Etta woke up.
She half rose from the bunk bead she was laid upon, her body creaked and groaned in pain as she felt all the soreness accumulated unleashed. The night’s training did absolute (opposite of) wonders to her tiny body.
“Ughh..” She voiced her struggle, almost as silent as whisper, not having strength to do more.
“Good morning Pita, *rustle* I wonder why you look so ragged” She rubbed the sleeping fox besides her bed, hearing it purr in delight. The fox’s fur was seemingly quite messy, like a disastrous form of bed hair.
“*Tap* Ugh this hurts, I hate that green haired devil. Doesn’t he have a shred of mercy?” She took a step of her hard mattress, her body felt unsteady, barely able to even get out of the cocoon of blankets she made.
She adjusted her red scarf around her neck, then summoned a bit of water to fix her bed hair. Judging from her look in the mirror, she probably shouldn’t even think about walking faster than her usual speed. She looked to the upper portion the bunk bed.
“*Snore…* *rustle* *snore..*” The upper bed was occupied by a tiefling woman. She now shared a carriage with another person rather than enjoying a whole room to herself, her previous living space had been restuffed with supplies and merchandise. And since she *was* recovered from the injuries she got that day it was safe for them to transfer her to another space.
Thankfully, the president had the foresight to place her with another female. She could hear the carriage’s wheels spinning and bobbing as it was pulled. Unlike the merchants that would come to her old village wit horses, these carriages were pulled by more battle worthy beasts. This carriage specifically was using a giant lizard, the lizards were bred as beast of burden, completely trading their previous mana affinities with extreme strength and endurance.
She opened the window, looking out of it. Plains, plains, plains, and oh hey look some more plains! The boring moment lasted for too long. Enough to see the sunrise turn to a midday sun. The only thing she could see that contrasted with the plains were boulders, bushes, and the occasional tree. Oh and the rare plain animals that appeared once in a while.
“*Tchk* Plains, plains, and plains….. Isn’t there anything else here” Etta watched as the plains’ hills went by from the opened window, the tiefling was too preoccupied with sleeping to notice.
“CHEAK! CHEAK!” The sound of a big bird’s chirping resounded. Its source, a herd of Ostechs. The giant bipedal birds ran across the plains, their long legs churned the ground. The ruined grass turning into fertilizer for more grass.
Their black feathers gleamed in the sunray’s heat, their sharp claws grinded against the ground’s rocks as they searched for food. Thankfully, the birds were largely not a threat. Their nature as herbivores made them more docile than other large birds. But, they had no qualms defending themselves from any unwanted friends. That’s what the beaks and claws are for I suppose.
The only real danger they supposed to groups of travelers like them were…. If you were directly in the herd’s path. In that case you would be crushed, suffocated and turned into mushy cat food by the Ostechs. Which luckily troupe wasn’t in their way.
I wonder why they look like more menacing ostriches…. Oh well, that’s this world’s problem I suppose.
“HYA! HAHAHA!” “I’ll GET THEM FIRST” “CHICKEN IS FOR LUNCH BOYS!!!” “THE FAT ONES ARE MINE”
A cacophony of noise bellowed from the troupe. A horde of people leaped out of their still moving carriages towards the birds, hungry for their next meal. Ostech meat was wonderfully quite the source of deliciousness and protein.
Orcs, humans, oni, dwarves, and many more was included in the crowd of eager hunters. Both male and female started to hunt the big birds. At first it was a easy slaughter, but as the Ostechs started to get aware of the attack it all became harder to hunt.
The before tightly grouped birds split into smaller groups, in an instant they covered more than quadruple the ground they previously took. Each group of normal Ostechs were surrounding a bigger Ostech, one with a green colored feather streaking from its forehead.
The Ostechs tried to strike and scratch anybody who went near, mostly failing at doing any harm but achieved the purpose of pushing the attackers back. And those who were successfully hit were only left with wounds that would cause at worse a minor scar.
A particularly ripped man dashed through the herd, aiming for the alpha Ostech. He swung his old sword down, aiming for the place where its neck started so he could decapitate its head entirely. However the bird noticed the attack. Its green feather fluttered in the wind as it dodged, then it spit a glob of green acid at its offender.
The man blocked with his sword, the intersection where the acid hit was corroded. “*TANG*” The upper half of the rusty sword fell unto the ground, its loud sound unheard in the surrounding’s chaos. With the intact lower half of his sword he struck again, enhanced with water and wind magic. This time it struck true.
The big bird’s neck was cleanly decapitated, red blood with hints of green spewed from the stump that previously was its neck. Before the Ostech’s body could hit the ground the man grabbed it, dragging it away back to his carriage by leaping madly.
