“Finally.” I let out a soft sigh, even as a part of me wanted to pour out expletive after expletive. I had never thought that the burning light of the sun would ever be so welcome to me. For three days, we had followed the underground river, as it slowly made its way through the rocks, at times joining into other streams, easily doubling its volume of water. We had been forced to remain constantly vigilant against the spider-rats and whatever creature the powerful magic I had felt belonged to. But those weren’t the only threat we had been under, no, the constant need to use magic to purge the spores from our bodies, lest they turn our lungs into fertile fields constantly added pressure to Olivia and me.

If I had known just how dangerous the White Mountains in general and the tunnels beneath the mountains in particular are, I would have suggested heading north and taking the longer route. The power of hindsight, though I made a mental note for the future, so that I wouldn’t get caught out again.

“Now we just need to get down.” Sigmir chuckled, looking down from our current position. The river had finally reached the light of day again, only that it ended up more or less in the middle of a cliff, forming a waterfall that dropped some ten-odd meters down into a crystal-clear pool that reflected the sky above. Getting down would be trivial for me, thanks to Lenore’s ability to fly and once the sun moved a little further, Rai would be able to shadow-step down there, too.

Luckily, Olivia demonstrated that she was the most well-travelled of us once more and simply pulled out a sturdy-looking rope from her magic bag. That, along with some creative bracing, allowed the others to make their way down one after the other, Sigmir as the heaviest going first so that the rest of us was able to secure the rope together. It brought a smile to my face, that despite our relatively high levels and great power, the solution was something achieved by simple planning and preparation. I should try to get some additional, basic supplies in the next town, things like rope, maybe some chalk, those small items that don’t weigh much but might come in handy at some point.

Once everyone was down, I packed up Olivia’s rope and Lenore and I traded places, allowing her to take to the sky. The first few beats of her wings were a little clumsy but soon, she was back in the swing of things and we started to soar upwards. Neither of us wanted to instantly return to the others, especially not Lenore. She wanted to soar, darting through the sky and dancing with the wind as it whistled through the mountains.

Just the second-hand excitement was incredible, the feeling of being able to do what she was born to do, to freely fly through the air after having been denied that pleasure by the narrow tunnels, it firmly gripped Lenore and, through our connection, washed over to me and likely, in a less pronounced fashion, to Sigmir and Ylva. She soared, and she let the world know that she was riding the winds again, her calls echoing through the valley as her magic amplified the winds around us.

Sadly, the sheer joy didn’t last forever and she was suddenly forced to land when she noticed another flying presence, the original threat that had forced us underground. A large Manticore was flying above and, unless I totally missed my guess, it had spotted us. Or maybe it was just flying towards us because the clear pool the others were currently washing up in was a wonderful spot to rest and recover, it didn’t matter. For whatever reason, it was coming towards us and there was only one way for things to end, in a fight.

Knowing that time was of the essence, Lenore quickly went into a dive, our tension transmitted through the bond to Sigmir and Ylva, who instantly reacted, their eyes scanning the sky to find out what was going on. It took Lenore only a few seconds to get to the ground, but in those few seconds, the others had already realised the incoming danger and were beginning their battle-preparations.

“Let’s try to cripple it before it can land.” I told Adra, once I had moved out of my Hallow in a switch with Lenore. She simply nodded in response, readying her bow as she estimated the Manticores speed for the perfect shot. Touching the arrow, a thin layer of Ice formed on it’s head, as I slowly channelled Astral Power into it, not trying to increase the volume of Ice, instead trying to increase the hardness, turning the Ice into Hard Ice and pushing it beyond that. The more Astral Power I could pump into the arrow, the more I would have available to cripple or even kill the Manticore.

Adra drew her bow back, posture straight, looking past Sigmir who had readied herself a few steps in front of us, waiting for the Manticore to arrive. I could feel the Adra’s power gather into the arrow, as she chanted a few words under her breath, the arrow glowing with azure power before her bow let out an almost musical twang, turning the arrow into a streak of light as it streaked through the sky.

So far, none of the Manticores had been able to dodge her attack, not when they were attacking in a dive but this one managed to bank in time, though it turned his graceful attack into a splendid tumble. With Adra’s attack dodged, I obviously couldn’t use the power I had invested into the arrow-head to shred the Manticore’s insides but that didn’t mean the power had to go to waste. Clenching my fist, I turned the Hard Ice into frozen shrapnell, using Overflow to channel as much additional power into it as I could, accelerating it on a simple vector into the tumbling figure of the Manticore.

My attack hit, though I wasn’t sure how much damage the small projectiles could cause, even with the powerful acceleration of my Ice-Magic, there was simply a limit to their mass and even incredible acceleration couldn’t produce instant velocity. But I could hear a pained shriek from the Manticore and that was enough to bring a smile to my face.

The Manticore managed to stop its tumble and didn’t crash into the ground but its landing was far from graceful. Still better than the alternative, having its wing ripped off by Adra’s arrow, but it’s legs had to hurt and my shrapnell had managed to shred some feathers and cause some lacerations in its wing.

Sigmir didn’t let the small opening caused by the heavy landing go to waste and instantly pounced, her axe leading the way as her aura flared to life. As she moved, there was a curious sensation within me, giving me an almost instinctual idea of what she would do. By now, the Manticore was close enough to Observe and when I did, I realised that it might be a little more difficult than planned. Instead of a Young Manticore around level eighty, what we were now fighting was a level hundred-ten Manticore, without the Young modifier. Looking a little closer, I could see the difference, this one had some more muscles, looking larger and bulkier. Still, there was nothing to be done, other than kill the beast.

My first instinct was to use Ice-Magic to harass the beast, but if I wanted to cause a lasting injury, I would need an opening, or it would likely be able to dodge. Watching Sigmir do her best to create openings for Rai, while Adra helped keep the Manticore from fully concentrating on Sigmir with her arrows, I went with another option, namely calling out a single frozen shuttle and letting it lance over. The single Ice-Blade was just enough to distract the Manticore, disrupting its movement for a moment and giving it yet another scratch. Nothing serious, even the opening my attack created was negligible but that had never been the purpose of my strike.

Even as a tiny part of my focus was on my Frozen Shuttle, guiding it back towards me, my hand was busy crafting a rune-formation, combining seven runes into a single whole. If the foe had too strong a body, why not turn that strong body weak, sap its strength and let the others deal with a crippled foe? Using a single Blood-Rune as the centerpoint, with six runes around it, forming three triangles that overlapped at that single point, each similar but a little different. Each formation contained that central Blood-Rune, a Devour-Rune of Darkness-Magic and completing the triangles was a Vitality-, a Strength- and a Speed-Rune, one for each of them. It was a curse, plain, simple but oh, so potent.

There was a smile on my face as I transferred the blood drawn by my Frozen Shuttle to that centerpoint and began channelling Astral Power. I was curious how the Manticore would fare, with its very own blood acting against it.