The panther swatted Tim’s guiding hand, disturbing his arrow crafting so much Tim abandoned the dissolving aura and switched to Hand to Hand. The panther yawned long rows of razor tipped fangs and lunged. Angry Rabbit, one of his white belt, Order of the Squire forms, took shape in his mind and body. He bounced backward. A hard edge jabbed the meat of his shoulder blade. Jolting pain raked down his arm. The panther rebounded off the other wall and leapt. Claws outstretched.
Angry Rabbit’s core was evasion to reset the odds until you create an opening to strike. It worked well with his higher dexterity, but the tight confines and higher-level panther cut him down quickly. A deep gash screamed up his back from the most recent swipe. Tim had bet on going low. The panther adjusted quicker than he’d hoped.
Tim waited for the panther to pass, pressing his face to the ground and covering it with a bracer. The claw ripped out before reaching his head. Tim uncoiled into an upward punch, thimble ready and jabbed its tail. A too brief resistance told him his thimble had punctured flesh. The panther’s back whipped around and it scratched the wall to slow itself for a stumbled landing.
Its feet tangled.
Tim pounced, equipped his dagger and activated Small Blades. A vision of Double Whammo with an axe for the kill played fast forward in his head.
The panther’s mobility flowed like water; its spine curling down and backward to avoid his stab. It shot up and scratched a claw across Tim’s bracer, jostling his grip on the blade. With axe his next best option, he equipped and swung for the center of its mass and highest percentage shot. Sniper Sight appeared despite not having his bow. It showed yellow at first. The panther’s back leg gave way. Dryfu appeared in a swooping arch behind it, retracting from his attack to fly away.
My man!
Yellow turned to green. Tim drove his axe. Fully committed. The blade cleaved a deep ridge into the flesh and bone between shoulder and neck. The panther’s howl echoed up the walls as loud as a police siren.
Tim pulled the panther with his axe hold and stuck his dagger in its eye. Right to the brain. Dinner is done.
Blood pulsed in thick globs from the panther’s skull. Tim Drew in the warm life and aura into his gotr blade and took a moment to breathe and spread his regen. Once his MP was high enough, he spent some on Aura Armor to repair his bracers and up his back. Spells in Healing and Crafting also tingled with XP.
“That’s gonna draw a crowd,” Dryfu said, heaving on his perch along the rock wall. Tim cast Healing on his little bud, dolloping his alienlike head with a globule of aura dripping refreshment in fizzing bubbles that evaporated into his carapace. “Thank you. You did well. The underside of the panther’s tail, especially up near the top, is more vulnerable to damage. Hitting it with your dose of poison spread quickly to its spine and you took advantage appropriately.”
A screech interrupted their talk with its chilling announcement. More were coming.
Tim looted the corpse into his backpack and started for the exit. Despite his healing, his back hurt badly enough to force a hitch as he tried to run. HP: 99. He ate some seaweed and as he swallowed, released some of his stored aura to carry the medicine to the wound. The healing properties in the weed weren’t strong by themselves, but he followed a hunch and surprised himself when it started working. Not only was the healing quicker but he gained more HP from the dosage and XP entered his Healing skill. He’d have to think about using aura to enhance his healing next time he gained more. As it was, he still had plenty left from the castle. The wound eventually healed and eased off on its bite, boosting Tim to pick up his pace. He side-stepped like it was an old baseball drill to fit through a narrow passage to reach the exit.
Try not to be acting fancy when someone shoots you in the butt, k?
Will do my best, Tim thought with a grin. A slightly maniacal extension living on in the silly willingness to keep on.
Ahead and beyond the sky and forest hooted and hollered, birds, beasts, and something not quite right shouting with the vigor to hunt. And Tim was entering the fray willingly. Something had snapped in the woods between their camp ambush and the castle. Maybe it was the shock and those crazy eyed parakeets. Or the goblins and their grenades. He didn’t want to have a boring night making a pillow. He’d rather work himself to exhaustion and hopefully not get killed before passing out on some rock. Hello, New Tim., Where’d you come from?
Heck, I might even sew if I have to hide up somewhere and wait.
