Gwen stalked some thirty feet away from me.

Over the past few days of travel, the panther and I had further honed in on the increased strength of our spiritual connection.

Thanks to the perks that [Soul Synergy] had unlocked, [Eyes of the Conjurer] and [Eyes of the Familiar], we could both essentially remain entirely aware of what one another was experiencing whenever either of us made the effort.

This didn't include thoughts, but just sensory inputs like sight and smell; though we could telepathically communicate, the way we spoke without speaking to each other--versus what we said to ourselves privately--was still a lot like the difference between talking and thinking.

Regardless, having someone's sight and experiences just a small reach of consciousness away was an odd sensation to be sure.

I wouldn't have expected Gwen to get as much use of the ability, considering her own senses were much more honed than my own, but I could feel the panther reaching out to see through my eyes much more often than I did the same towards her.

I wasn't really concerned with this, or anything, however.

Though I couldn't read the panther's thoughts, I could sense my companion's general emotional state and even underlying intent if I tried hard enough.

Through this and our other interactions, I was realizing over time that Gwyneth had an incredibly tactical mind.

The cat was basically using my eyes and ears as an extension of her's in order to better map out the surrounding area; though I could still feel small moments of frustration when my own weaker senses annoyed my friend and she would recede momentarily back to instead rely more on her own.

It was through this sharing of our consciousness that Gwyneth and I had raised our [Soul Synergy] skill to only a few scant points away from one-hundred; and, as we approached the milestone, operating almost as one unit was becoming only ever easier.

Our abilities were proving especially useful now, in particular, as we were forced to move through an increasingly thick fog just as the sun set.

We'd long since lost the Skulkers scents, though we were currently trying to pick back up on their trail.

As we'd moved southeast in our search, the terrain had become less full of sloping mountains and more covered by crags of black stone. Dead and dying trees completed the nightmarish and dark landscape.

"Clarissa," Gwen reached out to me telepathically.

I slowed my walking and willed myself to see the world as she currently was.

The sound of skittering filled my, or rather Gwen's, hyper-sensitive ears.

It was still a little difficult to pull off, but being able to sense the location of the panther allowed me to then figure out where in relation to myself the sounds that she was hearing were coming from--mostly anway.

"I hear it," I told her telepathically, aware that she could feel my mental touch within her own mind as I tapped into her superior hearing, "it doesn't sound like skulkers."

"No," Gwen agreed.

"It almost sounds like--" I was cut off as a violent, whooshing sound filled Gwen's ears.

"Clarissa, move!" Gwen roared, this time also out-loud.

A number of sharp pains bit into my neck.

I activated [Stoneskin] just as the needle-like barbs pierced slightly through my already thickening skin.

Being distracted by our conversation and trying to identify the sounds, I'd realized too late that what Gwen had been hearing had been coming directly for me.

My hand shot up to where I'd been punctured.

"I'm okay," I said just as my legs started to stumble.

"What the fuck," I said as I swayed to fall against a nearby stump.

I grunted as the many trees all around me started to spin and multiply even further.

"Ugh," I moaned as a numb chill ran throughout my body; my fingers became sluggish as I tried to grasp at the stingers that I felt within my hardened skin.

[You have been paralyzed.]

[+1 Poison Resistance.]

I just barely managed to grab a hold of one of the stingers and pull it free as my arm slumped limply down to my side; for all the good the act did, though, as there were still two more stingers in my neck.

I felt my own mind lose ahold of Gwen's somewhat. It was hard to focus on anything when your head felt very, very intoxicated.

From the depths of the immediate mist, and as my body continued to feel as if it was freezing solid, I watched a number of massive red and white spiders scurry out into the chilly air.

[Frostblood Spider, Level 15.]

You had to be kidding me. I'd been taken down in one shot by a level fifteen monster?

I mean, sure there were a lot of them, at least two dozen that I could see already, but I didn't imagine it took more than a few of the monsters, at most, to shoot three stingers my way.

I was supposed to be the one punching above her weight class here.

A cracking of thunder boomed through the small clearing as Gwen crashed, in the shape of a bolt of lightning, through the bodies of multiple spiders.

The cat rematerialized in the center of the throng, but, as multiple of the monsters turned to raise their large thoraxes towards her, the cat was forced to once more return to her lightning state.

Where Gwen had been only moments before, a dozen poison stingers flew past her.

My familiar was smart, but the fact that she had already figured out she needed to keep moving meant that she was playing against time and numbers.

She couldn't establish a firm footing, or else she risked getting poisoned just like me. And, levels be damned, eventually she was going to make a mistake.

