“Sylas, you can’t keep avoiding your problems forever.” Geistig scolded me.

“I’m not. I’m just addressing them slowly.” I replied, still in pigeon form.

“And how ‘slowly’ do you think you can afford to take it when you’re on Tishina’s team? You’re already going on quests together. If you can’t handle interacting with an elf in humanoid form, then how do you expect to work together with one when you’re a monster?”

“I…" I don't have a good response to that. I'd already lost my cool fighting with her once. "You're right. I'm sorry.” I sighed, shifting back into Rhannu’s form.

“Good. Now, let’s go find the quest reporter. See if they can point us in the right direction.” Geistig said aloud.

“That would be me.” A voice called from behind me, startling me into a jump. “Sorry, did I scare you?”

I averted my eyes and didn’t reply.

“Okay, I guess I must have imagined it.” The elf continued, trying to save me face “Thank you for coming on such short notice. These stupid sheep keep barging in and eating the crops. I tried scaring them off, but they just float off and come back the next day.”

“Goats, not sheep.” Geistig corrected.

“What?”

“IGAG has determined, based on your provided description, that the monsters are Caprae Nimbos. A goat-metamorphosed monster. They’re fluffy because they’re stormcloud aligned.”

“Okay, I guess. Not sure why that matters.”

“Every detail matters. If you hadn’t described their blue horns, IGAG might have misidentified their species. Had that happened, a less qualified team might have been called on to handle it. The leading cause of adventurer casualties is due to monster misidentification, so we appreciate having as accurate information as possible.”

The elf raised his hands in mock surrender. “Alright. No need to get mad about it.” The elf addressed Kaz “Is he always so up-tight?”

“Misinformation is one of his sore spots.” Kaz explained. “Could you tell us where you usually see them, or where they might have gone?”

“Oh, they just left a few hours ago. They usually fly off south. I'm not sure how far away they are now, but you're welcome to stay the night and catch them in the morning.”

“Thank you, but we'd prefer to at least attempt to search for them first. Should we not return within the day, please contact IGAG.” Kaz continued.

“Oh, don’t be so negative. I’m sure you’ll be fine. Say, why don’t you all stop by again when you’re done? My wife’s making her sweet-potato casserole tonight.”

“We’ll have to stop by anyways to inform you of the results, but that would be lovely. We'd also like to take you up on your offer to stay the night, if you don't mind. It’s best not to travel the roads at night.”

“Not at all! Stay for as long as you like.”

“Just a day is enough. Thank you, and see you again tonight.”

We turned to leave, and Geistig patted my shoulder. “See, that wasn’t too bad. Maybe next time you could try being a little less mute than Tishina.”

“You say that like she wasn’t talking to you in the mind-bridge the whole time.”

Geistig just sighed a sigh of a parent who had to deal with a hyperactive toddler all day.

---

We left the horses in the village and headed south. I scouted from above as our primary form of locating the Caprae Nimbos. Since this part of the Planes of Ostea was rather open, it didn’t take long to find the Caprae Nimbos.

It’s not difficult to understand why the villager thought these things were sheep. They had fluffy clouds around them, ranging from white to dark gray, that looked almost exactly like a sheep’s coat. The only parts of them that could have tipped the villager off of its pre-metamorphosis species are its blue horns, and gaining horns isn’t exactly an uncommon monster trait.

two of the Caprae Nimbos are larger than the others, especially the size of their cloud-coat. Those are likely the D ranks. The parents of the litter, perhaps. Thankfully, there doesn’t appear to be a third variety, or else Geistig would have called off the mission out of fear of a potential C rank fight.

Most of the Caprae Nimbos were grazing on the grass. A few of them were puffed up and lazily floating in the air like a cloud, watching out for predators most likely. One of the Caprae Nimbos was doing its goat ancestors proud, casually ignoring gravity by standing on the 90 degree incline of a tree and munching on its leaves. It’s not even floating, it’s just doing goat things.

“Alright Geistig, what’s the plan?”

“The villager said they had scared off the Caprae Nimbos a few times, so they’re likely going to run away when we try to engage. I’ll manage their aggro. Sylas, come on over and get into your Spiderilla form. Tishina and I will cast invisibility spells to get us close without scaring them off. Kaz, you’re on herding duty. If any of them get too far away from me, you fly ahead of them and buy time for me to bring them back in.”