You are changing. Don’t test your luck too much. I’ll look forward to sewing and bedtime.
Come on, Dryfu, can’t you feel the jungle calling? Its syncopation from so many species of night crawlers, floaters and hunters invited Tim to come and sing his song.
Only the ones who want to eat you—
Oh shush. Tim cast a thicker pulse into his Danger Sense. He wanted details. A pink beam erupted from his chest and carried like a wave through the tunnel. It spread wide at the escape to flow left toward the river and out and up into the forest. Among the many species, Danger Sense filtered by most relevant and in order of the ping’s reach.
14 Gafka
42 cloefen
5 Scar badgers
Ptolemy!
The ghost hovered over the waters, possibly searching for him and Dryfu. A boost to his Magic Hunt and Danger Sense deposited future XP and re-energized the pulse to bounce off Papa Ptol toward the woods.
Before he entered, he needed water. Activating Foraging, he soon found a small stream of clear water trickling through a hole in the dam. Tim put his canteen underneath and focused on his Danger Sense. Thirteen aura wraiths pinged from a spread-out wall passing through the forest, their aura reading a clear intention to trap Ptolemy once he reached the shore.
Aura Wraiths hate water, but they have the patience of a plague. Ptolemy won’t want to sleep in the river and wake up miles from here.
I’m coming, man. Tim took a decent swig of water, poured some in a cap for Dryfu to drink, then drank his on the go, searching for a seam along the forest to meet the wraiths first.
Their essence and trajectory were locked on the friendly ghost and his path to this side of the river. Does he not know? Or see them?
He’s a tortured soul. Fear clouds his vision.
That meant Tim couldn’t let fear cloud his. How could he warn him without giving his position away prematurely? As Danger Sense passed through the wraith, he drew from their essence—their distance too great to do anything else—then wrapped it in a bubble shot another Danger Sense ping. The new ripple crested a wave on the former and lifted the bubble off on a course toward Ptolemy.
The friendly ghost received the message with only a slight hitch in his floating pace. Ptolemy’s gaze tracked on something in the water, and as though distracted by this new object, redirected his path away from shore. He kept his distance and meandered upstream.
Good, Tim thought and sent his Danger Sense ping up the ridge to their right. The forest slanted upward in steep slopes consumed with trees and shrubs and few safe paths to climb. His ping resounded in first one scout, then seven more. The Crimoan will avenge me, Warryn had said. Tim wondered if his reputation for Warryn’s death had spread to the ones here.
Tim added some c-mana spice to push Danger Sense up to the top and out toward the bridge. Fear on a live wire surged through him as the power and threats mounted. On the path from the Crimoan, he tracked lookouts to a camp and then the tents. Lias’s signature aura resonated in some of the weapons and armor. He sensed highly trained soldiers inside three tents forming a triangle around a central one, their essence evoking defensive preparation. Eleven souls in total, with a heavier weight on the physical gifting and equipment. The three spell casters weren’t a sluff off in their aura response. Each one sparked hard enough to make him hesitant to take anyone by themselves. Against them together would be a quick death.
His Danger Sense morphed to Magic Hunt as he slowly entered the central tent. Its morass stole aura quickly and kept Tim blind to the contents inside. Something created resistance, but whether it was a creature, a relic or a tent full of both, he had no idea. Might as well be a black hole. He broke off to see the forest wide of the camp and sent a second mixed pulse of Magic Hunt and Danger Sense to cover the surrounding area. Tim slowed to pull on his bow ring and turned it a quarter to the left to activate the Crafting channel to his wrist.
He accessed a few dozen grains of oshi and rubbed them on Rryeg’s thimble, activating its poison as he crafted the arrow tip. His last arrow was wobbly and had a fortunate target in a nearly helpless bird. His next ones would need to hold up much better. His pouch still had nixstone shards from the first skull they found. He’d kept them to help him track Lias, but now they might serve another purpose. His pouch had a handful in storage, so even if it wasn’t worth it, it was better that he tried. At a thought, three small pieces floated out of his pouch, baptized in his aura, and drifted through his skin to carefully sift into the arrow tip brewing inside his wrist.
Is this going to help?
