Chapter 463

463 Burned Zone

One might wonder what the difference was between a [Soul Mark] and a [Soul Brand].

Me, I wondered who had shoved half burned sticks into my nostrils as I slept. Even as I pulled them slowly out, high-pitched twittering came from a nearby bush.

When you say the word Faerie to people, they immediately picture windlings, wyndlings, sprites, pixies, or noble faerie. They don’t think about ratskinks.

Ratskinks are much like they sound; rodents with pushed in noses, nothing resembling butterfly wings, sharp carnivore teeth, and a sense of humor...

Let’s just say that I’m glad they only plugged my nose and painted my teeth with charcoal.

I cracked my neck, trying to ignore them. In the east, the sky was lit with a thin line of blue that made the rest look darker than it was. If it weren’t for the haze of smoke still in the air, the stars would look even brighter at this time.

said another one.

agreed a third.

So prompted, I did invoke [Mystic Sight]. It showed me that the bush had absolutely no ratskinks inside it. Just a simple audio illusion, the moving of voices from one place to another. I scanned my surroundings, fortunately to include upward.

.....

one of the females said.

As I may have intimated, ratskinks cannot fly. Nor, like some breeds of squirrels, do they have thin flaps of skin to glide with. What they can do, like champions, is run, jump, and climb.

Oh, and apparently, they’re welcome in the Greywood, since they fled that way. They ‘escaped’ me easily, as nimble and fast as they were.

When I turned east to walk across the blackened land, they did not follow me. I set about looking for the victimized wose, and found something else.

In the shadow of a fallen tree trunk, there were three coals. Nothing to notice, of course, save for the nearly incorporeal fire elemental in the form of a sunflower. It shivered and snivelled and sniffled, nearly as miserable as I felt.

Damn.

I sent.

I asked.

It did some good, but nothing even close to what would turn him back into a nature spirit. Like any other fire spirit, he instinctively converted the mana before consuming it.

No. No, there must be some other option.

I asked.

I offered.

he responded.

I told him.

He eyed me, but didn’t take long to make his decision.

I promised him.

He turned out to be a meager spirit, little more than a flicker of flame and barely able to manifest that. But his mood improved as the sun rose before us.

He left me for a while, to touch the earth before returning.

I nodded, closing my eyes because the sun was shining almost directly into them.

He flinched. Yes, enough that I didn’t need to see it.

He scrunched his will up. he said.

Not all truths need be told.

he said, without hesitation.

And the abilities were there, on the second level tier. They were not cheap, and all of them stemmed from the [Ritual Magic] that I already knew. It wasn’t entirely beyond something I could do. I just couldn’t do it RIGHT THEN.

I said.

he asked.

he sighed.

I said.

I reminded him.

And, if you’ve trained in the rudiments of philosophy, and had the patience for it... but I won’t bore you with that. We talked, and eventually came upon the burned-out thatch that he swore had once been home to “at least a dozen” spiders.

he said.

I said.

sent a spider, approaching from the direction...

I asked.

the spider asked.

the spider said,

the spirit said.

Four of the spider’s eyes focused on it.

I saw others, skulking about at the edge of the underbrush.

I asked.

he spat.

came from his siblings.

added a young one.

I asked it.

the young boy said.

I told him.

Ugh. Do NOT tell someone you speak their language, not if they haven’t been able to speak to anyone all their life. His name was Achmed ibn Hajaj, and he had learned how to speak from his System. Which, you know, kudos to him, but...

he said.

I sent the images to him.

He sent images back, clearly showing the lack of any such controls. Worse, his language skills defaulted to rank zero, rather than his Insight statistic.

I said,

he said.

I blinked, my mind trying to find a balance between respect and horror. I decided.

I sent.

he said.

Yes, I am capable of being up before dawn. No, it’s not my natural timing.