A mass of blackened fur darted through the streets, never staying out in the open for more than a few re monts before it darted into cover. It felt at ho in the shadows, where its colour helped it dissolve and fade away from sight.
Yet there was one shadow it feared, the one shadow that it dared not hide in the bosom of. The Roaming Shadow of Death.
Even though this creature had never t the Roaming Shadow of Death before this day, the fear was ingrained deep within its bones. Its blood churned through its trembling body as they carried dire warnings from ancestors long passed, from those that had t the shadow and lived to tell the tale… and those who had not.
This creature, which was currently sheltered by the corpse of a steel behemoth, was naught more than a mouse. Every part of its body, from its fur to its worm-like tail and even the inside of its ears was as black as night, seemingly designed to help it disappear into the darkness of any hole or crevice.
The only flaw in this masterful design was a wide pair of sapphire eyes. Not just in colour, but in their true appearance as if so almighty being had taken uncut gems and bestowed them upon the lowly creature. Each edge of the uncut gem gave it a new angle of vision, acting as a compound eye much like a fly or insect.
Still hiding beneath the remnants of the behemoth, the mouse inched forward until it ca to the edge of the corpse's shadow. Its button nose twitched as it tested the air whilst its beady eyes were on alert for even the smallest hint of movent.
Only when it was sure it was safe, did it start to slowly make its way out. Yet it was not safe enough.
The rocks around it began to jump and dance with glee, as if they were excitedly celebrating the return of their earthen gods and the sun was drowned in darkness. Even though the mouse had left the embrace of the dead giant, it was once again wreathed in shadows.
The Roaming Shadow of Death!
Without a single mont of hesitation, the mouse disappeared into a puff of smoke, just in ti for the Roaming Shadow of Death to engulf the position in which it once stood. The terrible creature, the mouse's mortal enemy, slamd into the ground and let out an ear shattering roar of anger at its missed prey.
Whumpf
The death defying mouse appeared once again, not far from where it had once been yet once again in the comforting embrace of the shadows.
However, despite using its most reliable technique, the mortal enemy simply let out a dreadful screech before diving into pursuit.
No matter where it went, no matter how many tis it used its sacred escape technique to avoid death by barely a whisker, the Roaming Shadow of Death would always find it. Unrelenting, it hunted the mouse down until it could disappear no more.
The mouse was so focused on the Roaming Shadow of Death, it never saw its true end coming. Not until it was too late.
Its sapphire eyes twinkled in despair as they picked up on the rapidly approaching movent, but it had nothing left. It couldn't disappear, it couldn't run in ti. All it could do was close its eyes, as a divine blade carved through its humble body as if it was re dirt.
The last thing it saw was the gargantuan boot of the god, the one that the rocks had been jubilantly dancing in light of its arrival.
***
Seth bent down, picking up the two halves of the tiny mouse and retrieving the dagger sized feather he had thrown at the rodent. As he straightened up, Olette landed on the roof of the car, letting out a cheerful chirp and lifting its head, clearly proud of his work and eager for praise.
"Yes yes, You did good. Here, I know this is what you really want."
Holding the tail end of the rodent by, well the tail, he flicked his wrist and sent it tumbling through the air. Before it could even reach the peak of its arc, Olette snatched its prey from the air and scarfed it down whole, barely even considering the concept of chewing its food.
Sothing like that was clearly an inferior human trait, but his master was forgiven for his ignorance. Afterall, not everyone could have a flesh-rending beak such as himself.
As Olette devoured his new favourite al, Seth removed the glittering eyes from the vermin's skull before tossing the rest to the Wyvern, who inhaled the at and let out an appreciative burp.
When he first stumbled across the creature he had been sowhat surprised. Not by its colour or by its teleportation ability, but simply by the fact that it was normal sized for a mouse. It seed like everything in the world was being juiced up and turned into dinosaurs, so it felt quant to discover sothing as close to normal as he could get at this point. Minus the teleportation, of course.
