Untapped ~ Chapter Sixteen!

“Seriously, just focus on walking as quickly as you’re able to do.” Joe murmured in what he hoped was a reassuring tone as Boris flinched away from yet another soft rustle in the underbrush. “I feel like after that absolute bloodbath of rabbits, you'd feel safer around me.”

“Was that supposed to be my takeaway?” Boris snorted as he stepped sprightly, at least for him, his walking stick coming down and tapping in time with his right foot. “Every animal in the area that can possibly come after me is doing so, all because my traveling companion is far too strong for the area. This is the system trying to balance the quest by sending all of them. But I should feel secure, because he can slaughter them en masse with a smile on his face! Yes, I'm feeling very comfortable in your presence right now.” 

Joe could only chuckle softly, practically whistling as they creeped along the road through what had become a well-tended section of the woods after the Wolfmen had been forced to flee deep into the Forest of Chlorophyll Chaos. “I don't mean to be so cheerful about it all, it's just… I guess it's kind of nice to see the results of all my effort? I've been constantly pushing forward, going up against stronger and stronger enemies. Sometimes it's hard to see exactly how far I've actually come. It’s just that I remember how much trouble even these rabbits used to give me, and now I can just-”

He tossed out his intelligence-bound Ritual Orb, and it spun in place like a drill before shooting out with pinpoint accuracy; bursting through the canopy to nail a slithering snake to the trunk of the tree it was winding along. “Not exactly sporting, I suppose, but still pretty neat. I was worried when I came here that being capped would mean I was a lot weaker than I had been, and for good reason after fighting that Battle Scholar.” 

“He was sent down from Alfenheim to make sure you couldn’t casually come back to your old haunts.” Boris stated shortly, shivering as Joe lifted a hand and casually drew in the air using Somatic Ritual Casting—allowing him to save his pre-made ritual diagrams now that he was more familiar with them—only for a series of sharpened wind blades to whistle out and cut a trio of rabbits into skewer-sized meat chunks. “He's facing the same restrictions you are, but, as you noticed, is far more aligned with combat studies. Err… a question for you, is battle against these petty nuisances at all helpful for you?”

“Mhmm,” Joe glanced to the side, looking at his quickly piling up notifications. “I gain no experience from monsters this weak, but I'm certainly feeling more confident in using these. I gain a point of specialization experience since I'm using Novice rituals, all but a drop in the bucket. Mainly it's just a way for me to sharpen my skills, and complete a quest I have. Still, it's working out well, as most of my other combat abilities are a little… shall we say much for this area.”

He waved vaguely at his body, which was still flickering behind a slight distortion, though the turbulent mana had at least calmed down somewhat over the last hours. Joe was glad to see that the effect was fading instead of remaining at full strength the entire time only to click off like a switch was thrown at the twelve-hour mark.

“Foxes!” 

Boris barked as he shoved a finger to the left of Joe, pointing just out of his line of sight. Although the Scholar was worried, the Ritualist had long since been able to find the red and orange varmints that had been trying to sneak up on them. Activating yet another Ritual of Elemental Burst, Joe watched in satisfaction as the grass and leaves were shredded by the sharp wind, and the ground was watered with a splash of fresh crimson liquid. The creatures had more health than what a single burst from a Novice ritual could deal, but were in no state to dodge away as the mana gripped the air once more and sent it toward them as softly whistling death.

“Like I said, Boris. I've got this. Looks like I should start preparing the next round of rituals for when we run into wolves.” The bald man began muttering to himself as he pulled out individual tiles, uncorking a vial of elixir and flipping it over to press the opening against the center triangle of the ritual diagram, where it stuck as though held fast by glue.

It took very little of his mental focus to use his Mana Manipulation and hold the elixir in place, suctioning the air out to make sure none was wasted while keeping it firmly connected to the input space. One after another, he pulled tiles out and applied the elixir, preparing a dozen before he decided to hold off in favor of seeing how well they held up in combat. 

The seemingly endless swarms of rabbits finally vanished entirely, only to be replaced by far fewer foxes, though they were a far more wiley foe. Instead of rushing headlong at the humans, they tried to hide, ambush, or take advantage of a moment of distraction to rush in.

Unfortunately for them, Joe may as well have been an optimized fox-felling machine. By the time they reached the wolves’ territory, he was starting to feel bad for how hard the small creatures had tried to chomp into the Scholar, only to fail every last time.

