Ar'Kendrithyst

The scent of sulfur hung distant on the air, like rotten eggs in a neighbor’s trashcan. Sometimes the smell was right in Jane’s face, but mostly, it was on the wind. The smell had been omnipresent for the last few weeks. It didn’t really bother Jane anymore; at least she could get away from the scent at night.

But this was not night; and thus Jane’s nose was filled with rotten eggs, and the smell of fire. With the sun probably somewhere in the thick, black clouds overhead, Jane tensed against a black boulder on the slope of a mountain, somewhere in the chain of volcanoes known as Firemaw Mountain. She glanced down at the corpse she had made of a lava elemental, ten meters away, while keeping her eyes also on the horizon; ever wary that something else might be sneaking up on her.

The corpse bubbled on the blackened ground, the dark shell of the body crumbling into the molten, still-glowing innards that Jane had scattered across the mountainside. Jane held her dark blue conjured sword tight, as it dripped molten slag. The sword suddenly cracked under the heat; the tip fractured, sending a wild break down the length the sword. The blade fell to dust and motes of light in Jane’s hand, the whole thing dispersing back into the ambient mana all around her. She did not immediately remake the weapon. Instead, she watched the corpse, waiting for it to move. But surely it was dead this time.

Lava elementals were fucking hard to kill. But as Jane watched, the glow of the body was already starting to fade, and soon enough, a Participation box appeared: 95%, the normal amount. She had gained level 59 earlier in the week after fighting a particularly large and resilient lava elemental, but this one was only level 50-something. No new level, no real change. But still, the fight was over. Jane breathed out relief as she relaxed against the boulder at her back. After a moment, she hauled her bag around to her front and took out the last of her lemon cookies. It was a bit stale and rather crumbly, but it was still good.

As she ate the cookie she looked all around her and saw only black, volcanic sand, cooled lava flows, or the blanketed sky. She looked up, trying to gauge the time according to the light in the air, though it was difficult with all the clouds, and the volcanoes around here poured enough light into the sky to make judging time difficult. A few nights of the last few weeks had been bright enough to read by, while the days had been dark as a moonless night. Currently, it might have been late afternoon, though she couldn’t really tell.

But those clouds up there were a different kind of dark than normal. As Jane watched, a nascent flash of lightning bubbled through the sky. All these clouds and shadows made zipping around with [Greater Shadowalk] rather easy, but clouds like those were a problem. Not a major one, but Jane had learned her lesson about hunting flame slimes in the exposed lava tubes that bore through the countryside all around here; it was a bad idea to do anything but a surface hunt.

Jane looked out across the land with [Ultrasight]. All she saw were three bumbling, plopping, glowing orange and yellow, beach-ball sized flame slimes, half-hidden in crevices and under overhangs, here and there. She looked up again, at the dark clouds.

Jane grumbled quiet displeasure. Clouds like those meant it was time to quit the field.

She had made the mistake of being outside for Firemaw Mountain rain, once. Once was more than enough. Acid rain was a lot more painful than Jane thought it would be, and breathing in acid rain was like sniffing razors. Acid elementals were worse than lava elementals, too

As the first drops of rain touched down next to Jane, each one caused a tiny plume of steam to hiss from the ground, and from the corpse of the lava elemental. The rain came down faster. The land began to hiss; to sound like a hundred tiny snakes had somehow snuck up on Jane and decided to threaten her with an orchestra of warning sound.

Jane took the warning to heart, this time. She wrapped herself in shadows, and vanished.

- - - -

Jane reappeared on a mountainside far away from the active volcanic range, under a star filled night sky. Three moons hung in the air, peeking out from behind tall, dark trees that had grown large from burying their roots deep into old lavaflows. Jane’s base was through the exposed roots of a tall tree, into the darkness meters away, but she did not instantly go inside. She stood on the grassy, branch-filled forest floor, and stared out into the straight-treed forest, wary for danger, but mostly worried.

She had completely missed sunset, losing track of time or losing time, but well before that, she also missed a call from her father. Maybe he just didn’t call today? That was the most reasonable answer.

Even though it was late, Jane tried him, anyway. Maybe Ophiel was close enough? A quick cast of [Telepathy] revealed what Jane had already suspected. Nothing happened. She was well out of range, no doubt. They had talked yesterday, though. Erick was doing well at Oceanside, and according to Poi, he was ‘a lot safer than they thought he would be’.

