The air let out a near-silent hum, easily covered by the thunder, as it flew toward the large beast. It felt like a minute that the arrow slowly flew, landing exactly where she wanted it to. The arrow pierced through the Rain Deer’s fur easily, sliding just behind its shoulders. She watched, almost enraptured by the path the arrow tore through the bottom of the beast's lungs and the top of its heart. It barely even grunted as it toppled over. Its mass crushed the nearby grass as it toppled onto its side.
Mikeal walked up to the fallen animal as Quinn slung her bow. “Nice shot, my skillful guide!”
“Thanks…” Quinn grabbed her arrow and tugged it free of the still-warm corpse. The arrowhead snapped off, leaving only the shaft and feathers in her hand.
Mikeal held out his hand and a magic circle appeared. This one was a tier three magic, denoted by it being made of three circles of mana. His pink-red mana flared as chains connected the three magic circles and complex runes appeared all along their edges. This one seemed to take considerably more effort than the tier two magic he used earlier in the day as it took nearly fifteen seconds to cast.
The look of concentration on his face vanished and the magic glowed brilliantly. It expanded to cover a large area around them in a bubble. Instantly, the sounds of thunder ceased entirely.
“What was that?” She asked.
He rubbed his hands together as he looked down at the Rain Deer. “That was a tier three magic of my own creation… basically it stops all scents and noises stop coming out of the bubble as well as changing the appearance inside of the bubble into whatever I want.”
Quinn was quite impressed. She didn’t know the redhead had it in him to actually create a spell. And it was a useful one. It would keep off the scavengers long enough to fully take care of the creature. “That’s handy.”
“Indeed. I created it in my third year to hide from spouses.”
Nevermind. Her respect was instantly gone. What had she expected from the man? Surely she hadn’t forgotten how he nearly constantly flirted as if it was second nature. Where had she thought that came from if not trained on countless women?
“So… any idea how to butcher it?” Mikeal flicked back his hair as he produced a small dagger.
He brought up a good point… how was she going to butcher it? She had brought a knife, of course, but she didn’t really know what to take from the Rain Deer. There was no way she was going to carry the entire thing back to Weildenbach, so she need to decide what to take. The large antlers were already promised away, so she didn’t have to worry about those. So that left… the pelt and the meat. She could take a bit of the meat, but the fur was where the real money maker was. She remembered Ada speaking of how it was worth several silver for a pelt in good condition.
She pulled her knife from her waist and slid it into the pelt. It was surprisingly difficult to cut as she attempted to saw her way through. This was going to take a long time…
Well after midday she finally finished harvesting the Rain Deer. Mikeal couldn’t stand the sight of her cutting away, so he had left about the time she had gotten to the bull’s nether region. He had returned only a few times after that to refresh his magic.
She finally put away her knife after hitting it and herself with Cleanse. The pelt was neatly rolled up and attached to her pack. Interestingly enough, Cleanse could clean away the remnant flesh and fat of the Rain Deer off, leaving a perfectly good pelt.
This was quite the discovery to Quinn. If Cleanse was based on her perception of what dirty is, then could she ‘clean’ away a dangerous monster? Or would the magic not work on something living… But it worked on bacteria, which was a living organism… However, the spell didn’t ‘clean’ off her own flesh and blood when she cast it. She wanted to test further, but it seemed rather dangerous. Maybe when she was out of the Veiled Grove she could test it further. It would just have to wait like the rest of her curiosity.
The Rain Deer looked rather sad without a pelt. It was just a moshpit of blood, muscle, and fat. She had cast Cleanse over it several times to protect against bacterial breakdown after she took out its organs, so it was still safe to harvest meat. But what would she do with it?
It felt wasteful to leave it, but she didn’t have any way of storing the meat. Even if she did, it would spoil rather quickly without proper care.
Mikeal walked into the field of his tier-three illusion magic. He looked slightly sick at the sight of the skinless creature. “I see you’re done…”
“They’re over there.” She pointed to the two large antlers to the side of the corpse. Removing the antlers from the skull had taken more time than removing the pelt. Quinn didn’t have a bone saw, so it had taken quite a few hacks and way too much effort to pull them free. Her newly bought knife was unfortunately chipped to hell in the process, but it was worth it when she remembered her promised ten gold.
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Another thing of note, the Rain Deer had triggered a reaction from her mana sense. Or was it ember sense? Just sense? But that didn’t sound right… Quinn put her clean hand on her head and idly rubbed it as she tried to figure out what to call her sense. The decision was surprisingly difficult, a common trend she had been noticing when it came to anything regarding deep thought as of late. Well, she could always just decide after she left the Veiled Grove.
Right?
No. She wanted a name now.
Why did she have to wait to leave to come up with something as simple as a name? It was rather strange as she thought about it. Not only just naming things, but she had been pushing off way too much until after she left the Veiled Grove. And why was it she was so set on leaving anyway? The grove was safe enough and she had a place here as a hunter. She could probably stay a bit longer…
The headache returned tenfold.