The core has protected some of the leveling power. And the shards are strong. If you can craft it, I see potential for improved attack and increased experience if used effectively. That’s as much as I can guess.
Good enough for me to try. His pouch had a handful more if it worked. He stopped at the tunnel exit and cast Battleground halfway past the rope bridge and up to the ledge where the rock wall kept the waterfall at bay. His crafting gained a stronger resolution to see the detailed deficiencies in his arrow and how the nixstone was forming within the unseen tip. Crafting the arrow inside his body was similar to how his body produced cultivation mana. The aura stream lived in an internal highway where skills and classes marked roads. Access was cut off when skills had exhausted their c-mana or opened their intersections for business when the mana was flowing.
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Aura Bow and Crafting allowed him to imagine the arrowhead and connecting shaft before he pulled it out. Once it was outside his body, the molding took greater care and aura spend. That meant perfecting the feathers and its rear first. He took feathers from the birds to extend the accurate distance by about ten feet above the base model projections. He carved with a mental blade to straighten the shaft. He squeezed the aura into its base until it tightened and sealed the strength within.
This was clearly a rush job, but he had no choice. When he had more time, he’d dedicate whatever was needed to make a stockpile.
The last piece was the tip. He sent an aura swipe over the trident in his pack. One of the ends was broken and the overall durability suspect enough to not want to chance it in battle without a last resort. He packed the tip with aura and added Aura Blades to his MP and c-mana spend so he could assimilate the adamantine tip with the power of the nixstone shards. While honing that transformation, he directed his Danger Sense/Magic Hunt pulse back to the tents. They were outnumbered, and yet he felt they were not completely alone. Only creatures the aura wraiths let pass roamed or hid within the woods west of their hunting party. Whomever else was here, their danger might be tied to the tents and the higher elevation which he needed his second pulse to reach.
A separate force reacted with the tent, hiding itself from a southwest vantage. Tim followed the rebound through a copse of trees on a beeline to the hiding spot of a friendly. His aura blended with theirs and the familiarity of having shared a Protection Spell.
Jil’s aura resounded first, like a cool splash of water on a hot day. The forest was tense with opposition brewing for war. Her defenses opened and revealed their post watching the tents. Thron, Roz, and Chris were under the cover of a fallen tree, but also recently trapped by a second threat pursuing them from behind. Their ambush plans on the tents had turned to preparing for a two-front assault.
Tim sent the remainder of his pulse after the threats she feared behind her. It absorbed and disappeared into the front line of a dozen aura shielded warriors. Having come for the hunt of the cartel, they were now aware of Jil and her friends.
As his pulse died in their armor, the squire’s memories recognized their aura scent. These were drakkon. Evolved brethren to the konok dragons, a giant lizard treated like gods in the outer rings. They represent a minority in the northern country, Aemidia, neighbor to the west of Roz’s island and similar in race, but brutal enemies. Roz’s kind blames them for betraying an ancient alliance, and they see his kind as a lower class nuisance giving their kind a bad name. As soon—
Too late. They smelled Roz and were ready to pounce.
Tim’s next danger sense pulse was on its way. He didn’t think they had time. The tunnel gave to the opening and dam on his left. Woods ahead and his soon to be ambushed friends.
The drakkon earn their reputation through stealth and merciless execution. and they don’t clean up their mess. Their kills are about power and honor.
Tim finished what he hoped would be a strong enough arrow. He hadn’t the appropriate time to make it better. The din of dusk life hummed in the forest. Even those at the bottom of the food chain would eat once the bloodshed was done.
Tim climbed a wide stone and propelled himself up the hill. They stayed close to the River side until a narrow path between creatures allowed him to head toward Jil’s spot. Yixi berries grew like massive grapes around a shrub in his path. He grabbed a handful for his thirst.
Foraging, he spotted a Takekuma slithering up a trunk.
Tim drew his dagger and crept in on a Magic Hunt. The snake felt him coming and slipped off in the opposite direction he wanted to reach Jil’s position before the drakkon. They were creeping ever closer, hidden in shadows and their lizard instincts for camouflage. That reminded him of Roz’s description of his “sunchime” and the 3x strength to use in light. He’d said sunlight, but Tim wondered if Aura Light could draw out the benefits, including songs not available in dark.
