The Systems Challenge

The shadow had startled Jonas. He hadn't heard anything when it suddenly passed over them, even with his enhanced ears. There wasn't anything he could see in the sky that could have cast any kind of shadow, let alone one that big and that moved that fast. Plus, while there were mountains nearby that limited their field of view, in addition to the terrain looking like it was becoming a river canyon, anything that had moved in the sky should still be seen for at least a few minutes. At least with how fast that shadow moved.

Jonas saw Kim call Elmo and Elin over and decided to head that was as well. If nothing else, having the army see all of them discussing something, even though they likely wouldn't be able to know exactly what they were talking about, would at least settle the frayed nerves that shadow had caused.

Which meant that there'd be less for them to deal with in regards to settling everyone down. Which would be important if whatever had cast that shadow was hostile. Which would be difficult enough to deal with on its own without having to deal with anyone panicking or unable to do anything useful.

While Jonas doubted things would come to that, he would at least like to avoid having to help those who were just getting in the way. At the party it was one thing, since they couldn't have prepared for all that had happened, but here, there was at least something that they could do to at least help mitigate a few circumstances before they actually took shape.

"Did you see what that shadow was?" Kim asked Elmo.

Jonas couldn't see Elmo's response, with a group of nervous soldiers blocking his view. All he could tell was that Elmo didn't say anything in response.

"I see," Kim sighed, making Jonas assume Elmo's response was in the negative. "Well, would you be able to use your check stats spell on it?"

Jonas was surprised. He hadn't thought about that potential use of Elmo's spell, but at the same time, he doubted it would work. However, none of them really knew some of the finer details of their systems, since it wasn't like they were given a manual for them and the tutorial was more limited help rather than actually being helpful.

"I-" Elmo started to say but stopped. Jonas had a feeling that Elmo hadn't thought of trying to use his spell that way either.

At that moment, Jonas finally passed by those who were blocking his view of Elmo and he could see that Elmo had a surprised expression on his face, almost dumbfounded.

"Why not try it?" Elin asked, snapping Elmo out of his daze. "What's the worst that could happen?"