Hunting with a partner was so much more comfortable than alone. It added a wonderful margin of safety, allowing to focus on magically striking the Shattered while Silva was guarding at my side, warning of Shattered that were hiding out of sight and barrelling them over when they tried to co for .
With each Shattered we ca across, our coordination grew and I noticed that Silva was getting more accustod to fighting them, a growth that made consider the intelligence of my furry partner. By now, I was completely convinced that she could understand , not just listen to the tone of my voice but comprehend the words I used and that she could actually think tactically, about how to best take down the Shattered. Even if I assud she had so hunting instincts from the wolves that had been dosticated long ago, those instincts would focus on hunting in a pack, or alone in a pinch. Not on working together with a spellcaster and yet she managed to adapt to my actions without trouble.
It was, amusingly, both a great comfort and a small worry. Comforting, because an intelligent partner could be incredibly useful, especially given that a stupid partner could be a worse hindrance than any enemy but worrying because it made wonder just how smart she was. Would she eventually betray ? She had the intelligence to bide her ti until she could guarantee the success of such a betrayal, but was she scheming that much? I just didn’t know.
Either way, having her with was a great boon. We could easily kill Shattered and in the first few hours of the night, I managed to gain another two levels by thodically and steadily killing them off. The Attribute Points I gained went into Intelligence, bringing it to nineteen, while my Ice Rune Mastery was raised to seven, my Ice Magic to five and my Darkness Rune Mastery to four, thanks to all the killing and sneaking. I hadn’t Observed Silva again, unwilling to subject her to the uncomfortable sensation that entailed, but from the changes I had felt in her, I thought she had reached level four when I was about half-way to five.
But it wasn’t all killing and sneaking, I also took the ti to explain the system and the various attributes, skills and traits to Silva. I wasn’t certain if she had access to her sheet, or if hers would even work the sa as mine, but I wanted her to have the information, in case it was useful to her. I had tried to have her show her sheet, but other than a goofy look on her face, I didn’t get any response.
Maybe four hours after night had fallen, I felt a wave of Astral Power wash over us, coming from sowhere to the south. For a few seconds, my senses were overloaded with the scent of dusty earth and dense rock, sowhat reminiscent of the scents I had slled during the ti we had been under the White Mountains, concentrated Earth Astral Power, the essence of earth and stone.
Just as the scent started to fade, the ground beneath started to shift and move, forcing to focus on keeping my balance. Luckily, Silva and I had been in the middle of a street, with nothing above us to fall on our heads, but others were not as lucky. I could hear the sounds of falling objects and even saw a building crumble in the distance, adding to the desolate ambience. A few buildings had burned down during the last night, leaving behind hollow husks and now, so of those and so others simply crumbled thanks to the shaking earth. The shaking didn’t last long, just a few seconds, but it was incredibly worrying.
The city I was in didn’t suffer earthquakes. It just didn’t happen, the worst movent in that regard was normally caused by heavy construction equipnt driving by and would, at most, cause a badly hung painting to fall. That, along with the magical wave before the quake, made confident that it wasn’t a natural quake, or at least not natural in a way that it would have happened before the change. But natural in the sense that it wasn’t caused by an intentional agent, of that I was confident, too. Just from the wave of magic prior, I could vaguely estimate how much power was involved, though the unknown distance made it more difficult. If the original spell had been cast within a kilotre of , soone with the power Morgana had wielded at the end would have been enough, without the use of the Nexus. If the distance was greater, which I thought it was, the power of the Nexus would be necessary and even then, it was difficult to estimate. I simply didn’t believe that anyone had the magical abilities to cast such spells, especially because I didn’t think the Astral River had settled enough to actually form Nexus anywhere.
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Next to , Silva let out an uneasy whine, pressing her head against as if she was looking for safety or shelter. I couldn’t do much more than pet her head, tell her everything would be alright and keep watch, trying to make sure nothing was sneaking up on us.
About a minute later, it felt as if things had settled, everything that was shaken loose by the quake had fallen and an eerie quiet spread through the world. Maybe the quiet was even worse than the previous commotion, it showed just how desolate the world was now. There were no sirens and I couldn’t hear shouts for help or even screams of fear. It was as if Silva and I were all alone in the world, with nothing but Shattered to keep us company.
Shaking my head, I pushed past the sensation. I didn’t need anyone to reach my goal, I only needed power. Power to get Sigmir back, to draw her into this world. Everything else was secondary, all other humans could perish for all I cared.
But even as I tried to focus my mind, a more sensible voice in my head reminded that even if I got Sigmir back, we’d need so people around. If only because neither of us was a farr and I doubted Sigmir would want to beco one, I certainly didn’t. If we wanted to be able to delegate so of the more annoying, nial tasks, we needed so people to delegate to.
A distasteful idea, but one I would have to keep in mind.
Before I could dwell on it, Silva let out a warning growl, her head swinging towards one of the nearby houses and I followed her gaze. There, hidden in the shadows, I could vaguely see a shape, smaller than Silva but four-legged as well, trying to sneak up on us. My imdiate reaction was to rapidly draw a runic formation, conjuring a hailstone to lob at the thing. I didn’t manage to finish the spell before the feline ca pouncing from its hideout, eyes suddenly ablaze with blue fire. Shattered, but capable of hiding that, or at least hide the tell-tale flas.
Silva t the pouncing beast, I couldn’t call it a cat, in the air, her greater mass overcoming its montum and sending them both crashing down a few tres away from . The beast, roughly three-quarters of Silva’s size and about half her mass, let out an angry yowl, clawing at Silva who had bounced back faster than it to dodge. She had done her part, giving enough ti to finish my spell and as she dodged back, the hailstone struck the feline who hadn’t paid attention to , sending it sprawling once more.
Controlling the hailstone, I tried to strike the feline again, only for it to dodge out of the way. Silva had retreated a little, guarding behind her back, and moved forward once again, right as the feline tried to pounce. The beast managed to scratch Silva but it didn’t look too deep, while Silva managed to get her maw on the beast’s back and, with a rapid shake of her head, broke its spine and stepped back, leaving the beast for to finish off from a safe distance.
It only took one strike with the hailstone, and I thought even that was overkill, but it was what I had.
Once it was dead, I quickly made my way over to Silva who was already licking her wound. When I approached, she let out a quiet whine, not really happy that I pushed her head away from the wound but I needed to touch it to heal.
The initial Blood Runes weren’t all that powerful, but they were enough to staunch the bleeding and turn the deep, bleeding scratch into a scabbed wound. It wasn’t perfect and might leave a scar, but it was far better than it had been before. Silva didn’t seem to agree and kept licking at the wound for a bit until she realised I was, after a brief look at the Shattered Cat, continuing on my way.
There were more Shattered to kill and now, that didn’t an just the potentially thousands of people, it also included the pets and, maybe far more worrying, the pests. I really didn’t want to imagine Shattered Cockroaches. But knowing those things, they wouldn’t Shatter, they would just keep going. Maybe I should add Raid to my looting list.
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