It’s possible.
Even if not, he could try to weave it in with Chris’s Light spell. His brother barely had any MP left, though. All of them had spent deep into their reserves to get this close. Now they were waiting on regen and Chris’s covert fungus garden growing under the log. The fungi were far from ripe, but they might not have time to wait any longer.
I haven’t seen something like that what you’re suggesting, but it’s worth a try if you can afford the spend. Songbearers use aura in their powers. I could see symmetry there.
Worth a shot. Tim was excited to try. Dryfu was right about his low aura storage, though. It felt like starving. He feared going into battle like this. Where’s my magic hunter? That snake wasn’t going anywhere. He cast Indi to his hand.
“You rang?” Indi said with his trademark rough charm. As though interrupted doing something far cooler, but he’s just that kind of guy. You’re welcome. How may I sparkle today?
“Sparkle?” Indi asked, reminding Tim of their mental connection.
The little guy was head to toe in an effervescent pink aura. Sorry. I calls em hows I sees em, he thought.
Indi looked down. “Yeah, I guess I kinda do.” His voice switched to the telepathic connection he shared as Tim’s familiar.
Grab your whip and your hat. You’re going hunting. Tim hiked as quietly as he could through the shrubs toward a better vantage on the tree where the snake was hiding.
Within his HUD’s familiar subfolder, a tutorial note described equipping his helpers. At Indi’s second tier level, the familiar had access to all of Tim’s skills, but if he took a higher tier, he could only take one. Two if he picked tier two, or three tier ones. and items up to the third tier. This meant Tim couldn’t transfer something like Magic Hunt and Self Defense. He could give Indi the thimble and Self Defense and Hunting, then when he kills it, Tim can wake spirit and score its aura.
Tim chose the skills knowing several nocturnal threats roamed the immediate vicinity. I’ll wait here.
An Asterix note advised him how the transfer of equipment would shrink and re-enlarge to meet the dimensions of the wearer. Dryfu came with a base of skills and equipment, which was good because they hadn’t found any loot to match his race. Tim arranged his HUD to show transferable skills and items. He equipped his thimble to Indi, shrinking it fit on his middle finger. Hunting Takekuma required smarts and your top skills to outmatch its speed and lethal first strike. Indi’s inventory allowed him to add one more main weapon. Tim chose the axe.
“Thanks!”
Tim closed a gentle fist around the glowing figure and threw Indi up into the tree. The scratching branches felt loud at first, then blended in with the previous movement of the snake. Typical disturbances, he hoped. As soon as he let go, he ducked behind a tree just to be safe. He couldn’t say the same for Indi, who had to utilize Self Defense to manage the beating he took on the way to his landing branch. Sorry about that, Indi. You’re a real trooper.
“Got that right.”
Tim watched through Indi’s eyes as he descended branches with a monkey’s ease, Hunt skill in full go. He didn’t have much aura left, and the flash he planned would spend most of it. Timing when Indi could use it to find the snake was key because they only had one shot.
“You know I’m not a bird, right? Tossing me around like I got wings. I’m almost there,” Indi added with a flair of sarcastic enthusiasm.
Dryfu hovered, ready to move. You staying here?
Yeah. Tell Chris to cast his light spell, then I’ll enhance it with my aura to activate Roz’s chime.
Dryfu zipped off with a faint hum that the thrumming of insects and toads quickly masked. Tim kept an eye on the Crimoan and their crossbows at the ready. In the tight confines of the jungle, he could see their benefit. He’d have to look into a crossbow evolution to his Aura Bow skill. For now, he would very much like one of theirs. Tell Chris to reserve some MP for Shared Vine. I’ll cast Battleground on their location then we’re gonna tangle them up. If you see any good plants, mark them and I’ll try to pick them up on my way.
Got it.
Tim stalked the hill with stealth over speed, careful for his steps and his aura hunter. Not every step was in his control. The friendly had an autopilot of sorts, but it used MP. Kind of like how Distance was burning through his supply. Tim didn’t want to waste time waiting around, and the snake was giving chase, so in following them he activated his Foraging skill. A vine running the side of a tree held flowers in their sleeping wilt.
