"Come on Lexy, I'm not leaving for real yet."

"But you will," said Lexy, her entire body wrapped around Kali's thigh. The trio was just about to set off on their hunt and were gathering at the edge of the village but Kali couldn't just go without saying goodbye to Lexy, could she?

"Yes," Kali grimaced as those glistening, sky-blue eyes threatened to turn into a waterfall. "We are elves, Lexy," she patted the girl's fluffy head. "We will live for thousands of years. You won't even notice it, and a few decades have passed. I'll be back before you know it."

"What if you die?"

"How could I die?" Kali smiled as she flicked the girl's forehead gently. "I have to show the world that I got it in me to become one of the strong. By the next time you see me, you might have to call me Archmage Kalitra."

I'll catch up," Lexy said as she wiped her eyes, ever so slowly untangling herself from Kali. The girl puffed herself up and resolutely stared up into Kali's glowing blue eyes. "I'll be strong too."

"I hope so," Kali smiled and ruffled the girl's hair. "If everything goes well, I'll be back in a few weeks. See you later, Lexy. Be good?"

"Goodbye, Kali!"

Kali smiled at the strong little elf who was doing her best not to cry.

Kali turned around, making eye contact with Vorgnar and Izuna.

She nodded at them, and then they were off with the Fox-kin leading them, with Kali slowly dialing up her spatial hearing range. She pushed her Mana Sense a few centimeters beyond her skin so she could sense and react to any sneaky spell — like that electric torture spell — before it could even touch her body.

Now that there wasn't a slow alchemist in their group but there was now a fox-girl in his stead, the trio could go much faster. Over the last week of sparring, Kali had been made more than aware that the argent haired girl was monstrously fast.

Izuna still couldn't outpace Kali, but the elven girl assumed that if they had been the same weight, she would be left in the dust. This was the result of Kali never training until after obtaining her freedom.

Kali could tell her muscles were growing. She had a pleasant soreness every so often as she had been running quite a lot lately. Not to mention the month she'd spent sparring with Vorgnar and later on with Izuna. Kali wasn't being lazy; but it was clear that the fox-girl had been working on her physique for much longer than her.

They reached the wall of vines, the barrier of nature opening up before them with no prompting, and Kali gave a mental thanks to Avariel. She was sure the Archdruid was looking on through the plants somehow, so she gave an appreciative nod towards a tree, even if she felt quite foolish doing it.

From there, the three jogged through the well-walked trail and reached the barrier of celestial magic.

Kali shivered as she stepped through. Feeling like your entire existence was laid bare before a tree and then judged by said tree was a feeling unlike any other.

Vorgnar stepped through right after her with only a slight frown signifying he experienced the same thing while the fox-girl was somewhere between the two, not quite shivering, but her entire face was pulled into a grimace as she stepped through.

"You two alright?" Kali asked, receiving two nods. "Okay. Izuna and me go first and you watch our backs?"

Vorgnar nodded again.

They started at a jog, but they quickly dialed it up. Where Kali gracefully hopped between trees, over bushes, and kicked off of branches, Izuna was like a breeze flowing through the foliage.

The way she moved reminded Kali of foxes or feline predators if she was being honest. The faun was more surface-bound than the elf. Where Kali flipped over an obstacle, Izuna quickly went around it with two short hops.

"Bit to the right," Kali heard Izuna's whispered words clearly and nodded back, correcting her direction.

"Sure," she whispered back and the Fox-kin nodded.

It didn't matter to the two of them that the wind was blowing into their faces, nor that they were running as fast as some birds flew. Kali might have near-perfect hearing, but those fluffy fox ears weren't losing out to her too much when it came to regular hearing.

Trees flew by with Kali only making a token effort to identify what sort of trees they were. Being back from safety, back in the grasp of nature and the uncertain wilds, had her heart thrumming in excitement. The 6 weeks of pace and rest in the village were nice, but Kali had to admit, she loved being out away from civilization; it made her feel free.

She made sure to not slack off on her sensory duties though. Even if Izuna might have auditory senses of a similar calibre to her, she had to do her best.

