BT - Book 1 - Chapter 59 (Patreon)

Micah dove, pushing the maneuverability of the flight enchantment inscribed in the gold and electrum necklace pressed tight around his neck.  It burned hot, struggling to accommodate the mana keeping him aloft.

A cliff eagle soared past his head, its claws barely missing the back of Micah’s neck, wind buffeting him to the side from its passage.  He rolled in the air, a flick of pressure from his mind spurring the motion as he thrust upward with his spear.  

The head of the spear pushed through the iron hard feathers, drawing a spray of blood as he reflexively triggered the weapon’s sonic attachment.  With a squawk its wings missed a beat, causing it to drop out of his reach before it righted itself.

Micah didn’t hesitate, slapping a pair of air knives into its plummeting form.  The spells didn’t do all that much.  They knocked a couple of feathers off its expansive wings and drew a flash of sparks.  

He grimaced, trying to ignore the smell of searing flesh wafting up from his neck as he swooped after it.  The tier one spell might not be enough to do serious damage to the high level monster, but given his levels in the spell it barely cost any mana.  At a minimum, it would help to keep the creature off balance.

The eagle glanced up at him before banking to the side, effortlessly taking advantage of the wind currents and eliciting a string of mumbled curses from Micah as he tried to catch up.  Even with the help of the enchantment, the air fought him every inch of the way as he sped after the giant bird while it slipped through the wind resistance like it wasn’t there.

Gritting his teeth against the mana he was about to burn, Micah began mouthing the words to poison fog.  The rest of his wood magic was functionally useless in the sky.  Unless the cliff eagle was foolish enough to swoop low over the treeline, there was nothing for him to invest mana into.

As for his air attacks?  Air knife clearly didn’t pack enough force, sonic bolt dispersed too quickly, and pressure spear used up too much mana in one attack that could easily miss the erratically weaving bird.  His spear could kill the creature if he could force it to sit still for a second, and hopefully a lungful of miasma would slow it down long enough for him to strike.

With a rush of air, the bird curved around and barreled at Micah.  Only a necklace powered swerve and a pair of spear thrusts kept him from its razor tipped claws.  Then, it was past him and the spell finished.

Instantly a fog bank of roiling greenish smoke sprang into being directly in front of the twisting eagle.  He winced as the necklace burned clear through his skin.  With a strange sense of painful clarity, he could feel the searing metal settle into his collarbone. 

It was going to take more than a simple augmented mending to remove the metal from his bones.  A lot of pain and a knife were in his near future.

Flight was too powerful for such a cheap trinket.  He’d created the necklace on a whim once the panther had scented the great birds, but this was certainly a learning experience.  Next time he would treat and prepare his enchanting medium before finalizing the runes.  It might triple the time it took him to finish creating the accessory, but at least he’d be able to use it for an entire encounter without his mana overloading it.

The eagle knifed through the fog, exiting the bank of poisonous mist barely three seconds after it entered.  Micah dove after it, ignoring the warning rattle from the necklace as the heat began to melt and erode the precision of the runes carved into it.

Only one of its wings flapped, the other hung limply at its side, paralyzed.  The bird spun, distress flashing in its eyes as Micah caught up with it, slamming his spear between its ribs.  It squawked, its eyes unseeing as it tried to fight off the effects of the fog.

Micah didn’t give it a chance.  Mana flowed into his spear, activating its enchantment.  It whirred in his hand as he pulled it sideways, opening up the eagle like its iron hard feathers were made of rice paper.  

Blood gushed out of the animal in a fountain just as his necklace stuttered.  The forces that let him defy gravity wobbled and for a brief second, Micah could feel the emptiness of freefall in his gut.

Then order restored itself, but just to be careful he followed the falling bird to the ground.  Even if he could probably catch himself with updraft in the case of a fall, it was better not to risk it. 

The bird hit the rocks below with enough force to flatten its body.  If it wasn’t dead from the poison and grievous wound Micah had inflicted on it, the fall certainly had finished the job.  He wobbled once or twice as he landed, his necklace’s half molten runes struggling to keep him aloft.

As soon as his feet were on solid earth, Micah gripped the necklace, ignoring the sudden shooting pain in his hand and ripped it from his body.  He bit his lower lip as the action ripped open his recently cauterized wounds.  Blood flowed freely from his chest as he threw the necklace into the forest.  Blinking heavily, he tried to move past the pain.

The searing heat had killed most of his nerves earlier in the battle, and with his high body attribute, he’d just ignored the damage while periodically casting mending to keep his hit points at a reasonable level.

He stumbled slightly as the stag and panther came back, the pony sized cat happily dragging the corpse of another cliff eagle.  

“By the Sixteen’s righteous anger,” he hissed, tears welling in his eyes as he drew a belt knife.  Even without using his magic, he could feel the beads of metal from the necklace lodged in his flesh and bone.

