The last Radiant Sprite was overwhelmed by a flurry of attacks and a hush fell across the clearing. it was only disturbed by quiet noises of pain from Rai, still burnt from the desperate counter-attacks of the Sprites and my own, laboured breath. I was feeling a little light-headed, the exertion of flooding the world with that much Astral Power nothing to be done lightly, even if it had been effective to overwhelm the sprites’ defences, allowing us to destroy them.

“We learned something,” I mentally told Lenore, making my way out of the shadows of the forest and onto the clearing itself. Just looking at the bodies, I continued to learn, even if this lesson was an annoying one, namely that the sprites weren’t studied casually, not even in death. Upon their death, their bodies had set themselves alight, burning with a fierce flame, radiating strong magic, to the point that I had a feeling their bodies themselves became the flame. Elf-immolation, if you will.

“Mostly that they are incredibly fragile, even worse than normal spellcasters. What did you call it, glass cannon?” Lenore asked, remembering one of the phrases I must have used in my mind at some point.

“But I don’t think we’ll be able to figure out anything with their bodies, look, there’s almost no Death in their systems, they simply burn away as the Fire in their soul gets unleashed,” she added, even leaving her Hallow to get a better look.

“It’s almost as if their bodies are merely shells that hold their spirits,” I muttered, looking at the strange sight through her eyes. There were implications there and things I had to consider, but for now, there were more important things.

Instead of focusing on the small bonfires that were the sprites, focusing on my companions, remembering that we no longer had the privilege of having two healers in the party, but that without Olivia, the responsibility rested on me alone. Rai had visibly taken a couple of wounds, while Sigmir looked completely fine, her aura somewhat frayed but her body uninjured.

“Let me see,” I ordered, stepping up to him, pushing him upright so I could actually see his wounds. He let out a hiss of pain and I was taken aback by the damage he had taken. The worst wound was on his shoulder, where an almost palm-sized patch was completely black and carbonised, making me swallow hard, realising just how dangerous those things had been.

“This has to go,” I muttered, noticing that there was already faint energy of Death spreading from the carbonised flesh, slowly poisoning the rest of his body. Letting out a soft curse, I drew out my Athame, calling Lenore back into her Hallow. A brief glance and a surge of Death-Magic made sure that the Athame was completely clean, before pushing Rai to the ground.

“What?” he asked, taken aback by my sudden actions.

“The flesh on your shoulder is dead and needs to go, or it’ll poison the rest of your body,” I told him, calling out to Adra, “Adra, help me, I might need your magic,” I told her, already considering what to do. She came over, her bow still ready, but her magic wasn’t really suitable to heal.

Maybe it was something in my voice, maybe he could feel the damage himself, but he didn’t try to argue but let me go to work. Lenore returned to her Hallow, and I briefly closed my eyes, shutting out all extraneous thoughts, completely focusing on the task at hand.

Filleting my disciple.

“Take his hand, you’ll need to give him company,” I told Adra, realising that he would either have to suffer the side-effect of my Mind Magic or the pain of getting his shoulder carved up. Hopefully, having Adra at his side would somewhat alleviate the effects of my Mind Magic.

She didn’t quite get what I meant, but dutifully took Rai’s hand, while I pushed his mind with mine, ready to smother at least some of the pain he was about to feel. I didn’t have any anaesthetics, so it was the best I could do.

With a resolute mind, I pushed my Athame into Rai’s shoulder, guided by my ability to see and feel the dead flesh. The carbonised flesh had to go, all of it, or infection and greater trouble would follow. With my actions, I could see Rai twitch and detect the signals fired from his body into his mind, telling him that something was wrong. The universal bodily signal for trouble, pain, the body telling the mind, ‘whatever it is you are doing, stop it, idiot,’ only in this case, stopping would mean a slow, agonising death in the future.

And so, I pushed against the signals, trying to blunt them as much as possible, even if it meant that Rai had to endure the curse of the Dark Moon that had become part of my Mind Magic.

I couldn’t allow myself to be distracted any further and focused on the dual task of cutting away the burned flesh while using Blood Magic to keep him from bleeding too badly from the wound I was creating. If not for the use of the Athame, made to focus my Blood Magic, it would have been incredibly difficult and even with it, I felt myself start to get a little wobbly. Other than the massive wound on his shoulder, where I had to cut away almost a centimetre of flesh, there were other wounds that needed to be treated and so I had to keep cutting, even as exhaustion had me in its grip.

“Adra, your hand,” I ordered, as I focused on yet another wound on Rai’s body. The moment she held it out to me, I pierced a wound into her palm, giving me access.

“Need some power,” I explained, not bothering to explain further. Instead, I placed my own hand over the wound, drawing some of her magic out and causing her to hiss in pain. Having Blood Magic used against you was never a pleasant sensation, even if she tried to help with the transfer of power as much as possible, it was a violation of her being. A necessary one, but a violation nonetheless.

I felt Sigmir step up behind me and some physical strength was flowing into me, some resilience. I recognised her Aura, transferring an echo of her power in an attempt to protect me, but it was more of an intimate gesture than practical use, her ability was to protect me from physical harm, not to give me strength when exhausted. But just her presence allowed me to push on.

Finally, as the last bit of blackened flesh fell away, I let myself lean into Sigmir, magically completely exhausted.

“I’m done,” I told them, feeling bone-weary. Looking at Rai and Adra, I could see that they were just as wiped as I, and even Sigmir looked a little tired.

“Love, can you gather some of those ashes? They might tell us something, or maybe not,” I asked her, trying to stand by myself.

“Certainly,” she promised, helping me stand and quickly moved to do as I had asked.

“We should get going, you alright, Rai?” I asked, getting a nod, though his pale face told something different.

“I collected samples from each of them, kept separately,” Sigmir said, after quickly gathering some of the ashes into small bags.

“Great,” I replied, a tired smile stealing across my face, “Let’s get going, I’ll keep an eye out from above,” I promised, pushing myself into my Hallow, relishing that I could use it again. Lenore took off, flying from tree to tree, not really trying to move away from the party, not staying too close. A convenient distance.

“What do you think about those Sprites?” I asked Lenore, now that we had a bit of time.

“They, too, have been infused,” Lenore muttered, sending me some of her memories and impressions of the fight. With her eyes, it was quite visible that the creatures hadn’t primarily run on Vitality, as a living being would but more as if they had been running on Astral Power. It made me wonder. What would happen if I managed to get my hands on them and use Blood Magic? Something to consider and maybe try out at some point.

I left most of the scouting and guarding to Lenore, as my mind slowly drifted away, the safety of my hallow luring me into sleep. Magic was hard work and contending with a group of Sprites even harder still.

Maybe just running away and ignoring the incredibly dangerous creatures would be the wise thing to do.