I like children hugging me. Who doesn’t? Now I am even strong enough to carry them with ease. And I am not going to run out of arms to carry them. Hence I dislike my own intention of sending them away, but our mistake needs to be corrected, as far as I am concerned.

Z: I would really appreciate, if you stepped away from there.

Having two children cling to you makes the process slower.

P: Why?

Z: I put a lot of magical blast charges close to the entrances.

It is possible to move quickly, even with two children clinging to you.

P: Cool. You cannot have too many explosions.

That is the moment my leisurly travelling spy eye reaches town centre. Perhaps this is the time to clean up a misunderstanding. You do not need to learn to interpret an essence ability, nor does it limit your other senses strictly. I do not see an overlay across what my eyes deliver. It is a separate sense. The spy eyes being lidless, I cannot really close them. Overlooking obvious stuff with them would be like not hearing a cannon fire in your house. It is not possible.

P: People, I’ve just found the missing wizard. He is in deep trouble.

KN: How? Where is he?

P: I have an ability that allows me to form magic constructs that allow me to see remote places. He is in the town square, where somebody has set up a human sacrifice, whose center piece he serves as.

PN: Can we safe him? I am sorry, but we almost died already.

L: That is unfortunately correct.

P: We’ve made a mistake in bringing non-combatants here.

Z: Yes.

KN: Yes.

S: I did my best.

Z: You saved us all. You saved me.

P: Little one, we need you to do it again. We made a major error when we assumed that we would face no big houses here.

S: But we could stay together in a car.

P: Yes, but those I fought threw balls of lightning. They would have hidden in the houses and just hits us from the side. And a car can’t take cover or fight inside a house.

L: I don’t want to be callous, but is that worth the risk?

P: He is a wizard who came here at the right time. He knew something.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

M: We need to rescue that guy.

P: Yes, but I must suggest that you return with them.

M: I do not need to be shot at. I saw what happened to Zora.

P: You may need to fight to keep the children and the restaurant safe.

M: I know. I wanted the power. I still understand that the power is worth it. But in hindsight, I am not up to the requirements.

P: Still, I have goodies to distribute. Heads or tails?

She wins.

P: The next one goes to Lidija. This is an Awakening Stone of the Foot.

Stjepan looks so proud, as I hand him the stone and tell him to do the ritual when they are back at base.

They all fit into Zora’s car. It can expand to two back benches, if you put in enough coins and know what you are doing and are ready to ignore some regulations about ridership. It is a tight fit, but thus we have only iron rankers with flight capability in our group; fit, mobile people to worry about and for fighting.

--

We are advancing over the roofs. We have no interest in fighting overeager fire fighting equipment at this time. Eventually we’ll have to wipe them all out. We’ll have to discuss how to do so, but not now. This village is long and narrow, built along a country road with a square at one end of the village, where the road branches. We are seeing no guards. It seems like I really got them all and nobody has warned the rest.

They have posted watches. They are looking along the roads. The anomalies do not have full intellectual facilities. That is a relief of some sort. I do not wish to eradicate a group of sapient entities for our survival. I would, if I had to, but I don’t like the thought.

The scene playing out below us would have erased any sympathies for them. They have a man, tied to an X-shaped cross where magically shimmering needles rammed into his torso have been draining red etheral fluid spilling onto a skeleton, of, I kid you not, a rhinoceros, still shimmering through a semitransparent mass of protoplasm around it.

And by man I mean an original, untransformed human. I guess we have found our researcher, although strictly speaking we have no proof of his identity. A rather complex ritual cycle surrounded him and the cross. An especially tall, around 2.6 meters, turquoise member of our enemies is standing beside him in the circle, arms raised to the sky. Turning his or her back to us anything else is hidden from us.

We retreat into the building whose roof we have landed on. We end up in a kitchen.

L: Just shoot the tall one?

P: Bullets don’t work well on them. How about you do it?

L: I have one shot, It is a long distance and there is somebody I’d have to worry about hitting accidentally.

P: Poison works exceptionally well on them.

Z: You propose gliding down to them and you stinging the tall one? While a dozen guards who can throw lightning balls at us, while we are not protected by a lightning rod, would surround us?

P: There is that. We could search this house for magical liquid poison. I could form eyes from that and deliver it that way.

Z: This is ridiculous. You have a venom gland.

P: It is not under voluntary control. I need to physically sting something to inject venom.

Zora stands up. She says something in her native language. I get:

Even men cannot produce, when with [impolite word] …

Z: Conjure a blanket over yourself, close your eyes and stick your tail out!

To hear is to obey. I hear her opening a couple of doors, a riping sound, the sound of a rubber snatching and glass bumping into something. She returns. Her voice is very soothing while she pats my head. This is quite pleasing:

Imagine being in a warm bed cuddling. The world is cozy and bautiful. You wish to protect us. Everything is so good. You need to keep it that way. Something has woken you up. You want to keep cuddling. Everything is warm. You need to protect us.

A monster is jumping on us!

Something slams against my stinger already ready to do its job. There is a soft resistance. It does its job.

Z: You can open your eyes now.

I find my stinger stuck into the plastic film fastened over a pot with rubber bands. We have magical poison at our disposal. Lots of it.

Z: Applied psychology.

L: I don’t know whether I should feel disgusted or fascinated. But it does seem like I should have paid an entrance fee to watch.