So, it was with great relief that he looked at a dense wall of wolves staring at him through the gloom of the early evening; hundreds of eyes reflecting the last photons of daylight able to filter through the now-thickened canopy above. Joe was more than ready for a change of pace, for enemies that would last longer than a breath’s worth of time in a fight.

Pulling out his tiles, he allowed the elixir he had prepared to drain into the grooves his inscription tool had cut into the diagram. The goopy Novice-ranked liquid touched the lines, hissing and rippling as it was sucked eagerly into the pattern like dry dirt drinking in water. The basic circle pulsed, and a tenth of the fluid in the vial vanished—but the lines began glowing brighter, the elemental symbols lit up like the final coals in a dying fire. 

Instinctively tracing the ritual diagram with a thin line of mana, Joe smoothed out the imbalance between the different energies, allowing them to fuse into a cohesive whole. Then, with a flick of his wrist, he tossed the ritual forward like a frisbee, another appearing in his hand as he repeated the process twice, three times in as many seconds.

Shards of stone, nearly invisible in the fading light, erupted from the tiles each second. Instead of the unidirectional cone-burst which would continue on until the rituals burned themselves out, this time the rituals tracked what was around them, launching stone, or in one case, super-compressed water at the nearest, hottest body. The rituals perfectly tracked the creatures as they moved, scoring deep lines into the creatures’ flanks, breaking bones, or sending deep, painful lines of penetrating water through entire torsos. 

Joe's hand flicked out, catching a chunk of rock just before it would have slammed into Boris. “Note to self, throw those ones farther. No way for me to whitelist the two of us with such a basic version of this spell.”

“You don't need to make a note of that, I'll make sure to remind you.” Boris hoarsely whispered as the ranks of wolves were devastated by the half-dozen rituals Joe had tossed into their midst already. “I believe we've moved into a new territory, and I was going to request that you find a suitable sleeping location, but… if it's all the same to you, I think I'd rather prefer we push on through the night.”

“Probably for the best.” Joe agreed as he started dropping tiles along the edge of the road on either side of them. “Don't get too close to these, I can keep them suppressed until we’re far enough to not set them off… but it's probably best not to test that.”

“You're just going to leave them on the road behind us? What if there's other travelers-?” Boris flinched once more as a sharp yelp came from behind them, glancing over his shoulder and trying to see what had been struck. “Never mind. I suppose anyone traveling this road probably has enough wherewithal to run away from a repetitive magical emplacement.”

“Boris, these things really want you.” Joe casually mentioned as the wolves that were flanking them shifted directions and lunged from three different directions, as if coordinating their assault. “I get that you're a squishy old guy, but why does it feel like you're wearing a necklace made out of fragrant meat?”

“I'd rather not speculate at the moment, but perhaps you should have spent your formative months on Midgard completing each type of basic quest.” The elderly man snapped at him, clearly taking his fear out on his bald traveling companion. “Just… stay focused and keep them off of me!”

Joe shrugged and began laying out a staggered line of rituals along the road, each of them with a small elixir balanced on their flat surface. “Probably for the best. I don't know when they're going to shift into their big, bad, nasty version now that night is falling.” 

“That's not happening anymore. Whatever magical effect was twisting creatures during the night time failed long ago, hopefully because whoever was maintaining the spell was slain.” At Boris's words, the Ritualist perked up, remembering the strange altar from long ago he had barely understood well enough to make a single, dangerous change.

“Fantastic!” Even with the potentially deadly situation happening all around him, Boris maintained the same slow, consistent speed he had been walking with that entire time. While it was somewhat frustrating, it also gave Joe plenty of time to move up the path, set enhanced rituals off to the side of the road, then rush back to pick up the ones that hadn't been used. Soon he was sprinting back and forth, grabbing non-triggered tiles before Omnivaulting over Boris to get ahead of him and reset them along the path.

“Are you having fun?” Boris inquired with extreme exasperation as Joe did a flip directly above his head.

“Just staving off both boredom and wolves in one fell swoop, buddy.” Joe deadpanned as he used a Ritual Orb to smack down a wolf that had managed to evade the Elemental Bursts. “If we need to complete this mission this way, I may as well push myself to do it in style. There's something about protecting a slow-moving VIP with a handcrafted minefield that is just… it feels good, you know?”

