Chapter 79: In the cover of the night

The group relocated to the next bush, staying back to giving Emily room to fight. Noah had yet to see her actually using her magic yet, and he couldn’t deny his interest to see what Moxie’s student could do. There was a small, slightly over-competitive part of him that wanted his own students to be more impressive than she was.

That’s pretty petty of me, I have to admit. I never said I wasn’t petty, though. Best of luck though, Emily. I don’t want you to do bad – I just want Todd and Isabel to do better.

Noah glanced at Moxie, only to find that she was sending him the same, slightly guilty look that he was giving her. They both cleared their throats and looked away, realizing they’d basically had the exact line of thought running.

Emily tapped a band on her wrist and a shield washed over her skin, glittering with blue light. Both Isabel and Todd pursed their lips. Noah couldn’t blame them.

No matter what he said, having access to a Shield was a massive advantage, especially if it wasn’t used as a crutch. They could push themselves harder and try riskier moves with one. Unfortunately, Noah couldn’t afford them – and that meant his students could either.

“Good luck,” Isabel said, smoothing her features out.

“Thanks,” Emily replied, not turning her attention away from the bush. She flicked one of the flowers and it leaned back, sending out its call to the Snuffler below. The monster pushed its way out of the ground and Emily wasted no time in calling her magic.

Frost washed across her hands, and traveled outward, solidifying into the limbs of a large bow. An arrow materialized in its string, stretching out from her pale fingers, and she pulled back on the string.

The arrow blurred forward, turning into a white streak and slamming into the Snuffler’s shoulder. The monster lurched toward Emily, stumbling on its injured shoulder, and snapped at her.

She skipped back, backpedaling to keep distance between herself and the monster. If it hadn’t been injured, Noah was pretty sure it would have caught Emily. However, that wasn’t the case. It was injured, and Emily stayed ahead of it without any difficulty.

Drawing back on her bowstring, another arrow materialized from the air and she launched it into the Snuffler’s chest.

“She has both Water and Ice Runes,” Moxie said, more than a little pride in her voice. “She gathers the water in the air, then condenses it into ice.”

“Impressive,” Noah said. “No Body Imbuements?”

“Not yet,” Moxie said with a shake of her head. “I’ll give it to Todd, he’s a natural. I don’t think I picked them up that fast myself, and I had great tutors.”

“Hey!” Lee exclaimed, glaring at Moxie. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Midway through the last class you taught, you got distracted by a butterfly.”

“It flew in front of me. That’s just asking to get eaten. Are you telling me you wouldn’t have done the exact same thing?”

Moxie, wisely, chose not to answer that particular question. There were some arguments that couldn’t be won, and then there were some that shouldn’t even be started. This was one of the latter.

Meanwhile, Emily was having absolutely no difficulty handling the Snuffler. Every arrow she struck the monster with slowed it even further, and she eventually put one between its eyes, putting it down.

Impressive display of accuracy. They’re perfectly spaced. She could have killed it with the first shot if she’d wanted to. But… that also wasn’t really the point of this exercise. I suppose this might have been a little too easy for her. She’s had a good teacher for quite a while, after all.

“Good job,” Noah said, giving a polite clap. “Very beautifully executed.”

“Agreed,” Moxie added. “You could have kept a little farther ahead of it, though. Have you been working on your Body Imbuements?”

Emily’s smile flickered and she cleared her throat. Her ice bow faded away into mist and she brushed her hands, walking back to join them.

“I’ve been trying.”

“Trying?” Moxie asked.

“They won’t work yet.”

Todd sent a smug look in Emily’s direction. Noah looked at him down the bridge of his nose and Todd quickly let the smile drop away.

“Progress is progress,” Noah said. “You’ll get there. It’s important to remember that everyone that puts effort in is going to be good at their own thing. We compliment each other. It’s good to be competitive and push to improve, but don’t let that turn into animosity. Take the opportunity to learn when someone is better at something than you are, then return the favor when the time comes.”

Moxie nodded in agreement. “Good advice. Isabel, are you ready to take your turn now?”

Isabel flexed her fingers. She let out a sharp breath and nodded. “Yeah. I’m ready. Let’s go find the next bush.”

***

6 hours ago, in the cover of the night.

Lee crouched on the top of Noah’s stone tent, hidden by the cold embrace of her Runes. She watched as Moxie crept away from her spot where she was supposed to be keeping watch. She saw Noah set off no more than a minute later, likely heading to go hunt monsters.

And, before she could decide which of them she wanted to bother following, a third person slipped out of their tent. Isabel poked her head into the darkness, then silently broke away and headed for the hills.

Is literally anyone actually planning to stay the night here? At this point, we might as well not have set it up at all.

After a moment of deliberation, Lee tailed Isabel. Moxie and Noah could both handle themselves for the time being. And, as much as Lee wanted to figure out what Moxie was up to, it would have been worse if something happened to Isabel.

The girl was completely oblivious to Lee, even looking straight at her several times as she turned, presumably to make sure nobody had noticed her escape. Lee had to cover a snicker.

Nobody’s going to spot you leaving because none of them actually stuck around.

Once Isabel had put enough distance between herself and the camp, she reached into one of her pockets and pulled out a slip of paper. Lee’s eyes shifted, turning a duller shade of yellow. Her vision focused in on the paper.

A dossier on the locale. One page from one, at least. I didn’t realize you were allowed to pull pages out of books. That’s convenient.

Isabel scanned over the paper, squinting at it in the moonlight, then accelerated her pace. Lee strolled behind her, completely unnoticed, as they pressed deeper into the night. Before long, the camp was far behind them.

