Vanessa and Laura were now moving outside their cave. After the whole mind memory transference thing, Vanessa and Laura began to pack what little items they deemed necessary to carry. Which was not a lot, to begin with.

Vanessa decided it was best to try to make the journey on foot. Vanessa, however, did not make this decision randomly. Laura was the only person who knows at least the general location of her home and flying is not reliable for multiple reasons. Both because landmarks are harder to spot in the air and because flying from what little Vanessa performed is exhausting over long distances.

So because of this, they decided to prepare some essentials. Vanessa with her new minor godlike powers was able to create some important items although it was quite exhausting and there were a couple of failures. However, thanks to her Regeneration Ability, Vanessa was able to regenerate her stamina as well as her fatigue in a reasonable amount of time.

The things Vanessa created were the essentials: a canteen, some spare pieces of clothing, a sleeping bag, as well as a knife and a hatchet. The canteen, clothing, and sleeping bag were self-explanatory. The hatchet and the knife, however, were not created to be used as weapons but as a form of traversing the underbrush if needed.

Anything beyond that, however, was beyond Vanessa's powers. In her mind, she was able to see the creation of more advanced materials and products quite easily. But there seemed to be some sort of wall between her and doing so. It didn't take long for Vanessa to realize that this was the limit to her power at this point or until she became a full-fledged god.

'Something to worry about later I guess.' Vanessa thought.

Vanessa and Laura began to traverse the forest, Vanessa on the lookout for any monsters that ignore the emotional aura that she emitted, and Laura looking for recognizable landmarks. This constant vigilance continued for a couple of hours before they had their first encounter.

As Vanessa and Laura were moving through a relatively open path next to a small lake, they both heard a low snarl.

"Hey did you hear that?" asked Laura, who had been broken from her almost trance-like stupor of looking for recognizable landmarks.

Vanessa only nodded thinking it better not to make any unnecessary noise for two reasons. The first, because whatever they just heard was somehow not affected by her emotional aura ability. And two, because the sound although menacing in nature, almost seemed to be filled with ... pain?

Vanessa used telepathy to connect with Laura's mind.

'The sound seemed to have come from the river bank. You stay here I'll go check it out.' thought Vanessa.

'Why do I have to stay here?' questioned Laura who seemed saddened that Vanessa wanted her to stay behind.

'It's not because I think you can't handle yourself.' responded Vanessa with no hesitation in her thoughts.

'It's just that whatever made that sounded like it was in pain, and it might feel even more threatened by our presence if we both move toward it.' explained Vanessa.

Laura still looked apprehensive at Vanessa's reasoning but nodded at her explanation.

'Alright, just be careful okay?' thought Laura.

'I will don't worry I'll be back after I check out what is over there.' replied Vanessa in a reassuring tone.

Vanessa gave Laura a quick kiss before moving away from her and toward the lake bank, enshrouding herself in her battle armor as she did so.

As Vanessa began to near the riverbank she began to notice something odd about the lake. It was completely and utterly still, almost as if everything that lives within the lake was holding their breath for what will happen next. The lake itself seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary, at least from Vanessa's perspective that is.

As Vanessa began to approach the lake bank, she began to notice what seemed to be remnants of a battle. Near the edge of the water, there were multiple pools of different colored blood suspended on the ground and partially in the water.

Now Vanessa was no doctor but she was pretty sure whatever spilled this much blood either had one hell of a regeneration ability or had a lot of blood to spare in the first place. This at least seemed to be the case for the red blood that was almost solely on the ground. The other blood that was blue in color and almost entirely suspended in the water, however, seemed to be less frequent. But considering the red blood trail didn't lead to a body, Vanessa was able to surmise some of the possible scenarios.

'Either the lake creature tried to attack a large forest creature or the other way around. Whatever happened, it seemed they both put up one hell of a fight, to say the least.' were Vanessa's thoughts on the matter.

'It seems the land creature was able to escape the lake creature before hauling ass away from here. The lake creature though is probably still here, it doesn't seem to be able to leave the water to an extent and it seems to have been injured in the battle.' concluded Vanessa.

All of a sudden, Vanessa heard a particularly loud hiss, that seemed to originate from the lake bed a meter or two from her relative location.

Vanessa turned toward the noise and what she saw surprised her a great deal. Laying front down on the shore of the lake was a woman. And not just any woman, this one had oily black hair and pointy ears. Not to mention the fishtail.

"Well that's surprising I thought mermaids were only supposed to reside in saltwater, not freshwater lakes," responded Vanessa aloud.

The mermaid seemingly understanding Vanessa's monologue seemed to become even more panicked and began to snarl even louder and more menacingly.

This, however, didn't perturb Vanessa in the slightest, because as she was staring at the striking face of the creature, looking directly in its eyes, deep down Vanessa saw her pain ... and fear.

So Vanessa decided to take a risk. Slowly she approached the mermaid, making sure to take her time to allow the creature to adjust as well as letting a piece of her armor recede with each step she took. This show of lack of aggression and trust seemed to calm the mermaid down slightly.

This continued until finally Vanessa was completely unarmored and standing only a couple of feet away from the mermaid, close enough to see the extent of the mermaid's injuries.

The mermaid had long gashes across her tail leading all the way to her tail fin which seemed to have been brutally mauled, almost looking as if it had been chewed on, leaving only half of the fin to remain.

Vanessa moved her inspection to the face of the mermaid showing no hostility in her expression whatsoever. The mermaid seeing, the mysterious woman turn her vibrant green gaze back to her face looked almost relieved upon noticing that she wasn't hostile and sighed with relief.

