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Chapter 430 - Glimmer
🕑 Added 2022-04-08 13:01:04 +0000 UTCExiting the cave, Hera and Alex saw a lush jungle, very similar to anything else they would see in this room. Large trees with bright green leaves covered in vines and surrounded by small bushes and other types of foliage. In the distance, they could hear the sounds of a river. Hera immediately considered that that should be a good place to start. After all, One of the best ways to track an animal was to locate nearby water sources and look for tracks there.
"It's going to be hard to find that snake weasel here. Everything is green, but I guess the yellow eyes might pop depending on what's around it," Alex said as she took in her surroundings.
"Yeah, if we are lucky, maybe it will be by the river or something. In that case, you might be able to see their eyes," Hera replied, but something seemed wrong, "Hang on, since when can you see yellow? I thought you were blue-green colorblind."
"It's actually blue-yellow, and I'm not sure how much I can say. Let's say that when I went to the temple, I saw something, and now I can see yellow. But it's not as if I can see regular yellow colors on everything, or at least it doesn't feel like it. I can only see yellow if the thing is really yellow. It doesn't look like something natural. It kind of looks edited, like some bad CGI forcing me to see the right color. It doesn't hurt, don't worry, but it's really weird," Alex explained with a smile on her face.
"But…. How do you know what's yellow? I mean, in theory, if you saw yellow is a different color than what I see. So you shouldn't know what yellow actually looks like. It would be like trying to explain color to a blind person. They don't have ways of knowing what color is," Hera was staring at Alex, both confused and happy for her friend.
"Kirouhebi helped me. I explained to him what was the problem with my eyes and asked him to help me figure out some things. He used a spell that could trick his eyes into becoming colorblind for a moment so he could understand how I saw the world. He did that to try to see the thing that I can't talk about in a different light, but it didn't work. When he was looking at… that it was normal for him. The spell he used wasn't working when looking at… what we were seeing," Alex stopped several times in the middle of the sentence to make sure not to speak something that could pass the curse to Hera.
Hera kept staring at her friend, "That's kind of worse, isn't it? The whole point of it is that you couldn't look at that or talk about it; otherwise, it would grow, right? Why were you two talking about it?"
Alex waved her off, "He said he was fine. Even if we're talking about it couldn't grow more than it already had."
"Are you sure? I mean, what's to say that even him talking about it wasn't the curse trying to make him talk?"
Alex stopped for a moment, "I didn't think about that. Do you think a being like him could be affected that way? I mean, he's supposed to be here since the beginning of the room, and…" her face was washed over by fear. If everything she spoke with Kirouhebi was because of the curse tricking him into talking about it, there was no way to know how much her own curse had progressed.
Hera didn't want to worry her friend, especially now that they were in a dungeon, "Then again, I have no idea what I'm talking about. You two were the ones affected by it, and It's just something that made me worry. Maybe I'm wrong, and we won't have any problems with that, and your conversation helped you figure out a solution."
Alex nodded absentmindedly, staring at the ground for a few moments. Then she slapped her face with both hands as if she was trying to wake up. Her eyes changed, and it seemed like even if she was worried, she wasn't going to bother with that for now. There were more pressing matters at hand. Seeing that, Hera also put her game face on.
"Swift, Beam, Brute, Executioner, Lurize," by calling their names, Hera summoned her entire court using the mana from the stone.
Instead of having an actual accessory made with the stone, she had it Inside a pouch on her waist. Any item that she could actually wear and had enough mana to call all of her court would be 5 to 10 times more expensive than the 200 grand she spent buying this mana stone. She only got this high of a price for an uncut mana stone because she needed it to be pure mana. According to Daskka, elemental mana stones could only work with blades of their respective elements. This also meant that in the future, when Hera had picked the blades she would have, she could look for items that match those types of mana in the amount she would require.
Even if she had already seen how her blades worked, Hera was half expecting to be able to see what their blades saw. Maybe a screen would show up or, somehow, she would have multiple points of view, and yet that couldn't be farther from the truth. Instead of that complicated scenario, the way she could perceive what was going on with her blades was very different. In fact, she couldn't see what they saw or feel what they felt. She could only receive information as if they were talking to her telling her what they were seeing. It was a bit more direct than actual speech, but it still shared some of the same constraints. When she talked to Daskka, they could share not only what they were seeing but also what they were feeling and their thoughts. Doing that with the court was more like receiving data directly into her brain. She still had to interpret that information and then act upon it, while with the snake, the information was already interpreted, and there were even suggestions about what she could do. Controlling the court meant that she was almost like a general in an army. She had to trust the information she was receiving and then make a decision based on that. The main difference was that she could always trust the information and that her blades' senses were very similar to her own.
Daskka confirmed that idea when Hera questioned. What the blades could see around them was relative to what Hera would be able to see in the same position. This also meant that if there was a creature who was able to hide from Hera's sight, it could also hide from the senses of the blades. Even with that restriction, Hera already felt her radius of perception increase by a lot with her 5 blades floating in the air. She was constantly receiving information from each of the flying weapons, and that was when all her blades were still close by. Giving an order for them to spread out and stay around 10 meters away, they started walking. More than just finishing a dungeon, Hera wanted to understand how to control her court to the fullest.