Only then did Isabel slow down. She let out a slow breath, a flicker of worry passing over her face before she crushed it out and set her jaw. After giving one glance at the paper, she approached a large, red flowered bush.

I’ve been wanting to see how those feel. I bet those flowers would make a really soft bed. Nice and tickly. Kind of like the fires in the Damned Plains, but cuter.

Isabel folded the paper back up and slipped it into her pocket. She pressed a hand to her chest and drew out a shimmering blue sword. Then she knelt, laying her free hand on the ground. As Isabel lifted it, a stone slab rose out of the ground. Strands of rock wound around Isabel’s arm, attaching it to her like a makeshift shield.

Gritting her teeth, Isabel tried to lift it. The shield didn’t budge. It was too heavy. Isabel jabbed her sword into the ground, then pressed her hand to her heart again. She pulled a strand of glittering blue energy out, then pressed it into the stone.

Bands of light spiderwebbed out through the rock, giving it a faint shimmer. Isabel rose to her feet, this time lifting the shield with little difficulty. Nodding to herself, she picked up her sword and approached the bush.

Lee tilted her head to the side curiously as Isabel tapped her foot at the base of the plant.

I wonder what she’s doing. The plants didn’t seem to be that dangerous up here. Back in the Damned Plains, there were a few that were basically just bait that some monsters used to lure fools close so they could eat them, but I didn’t notice any signs of that here.

Isabel nudged the plant again. The ground beneath her feet shuddered. Lee tensed, dropping into a fighting stance and raising to the balls of her feet. Isabel jumped back, and the ground a few body lengths away from her split apart.

A ridiculous, tubular monster clambered out from beneath the ground, its long nose bouncing as it took rapid, deep sniffs of the air. Lee nearly burst into laughter on the spot, but she managed to suppress it.

Distracting Isabel now would be really bad. I’ll save the laugh up for when I can actually get away with it.

Isabel swallowed heavily. Then she charged. The moment her foot hit the ground, the tube shaped monster bolted in her direction. Isabel raised her shield and slammed it into the ground, bracing against it with her full body.

Blue light glittered along the stone an instant before the monster slammed into it with a loud crack. Isabel skidded across the ground, stumbling and nearly losing her balance. She caught herself and slammed the shield down again, barely managing to get it braced before the monster was upon her again.

This time, Isabel managed to hold strong. A tremor ran down her arms and she hissed in pain. Even as the monster reared back to dart at Isabel again, she shifted and thrust her sword out, catching it across the face.

The monster hissed in pain, but that did little to give it pause. It slammed itself into her shield again. And again. Each time, its sharp teeth scraped across the stone. Isabel flinched back with every blow, her muscles trembling as she tried to hold the much larger creature’s strength back.

Then, after several nerve wracking strikes, Isabel spotted an opportunity as the monster backed up to bite at her again. She lunged forward, lowering her shield and driving all her weight into the sword.

It slammed into the monster’s eye, biting deep and killing it instantly. It crumpled to the ground at her feet. Isabel bent over, dropping her shield and sword to brace her arms against her knees and gasp for air. She slowly took control of herself again and picked her weapons up, setting back off.

Lee glanced back at the monster, then followed after Isabel.

Over the course of the next few hours, Isabel sought out half a dozen more of the monsters. On the next one, she encased her legs in stone as well. The one after that, she formed a chest plate.

Each time she fought one of the monsters, Isabel added an extra piece of armor. Each one flickered with strands of blue light that wound throughout it. Lee couldn’t help but be impressed. For someone with no Body Imbuements, Isabel was carrying around an enormous amount of weight.

Every fight that Isabel took, she pushed herself harder. She pressed the limits of what she could do, trying to find the balance of how much she had to defend and attack. Isabel replaced her sword with a glowing spear, giving her the reach to jab at the monsters from behind the spear, but occasionally opted to drop the shield entirely to try and get a more powerful blow by two handing the weapon.

Lee could see Isabel steadily losing energy, even with the refreshers that she should have gotten from killing the monsters. She didn’t have many Runes yet, and the amount of magic she had to be using to keep the whole set of armor up was probably enormous.

A flicker in the air caught Lee’s attention after Isabel managed to take down another of the strange monsters. A dark form flew in circles high above. Lee’s eyes narrowed, and her vision shifted.

It was a monster. A fairly large one – and it was eyeing Isabel. Lee glanced at the girl, but she was still recovering from her last fight.

The bird dove.

Lee blurred. She launched off the ground, slamming into the bird. Claws erupted from her fingertips and she dug them into the monster’s neck, ripping its head clean off. Lee’s momentum carried her through the air in a shadowy blur, bringing the two halves of the dead bird with her.

She hit the ground in a deceptively soft landing. Opening her mouth impossibly wide, Lee shoved the entirety of the bird down her gullet. She grimaced in distaste, then turned back toward Isabel.

The girl was so exhausted from the fights that night that she hadn’t even heard what had happened. Lee shook her head in a mixture of amusement and respect.

One by one, the stone pieces of armor that Isabel had collected crumbled and fell away from her. She took several more deep breaths, then straightened. Isabel sheathed the spear within her heart, then turned and headed back in the direction of the camp.

Lee followed behind her, stopping by each monster to devour its remains. Luckily, no more birds caught sight of Isabel and the rest of the trip went uninterrupted. By the time it was over, it was already starting to near morning.

Turning on her heel, Lee set out to figure out where Noah was. She suspected that he’d probably left a bunch of monsters lying around in his wake, and she was still hungry.