Even now, just before she had teleported, I had watched at least one poison stinger bounce off of her thick leather armor. All it was going to take was one lucky shot from the spiders and she'd be deadweight.

I needed to get back into the fight and fast.

I activated [Cauterize Wounds] around the puncture-points where the two remaining spider stingers extended into my flesh.

It was hard to grasp at my magic, especially while [Stoneskin] was still active and the poison surged within me, but nevertheless I managed.

I felt a heat sear out inside the flesh of my neck as the skin that the stingers were still pumping poison into became thickened and burned by my mana.

My head near-instantly cleared just a little bit as the poison had a bit more trouble getting past the burned tissue I'd created with my spell.

I grunted in discomfort, before seizing upon the small moment of increased clarity I'd won to activate [Flame Cloak].

I got the spell off just as a number of new stingers flew through the air to meet the aura of flames that erupted to enshroud my body.

The natural poison darts cindered away into nothingness against my spell before they could impact with my face.

Meanwhile, the stingers that were still doing their best to pump their bone-chilling payload into my neck also burned away into nothingness.

But I was still poisoned.

Thankfully, though, my [Warmage] perk and [Fire-Manipulation] both drastically reduced the cost of [Flame Cloak]. With those two combined, I could essentially maintain both my aura of flame and [Stoneskin] for little more mana than what I could regenerate in a minute anyway.

This meant I didn't have to be worried about being poisoned further now that I was aware of the threat of the stingers.

Gwen, meanwhile, reformed from her lightning yet again, but this time she roared loudly with another ability.

All around the powerful panther, thunderlike waves radiated from the feline's body. The closest spiders to the cat were quite literally thrown from their many legs and sent rolling into their ever growing number of comrades.

Hang in there, Gwen.

Fighting against the poison, I willed a single appendage to move.

It took everything I had, but eventually, I managed to make my index finger twitch down to touch my hand.

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I couldn't even feel my skin touching itself.

Regardless, at that very moment, I channeled my mana down from my heart and throughout my unmoving arm into that singularly obedient finger.

A golden glow radiated out of the appendage as [Healing Hands] activated and rejuvenating energies flowed into my body.

Unfortunately, however, I felt no relief from my current state.

Damn it.

Healing Hands wasn't going to cut it?

Was it because the spell only specified that it restored health and not that it cured poison?

As I was running the options in my aching head, Gwen's thunderous roar ended.

The panther tried to activate her lightning teleportation once again, but before her body could break into electricity a number of stingers found their way into the exposed joints of her armor.

A leap of fury sparked into my otherwise numbing heart.

Gwyneth, for her part, did not immediately falter. The panther lashed out and tore straight through the nearest spider and then bit through the head of another, which, while gross, was impressively ferocious.

However, I could feel the cat's panic flaring through even our now sluggish bond, as her body already began to respond to her more slowly.

I couldn't move. I could barely speak. And my mind felt weird, but I could still think for the most part.

"System," I slurred in a way that was barely even understandable to me, "create a spell to cure this poison. Element: Radiant. Range: Touch. Effect: Buff. Spell Tier: 1st. Use three [Lesser Bestial Shards]."

I was just throwing a hail-mary. I had no idea if the process of spell creation could be automated through verbal command, but I needed a cure for this poison quickly and my eyes were too blurred to read a menu for long.

[Creating spell.]

[Envisioned Spell]

Accelerate Metabolism [1st]: Speed up the heart and metabolic rate of anyone that you touch to burn through toxics and poisons much more swiftly than generally possible. Poison burn-through dependent on mana expended.

Selected Shard: Lesser bestial shard x3.

Create Spell: y/n?

"Yes!" I slurred.

[Accelerate Metabolism added to spell list.]

I wasted no time in activating the spell and channeling it through the same finger which I'd tried to activate [Healing Hands] with.

I felt the supercharging mana of the spell almost as quickly as it looped through my finger and back into my body.

My heart began to speed up, faster and faster.

[+1 Poison Resistance.]

Within a few seconds, it felt like my eyes were going to explode out of my skull.

I almost regretted using a bestial shard to create the spell; it was no doubt the animalistic nature of the shard that had flavored the spell into a metabolism manipulator rather than something gentler.

Then again the poison was pretty strong from what I could tell, so maybe it was a good thing the spell I'd created wasn't subtle or reserved.

Even still, as I watched Gwen begin to stumble amid the hoard of spiders, I realized that the poison wasn't clearing from my body nearly fast enough.