She rubbed at her head harder, losing her train of thought entirely as the pain abruptly faded. What was she thinking about?
Right, a name for her ability to sense energy. Just energy sense was the most apt, but it didn’t have a very good ring to it… how about her sixth sense? After all, it was a new sense… but simply calling it sixth sense was too bland. How about Energy Perception? Or she could just ask Mikeal if it already had a name. “Hey, Mikeal.”
He paused his inspection of the antlers. “Yes, my dear guide?”
“What is the proper name for the ability to sense mana?”
He looked dumbfounded. “Did your parent’s not teach you something so simple- right, your friend did mention amnesia… well it's quite simple. Mana sense.”
That was… lackluster. So would she have to refer to her ability to sense amber as amber sense? Or she could also ask Mikeal about what amber was actually called… she got a feeling that might be a bad idea. If it turned out to be something that he couldn't sense, which she had the feeling it was since he didn't react at all to the two foxes who had amber flowing through them and not mana, she didn't want to have it known that she could sense something a mage couldn't. That just sounded like it could make for a bad time. Maybe after she had managed to do some research.
Either way, she could sense mana from the Rain Deer as she was cutting it open. At first, it was all over its body, but it slowly coalesced in the antlers until about half of the Rain Deer’s mana was in the antler. She could sense the other half fading into the environment. She suspected that the coalescence of mana was what caused the price of the antlers to be so high starting at five gold.
“What are you going to do with the antlers? They are rather large…” Quinn asked. She had an image of him strapping the huge antlers to his back and carrying them the entire way. It was quite an absurd image since the antlers were almost as long as she was.
“Simple.” He flashed a dull-looking bracelet around his wrist at her. Then he did something and the antlers disappeared entirely. It didn’t take her even a second to guess what happened. Spatial Magic. It was the only plausible answer. She couldn’t take her eyes off the space-folding bracelet. That was the power she wanted, the power she yearned for. If she could just use Spatial Magic, she could go back home…
“Ah, I see that my bracelet has attracted your attention. Unfortunately, Spatial Loops are quite rare, otherwise, I would let you have a closer look.” Mikeal didn’t forget to flaunt the bracelet as he spoke about it. It was an exceptionally dull piece of iron, but tiny runes were scattered all over it.
“Spatial Loop?” If she could just learn more about it, she might be able to reverse-engineer a magic device to send her home.
Mikeal hid his arm back below his red sagen. “Yes, my lady. They can only be found in ruins of the seventh era, unfortunately. I only have mine because of my great-grandfather.”
Seventh era? What was that? What were the first six eras? More importantly, what era was the current one? “What era are we in?”
He frowned sadly. “Amnesia truly is a terrible disease.”
“Condition.” Quinn corrected.
“Ah! So it isn’t contagious? What a relief… I was really worried I would catch it traveling with you.” He wiped his brow with over-exaggerated relief.
He was by far the dumbest person she had ever met. Every time he spoke a few dozen of her brain cells died. He must be the reason she felt so sluggish last week.
He laughed lightly. “We are in the tenth era.”
So she would have to find a ruin from three eras ago. What happened between then and now? Spatial Loops seemed quite advanced compared to what she had seen so far, so how come they couldn't just make more? Was the know-how lost? Surely something major must have happened to regress the knowledge of the era if that were true.
Actually, now that she thought of it, Spatial Loops weren't the only form of advanced enchantment she had seen. The warding stone in the clearing was also quite advanced looking. And the people of the Veiled Grove obviously didn't know how to make more of them, otherwise, the fog wouldn't even be a threat. So something must have happened in the past to wipe out a large chunk of knowledge. She wanted to ask Mikeal, but they had more pressing matters.
Quinn cast Compass as she looked over the Rain Deer. They had maybe a few hours till nightfall. “We should head back.”
“Of course. Do you remember the way back?”
“Should be south-ish.” She hoped. They traveled almost straight north to find the Rain Deer after all.
“That didn’t sound too positive,” Mikeal noted as he looked at the Compass magic she had cast. “And we don’t have much time…”
“We head south and follow any animals then? We’re all going to the same place anyway. Oh, before we go, do you want to take any meat in your bracelet?” Quinn asked.
Mikeal shook his head. “It’ll spoil by the time we get to the town.”
It really was so wasteful to leave the rest of the deer. She almost felt bad as they began to walk away. It didn’t feel right to hunt the creature for just its antlers and pelt. She felt like a trophy hunter who cared nothing for nature as she took what she wanted and left the rest to rot.
Quinn shook her head, freeing herself of her thoughts. She enjoyed the scenery, the lichen growing on giant trees, the soft grass on her feet as she avoided branches, and the light drops of rain bouncing off of her hood. It was quite a peaceful walk in the woods. If she squinted real hard, she could almost pretend she was back in her hiking days and that she wasn't lost in another world.