Chapter Twenty Two

Elysia dashed forward, violet lightning sparking off her body. Sparks landed Thuax and Thauzo as she passed, causing them to freeze momentarily, allowing her to sneak past them and through the thin jungle.

Her feet dug furrows in the soft dirt as she skidded to a halt just before the drop off. Trepidation set in as she peered over the edge to find a hundred meter drop to the valley below.

How would she stop her teammate? Her lightning worked, but only temporary. What was the cause? Was it the shapes she kept seeing? She didn’t have time to search for the source. If she didn’t do anything right now, her teammates would fall to their deaths.

Just as the trio broke through the jungle into the small clearing before the drop off, an idea sparked to buy herself some time.

She burst forward, reaching Thauzo, electric strand at the ready. Her hand pressed to his face, the only exposed part of his body before she delivered her payload. As quick as her attack, she pulled her hand away and drilled her gaze into his confused eyes. “Run as fast as you can down the path.”

Thauzo’s eyes snapped into focus, shooting to his siblings to find them mindlessly walking toward a cliff. However, a second later, lucidity dulled, forcing Elysia to administer another shock. This time, Thauzo took off down the path, believing Elysia would do the same to his siblings.

Like Thauzo, Elysia administered a shock to each of her teammates. Thuax nearly took her head off, but stopped his sword just before her neck. Fortunately, after a second shock, he followed Thauzo. Thres was the easiest. The moment she regained clarity, she shot after her siblings without Elysia’s prompting.

Unfortunately, only a dozen meters down the path, Elysia found her teammates marching back to the cliff. With a sigh, she administered her shocks to each of them to send them on their way.

With each cycle, her shock kept them lucid longer. Because of built up resistance or weaker compulsion, she didn’t know. She didn’t stop until they were near their starting point. By then her shocks lasted several minutes at a time.

At the original clearing, she found Ione sitting with a buffed chest before several rainbow colored birds. Instead of praising her bond, her hands shot to her hips as she stared down at the kitten. “Where were you?”

Images flashed through her mind all from the low perspective of Ione. She watched Elysia’s team from the forest behind several rainbow colored birds no bigger than a duck. Next, she pounced on one of them, killing it with a single bite to its neck before it could react. Pride radiated through this image, only to turn into disappointment as the other birds took flight. Frustration was the primary emotion of the next image of all the nearby birds high in trees.

The following images all seemed to be similar. One kill followed by the nearby birds hiding in trees. Ione seemed to move on to the next area for her next prey on a circular route around Elysia’s team. While Elysia herded her teammates away from the cliff, Ione transported her catches back to their current location only eating a couple of her half a dozen hoard.

When the images stopped, Elysia bent down and gave Ione a few head scratches, resulting in a purr. Fortunately, Ione was immune like her. It made sense since she incubated her with her lightning. She hasn’t shown any lightning, though. A dual barrage of lightning would be devastating.

Would she make a better scout than Thuax? She found the birds when no one else could and even hunted a few. Though she couldn’t help clear the jungle like Thuax. Still, it might be worth trying out. Ione loved to wander off on her own inside dungeons, anyway. She may as well put her to work while she hunted.

Were the birds the source of the compulsion? If it was, why didn’t Ione disrupt it with her hunting? Maybe there was too many.

Elysia glanced at her teammates were standing stiffly nearby in shock from their near death but they look unaffected by compulsion. Since they were in no shape to continue for now, Elysia returned her attention to Ione. “Can you hunt any birds nearby? My teammates need some time to recover.”

Ione chirped as a few images flashed through their bond, showing there wasn’t any prey nearby.

Maybe the birds avoided this area? Her teammates weren’t affected until a couple hundred meters away. From Ione’s images, there were at least a hundred birds, if not more, so it didn’t make sense that none of them were nearby. They stayed away from her, so maybe they naturally avoided their prey until they reached their goal. The goal was probably sending everyone off a cliff, then maybe eating them. The birds appeared physically weak, so it made sense they would use magic to hunt.

How was this dungeon possible to clear without someone immune like her? She supposed someone like Thrazk might have a shot, too. Something told her even when he was her level he would survive that fall. If only she was that durable. She really wasn’t suited for solo delving, but she survived anyway. Though if Ione helped her with scouting, she could position herself better. Positioning wouldn’t have helped her in the last dungeon.

That dungeon was almost a hard counter to her. No way for her to hide and pick them off one at a time, and they were too durable and strong for her to take them all on at once. However, this dungeon was perfectly suited for her. If she didn’t have to look after her teammates, Ione and her could probably hunt these birds down easily. It didn’t matter if the birds hid in trees with her lightning. Ione could lure them out, then she would strike them down.