I thundered down even more mana from my accelerated heart into my finger to be funneled into [Accelerate Metabolism].

As my mana drained, I felt my body threaten to falter under the strain of the overclocking spell.

[+1 Poison Resistance.]

However, just as I thought I'd push myself into cardiac arrest, I felt my foot twitch involuntarily as it was reconnected to my conscious control.

I pushed my heart just a little faster, my body just a little harder, as I slowly willed myself to slump forward.

[+1 Poison Resistance.]

My movements were slow and ugly at first, but eventually I came to stand.

The spiders were now swarming Gwen.

I blinked away the numbness in my eyes as they sparked with flame.

How many times did I have to prove to this dungeon's monsters that they shouldn't fuck with my cat?

I raised both of my arms into the air.

Directly below my downturned palms, flames erupted from the ground and then spread diagonally out away from me in either direction.

The [Walls of Flame] rose into the air as they went along to incinerate a number of spiders that were unlucky enough to be in their paths as they spread off to either side of Gwen's twitching body.

Multiple monsters, however, were already all but on top of my panther familiar.

A blade of flame erupted from my hand as I lunged forward and activated [Mana Blink].

My body accelerated violently through the air as it broke apart.

My figure, flaming sword and all, reemerged a half-moment later next to Gwen. I wasted no time in sloppily cleaving through a spider that was biting into her flesh.

Another of the beasts was smacked off of my friend by a side thrust of my blade.

A third was blasted away with a [Fireball].

"This is going to feel a little weird girl," I told Gwen as I reached out towards her with my hand glowing a strange gold-green color.

My [Flame Cloak] receded from my left arm as I prepared to cure the panther of the poison in her veins.

However, just as I was reaching out to touch my friend's unmoving form, a blindingly white bolt of something smacked into me and tore horrifically into my shoulder.

My eyes shot up in a violence as I felt my muscles and tendons ripped clean through.

A deathly pale, and perhaps only vaguely human looking creature stood, hand-raised at me, on the edge of the mist and my sight. She seemed oddly tall; her lower half, however, was still fully obscured.

Meanwhile, the force from whatever she had hit me with sent me flying from my own feet.

Not, however, before I spitefully returned fire.

"Rargh!" I yelled and sent a furious [Fireball] at my attacker as I tumbled through the air and quickly thereafter lost sight of her.

I hit the ground hard and my eyes spun.

My lungs heaved from the force of the impact.

But Gwen needed me.

Despite my pain, I rolled to my hands and slowly began to stand again.

The moment it wasn't needed to help me climb back to my feet, my left hand shot up to grasp the strange and clumpy spear-like object that extended almost a foot out from my bleeding shoulder.

When my fingers touched the weird projectile it stuck very lightly to my flesh. It even came away somewhat in milky stands when I instinctively almost removed my hand from it upon feeling its odd texture.

Was this spell, spike, or whatever it was, made of webs?

I looked around to the various spiders that were now trying to scurry around my flaming walls.

I was sensing a pattern here.

But, fuck it, whatever.

I reasserted my grip on the web-spike and pulled.

With a grunt of pain I removed the sharp projectile, but before I could even caste [Cauterize Wounds] another web-spear slammed into my thigh.

The second spell too, tore through my armor and knocked me, this time face forward, from my feet.

I landed directly on my hands this time.

Rage shot through me even more strongly.

"Goddamnit!" I screamed and slammed my now, one good leg out from underneath me and planted its foot onto the ground firmly.

My eyes flared with fire and, with anger boiling in my heart, two more [Walls of Flame] were summoned into existence by my will and boxed me and Gwen entirely in on all sides.

The fire of all four walls, of which the first two had faltered somewhat when I'd initially been hit by the spell, flared up so brightly, as I poured power into them, that I couldn't even see through them to the enemies on the other side.

Good, that meant that bitch who'd hit me also couldn't see to launch another fucking spell my way.

I reached down to my leg and removed the second spear from my flesh.

I forced myself to my feet as my magic burned closed the bleeding vessels within the wounds the web-spikes had created. It hurt, but it was necessary.

I stumbled towards Gwen, once again, and finally placed a glowing hand on her body.

The cat shuddered as I funneled the power of [Accelerate Metabolism] into her.

I could feel her discomfort, but also her strength, flowing through our spirit bond.

"Tell me when it's working," I told her very seriously.

"A little more," Gwyneth said back to me.

I redoubled my efforts and used the psychic feedback coming off of the panther to gauge just how much mana I should channel into my spell to better cure her without causing her body undue stress.