The panther cheerfully dropped the cliff eagle body at his feet as Micah closed his eyes.  The fingers form his left hand traced over his neck, finding the small deposits of metal while the knife held in his right removed them.  A painful and bloody minute later, he opened his eyes to the panther cocking its head at him.

Augmented healing washed over Micah, closing the wound and restoring his hp.  His breathing returned to normal as a large furry head thudded into his side.

Smiling, he scratched the panther behind its ears only for the wet nose of the stag to press against the side of his neck.

“Sorry buddy,” Micah chuckled, “Didn’t mean to ignore you there.”

“The two of you work well together,” he nodded at the dead eagle.  “I know that I helped by using plant weave to snag the low flying one and keep it where you could handle it, but they aren’t exactly easy combatants.  It’s impressive that the two of you managed to take one down.”

“Plus,” Micah shifted his hand to scratch the panther under the chin.  “Without your nose we wouldn’t have even been able to track them to their roost.  They both would have just flown away leaving us camping in the forest like a bunch of jackasses. 

The buck snorted, rubbing the side of its snout against his cheek.

“Of course I remembered you,” Micah patted the stag’s neck.  “You’re the older sibling and you have to take care of her.  Even if she could find prey, she’d probably get overly excited and spring too soon without you.  Both of you did a good job today.”

The panther purred contentedly, eager to please, as the deer lowered its head slightly.  He chuckled, even if the stag was a bit stand-offish until it evolved into Telivern, it wouldn’t take him showering the giant cat with affection without demanding a pat or two of its own.

“Well,” he spoke after a solid thirty seconds of petting his companions.  “I don’t know how close the two of you are to evolving, but I leveled up in the middle of that fight.”

Neither of them responded as he pulled up his status sheet.

Age 14 [ERROR] / 28

Class/Level Divine Candidate 13

XP 300/19000

HP 554/680

Attributes 

Body 17, Agility 16, Mind 35, Spirit 34

Attunement

Moon 27  Sun 2  Night 18

Mana

Moon 525/717 Sun 667/667  Night  699/699

Affinities

Time 10

Wood 6

Tier I - Refresh 11, Mending 9, Plant Weave 11

Tier II - Augmented Mending 15, Root Spears 12

Tier III - Heal 8, Paralytic Sting 4

Air 5

Tier I - Gale 8, Air Knife 17, Air Supply 4
Tier II - Wind Shield 7, Sonic Bolt 12

Tier III - Updraft 3, Pressure Spear 8

Blessings

Mythic Blessing of Mursa - Blessed Return, Ageless Folio

Skills

Anatomy  7

Arcana   11

Enchanting  18

Fishing   1
Herbalism  5

Librarian  5

Ritual Magic  25

Spear   17

-Wind Spear 10

Spellcasting  31

The gods weren’t screwing around with this class.  Micah exhaled, shaking his head slightly as his eyes flitted over the stat sheet.  Already his physical attributes were comparable to a fairly high rarity melee class, all while his spellcasting eclipsed the already unfair numbers he’d accrued as a thaumaturge.

In the past months, he might not have raided as many dungeons as he had in his previous life, but the panther's nose had come through.  None of the rare and dangerous creatures of the forest and nearby mountains could properly hide from him, and the three of them, four when Trevor showed up on weekends, gained experience fairly quickly.  Of course, they didn’t gain many dungeon rewards for clearing bosses, but few of those ‘treasures’ could compare to what Micah could already make on his own.

Really, only the Caverns of Rust interested him, and he wasn’t terribly keen on venturing into its depths without at least a pair of brensen.  That meant capturing the grove and enacting rituals.  Both to summon daemons and to begin approving his disappointingly mediocre affinities.

Finally, they were powerful enough to make a serious try for the grove.  Between the animals, Trevor, and him, Micah was pretty sure they had enough people to pin the dryads down.  They were fast and could phase through wood, but they would be going into the battle with their eyes open.  Without their tricks, the giggling little monsters were a difficult but infinitely surmountable task.

“Wait,” Micah’s eyes grew wide.  “Fourteen.  Shit.”

The stag snorted bemusedly, mirth flickering in its eyes at some sort of private joke.

He began running back toward the cave and its teleportation formation.  He hated using the ritual.  The disorientation and physical side effects were unpleasant to say the least.  That said, they were the least of his concerns.  

Theoretically the ritual sheathed his physical form in energy before transferring him through Elsewhere.  Allegedly, there was no risk, but he’d had enough experience with Elsewhere to know that discretion was the right choice.  Just because he could use the mists as a shortcut, it didn’t mean he should.

His feet beat a steady tattoo as he pushed his magically enhanced body to its limits while passing through the narrow forest paths with the swiftness of a striking hawk.  Today was his godsdamned birthday, and even if all of the monsters of the wilderness couldn’t bring him down, his Mother sure as hells would if he managed to miss dinner with his family.