I flew back towards the party and took a few minutes to shift into the Spiderilla, immediately suppressing its constant body enhancement. When I finished, Tishina and Geistig started casting their invisibility spells. Tishina’s invisibility spell was crude, basically causing us and our surroundings to become pitch-black. Geistig’s was a bit more nuanced, basically overlaying an image of the grassy plains we were on over Tishina’s spell. Interestingly, I could still see the others with Geistig’s invisibility spell up. If he were actually making light as part of the spell, that wouldn’t be so. A mental illusion, then.

When we got a few feet away from one of the herd, Geistig called on me to engage it, then broke the invisibility spell in favor of charging another stronger spell I hadn’t seen before.

The Caprae Nimbos shouted to alert the others, and they all inflated their cloud-coats and tried to fly away. Kaz focused on keeping the D ranks within the area, and Tishina ran towards the densest group of E ranks and unleashed her shadow-tentacles upon them. I produced a rope of spider-silk, and lassoed the goat directly in front of us with it.

It screamed, and began rapidly spinning its cloud around it. I sensed something building up in it through the string, and at the last moment, enhanced my body with the Spiderilla’s mana again.

I felt a searing shock run over and through me. It hurt and caused my muscles to tingle, but my body enhancement protected me from most of the pain and convulsions.

The Caprae Nimbos’s grey coat turned white, and I heard Geistig shout behind me “It’s no longer charged! Pull it down and finish it, quickly!”

I charged and condensed the Spiderilla’s force mana in my right hand, and yanked the Caprae Nimbos over to me with my left. When it got close, it expanded its cloud in my direction to block the blow. I let loose my right fist, and broke through the cloud barrier with barely any resistance. My punch continued on, impacting the Caprae Nimbos with a thunderous crack. The Caprae Nimbos pulverised on impact, blowing its innards out dozens of feet away in the direction of impact.

I dropped the rope and what was left of the goat, and scanned the area for my next target. Tishina was busy ripping apart her targets even more gruesomely than I had. There’s something deeply terrifying about the fact that her carnage is entirely silent. Even more, she was enjoying it. Enjoying the slaughter. The laughter…

The voice does not control me. The voice does not control me.

I took a deep breath, and averted my eyes. It’s best to avoid her right now, lest I succumb to the voice again. I’ll need to learn to fight side-by-side with her eventually, but not yet.

Kaz was flying through the air, herding the floaters like sheep. But they’re not sheep, they’re goats.

How stupid.

One of the D ranks charged in our direction.

“Sylas, hold it off. I need a few more seconds to finish the spell!” Geistig shouted.

I was almost out of mana from even that one short fight, so holding it off would be tricky. Damn it, this fight is going to cost me.

I phased my last remaining mana crystal out of my subspace, and pulled at it to replenish my mana.The Caprae Nimbos in front of me began spinning its cloud, making it grow darker and darker. It opened its mouth at the same time as I finished absorbing the crystal, and let loose a lightning bolt right at me. I enhanced myself again, and crossed my arms in front of me to block it. The force of this shock was on an entirely different level from the E rank one before, and passed through my body enhancements. I was thrown back several feet, and smashed into the ground. I shakily returned to my feet, but one of my spider-legs broke, and I was nearly drained of mana again from that one blow.

At that moment, Geistig finished his spell, and a wave of calming energy exploded out from him. The goats that were attacking or running mere moments before returned to their previous grazing and floating activities, completely uncaring of the fight that was just going on around them.

With that spell active, it was a trivial task to finish off the remaining Caprae Nimbos. They just stood there, letting it happen.

“I’d say ‘like lambs to the slaughter’, but the joke doesn’t work when they’re goats.” Geistig said, stroking his beard while looking for a decent pun to end the adventure on. He touched his hand to the gem on his forehead and pumped a little mana in. “Hey Sylas, you should take one of these Caprae Nimbos whole for a new form. Or don’t. Whatever floats your goat.” Geistig howled with laughter.

I blinked, my expression dumbfounded. “Geistig, did you just use the collective, the accumulation of all the knowledge of your entire species, to come up with a pun?”

“I did.” Geistig gave a smug grin.

“Then why in Vorfahr’s name were they so quick to get back to you, when actually useful information takes weeks?”

“Well, personal use of the collective isn’t as heavily regulated, and more Dwarves use it for non-work related purposes.”

“Your priorities are way out of whack.”

“Personally, I think we’re the ones with our priorities straight.”