“MEAL CAUGHT!!” The man joyfully exclaimed.
Etta gawked at the scene, just before she was overwhelmed with boredom. Then, like a superhero to the rescue the herd of birds appeared, leading to the scene before her.
Any other normal child would be staying the hell away from it, but unfortunately Etta was a mentally unstable traumatized child with too much magic and skill for her own good. Of course she would be attracted to this slaughter, like the idiot she is.
Shut up, I’m the storyteller. I can insult her as much as I want.
Turns out, the normal healthy flow and its sinister cousin also had another relative. One that placed in between, she was in the middle of boredom and anxiety, hatred and fear. Both of the flows perfectly intersected. A merged flow, but instead of being inbred it was far superior.
Unconsciously, just like last time she summoned her axe. Her red scarf billowed in the wind as she joined with the leaping men and women. Her feet were guided by her wind magic. Her fire magic became propulsion devices to add more speed.
In their panic and the chaotic slaughter, the big birds didn’t have a set leader to guide them, only many lesser leaders. Just like the saying ‘Too many cooks spoil the broth’ the broth did indeed spoil. Instead of running in a straight path like before, the birds started to run in circles. Trapped in a cycle of non-escape by both themselves and their kin. But that just made the situation even more dangerous for all parties involved.
The rare injuries became increasingly often.
“*THUP*” She landed in the middle of the battlefield, surrounded by booms, chirps, and whistles made by the birds struggling against their hunters. Her eyes wandered for a prey, she had to be quick; the troupe’s transports were still moving. The troupe may leave her behind if she took to long.
Her eyes took fancy to an Ostech that stood out, unlike its kin’s majorly black feathers it was cursed with albino feathers. She could see that the other birds staying away from it, not caring to help it due to its uncanniness. ‘Huh, even birds have racism?’
The bird had mostly white feathers, however instead of just one green feather on its forehead, it had three long ones. It looked sickly and mutated, growths bulged out of its feathers, bald spots appeared everywhere in its body. A third misshaped leg grew from just below its neck.
The other hunters strayed away from it clearly recognizing the bird as a disease source, lest they eat it and create an outbreak the equivalent of the green plague. But the girl wasn’t looking for food, she was looking for a fight.
She rushed forward towards her opponent. The mutated Ostech realized her approach, after all in the empty field about fifty fathoms big there was only him and the tiny figure before him. Suddenly as if blessed by an eldritch being three more eyes opened around its body, eliminating (most of) his blind spots.
The bird vomited a stream of acid. The gallons worth of corroding liquid narrowly missed Etta, but it also covered a massive chunk of its surrounding in the green liquid. The ground steamed as the liquid slowly dissolved it and absorbed into it.
The brown hair took the chance and struck, yet its third leg easily blocked. She struck again, using magic this time to enhance her strikes. Again it stopped the fire enhanced attack. She swung her axe again and again and again, still every time with its enhanced eyesight it was able to block.
The bird enhanced its claw with acid magic, striking in retaliation with great vigor. She ducked under the strike, a few strands of her hair thrown into the air as they got cut and dissolved. She created an arrow of velvet flame and shot it forward; the bird responded with an acid ball of its own.
“*BOOM*” The blast created a fog of mist, still a bit corrosive; even after all the acid burned and vaporized away. The bird’s acid was so very potent, potent enough in fact that its mana mutated its owner’s body.
The bird threw a flurry of attacks at the girl, using only one of its three legs to stand and the others to contribute in its assault. Balls of potent acid flew by her, arcs of wind tried to touch her. She coordinated with her fox, using their numbers to spread out the attacks. Making it easier to dodge.
Every time an attack headed towards her she would slip away from her flow a bit. Every time she chucked a spell or swung her axe she would slip away from the flow a bit also. Her flow right now was superior to the other two flows, but had a massive flaw.
It relied on total balance of emotions, feelings, and thinking. She didn’t have enough of boredom and anxiety to enter the good flow, but didn’t have enough hatred and fear to enter that flow too. Just enough to enter this hybrid flow. Every time her anxiety, fear, or hatred spiked she would unbalance the scale, making her slip away from that flow.
“Ugh, come on Etta! Focus, FOCUS YOURSELF!” She yelled in frustration. She couldn’t force the flow to come, it was a natural process. Flow was a manifestation of true focus. And when she accidentally would un-focus she would be nearly hit by an attack or fail her strike.
The bird too was getting impatient, it threw even more acid at her, uncaring how much mana it used. Acid blades, acid bullets, acid walls, even acid whips were created by its. The moisture in the air hissed at the mere contact with its potent liquid.
