was what Elijah was looking for.
There was an order to things. It felt cliché to think of it in such a way, but it felt like a circle of subsistence. An ongoing battle for survival that somehow fit perfectly together in a way where every individual organism got what it needed.
Where did he fit into that?
He felt simultaneously like an outsider, a part of the ecosystem, and a steward. A guardian of the delicate balance of life that was accepted, but never truly a part of that world. Unless he gave in.
He felt the pull. The Call.
He could leave everything behind and join with nature. Like that, he wouldn’t need to worry about things like vengeance. Instead, he would merely become part of the cycle, and when his time came, he would die, only to fuel someone else’s survival. In that way, he would live on.
It was beautiful.
But it was also antithetical to everything it meant to be sapient. That subversion of the self was entirely unnatural, which was ironic, given that it would allow him to truly become One with Nature.
Elijah sighed, then opened his eyes to see a sun dappled glen. He was a few hours away from Norcastle, where he’d stopped for the night. His morning cycling practice had somehow turned into a meditation on nature, but he didn’t regret the loss of a few cycles of Core cultivation. On the contrary, he felt that he’d made progress on a path he’d yet to truly recognize.
Still, he’d already spent enough time idling in the dell. So, he unfolded his legs and reached into his satchel, retrieving a hunk of dried meat. As he chewed on that, he hefted his Endless Canteen to wash it down.
After breaking his fast, Elijah spent a few minutes stretching stiff muscles before using Shape of the Sky and taking to the skies. His takeoff was much better than it had been only a couple of days before, and he hoped his improvement would continue, at least until he could land without risk of breaking his bones.
He flapped his wings, gaining a little altitude before speeding on his way. Elijah was tempted to stop by Argos, but he’d just left the city a few days before. So, it wasn’t that difficult to ignore that temptation. Instead, he flew toward the ravine, hoping to cut the swamp out of his journey. Yet, when he reached the area, he discovered that those large birds that were the frequent prey of the canyon spiders were quite territorial. They didn’t appreciate his intrusion, and Elijah had no intention of fighting an aerial battle – after all, his current form wasn’t meant for fighting – so he reluctantly veered south.
Soon after, he found himself flying over the swamp.
Even at an altitude of a few hundred feet, the insects were maddening. But at least he didn’t have to wade through tepid, waist-deep water. It took Elijah the rest of the day to reach the outer reaches of the swamp, but as night fell, he landed on one of the infrequent islands, where he spent a fitful night sleeping. He’d done the same during previous trips into the swamp, but that didn’t mean it was any less nerve-wracking.
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Still, Elijah endured the rigors of swamp life for the span of a night, and the next morning, he left it entirely behind. If he kept his pace, he would reach Easton in only a few days. A week-and-a-half, at most.
No sooner had that thought entered his mind than he noticed a dark splotch on the horizon. At first, Elijah thought it was another storm, but if that was the case, it was even larger than the one off the coast of his island. As Elijah continued to fly north, the cloud resolved itself into thousands – maybe hundreds of thousands – of tiny shapes.
It was only when he got much closer and used Eyes of the Eagle that he got a good look at the creatures, confirming that they weren’t tiny at all.
They were also nightmarish.
With bodies that mostly resembled birds, they had all the requisite pieces. Wings. Feathers. Enormous talons that were larger even than Elijah’s own. But instead of the expected raptor’s head, they had the faces of women. However, they weren’t ordinary women. Nor were they beautiful. They were, instead, horrifying mixtures of bird and woman that sent a shiver of unease coursing up Elijah’s spine.
Instantly, he knew these were no natural beasts. They weren’t guardians, either. Rather, they were monsters – those unfortunate creatures that had been snatched up almost by accident and deposited in an unfamiliar world. They did not belong, and yet, there they were – an affront to nature that Elijah was loathe to let stand.
But good sense won out over his outrage, and he recognized that he couldn’t fight tens of thousands of migrating harpies. That mythological moniker was the only way Elijah could describe them, and it felt appropriate, even if it was more than a little unnerving.
He dove, hoping to avoid the swarm.
Yet, he’d gotten close enough that the monsters had seen him, so a few hundred of the creatures mirrored his move. He crashed down into the lowland forest, shifting into his draconid form before he hit the ground. That softened the blow, though the impact still rattled his teeth.
