The flying centipede-like creatures approached, pushing aside the foliage as they sward towards and Rufi. Rufi growled, taking flight as I used my free hand to summon an ice crystal. Ever since entering the goddess’ dungeon I had yet to encounter a fight that truly threatened my growing abilities, and I didn’t figure these bugs would be the first to break that trend, so I was more interested in testing new abilities than pounding them out of existence with tried and true ones.
My icicle shot towards one of the bugs in the swarm, impaling one of the midsections of its segnted body and sending it twirling out of the air. Rufi, seeing my restraint, rely sent out a few arrows of dark fla, culling the bugs drawing the closest to us.
"Mind Numbing." I said aloud, hoping the system would do the rest to activate the skill. I felt my senses expand, touching on the consciousnesses of the creatures nearby. I tried to focus on the prickly, hostile feeling I felt approaching, and then opened my eyes again to see if it had had any effect. So of the bugs at the forefront of the swarm seed to falter, slowing in the air to quickly be overtaken by those behind them, disappearing into the rest of the swarm before I had a chance to verify its full effect.
The swarm was basically upon us, and Rufi was still a little hesitant to attack, looking at for signs of what she should do. "Final test," I told her as I closed my eyes to focus. Magic swirled around and I tried to channel it into an unfamiliar shape. The system imdiately leapt to help , but instead of letting it take control, I forced the magic into its hands, willfully overcharging the circuit it was trying to construct. The power went wild within , chafing at my control as it overflowed its channels until finally I let it all out in a burst of wind magic that whirled around pushing all the bugs swarming to attack back in a burst of discharged air. More than Wind Magic lvl. 1, but also...ow. It felt like my veins were stinging after the overcharge of magic.
Rufi chirped gleefully seeing accomplish what I had wanted to, and closed her eyes, concentrating her own magic as if in imitation of . I watched amused as the bugs around us struggled to reorient themselves on the twisted air currents I had unleashed. Dark Lightning began to crackle on the surface of Rufi’s skin, raising the ends of her fur, the eyes of the snake at the end of her tail glowing white, her wings stilling as she seed to float in mid-air.
"RAWR" Her voice was suddenly deep and ancient as she roared, dark purple and white lightning unleashing in all directions save towards , frying all the bugs left around us. In a blinding flash all the lightning was gone and all the bugs were falling to the ground, their fried limbs devoid of life. Rufi opened her eyes, her wings resuming their flapping as she zipped down to the ground, pawing among the falling carcasses until she grabbed sothing in her mouth and began dragging it back to .
In her fangs she held the fried remains of one of the brightly-colored birds that made the canopy their ho, evidently caught up in her spell along with all the bugs. She dragged the carcass to my feet, before looking up expectantly at . "Ruf!" She chirped happily, putting her legs up on mine, her snake-tail inexplicably wagging behind her. "Good girl," I grinned, stooping down to pet her. "Is that for , or is that for you?" I asked, pointing at the bird carcass. "Ruf!" She pushed the bird carcass towards with her head then rushed back into the heap of bug remains. Eventually after a bit more digging she erged with another bird carcass. She dragged it out of the heap, and then began gnawing at its neck, still a ways away from .
"I see. One for and one for you, huh?" I looked at the charred bird carcass at my feet. While it was a very nice gesture, and I had been rather hungry in my living form, it wasn’t like I was just going to eat the bird as it was. Nor did I really know anything else I could do with it. Looking around again for anything that might help out of my predicant, I suddenly caught a hint of smoke, wafting above the trees just at the reach of what I could make out. Smoke? I don’t think that’s just mist. Did we accidentally light sothing on fire? I looked back at Rufi who seed to be more playing with her food than eating it.
She had eaten the ice foxes raw, but I supposed it was entirely possible she didn’t prefer it that way, and I certainly didn’t. They were already a bit fried from the lightning, but grilling them probably wouldn’t hurt anything. And if there’s a fire already lit... Rufi might have lightning magic under her control, but I didn’t, nor did I think I had the survival skills to light a fire from scratch.
I stood up, taking the bird carcass in one of my hands, grateful I was still a skeleton. "Co on, Rufi," I said. "Let’s check out that smoke."
I approached the fire hesitantly, sensing a presence tending to the fire with my spirit sight, but unable to tell their intentions or identity. At last I pushed aside so foliage to reveal a brown-skinned, bare-chested man, his well-defined muscles curling as he bent over to turn a skewer on the fire.
"Welco." He said, without looking up at us. "Co, sit. Bring your prey here and we will exchange food and stories." He looked up at with a grin that felt subtly unnerving. "We have much to discuss."
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