A few more moments passed and then:

"Now," the panther said.

I pulled back off of Gwen and stumbled back up to fully stand. Sweat trickled down my forehead and body beneath my armor.

I summoned a [Greater Mana Potion (Poor)] into my hand and then downed it, followed by two more.

My mana ticked back up quickly. Meanwhile, my mouth savored the pleasant, though tart, blueberry aftertaste that I was becoming accustomed to.

"Alright, girl," I said as I closed my eyes and drew in a deep breath.

The walls of flames shifted. The box of fire I'd created collapsed at its edges and began to spin into a violent circling inferno.

"I'm ending this stupid shit," I told her. "They're almost half our level and I'm pretty sure bugs should be weak to fire."

My [Flame Cloak] died away, and my [Raging Blade] dissipated, leaving only my hands enshrouded with fire as I spread them out to either side of me.

I pulsed my mana out to slam against the [Walls of Flame] and then, with a considerable effort, I forced the inferno I'd created to spread outward.

The shadows of dozens and dozens of Frostblood spiders were absorbed and burnt away into ash as my spell expanded across the clearing.

My arms shook from the exertion and my mana bar depleted rapidly as I shoved outwards with my power against the fiery circle.

Finally, however, as my inferno reached the edge of the clearing, I dropped my arms.

My circular tornado of heat faltered and slowly spun out into nothingness.

Not a single spider remained, but, all around us loot orbs began to rise from ash piles.

[+41/50 Incinerator I.]

[Congratulations! For destroying at least fifty enemies with fire magic, you have been granted the Incinerator I [C] perk.]

I didn't really have much time to dwell on the achievement notification, though; I needed mana.

Gwen rose to her feet.

I summoned another mana potion, but only just barely had time to drink it before my panther roared and slammed me to the ground.

My eyes grew wide as I realized I was entirely incapable of even reacting to Gwyneth's speed.

Her large body tackled me and held me down as three more indistinct flashes of white flew over our heads.

"Three of them!" Gwen alerted me with a telepathic signal and then a very physical growl, before the cat's body broke off into a lightning bolt and thundered against something to our right.

My large ears perked as, for the first time on my own, I recognized the sound of what I thought was a web-dart cutting the air.

I quickly rolled to the side and stumbled up just in time to watch a white, sticky arrow instead slam directly into the ground where I'd been laying.

I shot my eyes back to where the original spell-caster had been.

I looked up just in time to see a shockingly beautiful, and equally hideous, combination of woman and spider emerging from the mist.

The creature wore no clothes to speak of and her long, white hair draped down against her flawless porcelain skin. Red eyes shone out and sat above a dainty nose and demure lips.

I reached out for a half-millisecond into Gwen's consciousness to see her struggling against what appeared to be the biggest Frostblood Spider of them all--one which dwarfed even her massive form by almost a margin of four.

But she'd said there had been three.

"To your left!" the cat sent the telepathic message, along with a stream of herself hearing what sounded like a bowstring being pulled back.

I summoned my flaming sword into my hand and spun towards the sound.

I just barely managed to dodge to the right as another arrow flew by my head.

My eyes locked with the archer just as I avoided his second shot.

The creature was the most humanlike of the trio, but was far more grotesque than the mage, in contrast, appeared.

The monster was just as white skinned as the mage, but feeler hairs covered its long and stretched out body; it's eyes were meanwhile doubled up and beady and its mouth was far more arachnid than human.

Its spindly fingers, meanwhile, gripped a bone-white bow.

I watched as the creature raised its hand out to the side slightly and, as if casting a spell of some kind, rapidly constructed its next bit of ammunition from numerous thin threads that wrapped together in the shape of an arrow seemingly of their own accord.

"Your right now!" Gwen screamed into my head and a side-eyed glimpse, that wasn't my own, of the mage-spider summoning another web-dart filled my mind's eye courtesy of the ever-vigilant cat.

The feed of mental images was severed, however, as I watched, still through Gwen's eyes, as a massive spider leg smashed violently into the panther's face.

I, meanwhile, turned just in time to meet the spider mage's spell with a [Fireball] that incinerated the other spell mid-air and on contact.

In the following half-second, my own ears perked up and guided me towards cutting the archer's next incoming arrow from the air as I turned rapidly back towards the bowman.

As my flaming blade sundered the web arrow in two and burnt away at its threads, I heaved in a few already exhausted breathes.

This fight would not be easy and, if it weren't for Gwen, it would probably be impossible for me alone to win.

But I did have Gwen and we would not fail.