I finish the carving of Hilde’s wand. “Tadaa! One [Improvised Wand]. Now I need to infuse it. Do you have any requests?”

She thinks for a moment. “Can you make it so that magic is easier to cast?”

That’s kinda the job of a wand, but I think I can improve upon that. I do a few tweaks with [Mana Crafting], before using [Imbuement] through its core. The result is one [Improvised Wand of Lesser Flow] which ‘improves mana flow’.

The others are also boring and similar wands, but at least I get better at making them(thus leveling up the ability) in the process of making them.

Aside from the non-battery-powered pink rabbits that seem to be rather common - for the record, I don’t think any rabbits lived here before, nor did wolves - there wasn’t much wildlife, magical, monstrous or otherwise.

I brought out my phone and started taking pictures of all non-mundane creatures and plants.Yes, plants. When we look closer, we notice a whole lot of, well, new things.

Aided by [Inspect] we find [Mistborn Sparrows] in addition to the ever-present [Pink Fluffy Rabbits]. On the plant side, we find [Fog-sea Grass], [Dayblooms] and [Dew-drinker Pines].

We uproot a handful of each plant, putting them in small plastic bags. Since I had plenty of use for the plastic bags I brought yesterday, this day I brought a roll of small, clear ones in addition to the regular ones.

An eerie call draws our attention to a black bird, a [Harbinger Crow]. After shaking off my initial surprise I quickly snap a picture and add a note on the name, as I did with the other animals and plants.

“Harbinger, huh. Harbinger of what?”

“Aren’t crows traditionally seen as harbingers?” I half-state, half-ask, not really answering Hanna’s question.

“Besides, isn’t that the kinda thing that would be a foreshadow? Not saying that the world operates on game logic, but you know, it kinda does.

In any case, let’s get back on the main road and be on the lookout, just in case. Should we head back? We’ve walked for a while, and we haven’t been accosted by monsters. Yet, at least.”

Eivind turns to me with a mock terrified expression. “Wow calm down, you’re raising flags like a pro. What’s next, are you gonna say the day can’t possibly go any worse?”

We all share a laugh at that, and start heading back to civilization. Not that we are further from ‘civilization’ than most smaller farms.

I grab a slightly-bigger stick and start carving a scepter-type focus, and just as I am about to bring out my string to attach a stone to one end, we are accosted by monsters. Sorta.

“That is a lot of pink bunnies…”

“No shit?”

“They’re coming this way, though.”

“They’re not dangerous, even for me their threat level is ‘very low’.”

I glance at Hanna “Sure, but the situation threat level is balanced to me. And I can mist-form outa here.”

“Seriously?” “What?”

“Ignoring that, how about we just run away?”

And so we did. Well, the others were quick to follow me when I ran away. There must be hundreds if not thousands of the rabbits. How did so many appear so fast? Oh wait. Rabbits. With magic.

“Brave sir Robin ran away…” I muse to myself as we run. No shame in living to fight another battle, I suppose.

After a good fifty or so meters sprint, the rabbits are no longer heading straight for us, but past us, and we slow down.

“Good thing they’re kinda slow. Actually-”

I swing out my phone and snap a picture, do a quick crop and downscale, and then tweet it ‘@police [Pink Fluffy Rabbit] stampede, dangerous.’

That done we stop to swatch the ‘terrible’ stampede of fluffy rabbits leisurely(from our perspective, at least) hopping past where we just stood. Thinking us safe, I dial the emergency number.

“I hope calling the emergency number won’t become a pattern…” I mumble as I put the phone to my ear, but Eivind snorts in a poor attempt to hold his laughter in.

“This is the police, how can I help you?”

“Uhh, there is a stampede of [Pink Fluffy Rabbits], they might be dangerous. I tweeted a picture.”

“...”

Not all surprised by the silence, I continue: “Should I kill a dozen or so? There’s probably a couple thousand of them. Pretty sure they could devastate the local ecology.”

“...there is a tweet here. You do realise there is a fine for pranking the police?”

“Yes. I am the one who reported about the giant killer bug invasion yesterday, as well.”

“Assuming what you said is true, we should probably send some scientists to look at it. Was that all.”

“They’re still going… Ahh, yeah, that was it, really. To be honest, I wanna kill a few to study and- WOAH!”

I was not the only among the party to make some sound of exclamation. The reason for our surprise? Cue Stian:

“Shit! Is that a dragon?!?”

I used [Inspect] on it, and the results make it clear why the situation threat level-

“The situation threat level is high now. Run to the café!”

The others freeze for a moment, but when the [Juvenile Giant Earth Lizard] looks this way, running away seems like the obvious action. And so, we bravely run away.

When we’re a dozen meters into our mad dash, the oversized, rock-scaled lizard decides we are more interesting than the significantly smaller pink fluffballs.

I go through with my previous plan of heroic sacrifice. That is neither heroic, nor do I intend to die. So I slow down.

“Keep moving, I’ll distract it and then catch up with you. No clichés, just run!”