A family of hares hid under the roots of a tree, a flock of birds watched on from branches and a single feline beast watched on from under a bush as the three of them passed through. Kali noted them all, keeping her eye on the predator until they left it behind just to be sure, but the beast didn't attack them. Why would it when there was a perfectly tasty group of hares nearby? It didn't need mana like magical beasts either, just meat.

"Stop," Kali whispered as she came to a halt in only two steps, with the other two not quite managing to stop as quickly as she did. Vorgnar was further back, so he stopped next to Kali, but Izuna skidded to a halt further ahead. "WAIT!"

It was too late already. She wasn't sure what she sensed; it was barely a shift in the air, a little sound that somehow felt out of place, and as Izuna stomped on a thorny vine on the ground with her last step, all the alarm bells were chiming in Kali's head.

Her gaze flashed over the vine and found a small bundle of thorny vines collected in the shape of a small bush only reaching up to her knee a meter away from the foxgirl. A Shield spell was already activating in Kali's mind as she dashed towards the girl only a few meters ahead, but all that accomplished was her seeing as the vines of the bush untangled and lashed out at the surprised Izuna like a slew of vicious whips.

The girl tried to twist out of the way, she even managed to dodge the first vine that came at her but when the one she stepped on coiled around her ankle, she slammed face-first into the ground with two thorny vines drawing bloody lines on her back.

The girl screamed out in pain, kicking off the vine from her ankle and rolling away as another three struck at the ground where she was just a moment ago.

That was when Kali finally reached the girl. The bush was far too fast for a normal plant, not to mention normal plants didn't usually move and whip people with their thorny vines.

The shield spell materialised on Kali's fist like a buckler and the princess used it to slap away the furious vines.

"You-" Kali gasped as a vine managed to graze her ankle. She stomped down on it hard but she couldn't be too happy as the leg she used to do it was growing numb. "Izuna?"

All she heard in response to her question was a groan. Venom, neurotoxin, she got hit more. Must protect her.

She stared at the plant, which was ever so slowly … edging away?

Two vines had their ends torn off, but around three were still snapping at Kali angrily. She could keep up with their speed. The problem came from the fact that she only had one Shield and the plant — while obviously not quite intelligent — sometimes attacked with two vines at the same time. Which was how it nicked Kali's ankle.

Kali's mind was going into overdrive just as Vorgnar also stepped up next to her, but the man didn't have any armor or weapon that she knew of. The toxin would paralyze him without much effort. SHE had to do something.

Her right leg started to tremble. She couldn't feel anything below her knee and her thigh was barely doing a passable job at keeping her standing.

The Elven Sword appeared in her left hand, slashing off a vine that came at her, but the whiny groan afterward made her flinch. She heard the vine impact the prone Izuna. Idiot. Damn it. I have to get it away quickly.

There were only four vines snapping at their group, weird, as Kali heard at least ten snapping all around the place, but she couldn't dwell on the issue at the moment.

Her right knee gave out under her just as she slapped away another vine. Her mind made up, she dismissed the Shield Spell and resolved herself to use the sword to cut off the next vine while Runes were already materialising in her mind.

Vorgnar growled next to her. I need to hurry.

Kali was down on one knee when the next vine came at her with a hiss as it cut through the air. The Spell activated and shot out of her right palm, aimed right at the center of the vines, the small bush that was still inching away from them.

Kali saw the vine getting closer alarmingly fast. She lashed out with her sword, but her strike came out far too weak, not that she was even close to striking true. The venom is spreading.

She fell onto her back; the vine came from above, aimed to embed its thorns into her body from her shoulder to her waist, but just at the last moment, her spell hit.

The Kinetic Hammer slammed into a small bush, launching it into the depths of the forest along with its vines.

She sighed, blinking tiredly. Something else was still above her prone body, which forced her to refocus A thick … arm? It was Vorgnar's arm, unprotected, between her body and the vine that never came.

He is bleeding …

"Ugh," Kali groaned, some of her mana streaming into her bracelet, making the numbness of both body and mind slowly retreat. "You are bleeding."