But Elijah didn’t have time to consider that, because the first of the harpies arrived only a few seconds later. And they were even more grotesque than he’d first thought, with huge, fleshy noses that resembled beaks. The first to attack was huge – at least as big as his predator form, which was the size of a tiger – and with a wingspan to match. It crashed into him before he could dodge, though he used Flicker Step before the momentum could take him more than a few inches.
He disappeared, reappearing behind the monster, and after the single instant it took to reorient himself, Elijah pounced, using Venom Strike for good measure. Fortunately, the monster possessed no great defensive abilities, and Elijah’s claws bit deep, ripping into its delicate wings with ease.
The creature screeched in pain, the sound cutting through every facet of Elijah’s mind and stunning him. He staggered, recovering after a second or two. However, by that point, it was too late.
A dozen more harpies had arrived.
And one of them had latched onto his back with its enormous talons. In only a moment, it was dragging him back into the sky.
He shifted into his largest shape, transforming into a lamellar ape. The sudden influx of weight threw the harpy slightly off, which was enough for Elijah to latch onto the creature’s talons – one in each hand – and wrench them apart. He put everything he had into the move, and it was more successful than he expected, going far past the point of pulling them apart and into the territory of breaking the bones.
Once again, Elijah was assailed by the monster’s debilitating screeches, but that was only a minor concern, considering that he was falling directly into a mass of hungry harpies. With the instincts of the lamellar ape raging through him, Elijah let out a challenging roar as he fell.
He hit with a thunderous impact that broke the unlucky harpy that was directly beneath him, but Elijah gave that monster’s fate no thought. Instead, he lashed out with a backhanded blow that sent another harpy flying backward until it hit a nearby tree trunk. The sound of broken bones joined the cacophony of birdcalls that had accompanied the flock of harpies.
Elijah loped after it, leaping in to ensure that it was dead. As he did, he used his upgraded Soul to fuel another transformation, this time back into his draconid shape. He hissed before clamping his jaws around the monster’s body, crushing it even further. Though, he didn’t stick around to finish it. Instead, he raced along, dodging talons and, to his surprise, barbed tails, along the way. In his draconid form, he had the Dexterity to manage the feat, though even then, he knew that the mass of harpies would eventually overwhelm him.
So, the goal wasn’t to kill them. Rather, he only wanted to escape long enough to engage Guise of the Unseen.
With that in mind, Elijah raced along, taking the hits he couldn’t avoid. He could have easily endured them in the lamellar ape shape, but it was ill-suited for escape. Certainly, in that form, Elijah could move incredibly quickly, but if he tried that in the middle of a forest, he would have hit so many trees that any extra speed he could put on would have been completely negated.
No - the draconid form was his best shot, even if it left his scales in tatters. Never was that clearer than when he sensed even more harpies hovering just overhead. Some descended through the trees, turning hundreds into thousands as the ferocious monsters continued to hunt him.
Elijah ran, bounding over the terrain with well-practiced agility. It took almost an hour, during which he was further injured, before he managed to lose them for long enough to engage Guise of the Unseen. Still, even though he was cloaked in stealth, Elijah didn’t slow down. Instead, he kept running for hours more until he stumbled upon an abandoned convenience store.
Such buildings were not uncommon, but this one was mostly intact, so he hoped it would provide him shelter until the flock of harpies moved on. So, he padded inside, and even though his wounds screamed at him for attention, he took the time to ensure that no other creatures had claimed the location as their own den. Even with his natural affinity for animals, no creature would take an invasion of their home lightly.
Thankfully, the building was empty, so Elijah found his way to a back office, where he finally shifted into his human form and saw to his wounds. They were extensive, with bits and pieces of his skin hanging off in ribbons. Blood coated his clothes, and half his scalp had been torn away.
Even more distressingly, the moment he stopped moving, he let himself acknowledge the debilitating venom coursing through his veins. Those barbed tails hadn’t simply been for show. Instead, they’d delivered one injection of venom after another. It wasn’t as deadly as his own Venom Strike, and it didn’t have anything on the afflictions delivered by Swarm. Yet, it was still enough to muddle his thoughts and make him cough up blood.
Or maybe that was the result of numerous internal injuries.
Regardless, Elijah quickly got to work healing, stacking Healing Rain, Soothe, and multiple casts of Touch of Nature. He only got the first cycle out before his injuries – blood loss and a debilitating venom among them – took their toll. He didn’t pass out, but he might as well have, for all he was able to move. Or think. Instead, he sank into a foggy, mostly paralyzed state where he could do nothing but wait for Healing Rain and Soothe to counteract his conditions.