It took her around 2 minutes to realize that the way she was using her court wouldn't help that much to find Glimmer. They could move through the woods, yes, but even having her blades 10 meters apart from her put them below the range of both her pulse and her sensory net spells. Alex was doing her best to find the monster as well, but she wasn't much of a tracker. Her abilities focused on hiding from an enemy and then killing them.
Feeling her frustration, Daskka, who was flying around them looking for the monster, landed on Hera's left shoulder, "You can use them like energy poles."
"What?" Hera glanced at the snake.
"Your blades, you can use them as energy poles. Send them all together, Then daisy chain them along. That way, you can increase the range you can control them. Like this," Daskka used her mist to show an example of what she was suggesting. She showed a mist sword, then a long line connected to another mist sword which connected to another, and so on. All 5 weapons were connected in a straight line.
"Really? That works?" Hera asked as she told her court to do that. She first sent them all out to the right as far as they could go. Executioner was the first to stop. The rest of the blades crossed a smaller distance before Swift stopped, making the next link in the daisy chain. The next to stop was Brute, then Swift stopped, with Beam and Lurize taking up the last two spots. It seemed like Hera had the largest range since she could still control Executioner when it was 25 meters away. Each blade, however, had a smaller range. They could only connect with another blade up to 15 meters away. Even with those restrictions, she had an effective range of about 85 meters. It wasn't that impressive if one was considering a bow and arrow or some long-range magic, but being able to hit someone almost 100 meters away with a melee weapon had its own charm.
Despite that, Hera didn't want to risk having all her blades that far away. From what she could tell, they were physically unable to move beyond their maximum distance. If something went wrong and they saw a monster, chasing after them could prove to be an issue. Hera told her blades to come back 3 meters, which should be enough to let them move more freely if they needed. She did all that while still walking, and for a first-timer, that was impressive. Even Daskka praised her for her control. According to the herald, most legacy holders would have some problems controlling more than three blades at first. This daisy chain strategy was considered above the beginner level for the legacy, and Daskka was expecting her to have some trouble using her court that way.
With the help of that increased perception range, it took the group just a bit over 5 minutes to find a water source in the shape of a river. Who noticed that was Lurize, at the edge of its range. That also showed Hera that the daisy chain setup came with a major setback. The farther away one of her blades was, the simpler was the information that it could send her. When focusing on Executioner, it could let her know how many trees were around, the color of the leaves, if there was any noise, if there was any magical energy, and other details of the area. But when trying to reach Lurize, she could get only small tidbits of information. The river, for instance, came only as a 'large body of water.'
Reaching the stream, Hera told her court to form a perimeter around them. This order seemed to be very easy for the blades. It was like they already knew what she meant. Each of the weapons went close to the 25-meter range and slowly started to rotate clockwise. While being protected, Hera and Alex took a moment to understand their surroundings a little better. This area of the jungle seemed to be downhill, and maybe a few kilometers in front of them, there was a large stone mountain that would shoot up to the sky, creating a natural wall. According to the quest, Glimmer Didn't have anywhere to hide. Which probably meant that this area didn't have any caves or anything like that. Hera turned to Daskka and asked her to fly up above the trees to see if she could find anything. The snake did that without any issues, the humidity helping her to create a thicker mist without having to waste too much mana. About a minute later, she returned and created a model of the surrounding area using her mist. It seemed like they were in a natural arena of sorts. In all directions, these massive towering stone mountains formed naturally, creating this hidden oasis in the middle of the jungle.
"I guess this is why Glimmer can't run away. The cave is probably the only way to come here. Or it could go up and above the mountain, but there might be some predators there," Hera looked up, pondering the possibilities.
"Hera?" Alex called in a whisper as she stopped moving.
Hera glanced at the assassin, who just gestured in the direction downstream. Peeking out from a large bush, there was the face of a weasel attached to a long green snake-like body. The monster got closer to the water and started drinking without even looking around. Just like she expected, the creature was considerably bigger than the picture made it to be. From this distance, it looked like she was staring at a cheetah or a lion that wasn't fully grown just yet. Hera and Alex started moving slowly toward the creature, not wanting to spook the animal. The explorer activated her [Observe] to ensure this was the monster they were looking for.
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Glimmer - Level 28 - Scared (Grass Affinity)
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Hera was confused about the scared in the notification at first, but as soon as the window appeared in front of her, the monster raised its head, staring with its beady yellow eyes. It made a cry that oddly resembled a bird before jumping back into the woods.
"What was that? Were we that bad at hiding?" Alex grumbled, frustrated that her new stealth skill wasn't enough to hide from the monster.
"I think it was my fault. I used observe on the thing. It really was Glimmer, but it was scared already. Maybe it was jumpy because of something else," Hera said.
"Maybe. But it still feels weird, doesn't it? And what was that weird bird call?"
Hera stopped for a moment, "You don't think it was an actual bird call, do you? Like when someone goes duck hunting and uses that whistle to lure ducks."
The jungles seemed to shake almost as if to reply to her question. The sound of dozens of wings flapping echoed through the forest as the bird began to sing. With every second that went by, that ominous choir grew louder and louder.
Comments
Xaekros
Thanks for the ch.! I'd be curious to see if she can also use members of her court as origin points for any of her spells later on.