Jane briefly considered pinging Liquid to ask her to ping Poi, to then ping Erick, but there was no emergency. She’d just be upsetting a lot of people that didn’t need to be upset. Jane sighed out into the night. She was just feeling a little lonely, is all. She had been out here, eating flame slimes for a full month and progressing well enough on her [Fire Body]… But progression sure did start to feel repetitive after a while. Hunting monsters in no-man’s land gave practically zero satisfaction. The only person Jane was serving right now was herself, and that was quite an icky feeling.

Jane looked to the tangled roots at the entrance to her base, and turned away, back to the night. She frowned out into the clean, dark air, breathing in the scent of the forest—

Carrion.

She dropped into shadow, quickly searching through the surrounding forest with tendrils of darkness and eye-less sight, trying to find whatever smelled so strongly of carrion. Whatever it was, held practically the same scent as a wyrm, but it was close, and nothing was crashing through the forest. Wyrms crashed through the forest; they did not slink or sleep. But since no obvious ‘wyrm sounds’ reached Jane’s ears she had no idea what was nearby, and that was terrifying.

With eyes as distant as every shadow around her, Jane quickly found her prey.

It was not a single monster. It was twelve. Maybe. No… Less than twelve? Jane briefly poked her real eyes out of a distant shadow, trying to understand what the darkness told her, for these beasts were unlike any she had ever sensed before.

She barely saw them with her real eyes. A quick shift to spider solved the problem.

Eight thin creatures, humanoid in the vaguest sense of the word, walked through the tall forest, matching the trees for their height, and barely made a sound for their travels. The stretched-out monsters were covered in silver fur, but barely visible to the naked eye.

The trees were twenty meters to the top, and the creatures were the same. Their actual body was mostly their two legs and two arms, while their tiny body on top of those 18 meter long legs was only a meter long, itself. Of their heads, Jane could see none.

They walked away from Jane, staying in the moonlight, walking with methodical, trained ease, almost invisible to the world, but not to Jane. They were hunting; they had already found success.

The bodies of four of the creatures were distended, like big bellies atop silver, furry sticks. Dark blood matted some of their silver fur, while two of them, with arms that reached all the way to the ground, each clutched their own half of a monsterized deer.

As Jane watched, one of the monsters reached down, ever so easily, and with tiny hands barely bigger than its thin, thin arms, the monster picked up another deer that just stood in their path, like it couldn’t even see the cadre of silver furred things looming above. With a grip and a rip and one final bleat before it died, the deer came apart. The monster shoved the front half of the deer into its body, eating it in one bite. Another silver monster grabbed the other half of the deer from the first one’s hand and turned, just enough, so that Jane could see its face.

Its entire torso was the face, and the head. The shaggy silver monster opened itself wide and shoved the deer parts into a gaping, tooth-filled maw. The deer disappeared inside, and the monster closed itself back up, going from sarlacc pit to furry pillow in a single second, but its torso remained distended with its meal.

Judging from its tiny belly, and the triple-size bellies of some of the others, that particular silvery creature was still several deer short of its nightly feeding goal.

And in their path, lay the offal and body parts they couldn’t be bothered to gather up and eat. These creatures were half eating to eat, and half eating to kill. If they were hungry, they would have eaten the pieces that lay scattered in their wake.

They were obviously monsters. No doubt about that. Jane’s [Eyes of Magic] revealed the rads hidden in their torso area; like drops of the sun in the center of a ribbons of light that led to all the rest of their long, long bodies. What were they called, though?

What… were… they—

Moon reachers. They were called moon reachers. They hunted in packs and only came out in the forest when the moons were out. Naturally invisible, but slow moving, they moved and ate and killed until they were full, then they wrapped their arms and legs around themselves to sleep off their hunt. Their fur was supposed to be really tough…

And that was all Jane could remember. There was something else, though. Something terribly vital, that she could not remember for the life of her.

If she chose to fight these monsters, it just might be ‘for the life of her’, too.