“No. I. Do. Not.” The Scholar grumbled, though he lapsed into silence as he got more comfortable with the constant metronome of *boom, thwapp, yelp* that seemed to be on repeat. For the next few hours, Boris continued walking along in silence, merely glancing at the glowing circles Joe formed in midair, or carefully edging past a tile that had been innocuously set up alongside the road.

Eventually, the wolves were left behind. Just as the elderly man started to let out a sigh of relief, a bear reared up over him; standing on his hind legs as it lifted a paw to swat him like a fly. He stumbled backward, falling on his rear just as Joe leapt over him, swinging a fist directly into the bear's snout. The creature went flying, rolling half a dozen times as it bounced along the ground, before woozily starting to get back on its feet.

Joe let it do so, fully focused on collecting the scattered droplets of blood that had sprayed from its nose with a strand of mana , then directing them into the prepared ritual. “Good thing I saved some of these. Bah, too bad I ran out of extra elixirs at sundown.”

“You ran out?” Boris’ words cut off as the tile in Joe’s hands glowed with a dull, brownish-orange light. 

As the blood was collected in the third triangle on the ritual circle, it sank in and anchored the spell to the already wounded bear. Though the creature likely couldn't feel it through the concussion it almost definitely had, the stone beneath its feet shivered for a fraction of a second before erupting into a single, sharp spire of stone which dug into its chest; impaling it and lifting the beast ever-so-slightly off its front paws.

“No travel time, though it seems to have still used the element that is most prevalent around me as the basis for its effect.” Joe noted off-handedly, easily keeping track of the creature as it slapped its paws into the stone sticking out of it, shattering it and taking only a single step before yet another spike erupted from the ground and impaled it, this time pinning its leg in place. Eight more spikes appeared and slammed home, though the bear had gone still by the fifth. “Looks like one ritual at a time won't be enough to finish these big boys off. I guess I'll have to put in a bit more direct damage.” 

“That was quite gruesome, Joe." Boris stated as he came alongside the bald Ritualist. “Yet, I find myself surprised there was only one bear after all the swarms and packs I've seen you slap down over the last few hours. Certainly, there are fewer predators of that nature, but—ah, that explains it.”

Their gazes had snapped to a sudden bright spot in the darkness, where a new creature had appeared: a rabbit the size of a coyote was staring at them, baring its oversized buck teeth as it let out a low *hiss* of anger. Its eyes were glowing with light, not merely reflecting it as wolves did. A heartbeat later, the creature was bounding toward them, easily twice as fast as the quickest canine they’d needed to deal with that day.

Deciding against playing around, Joe sprinted forward to meet it, grasping his Strength-bound Ritual Orb, which was shaped like a small dumbbell and therefore offered a perfect handhold, and *cracked* it into the side of the creature's head. 

Damage dealt: 345. Oh-Oh-Overkill! 

“Well, that was new. The question is, is it a new monster for everyone, or just because of the quest?” Joe picked up the creature by the scruff of its neck, turning around and shaking the corpse at Boris as if its appearance was his fault. “What is this, and why is it in the bear section of the woods?” 

“Am I supposed to know everything that's been going on while you've been gone?” Boris huffed haughtily as Joe rolled his eyes. “Fine, I won't pretend to be ignorant. Even as a sad hobo living on the street, I never stopped paying attention to the goings-on. This can be attributed to a power vacuum created after the Wolfman were pushed out of this area. Midgard did its best to balance by allowing other monster types to fill in the void. Stronger ones. More intelligent, and certainly more potent. Now there are regularly monsters about which can use magic, whereas before you would only run into that type once you were far afield, greatly distant from Ardania.”

“There's the Scholar I’ve been missing. Tell me, Boris, before I came along, when's the last time you were able to use ‘whereas’ in a sentence without getting a blank stare in return?” Joe’s quip fell flat as Boris raised an eyebrow, subtly reminding both of them how the Ritualist had been instrumental in his lack of recent intellectual conversation.

“Well, I suppose there’s nothing to do but keep going.” Joe awkwardly shrugged as he stored the creature away for further study at a later date. “Are you getting hungry? I think it's time to break into the travel bars, and I want to see if this creature has a core in it.”