Vanessa, noticing the mermaid's guard being completely removed, decided to just ask what she wanted to and see if she understands.

"Do you understand me?" asked Vanessa startling the mermaid slightly she heard her voice.

The mermaid seemed to hesitate slightly upon hearing the question. Vanessa was almost about to consider using telepathy to communicate before the mermaid seemed to come to a conclusion before finally nodding to Vanessa's question.

"Ok, that's good. Are you able to speak?" asked Vanessa hoping to get a conversation going,

The mermaid stared deeply into Vanessa's eyes for what seemed to be a long time before answering.

"Yes, I can speak." replied the mermaid in a smooth and almost musical voice.

Vanessa, relieved she will be able to get a conversation going, decided to go ahead and get the difficult conversation over with.

"Why are you injured so heavily?" asked Vanessa, hoping not to anger or sadden the mermaid in some way.

"I-I was laying on the shore with a couple of my siblings who wanted to lay on the shore and sunbathe for a little while and warm our bodies to combat the morning cold. B-But then all of a sudden a monster came charging out of the underbrush, I told my siblings to dive and to get our parents while I distracted it. I was hoping to swim away and not fight a drawn-out battle but on one of its attacks, it flipped me out of the water and onto the bank stunning me. It then proceeded to attack my tail directly knowing if it damaged it enough I would be unable to escape it."

"How did you fight it off?" asked Vanessa.

"I didn't, all of a sudden a powerful aura surrounded the area and the creature seemed to have become docile. It stopped attacking and just left me injured on the ground. I was able to crawl back into the water from there and then I waited for my family to arrive. That is until that mysterious aura began to get closer to my location." stated the mermaid staring pointedly at Vanessa.

Vanessa looked slightly embarrassed at the mermaids scrutinizing gaze.

"Yeah, that's one of my abilities. Whatever emotion I choose to project in an aura has varying effects. Most of them are unpleasant to produce or be affected by so I choose to emit the one that has a calming effect on aggressive creatures." explained Vanessa in a calming voice.

The mermaid seemed slightly worried upon hearing this. Vanessa being as perceptive as she was decided to negate those worries.

"Don't worry the effects can be turned off, and all of the emotions I could project only affect those with hostile intentions toward me, well accept murderous and lust that is," explained Vanessa in a reassuring voice, as well as removing the aura to further show her trust.

Upon hearing this and feeling the aura receding back into the woman, the mermaid relaxed slightly. Relieved that her mind was not being tampered with or affected in any way.

"Thank you, if that's the case then I and you have nothing to fear. Because of your interference, I am alive right now, and not in the stomach of a monster." replied the mermaid.

"Although thanks to my injuries I might never be able to swim again you have saved me as well as my family a lot of suffering. Would it seem rude for me to ask the name of my mysterious savior?" asked the mermaid in an almost embarrassed tone.

"My name is Vanessa Blight, what is yours?" she replied hoping to get an answer so she won't have to continue to title her as 'the mermaid' in her thoughts.

"Serin, my name is Serin" replied the mermaid now dubbed as Serin.

"Serin what do you mean you won't be able to swim again?" asked Vanessa in a concerned voice.

Serin looked surprised upon hearing this.

"You don't know?" asked Serin in a surprised voice.

"Know what?" asked Vanessa.

"Sirens are unable to be affected by certain magic types. when we are born we are all resistant to at least one type of magic some of us on rare occasion are immune to nearly all forms of magic."

At seeing Vanessa's confused face at the information, Serin gave a knowing nod and explained further.

"You see that is one of the reasons us sirens are hunted by adventurers and why I feared you so much when you arrived, I thought you were going to kill me in my injured state for my tail," replied Serin,

"I would never do that, and besides I'm not really from around here or this world to be more specific. So I have no idea about that kind of stuff," replied Vanessa.

"Ahh that makes sense you seem to be nothing like the Night Gaunts from the stories I have been told," stated Serin.

"You don't seem so surprised by the statement that I'm from another dimension," asked Vanessa.

"Well you see a lot of times whenever a hero, demon lord, or spirit is summoned they are frequently from another world or plane of existence so your explanation is not that surprising," answered Serin.

"Anyways, back to my earlier explanation, there is a drawback to that effect we carry, however. And that is that there is one magic that all sirens are immune to, which is all forms of recovery or healing magic." finished Serin.

Vanessa seemed to understand the situation then.

"So your own natural ability makes you unable to heal injuries. Which is why it doesn't affect the adventurers that hunt you because if they are ever injured they can just remove whatever they made your tail into so they can heal." finished Vanessa.

"Yeah, I believe the best analogy for it is a turtle whose shell is so heavy it can't move. Our own protection can literally lead to our deaths," replied Serin in a saddened voice.

Vanessa thought about the situation a bit. She was confused about Serin's explanation. Is it literally impossible to heal her wounds? But what if the action wasn't considered healing in the first place and what if magic wasn't used as a medium to heal the wound.

This train of thought abruptly leads to Vanessa coming up with a risky course of action. but even though it was risky Vanessa decided it was worth it if it allowed Serin to swim once again.

"Sooo I guess I'll just ask since it seems it might be a while before your family arrives."

Serin looked slightly confused at hearing Vanessa.

"Well, the lake is small but its actually extremely deep and has an underground cave system so its not surprising that they are taking a while. And what is it that you want to ask me?" replied Serin.

"Do you want me to heal your damaged fin?"