And anyway, these monsters stayed away from civilization. Jane didn’t need to risk a fight, because she didn’t need to kill these monsters. From the way they just picked up and ate that deer, they likely had some sort of unnatural invisibility. They weren’t a threat to anyone but other adventurers in the forests, prey animals, or other monsters. Jane decided to let them go. The next time she talked to father, she would ask him to look up ‘moon reachers’ for her; then, and only then, would she even consider fighting a monster that clearly displayed such unnatural ability to capture prey.

As Jane watched, another deer walked out of the forest, into the path of the moon reachers. This one was a buck with huge antlers that drank in the night. It looked up at the moon reachers, and did nothing. Four of the skinnier monsters grabbed the buck and ripped it apart. The buck never stood a chance. Guts and organs and even one leg rained across shaggy silver legs, but the monsters on top of those legs didn’t seem to care. They ate the pieces of deer they managed to grab, and left the rest for the scavengers. The one that got the head plucked the antlers off and tossed them aside, before plunging the head into its gaping maw.

And the group marched on, almost completely silent, their narrow legs and arms gently swaying in the moonlight, like nothing Jane had ever seen before.

Jane, as a spider and half-melded into shadows, fully melded into shadow. She left the moon reachers to their plodding, bloody march through the moonlit forest. She headed to base.

Beyond the twisted roots of a tree, down a dark, thin tunnel twenty-five meters deep, Jane touched upon a tile floor in a room she had crafted for herself out of [Stoneshape]. She had bought [Stoneshape] after seeing how useful it had been to her father to escape those hunters. Since then, she had bought all the rest of the Shaping spells, too. They had each proven themselves mighty useful. [Shadowshape] and [Greater Shadowalk] went together quite well. [Flameshape] would likely prove the same after Jane eventually got [Fire Body].

Jane cast a lightward into the air, revealing her base. She smiled a little, but it was a forlorn smile.

The room was a standard three meter by three meter box, with a level for cooking and a level for sleeping, though there was no furniture. A vent in the back of the room exited to the surface and bled off air that came in through the front tunnel. The vent up there was angled hard, both to prevent theoretical intruders, and rain. The front tunnel was the same, and only accessible with [Shadowalk] anyway. It was a good defense. Jane would add more before she went to sleep, but this was a good start.

Though some water had still gotten in to the room, somehow. A puddle lay in the dipped edge of the stone space. Jane cleaned out the puddle with a bit of [Watershape], pushing it through the stone. She used a bit more [Stoneshape] to seal up the holes. When that was done, Jane cast a wide [Cleanse] into the room, turning the air vibrant and fresh.

She breathed deep, then set to remaking the furniture.

In minutes, her bed was back, and just because she could, it was a four poster work of magnificence, with dark wood and a padded mattress, with thick, fluffy comforters and dark black drapes. Jane filled the kitchen part of the room with stainless steel masterworks, like she would have found in any rich person’s kitchen back on Earth. They were just for show, though. Their silver exteriors were fake, their insides were hollow. Jane didn’t need to cook, or eat, because she had already eaten a lot today.

Flame slime cores did not taste very good, but she had certainly eaten enough of them.

… And she was still a spider.

Jane fixed that with a quick [Polymorph]. As she moved her body back into human-position, she moved her bag from around her thorax to around her waist, and her rings from the hooks of her spider feet, to around her fingers. [Polymorph]ing items around from human to spider and back again was not an easy thing to do. Jane had messed up more than a few times in the beginning, but she had eventually gotten the hang of it. Using her flame slime body with items was completely out of the picture, though. Jane had tested that out with scraps of cloth and wooden bands, and burned everything, every time she tried.

Her flame slime form was great. Being a flame slime let her eat other Flame Essence monsters without burning herself. But it was impossible to wear her rings or hold her bag when she was basically a ball of gelatinous fire.

But for now, she was human again. She tossed her bag onto a conjured table, then conjured a luxurious cotton nightie onto her body, then cast an air conditioning [Ward] into the room. She moved to the bed. Every muscle ached, but it was a good ache. Jane was tired, and sleeping right now was a great idea.

First things first, though. Jane conjured drapes of bells and aluminum cans across the entrance to the room, and then a tripline leading to more cans, and an [Alarm Ward]. As a final touch, she spent 3500 mana to craft an [Absorption Ward] across the whole space. She looked upon her work, and decided it was good. It was nice to have 4200 maximum mana. Her dad’s rings were certainly pulling their weight. They made her Status look rather nice, too.