Lightbulbs went off at those thoughts. It was risky, but maybe that was the only way to clear this dungeon. As long as they stayed here, they should be safe. At least, she hoped. She couldn’t keep them lucid and fight the birds. She had to pick one and Ione didn’t appear capable of killing all the birds off. A few ambushes, sure, but eventually the birds would stay in the trees.

Ione could probably climb trees, but she bet the birds would just fly to another tree before she reached them. It was never a good idea to melee birds or any flying creature. If only Ione could use lightning like her. It was worth asking, at least.

“Ione, can you use lightning like me?”

Annoyance radiated through their bond as images of her sitting on Umbra conjuring lightning. The lightning sputtered within seconds of leaving her body, almost like Elysia’s attempts to use lightning without skills.

Elysia sent encouragement through their bond while giving her more head scratches.

She didn’t want Ione to risk herself that way, anyway. So, the only way to clear this dungeon was leaving her team here and hunt with Ione. She doubted it would take them long, but what if in retaliation birds snuck here and sent her team to their deaths? This would be so much easier if she didn’t have a team to babysit.

Could she have Ione stay back and alert her if they act funny? No, she needed Ione to find the birds. The only option was to leave her team alone and finish the dungeon as fast as she could. If killing the birds was the key to beating the dungeon. So far, every dungeon she had been in required killing to beat it, and the birds appeared to be the only enemy. Besides, the way they surrounded her team when they were under the compulsion seemed too suspicious.

Decision made, she turned to her teammates, still huddled together, clearly in shock. “I think the birds are the source of the compulsion. The problem in order to kill them, I need to leave you all here. Ione my bond can find them and I should be able to kill them.”

She braced herself for an argument but was only met with three pairs of thankful eyes. They almost appeared relieved they didn’t have to go back out there, and she didn’t blame them. In their shoes, she would probably be a mess. They were holding together much better than most. The ultimate violation would be losing control of one’s body.

Fortunately, her lightning made her immune, but she doubted she was immune to all influences. She had to be careful in the future in case something bypassed her lightning’s defenses. She had to get strong enough that no one could take advantage of her and she could protect those important to her. The time for relying on laws was over.

She knew those who had power were the ones that made laws to favor them like the Elemental Council. The little she heard about them didn’t give her much hope they would be reasonable. Just the fact they were hunting Sereia earned them death. No matter their reasons, hurting her twin was a sin she could not ignore.

Her teammates fell into formation as if their previously dazed state had never happened. Thres had her back against the invisible barrier with Thauzo and Thuax in front of her as they scanned for any threats, despite knowing if the birds showed up they would stand no chance. Still, the effort grounded them, knowing if they fell, they did all they could to protect themselves.

Elysia gave them a nod in respect before entering the trail they traveled before. Instead of following Elysia, Ione snuck off into the dense jungle. If Elysia wasn’t watching her, she wouldn’t have seen the silent kitten stalking away.

She followed the path for several minutes before images entered her mind from Ione. Ione had one bird in her mouth while four more hovered around her while chirping loudly. A prod of their bond directed her to the right. As quietly as she could, which wasn’t very quiet, she wove through the jungle, reaching Ione’s location within a minute. By the time she reached her bond, the hovering birds were nowhere to be seen, but a point of Ione’s snout directed her gaze upward to a tall tree.

Anger flared through her as she glared up at the duck sized humming bird-like creatures perched on a branch staring down their beaks at them. On instinct she raise her hand toward the birds then used Chain lightning. The first time she used the skill. Unfortunately, the humid air caused her lightning to veer off to the right, allowing the birds to fly to another branch while chirping mockingly.

A flash back to Neah Bay sparked an idea.

Refusing to be beaten, Elysia unsheathed a throwing knife, then launched it at the tree trunk. Again, the birds chirped at her, thinking she missed them, but that was far from the truth. The razor-sharp knife embedded itself into the soft bark less than a meter from the birds, who didn’t even bother moving, thinking they were safe.

A malicious smile formed as she raised her hand once more. Chain lightning channeled from her core into her hand, lighting her ring. As the lightning shot from her hand with a crack, the birds remained still, seeing the lightning was going to miss them.

As they predicted, the lightning hit the knife, causing the knife to dislodge itself from the tree. However, a moment later, the lightning jumped to the closest bird, frying it in an instant. The other three birds launched off the tree, chirping in panic, but the lightning jumped to the second bird before they could escape, then the next before reaching the last bird. All of them fell to the ground around the tree, lifeless.