NOVEL NEXT Chapter 66 – Wendigo
The blackened monster leaps at Emily, its skin cracking as it does and revealing the writhing grey flesh beneath. Emily drops into a slide, passing under the creature and hitting it with a bolt as she goes. The spell smashes into the monster, ripping into its flesh and drawing out a pained screech.
They both right themselves and turn to face each other before slashing out. Their claws meet, glancing off each other and causing sparks. Emily presses the attack, sending violent swipe after violent swipe at her opponent while preparing another bolt, noticing the creature’s attacks speeding up as it goes.
Sweat drips down her cheek as she narrowly avoids a stab to the face, lifts her Claw and slashes it down the inside of the monster’s forearm. Its arm quickly retracts, whipping past and slashing a deep groove into Emily’s shoulder. Emily quickly backs away, releasing her bolt on the back step and smashing the creature in the leg with it. She comes to a halt a few steps back, panting as she tries to ignore the many pains now covering her body.
The creature moves back, slowly circling her with a slight limp. She glances at her system resources while taking a breath to calm herself.
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[Health:] 173/190
[Stamina:] 204/320
[Mana:] 279/3600
[Machina:] 343/3600
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My injuries aren’t that bad, but I’m running low on resources. I need to finish this soon.
The monster leaps forward, and Emily steps to the side, driving one of her Claws deep into its shoulder as it passes. The Claw gets lodged deep in the creature’s flesh, and Emily is pulled backwards by the force, twisting her arm awkwardly.
“Fuck!” she cries, retracting the Claw with a spark of machina and tumbling to the floor.
The monster turns back to her, pouring blood on the ground as it limbers over. Emily tries to stand up, but it reaches her and slashes at her face before she can. She quickly rolls to the side, raising her mostly uninjured arm to point at the creature as she casts bolt again, sending a crackling beam of plasma into its jaw. The blow rips the monster’s lower jaw off, sending a flood of blood down its neck and exposing the roof of its foul mouth.
The monster gargles out a screech and slowly hobbles closer to Emily. It raises its claw slowly to strike at the same time as Emily retracts the Claw on her healthy right arm and quickly drives it up towards the monster’s head. Her palm makes forceful contact with the creature’s teeth, splitting open her palm as its arm starts to swing down, and she fills the Claw with every last drop of machina she has before releasing the extension mechanism.
The blade rockets out, breaking its housing and shooting upwards in a blaze of machina. It rips through the scorched, softened skin and fries the creature’s brain in a fraction of a second before blowing out of the back of its head and continuing into the cave roof above.
The creature’s arm falls limp on Emily’s chest, landing heavily and pressing the metal plates hard against her skin.
“Urgh, that’s gonna bruise,” she grumbles as she lets her arms drop beside her, closing her eyes and basking in the pain and tired ache of her muscles, a mad grin plastered on her face.
The cave goes quiet, the peace only disturbed by the gasping breaths of her groupmates and the quiet shuffling of the first circle mages as they approach the battle scene again. After a couple of seconds to regain her calm, Emily opens her eyes and pushes the monster’s corpse aside as she stands. Fionn approaches her with concern as she rises.
“Are you alright? Sit back down and let me help.”
Emily glances down at her injuries before nodding and settling down on a nearby rock
“Thanks,” she says as Fionn crouches next to her, cancelling his spell illuminating the cave and placing his hand on her bleeding leg as he starts channelling a golden spell.
She tunes out his chanting, turning her gaze on the scorched black corpse of the monster, just visible in the dim illumination of his spell.
Time to see what you are.
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[Wendigo]
[Rank:] E
[Description:] A twisted creature born from a human mage falling to cannibalism on cursed land. They prowl the cursed lands they inhabit, gathering offerings to further the spread of corruption.
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Cursed land? Are all of The Waters cursed? Or is it just part of it? Also, cannibalism? Does that mean it ate the last group, or was it formed from them? How long have The Waters been cursed? They should have a record of it if it’s been here for a while, right?
As Fionn slowly knits together Emily’s wounds, their groupmates start to gather, recovering slightly from their exhaustion. They stand around the corpse under the light of Oscar’s candle, staring listlessly at the creature that tormented them and killed some of their comrades.