Her magic neutralized the acid. Still, it was a hard task to even get close. She created wall after wall using fire and earth, with every time she blocked with her magic, she would get a step closer. But the rain of attacks would get that much thicker.
‘Surely it would be running out of mana by now. It’s been using magic like crazy.’ She created an earth wall to stand behind, this time instead of prioritizing size she made sure it was durable. She didn’t need a big wall to get closer anymore, she was close enough.
‘If I can’t focus, then I’ll just do it unfocused’ She just had to wait for the assault to stop, even for a dozen seconds. She focused her fire mana to the soles of her feet; the moment this rain stops she would attack. One flurry to end it all.
The little one prepared her mana, to be malleable to her needs. Her wall was already mostly dissolved, but she still waited. Patiently she waited. Her blood boiling as her grip on the axe became tighter, then she heard it. The rain of acid became just a bit thinner, but enough to attack.
She manifested the mana beneath her feet in a loud explosion of heat and fire. Dashing through the now destroyed wall of her own creation. She threw a bullet of water and fire at her foe, but not to harm him; the bullet impacted with another ball of acid. Creating a mist screen of very weak acid. Added to the already existing mist, her form was completely covered and hidden from the bird’s sight.
The bird lashed out at its surroundings, trying to blow away the fog and hit his enemy. The bird saw a mass of shadow coming to him from above, just as big as the girl. It struck the mass and cut it in half, but instead of spraying blood it sprayed dirt and mud on him. Accidentally getting into two of its five eyes, “KREAAH” it shrieked in pain of boiling mud inside his eyes.
Its eyes the spotted another mass of shadows, in the vague shape of a blade. The mass headed straight for the base of her neck. It blocked the axe with its third leg, getting a massive cut in return. The blade was held by another mass of shadows, so it struck its wielder aiming for the center of the mass. “SHPALSH” but it struck nothing but a big glob of water.
The real one appeared. Instead of aiming for a quick execution, she aimed to kill its ability to move. Two of its leg was being used in to block and retaliate. Only one leg to support its entire weight, vulnerable to be attacked. She knew it had no blind or vulnerable spots, so she had to make one.
A ball of earth filled with boiling mud to create a blind spot, and throwing her axe with a water substitute holding it to remove any chance for it to retaliate. It was a big gamble for sure, but it had paid off big time.
Using a blade made of smoldering magma she swung with her entire weight and momentum behind her. “KHG! SHIING” In a single arc the blade dismembered the limb, instantly cauterizing the wound. Magma sprayed everywhere.
With nothing to support its weight it descended in pain. She clapped her hands together, sending a cone of explosion towards the mass above her. The Ostech’s body flew upwards, it flailed wildly trying to regained what little control it could get.
Etta created spikes of compressed earth, they spiraled upwards. Then she created two giant masses of fire besides the spikes. By the time her constructs were fully formed she was out of the bird’s fall path. Its body was weakened by the attacks he suffered and the potent acid that resided in its body.
The bird impacted the spikes, most of them piercing his body. As the Ostech looked more like a porcupine by the half seconds she slammed the two masses of flame on its body. The bird looked like a charred porcupine more than a big bird by now.
Apita covered by the mist changed her body to his bigger form. He wrenched out the mutated bird’s beast core killing the suffering beast. Then returned to his small form.
Etta stared at the fox’s form, (she didn’t see his big form) the Canidae was prancing towards her happily with a green orb in between its jaws. Her mana was spent, her body screamed in pain. ‘Going into battle was a bad idea. My body hurts so much!’
She didn’t wait for her body to heal from last night’s training soreness. And now her rashness had added to her body’s pain. ‘Why, why did I not actually think first!’
“EVERYBODY GET BACK TO THE CARRIAGES!!!!” A large voice screamed out. The source was the troupe’s president Miss Aria. Her blue hair billowing in the wind as her upper body poked out her transport’s window.
“I SWEAR IM GOING TO GIVE YOU ALL OF THE LESSON OF A LIFETIME DURING THE NEXT STOP!!!!” She was clearly in distress, her troupe had jumped out of their still moving vehicles just for some extra grub.
But she had a point. The brown haired girl could see that their transport was getting farther from them. If they were too slow they would be left behind. The other member’s of the hunt started to run back to the carriages. Her body was hurting to much to use her full speed.
She looked towards her spirit beast, guess he will just have to be her ride there. To the fox’s absolute dismay his owner leaped onto his back and commanded him to bring them back. Well at least he will get to eat the delicious looking beast core.
Sadly the girl didn’t get any edible meat. Hopefully the other people would share the meat.