You have found a Lahef vine. HP low. MP medium. Digestive compatible.
Eyes opened from a small gap in shrub branches. Aura reflected in the irises and streamed down across the large cat’s coat. Tim halted his reach for the flower, considering his dagger instead.
Level 11 Jexin - a feline predator with upside agility, leaping, cunning, speed, sight, and hearing. Medium strength bite and claw attacks.
Jexins resembled the form of a lynx, with feline grace and power, plus the long hairy ears sticking up on this one. This forty-pound jexin hadn’t registered in his Danger Sense because it wasn’t a threat. He still needed to keep a better eye out. Its aura read of an injury. Poison. She had it bad enough, it was clear she couldn’t get up.
Tim didn’t have the stores to Magic Hunt, but the aura in its eyes suggested a deep well of strength. They could use another ally, especially one quick enough to get past their crossbows.
“I see you girl,” Tim whispered. “I need the MP from these plants to help you, so just keep laying—” Tim plucked two in one swipe. Then showed the jexin his innocent prize with a wide smile.
The jexin slumped back down with a wounded groan. Any other time, the warrior beast would have shown him not to get so close. The poison’s effects gave her no other choice.
Dryfu lifted out of a bush hidden in nightshade.
There’s some orev.
Tim had seen that weed on his way to the castle. The underground bulbs had strong antioxidant properties. He hadn’t harvested much because he was on the run, and you have to dig under the bulb to sever the root. If you pull it from the top, toxins are released to produce growth, and those toxins waste the bulb for a few days, minimum. After that difficult harvest process, your next worry is digestion and if the patient has already been affected by a strong poison, they won’t be able to stomach the antidote without straining the bulb’s juices into a water filtering vial. Rryeg’s belt had some of those vials, so that was a plus.
Dryfu crossed the halfway mark up the slope to Jil’s position. Tim stuffed the last of the flowers into his mouth and collected his Danger Sense back into recon on the main targets. The drakkon emitted a similar strength building, slow boiling aura that was just about ready. Compared to the active defense posture of the Crimoan, these were ready to pounce. An uncomfortable itch on his nose and something in his eye forced Tim to rub at the distraction. His hand found divots in his eyelid and nostril. Crap. He was starting to fade. How long before I lose eyesight?
Not long. Danger Sense mostly emanates from your eyes, your nose and your ears. The aura you harvested at the castle helped you stave off that problem until now.
Thanks, Dryfu. Time to eat the ornabow moss he’d been saving. His stykiller flew over the ledge and was almost to Jil’s position. With that cleared, Tim eased back on Danger Sense. The drakkon were going to attack any second now. Tim inched along a steep slope under a tree, almost to the root he’d scale to reach the orev growing on the other side. Indi was close by, enough to take this mini detour. Indi? How’s–
“I’m working on it.”
Tim switched to Indi’s view as he crept up on a pricker bush. Yellow green glowing eyes stared back from within. Kit cloudkicker! C-mana fueled his veins. A lower branch could deflect the snake if he could lure it there. His plan was utilizing Self Defense and hoping for a lucky shot.
Here we go, Tim thought and leapt for his side of the branch. The snake lunged, fangs out. Cat scratch feva! He swung his axe. The snake’s speed! A fang pierced Indi’s chest. Fire and seizing pain halted Indi. Aura sucked out through the hole. The snake’s yellow eyes bore over him. Indi dropped the axe and flicked his thimble with the last ounce of strength he had. Tim watched in stunned silence. The thimble spun end over end into the snake’s throat. The snake whipped Indi into the ground. A chill of being ripped in two tore across Tim’s back. The snake lashed again.
Critical Hit.
XP filled into Hunting’s storage, a good third full toward another level. Magic Hunt bloated nicely as well.
Indi faded.
Familiar has passed. Twice the cost to summon him again.
Tim sighed with relief. He wasn’t sure if that was it for the mini adventurer.
Tim!
He felt Dryfu’s urgency and tracked the little guy flying off with Chris into battle.
Well, crap!