A quick glance tells me they listen, so I attune to the aspect of Mist and start covering the area in fog. I really want a photo of this, but when we noticed it I kinda panicked and quickly put it in my pocket.

I really regret getting distracted from mana-bonding my wand now… No time to get it from my backpack. As for the pickaxe… I’m not confident I could hurt the lizard’s stone scales with it, at least not without getting hurt in the process.

I ensure it has its sight on me(pretty easy now that the fog has properly formed) and turn into the forest, running as fast as I dare. Tåke has gone full mist-form, and without my abilities I wouldn’t be able to detect her, I think.

I have her to thank for most of the fog. Should I buy her some good meat? Or maybe see if I can make her stronger? Ahh, later! The lizard seems to be slowed down by the trees so I use this time to fish out my phone. It’ll be expensive if I drop it…

“...er me!”

I forgot I was on the phone with the police, but with a bit of fumbling I put it on speaker mode. “I’m sorry -haah- being chased by huge lizard!” With the wannabe dragon well covered in fog, I start phase two: Jedi mind trick

I take a sharp right while willing the fog to show the lizard me going left. It slows down and starts turning but then turns to my real body. “Shit!”

I think the phone operator said something, so I figure I should answer him. “Bad -heeh- time… talk!” I take a shallow breath. “Bastard resists mind attacks”

Should I turn back into human form? I feel like I would have better control over Mist without the wolf aspect in my body. Then again, I’m not sure I want to let go of the extra physical stats.

“Aaaah’m gonna die!”

Luckily the scaly bastard isn’t fast, because I trip when halfway through the transformation. I quickly pick up the phone and start moving again. Phone seems fine, but I can feel the difference in stats.

With my natural body, I can actually use my half-mist form, but before I do that I create multiple illusory copies of myself that split off in different directions. With a thought, I also put my abilities back to combat setup, with [Force Magic] for attacking.

The lizard chooses the wrong copy(hint: it’s the one that went near invisible, not the one screaming for their life, as much as I want to do that), and using the distraction I start the camera app.

Acutely aware of the mana-usage of the mist-form, I partially materialize my legs and do a bouncy, low-gravity like run after it. It doesn’t seem to improve the mana-usage, so as fun as it is, I revert to the more mobile form.

The lizard seems annoyed that it’s meal was all smoke and mirrors(I’d be), but with a dozen illusory clones surrounding it, it seems unable to find the real one. I snap a photo of it, making sure to mimic the sound with the clones.

With the photo gotten, I turn tail and make haste in all directions, or at least that’s how it seems with all the illusions. A few of them become fuzzy as they get outside the area I can efficiently control the mist, and with fewer target to choose from, the lizard starts coming this way.

“It’s smart as well?!?” I mutter and turn to one side. “Nevermind, just got lucky.”

With a few taps I’m tweeting the photo. ‘@police’ is all I will write, now is not the time for writing an essay on a small touch screen(that time is never). “And sent! See picture on twitter.”

The operator who has been quiet, speaks up “Wow. Did you escape from that?”

I look over to the big bully, now heading towards me. “Shit! Fuck! Nope!” I summon more illusory clones, the old ones lost to distance. “I can escape, but-” Breathe! “If it finds other people…”

“Is it possible to get someone with anti-armor weaponry here? I’m not having that much trouble distracting and containing it, but I’m not sure I want to escape, in fear of where it will go.”

“Something like that will have to go through a couple hoops, it would take a few hours before they’d get to you.”

I repeat the divide(it’s attention) and conquer(the art of running) while muttering silent curse to whatever made this thing. “Well, I’m just gonna run then. If people start dying, I bet the red tape will magically disappear.”

“Would you really sacrifice other people for that?”

“Well, I sure as hell am not -oop” The lizard seems to be learning, and my body starts to feel heavy. “Not sacrificing myself. Besides, it may go to wherever it lives if I leave.”

Changing up my tactics I limit the amount of illusions while still making sure to divert its attention elsewhere, and start to beeline towards the café. Well, I do make sure to go a roundabout way, as not to pull it straight to people.

My body is getting really sluggish. It’s not really a problem since I’m not moving by foot, but I do wonder why.

Under Effect: [Muscle Lethargy]

So, like incomplete paralysis? Lizard with holding type debuffs… Shouldn’t it be petrification?

…I double check with [Inspect]. Indeed…

“That bastard’s a [Basilisk]!”

“I’ll hang up. You got my number if you need, but for now I’ll just run for my life.”

A few repeats of the same old I’ve grown increasingly tired, but at least it lost it’s interest or decided to find easier prey.

Since I’m not certain my legs could even support me, I stay in my mistform, and sure enough, when I revert, I fall to the ground and on my side as if my legs weren’t even there, aside from a slight pain when my almost bare feet hit the gravel.

“Lars! Are you okay?”

I turn up to Eivind with a grin. “Do I look fine? I feel like a bag of bricks thank’s to that dipshit [Basilisk]. I suppose we should be glad it’s still young; I’d loathe to feel the debuffs an adult would have…”