Speaking of which, It was only after he had slain his first one that the entry for it appeared in his journal and gave him the na of the space warping rodent. Despite being a mouse, the rodent was nad a Blink Rat.
He hadn't noticed before, but so creatures' entries ca already assigned with a na while others remained blank. Many basic or 'common' creatures already had their nas, such as Zombie, but others like the Fog Prowler, only gained their nas when Seth filled it in himself.
Naturally, he had asked Angel about this.
[While the majority of the data without the knowledge gift cos from your own sources, it is at its core a compendium of knowledge.
There are many beings throughout the realms, and even more being born. Those which have been discovered already are given their nas, which are translated to the most appropriate dialect, to allow for prosperous communication and knowledge exchange. This was decided after many beings spent hours arguing over the traits of the Grutivark, only to discover they had been discussing two completely different creatures nad the sa thing.
An important discovery to make as one Grutivark was docile and friendly creature that could be dosticated, while the other was a horror from the depths that dissolved its victims insides with acid and slurped them up like freshly squeezed orange juice.]
It was clear that, whover nad the Blink Rat, was not the best at identifying rodents. But, to be fair to the amateur zoologist, it wasn't the worst na he had co across.
One of the creatures he had previously slain, a disgusting cross between a spider and a human that still gave him the heebie jeebies just thinking about it, was nad 'What in the everloving fuck is that thing?'
In all fairness, however, that was a very appropriate na.
Thankfully, Blink Rats were much easier to hunt and surprisingly common. Whether they were from the sa brood or it was just another case of parallel evolution, it was unclear and ultimately didn't matter much to Seth.
It wouldn't surprise him if many creatures didn't have a variety of possibilities for their evolution paths. Such was life.
Olette in particular loved to hunt the Blink Rats, as they had quickly beco his favourite food. They had done it so much in the few hours since leaving the clothing store that they had the technique completely down.
Even though Olette took every bite of their succulent at, at least that's how it was in Olette's opinion, Seth was not left out in the rewards of their simple hunts. The eyes weren't true sapphires but they were so kind of gem, he just wasn't sure what kind. Whilst they might not have monetary value he was sure they had so use.
Even if they didn't, he still got one useful thing out of it.
As he gazed at his status screen, he absentmindedly rubbed his thumb against the pitch black ring he now wore on his middle finger. A continuous line of azure writing surrounded the band of the ring, although the text itself was indecipherable as it was in the sa unknown language that made up Angel and his tattoos.
[Na: Sephtis 'Seth' Quinn
Species: Gaian Human
Biological Score: 73 Elental Score: 61
Spiritual Score: 135 Psychic Score: 50
Mutation - Puppeteers Thread, Spirit Animal
Requitals: Life Lantern, Ravens Raint, Expeditious Ratreat
Bonds: Olette]
'Ratreat… Rat-treat… Really?'
He could actually feel the shit eating grin Angel had at that na. It seed that dreadful nas were destined to follow him everywhere, as if so all powerful being found amusent in cursing him with them.
He had been expecting a weapon or another piece of armour, perhaps sothing to go underneath his cloak. But the ring was a lovely surprise. It allowed him to mimic the Blink Rats ability, a short range teleportation with a limit of 3 uses per day.
Lifting Olette, who was now roughly the size of a chihuahua, off of the car and depositing him onto his shoulder, Seth turned to face the rest of his companions.
Following close behind was Bob and a dirty dozen of his newest puppets, a mixture of mannequins, skeletons and half eaten corpses, not all of which were human but all were humanoid, restricted to two arms and two legs per body.
The muscle bound ghoul that Bob had viciously snapped the neck of was front and centre, connected directly to Seth as it led the rest of the Spirit Animal controlled puppets like a drill sergeant in a boot camp march.
They had picked up any available puppets they stumbled across, replacing mannequins with more durable bodies whenever they could.
Unfortunately, a dozen was the most the Spirit Animal was able to be linked to at once.
But even with his small army, Seth couldn't help but smile as he saw sothing glistening at him from further down the road.
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