463 Burned Zone
One might wonder what the difference was between a [Soul Mark] and a [Soul Brand].
, I wondered who had shoved half burned sticks into my nostrils as I slept. Even as I pulled them slowly out, high-pitched twittering ca from a nearby bush.
When you say the word Faerie to people, they imdiately picture windlings, wyndlings, sprites, pixies, or noble faerie. They don’t think about ratskinks.
Ratskinks are much like they sound; rodents with pushed in noses, nothing resembling butterfly wings, sharp carnivore teeth, and a sense of humor...
Let’s just say that I’m glad they only plugged my nose and painted my teeth with charcoal.
I cracked my neck, trying to ignore them. In the east, the sky was lit with a thin line of blue that made the rest look darker than it was. If it weren’t for the haze of smoke still in the air, the stars would look even brighter at this ti.
said another one.
agreed a third.
So prompted, I did invoke [Mystic Sight]. It showed that the bush had absolutely no ratskinks inside it. Just a simple audio illusion, the moving of voices from one place to another. I scanned my surroundings, fortunately to include upward.
.....
one of the females said.
As I may have intimated, ratskinks cannot fly. Nor, like so breeds of squirrels, do they have thin flaps of skin to glide with. What they can do, like champions, is run, jump, and climb.
Oh, and apparently, they’re welco in the Greywood, since they fled that way. They ‘escaped’ easily, as nimble and fast as they were.
When I turned east to walk across the blackened land, they did not follow . I set about looking for the victimized wose, and found sothing else.
In the shadow of a fallen tree trunk, there were three coals. Nothing to notice, of course, save for the nearly incorporeal fire elental in the form of a sunflower. It shivered and snivelled and sniffled, nearly as miserable as I felt.
Damn.
I sent.
I asked.
It did so good, but nothing even close to what would turn him back into a nature spirit. Like any other fire spirit, he instinctively converted the mana before consuming it.
No. No, there must be so other option.
I asked.
I offered.
he responded.
I told him.
He eyed , but didn’t take long to make his decision.
I promised him.
He turned out to be a ager spirit, little more than a flicker of fla and barely able to manifest that. But his mood improved as the sun rose before us.
He left for a while, to touch the earth before returning.
I nodded, closing my eyes because the sun was shining almost directly into them.
He flinched. Yes, enough that I didn’t need to see it.
He scrunched his will up. he said.
Not all truths need be told.
he said, without hesitation.
And the abilities were there, on the second level tier. They were not cheap, and all of them stemd from the [Ritual Magic] that I already knew. It wasn’t entirely beyond sothing I could do. I just couldn’t do it RIGHT THEN.
I said.
he asked.
he sighed.
I said.
I reminded him.
And, if you’ve trained in the rudints of philosophy, and had the patience for it... but I won’t bore you with that. We talked, and eventually ca upon the burned-out thatch that he swore had once been ho to “at least a dozen” spiders.
he said.
I said.
sent a spider, approaching from the direction...
I asked.
the spider asked.
the spider said,
the spirit said.
Four of the spider’s eyes focused on it.
I saw others, skulking about at the edge of the underbrush.
I asked.
he spat.
ca from his siblings.
added a young one.
I asked it.
the young boy said.
I told him.
Ugh. Do NOT tell soone you speak their language, not if they haven’t been able to speak to anyone all their life. His na was Achd ibn Hajaj, and he had learned how to speak from his System. Which, you know, kudos to him, but...
he said.
I sent the images to him.
He sent images back, clearly showing the lack of any such controls. Worse, his language skills defaulted to rank zero, rather than his Insight statistic.
I said,
he said.
I blinked, my mind trying to find a balance between respect and horror. I decided.
I sent.
he said.
Yes, I am capable of being up before dawn. No, it’s not my natural timing.
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