“How repulsive,” Oscar comments dryly, kicking the corpse before turning to the two living luggage carriers. “Can you two pack this into a bag please.”
They quickly get to work, lifting the corpse and carefully lowering it into the opening of one of the spatial storages.
“Are you okay?” Oscar asks, turning his attention away from the corpse towards Emily, jolting her out of her thoughts.
“I’m fine. It’s just a few scratches.” She waves off his concern, wincing slightly as Fionn moves his hands to press against her twisted shoulder.
Oscar nods before turning to address the rest of the group.
“We lost some people today,” he says calmly, a hint of sadness in his tone. “Their sacrifice will be remembered, and they will be given a proper send-off once we return to Chroni safely. Now, as unpleasant as it may be, let’s clean up the area a little and set up camp. I think we could all do with some sleep.”
The tired mages quietly separate and follow his orders. Matteo, Dante, Cian, and Callum use small flames to find their way to the smouldering corpses of their groupmates, picking them up and dropping them into the flowing water. Everyone else, bar Emily and Fionn, take sleeping bags from the storage packs and set them up in a small, tight formation inside the sound barrier Oscar sets up.
Their setup soon finishes, and Oscar looks over the exhausted faces around him.
“We’ll switch to more traditional watches for tonight to let our scouts rest.” He glances pointedly at Emily, allowing no room for discussion. “Cian, Callum, and Maeve will take first watch.”
He hands Callum his magic candle before walking to his own sleeping bag. Everyone takes that as their cue, moving to get some sleep themselves.
“There we go,” Fionn says, stopping his casting and wiping his brow. “That’s all I can do for you. The flesh wounds have been closed, but that shoulder may take a few days to go back to completely normal, and the deeper parts of the shrapnel holes will have to heal naturally.”
“Thanks. Will my healing potions help at all?” Emily asks, gesturing to the vials on her belt while realising she was too focused on fighting to drink them when she got hurt.
“Unfortunately not. They would have done the same thing as my spells – stopped the bleeding and closed the flesh wounds – but you’d need something stronger for deep wounds.”
“I see.” Emily pushes herself up, ignoring Fionn’s offered help.
She walks over to an empty sleeping bag and crashes down. Before sleeping, she opens her system and checks her progression requirements.
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[Progression]
[Circle/Stage:] Second
Requirements:
-Intelligence 60/75 (Not Complete)
-Create 4/5 unique E rank machines (Not Complete)
-Learn internal casting (Complete)
-Create 2/3 second circle spells (Not Complete)
-Slay 1/1 third circle beast (Complete)
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Jackpot! It was a third circle beast.
With a happy smile, she relaxes, shutting her eyes as she lets one of her cores shut down for the night, still refusing to sleep completely.
***
Emily meditates for six hours before joining the final watch of the night, her exhaustion completely gone. She sits with Dante and Fionn, quietly chatting in the dimness of the cave.
“If you don’t mind, could I ask you a question?” Fionn says to Dante after a lull in the conversation.
“Sure,” Dante responds while impatiently tapping his foot.
“How did you cast such a large spell? It felt far more powerful than a normal second circle spell.”
“Oh, that?” Dante responds excitedly with a grin. “That’s my family’s signature spell, Hibiscus Burst. While the version of it I cast is technically second circle, it’s based on a fourth circle spell my dad made. It’s designed to work as a group ritual spell, like Oscar’s airspace claim, that big spell he used in training against fog cats, but I used it alone by pouring all of my mana into it.”
“Interesting. I wonder if there are any ritual healing spells,” Fionn mutters.
I’ll have to look into ritual spells when I get back. It’d be a great weapon if I could use my second core to prepare a massive spell like that in combat.
Light slowly starts to fill the cave as the daytime glow returns to the glistening water, and the crystals come back to life, beating back the shadows. Dante excitedly looks around and starts to stand up as dawn breaks.
“Are we going to start waking people now?” he asks.
“No,” Emily responds with a judgemental stare.
“What?”
“We set up camp late last night. Those who took watches have only slept for four and a bit hours so far. It’s only right to let them rest more, so we’ll set off late today,” Fionn calmly explains.
“Urgh,” Dante groans, dropping back to the floor dejectedly. “But I’m so bored.”