"I am," Vorgnar said in a low tone, and Kali just now noticed that his arms were riddled with wounds up to his elbows. "Are you alright?"

"In a moment," Kali said weakly. The venom had made her lethargic, as if it were an especially nasty fever. "You?"

"I will be fine," said Vorgnar. He flexed his fingers, which were twitching uncontrollably every few moments. "I'm not sure about the fox, though."

"Fox?" Kali blinked. Izuna, shit.

She managed to climb to her knees, feeling far too weak to stand yet even as the bracelet slowly banished the weakness out of her body. She scrambled over to Izuna, sprawled out on her back as she was.

The Foxkin lay there, staring up into the canopy as her chest rose and fell with each heavy breath she took. Her tail and ears flopped down weakly and not a single muscle was as much as twitching in her.

It is numbing her muscles … if it reaches her lungs or heart …

Kali glanced down at her bracelet for a moment but shook off the idea. She remembered something about it being tied to her core and spirit. She might just make things worse if she tried to give it to the girl.

"Hi," Kali greeted the girl, and she thought she saw her mouth twitch, but that might be the venom playing with her head. "Umm, potions … yeah, we have those."

Kali hastily pushed some mana into her Spatial Ring and rummaged through her increasing stash of more or less useful stuff. Apple, chocolate, boots, Lexy's drawing, a stick? Why do I have a stick in there?, bandage … POTION!

Her focus latching onto the satchel filled with potions, it quickly appeared near her on the grass. It was like a large leather-bound book with pages made of leather that had small little holders in them where she could slide vials into.

"Ah, is it still around?" Kali asked as she nearly stopped the satchel, the idea that the bush would come back after she threw it away just now making its way into her head.

"No," said Vorgnar, though he still stood above the two girls protectively as his predatory gaze scanned the surrounding forest. "It shouldn't come back, heal her."

"Okay," Kali blinked, a sour aftertaste left in her mouth just from speaking that word. Being told what to do was not something she enjoyed. I was going to do it anyway.

Immune strengthening, General antidote, Reinvigoration, General vitality.

She quickly snatched those four potions out of the holster containing a few dozen and, after a bit of hesitation, she selected the general antidote.

"Use antidote against neurotoxins," Vorgnar interrupted, and Kali nodded, beating herself up inside for not thinking about that.

She grabbed the right potion and crawled over to Izuna's head, the Fox-kin's eyes having locked onto her as she did, even if her head couldn't move.

"Sorry," Kali apologised as she held the girl's mouth open and poured in the antidote, then she held up the girl's head just so it'd slide down her throat.

Making others drink potions by kissing them is such a dumb trope. She couldn't help but let her mind wander as she stared down at the helpless fox-girl, arms weakly hanging by her sides as the girl couldn't even keep her head up without Kali holding it. I … wouldn't mind, though.

"Okay. Good, next one," Kali whispered to herself, as much as to the girl. She grabbed the Immune strengthening potion next. She wasn't sure whether it'd help with a venom like this, but it most certainly couldn't hurt to magically reinforce her immune system for a while. "Swallow if you can."

Seeing the girl swallow the potion weakly as she was asked to put a smile on Kali's face. The antidote was already working.

She quickly followed up with the other two potions, aiming to heal the girl's nervous system if the venom damaged anything and give her back some wholesale energy. Reinvigorate was a very high-level biomancy spell according to the tome Kali received from the Archdruid, and the potion was a weaker but distilled version of that spell.

Kali clambered to her feet after she had seen Izuna swallow the contents of the last vial. She put the potion holster back into her ring.

She noticed the girl's fingers and limbs twitching, so she put her focus back into scanning their surroundings. Izuna would be fine unless another bush ambushed them while she wasn't paying attention. She paid express attention to any weird bush with thorns, but nowhere in her half-kilometer radius saw anything like that bundle of vines.

She now took note of every blade of grass that swayed weirdly in the breeze running through the undergrowth. Every thorn looked like a weapon and every vine like a noose waiting to tighten around her neck.

A soft groan pulled a part of her attention back to the foxgirl, who was just now trying to prop herself up to a sitting position.

