ILIAS PAYNE
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We spent the next couple of days attempting to capture a peggy to no avail. We crossed paths with a couple of parties who had empty cages. Other than a tense stare-down, nothing would happen. Both parties would simply eye each other to make sure the other wasn’t going to try anything.
It made sense not to confront any parties. Sure we could lower the competition by knocking parties out or separating members, but all that would mean nothing if we didn’t have a bird in our possession. If two parties were to fight, it would only scare away the precious targets we were all after.
And if we couldn’t catch a bird, we could always steal them from parties that had already caught one. That would be much harder if there were fewer parties around.
During these couple of days, I noticed a quirk all the peggies shared. Thaddeus had turned the ground into a quagmire and placed bait on it. None of the peggies attempted to even come close, but after half a day, one took the bait. Unfortunately, peggies were too light to sink and the bird zoomed away the moment Thaddeus attempted to use Stone Free.
It was true that they were highly sensitive to mana, but mana was all around us. If we lay in wait with one of our spells active, they would be wary of the mana at first, but they’d slowly lower their guards over time.
That was when I put it together—peggies weren’t startled by mana, they were startled by the sudden influx of it. The floating island itself was a labyrinth which meant that it was an area with a concentration of mana. If enough time passed by, they can be tricked into thinking mana from a spell was part of the labyrinth.
If we could somehow bait a peggy into a place with established spells, we could trick it into thinking nothing was wrong.
Erina came up with the idea of building a pond to lure in any thirsty peggies. It didn’t take long to set up the trap, but the birds were smart. They avoided it as if they knew that pond wasn’t supposed to be there.
On the fourth day, while Erina and I were on our way to collect water from the lake, a pack of welfins attacked us. It didn’t take much to scare them away.
“It’s dangerous coming to the lake,” she said. “All life needs water so this place is a buffet of danger.”
As we were filling up water jugs, a lone peggy landed beside us to quench its thirst.
“Should I strike it with lightning?” Erina asked.
“Peggies move at the speed of sound and lightning moves at the speed of light. Theoretically, it should work.”
Erina whispered the incantation. “Ride The Lightning!”
But before a lightning bolt even materialized, the peggy was gone and all Erina managed to strike was water. After a few seconds, dead fish rose to the surface. We collected them and hauled back to camp.
The reason why peggies weren’t drinking from our pond was because they didn’t trust it.
Within the span of a couple of days, humans have been hunting them and all of a sudden a pond that shouldn’t be here showed up. The setup was too obvious. It was a much safer bet for them to drink here at the lake.
We have to get rid of the lake and force them to drink out of our pond.
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“We need to catch a peggy at least two days before the end of phase one,” Thaddeus stated as he roasted the fish we hauled back over the fire. “People will get desperate by then and this place will turn into a battle royale.”
“Erina,” I said, “how good are you with the ice spell you started learning?”
“Freeze Out?” she asked, taking a sip from her tea. “I’m decent at it.”
“Why is a fire mage learning an ice spell?” Thaddeus questioned.
“Fire mages don’t control fire, we control heat. The cold is simply the lack of it. Freezing water is just taking the heat away.”
I was a wind mage, so the most water I could freeze was about the size of a small pond. But Erina was a fire mage, freezing something as big as a lake should be easy.
“If we take the lake out of the equation, I bet we can get the peggies to come to our pond,” I theorized. “Erina, do you think you can freeze the lake and use your last resort spell after?”
“It might take a while, but I don’t know if I’ll still be able to use Explosion after freezing an entire lake.”
“I thought of something, so let’s give it a try.”
It took about fifteen minutes for Erina to freeze the entirety of the lake into ice. Monsters were attracted to the sudden influx of mana and I made sure she was protected by driving them away.
If Erina had frozen the lake without any equipment, I’m sure she would’ve been exhausted. But since I lent her my wand, freezing the lake, which would have put her out of commission for the day, should’ve only felt like the equivalent of a couple of uses of Fireball.
“Let’s see if I can use my last resort.” She pointed the wand at the middle of the lake. “Though I’m a taboo in the laws of nature, I am destruction incarnate in accordance with the principles of all creation. Let the hammer of eternity descend and let me commit the worst sin of all! Explosion!”
The incantation circle projected itself in the middle of the lake as a beam of light shot down from the middle of the sky, causing the entire frozen lake to erupt and rain hail throughout the entire island.
Erina wobbled as her legs turned into noodles. “Master Ilias!”
I carried her on my back and used my wand to summon a tornado to suck up all the remaining water. “Tornado Of Souls!”
When all was said and done, the lake looked like an empty tub.
The peggies didn’t trust our pond, but if the source of water they trusted was completely gone, they’d have no choice but to risk drinking water from it.
This means we only had one try to catch our target.
When we got back to the cave, we found that Thaddeus had already summoned a boulder at the top of an incline near the pond.
All we had to do was wait. All life needed water and it was inevitable a peggy would show up.
Not a single creature came the day we blew up the lake—which was expected. But the next day was when the creatures on this floating island became desperate. Thaddeus and I were woken up by Erina who was signalling to the pond.
There were a bunch of small animals by it and a couple of them were peggies. We slowly crawled into position. Shutting off our gates as Erina and Thaddeus hid in a nearby bush. I climbed to the boulder Thaddeus summoned.
This entire plan relied on Erina, who had thankfully recovered from yesterday’s Explosion. I stared at her and proceeded when she gave the signal.
Using only my muscles, I pushed the boulder down the incline, causing it to crash into the pond and drench all of the animals in water. They were startled, but since I didn’t use mana, the peggies moved at their normal speed.
Erina hopped out of the bushes, singling out a bird with my wand. “Freeze Out!”
Under normal circumstances, the peggy would’ve been gone the moment Erina summoned the spell. But birds were light because they needed to fly. If they were too heavy to fly, moving at the speed of sound would mean nothing.
The targeted peggy got away a fair distance, but not before Erina froze the water it was drenched in into ice, making it too heavy to fly.
The moment the peggy froze in midair, Thaddeus, who had the cage at hand, threw himself using Stone Free and caught the bird.
Five days after phase one started, we completed the first requirement.