Emily rolls her eyes at him, turning away and running earthen detection. She’s surprised when she feels a flurry of movement approaching them from some dark side tunnels.
I guess the wendigo was the reason we haven’t seen any groglers for a while now. Are they linked to this curse too?
“Look alive, buddy,” she says, patting Dante’s shoulder and standing up. “We’ve got company.”
Dante shoots up to join her with a grin.
“Finally!”
They both move upstream, following Emily’s scan and leaving Fionn behind to watch the camp.
“Try not to make too much noise.”
“Got it. Burning not exploding!”
Emily drops her detection as she feels the groglers approaching the cave and conjures flying lightning, spinning the dart beside her in anticipation. The sound of hurried footfall fills their ears and soon the small grey monsters burst out of the darkness.
Flying lightning flashes forwards, ripping through the first enemy’s head with ease, a split second before a rain of flaming petals smashes into the front row. Emily whips the dart around, picking off the creatures screeching in pain as their skin sears black. Dante casts his spell twice more before Emily finishes slicing and puncturing those that are left, leaving the dark cave entrance splattered in brownish-red blood and littered with half-burnt corpses.
“What a fun way to start the morning. I never thought I’d be so happy to see groglers again.” Dante chuckles, turning to look at Emily with a satisfied grin.
Emily makes eye contact with him, unable to hold back her own smile.
“It certainly gets the blood pumping. Although, this was a lot of groglers in one go, considering we haven’t seen any for days.”
She looks over the piled-up bodies and counts fifteen creatures. Her grin morphs into a small frown as she turns back to the camp.
“Come on.”
***
An hour later, they wake everyone up and prepare breakfast. Sitting around a small campfire eating, Oscar rearranges the moving formation.
“Maeve and Cian will still carry a bag each. However, Callum and Fionn will also need to take a bag from now on. Ivor will join the front, and Erin will join the back: there’s no point leaving you at the sides until we leave these caves.” He pauses and looks around, but nobody disputes his arrangement, so he takes a deep breath and then continues.
“Now, I know last night was stressful, and we lost some good friends.” He pauses to look around again, taking in the mixed reactions of the group, mourning from a few, but indifference from most. “But we still need to move onwards. We’ll continue downstream for three more days, then turn around and head back.”
The rest of their meal passes quietly, and after eating they quickly pack up, tossing out the excess tents they no longer need to create space in their bags, and leave to continue downstream. They follow the river, sticking left at another fork, and after two hours of moving, Ivor’s scan returns something.
“Over twenty, small, behind,” he quickly flashes out some hand signs, and everybody starts preparing for battle.
“Groglers?” Emily asks him while conjuring flying lightning and turning her thermal vision upstream.
She sees him nod out of the corner of her eye, and starts walking around the group with Ivor and Dante. They reach the back as a small grogler bursts out of a side tunnel. A single lance of fire shoots forward, impaling the monster and burning its torso to a crisp.
A flood of groglers follows, filling the cave with grey. Emily spins up her weapon as the monsters close the distance, and the moment they step within range, several spells fly out.
Heavy rocks, blades of water, spears and petals of fire: the groglers are pelted by the elements, while Emily’s glistening silver dart flashes through them, ripping them apart. The enemies are quickly dealt with, covering the cave floor with their dirty blood that slowly flows into the river, temporarily dyeing the water red before sinking below the fog, never to rise again.
With the groglers dead, they take a break, to harvest their eyes, then continue marching downstream. They’re attacked twice more before lunch, and another two times after. By the time they stop for the day, the attacking mages are running low on mana and exhausted again.
Emily settles at the edge of the camp alone, returning to their normal watches now that the wendigo is dealt with. She sits upstream of the camp, having noticed all the grogler attacks during the day came from that direction, as if following a plan.
We’re definitely being pushed further in by these grogler attacks. I guess it can’t have been the wendigo coordinating them. Maybe we’ll find out what it is as we go deeper? If not, it’s going to be a pain to fight our way back out through hordes of coordinated groglers.
Emily sighs as she stares into the surrounding darkness, excited by the idea of a new discovery, but starting to grow bored of fighting the small grey irritants.
“I miss Jules.”