"How do you feel?" Kali asked with a hint of worry. She might not know much about the girl, but she'd taken a liking to her, or maybe she'd just got hit over the head a bit too much when they sparred.

"Shit," Izuna said sourly, making it the first time the elven girl ever heard her swear. Kali grimaced. She should have noticed that damned bush sooner. "But it's quickly getting better … thank you for the potions."

"It's nothing," Kali shook her head, throwing a single glance at the prone girl. The venom was mostly out of Kali's own system, only her ankle and feet remained numb. It'd be challenging to run or even walk like that, but she could manage standing just fine.

"What even was that?" Izuna grumbled, pulling her legs under her. She was trying and failing to stand up, but the numerous shallow wounds left by the thorns were closing on her body and the rips and tears in her clothes were already mending themselves. Her clothes are just like mine.

That wasn't new. Kali already suspected it when the girl wore the same set of clothes for a week and during sparring without them ever getting dirty or smelling.

"A Thornvine Prowler," Vorgnar answered the Foxkin's question while Kali was lost in her thoughts. "Peaceful creatures, unless provoked. Their neurotoxin is weak too. The only way to die to them is to have the venom injected directly into your blood flow near the heart."

"Peaceful?" Kali asked with a frown. "Didn't seem too peaceful to me."

"Yeah," Izuna agreed. "Wait," she asked with a hint of uncertainty, "was it because I stepped on it?"

"Yes," Vorgnar nodded.

"I-" Kali started, she wanted to apologise since it would have been her task to alert them of any danger, even if she had no way of actually detecting that damned bush — Thornvine Prowler — before it attacked. Her ears twitched and her head snapped to the side, a frown creeping onto her face. Did I hear that wrong?

For a single moment, she almost heard a footfall right at the edge of her spatial hearing's range. Leaves crunched, dirt compressed under a foot, or so she thought she heard, but a moment later there was nothing.

Her normal hearing didn't catch even the slightest hint of anything being there.

"Kalitra?" Vorgnar asked in his usual blunt tone, without even turning to her.

"I thought I heard something," she shook her head. "It is half a kilometer away and probably nothing. The venom might be playing with my senses still."

"I see," said Vorgnar, his stance lowering a bit as he scanned the trees and bushes, but no monster jumped out of them.

"Will you be able to detect another one of those?" Izuna asked, now standing up straight with only the tiniest trembles in her legs as she stepped up to Kali.

"I'm- uhmm," Kali averted her gaze awkwardly. Could she? There were a bunch of vines and even if most of those didn't have thorns, the ones that did still counted among the dozens just in the little kilometer circle she could sense them in. None of them looked quite like the one that attacked them. She was sure it wasn't the same vine, but were those other ones regular vines or not? She didn't know. "I could? I could tell if there are thorny vines ahead, but not if they are one of those things."

"I see," said Izuna with a stormy expression on her face, her tail swishing from side to side angrily.

"I'm sorry," said Kali, her gaze downcast.

"Just," Izuna sighed. "That was terrible. Make sure it doesn't happen again."

"I will," Kali nodded. She forced the slowly bubbling frustration back down. It wasn't her fault that the bush was nearly undetectable. Who would think a bush would attack them? She could hear heartbeat and breathing from animals, if nothing else, but what could she hear from a plant? She couldn't differentiate it from a normal vine.

There were only a few dozen animals in her range that she had to track, but there were thousands of plants. She couldn't keep track of every blade of grass.

It was unreasonable to expect it from her. She wasn't the one to step on the vine, it'd have been fine if Izuna hadn't stepped on the vine.

She just recovered from being paralyzed by venom. I need to be considerate … breathing, breathe in and out.

Kali just nodded again and Izuna turned away with a huff, stumbling in her step but catching herself on the next.

The trio spent the next half an hour making sure the venom was fully gone from all three of them and then they continued travelling, though Izuna now followed a few steps behind Kali, not right next to her.

They fell back into a rhythm, just running, jumping, and swinging through the forest when a peculiar thought crept into Kali's head.

That weird footstep sounded familiar. It was … just like the Frost Wolf's.