Relatively Flawless Victory

Of course, as mostly a bunch of kids, our travel times were a few hours off in the wrong direction and it took until late in the afternoon to reach the river. After Gryn scaled an enormous pine using his daggers and magic, we learned that we were about ten miles off from our original estimates. If we took it leisurely, that was roughly a day's travel.

If not for the fact that Gryn had refused to give a proper schedule for our trip, I would have worried that we would be late in some way. However, we also learned that we really were not the only people to be visiting the gorge. Gryn had counted five different sets of campfire smokes in and around the gorge.

Because these were already only a few groups and probably small ones like ours, they were all relatively in the gorge or around the waterfall's quarry.

There were several more falls from the runoff in different directions and the main valley leading into the gorge had several as well. While one camp was said to be in the mouth of the stone portion of valley, none of the other camps were within the main valley. This meant we could claim one of the lesser falls for ourselves.

Even if the main fall and run-off had the highest concentrations and likelihood of magical phenomena, a knowledgeable mage would be more than satisfied with just one of the falls from this place.

My goal now was to gather stardust and experiment with wisps, but because of the rich waters of the river itself it was not unlikely that we would make a few encounters along the way. It stood to reason that anything once inhabiting the gorge would have been driven off by the presence of people. There was also no way better to find their way home than to stick to the waterways.

The river itself was overgrown in some places with large beds of reeds along the banks, causing us to detour around now and then. With my psychic-like mind magic senses, I could detect more than just mundane critters or plants among the reeds. However, getting to it even with magic would have been too time consuming in most cases.

Luckily, though, there were a few useful encounters that I could factor into my plan. A two-legged serpentine water reptile known as a basilisk in this world had made its home in a clear section of river between areas of reeds. To me, these were basically small gators crossed with frogs because they were amphibious more than reptilian, but they had long legs, long sinuous bodies, and a long mouth full of teeth.

Gryn practiced his control of magic claiming this kill, using the water and condensed turbulence to constrict and suffocate the critter for over five minutes of struggle. His affinities lied more in wind and supportive magics, so I was actually pretty proud of his success. As well, the meat, skin, and overall waste were perfect for my experiments.

Because people were camping up in the main gorge, it was unlikely we would see many if any of our prey. If these were other beasts and game animals, we could bait and track to get what we wanted, but how did you bait something made of energy? You cannot.

However, you can possibly spawn them.

Along the way I would suddenly dash off-course and into the forestry or even into the river in search of some magical trace. Mostly it was simply me going to collect some magical plant or fungus around the trees, sometimes it was because of some species of fish, insect, or even a rock naturally imbued with mana. Any of these things would help in my experiments.

With a lack of magical creatures within easy reach, I was forced to make due with non-magical substitutes on a few occasions. Mostly a handful of squirrels only worth a handful of experience points apiece, but- under my guidance- Hilda managed to bag another basilisk from the shallows and Carth even climbed a tree in pursuit of a some giant shiny beetle.

This lucky guy had chanced upon enough enriched food to variate into a spiky carapace wearing tank about the size of a chihuahua. Sadly, he was everything I could dream of and was bagged alive.

By the end of the day spent following the river, we had probably gained a few miles less than intended, but everybody was glad for the experience and the promise of a future bounty.

The meat of these kills were only good to us and our families if they even wanted it, the furs were being collected for the group to make future equipment, and even Gryn only knew a little bit about herbology. So, to make money for their future goal of being a mercenary group, these kids relied heavily on trophies like basilisk skin, spooled arnid webbing, and stardust to fund themselves.

Even though I planned on using at least today's skins in my experiment, there was sure to be more found tomorrow that the others could make money off of. There would also be plenty of spare herbs that I would not need to use but would be of value to the others. Albeit, they would have to go and collect those themselves.

By the time we made camp on our second day following the river, we could already see the rise of the land through the forestry that spread out form around the river. We were technically entering the main valley, but after another mile real earthen walls rose up a few hundred yards off to either side of the stream. A few miles after that, the landscape converted into mountains stone exposed by the valley's erosion leading up to the main falls.

It was from this gorge region and the transition area that the lesser falls stemmed from still active tributaries.

Today had been lucky enough that we came across a few venomous snakes and a basilisk nest. The nest had housed tree adult females and the nest was a crocodilian muck of waste and peat containing over twenty eggs. Like reptiles from Earth, the eggs could not be moved around without potentially killing the young inside so we were forced to mark this area on our map to report later.

Gryn said the information could be sold to a magic shop he knows who could sell the basilisks as familiars. I had no problem with this since I did not personally intend to keep a familiar I had to tend to.

From the nest itself, though, grew a plethora of fungal life. Most of them were toxic in some manner while a few portabella-like edible mushrooms grew among the mix, but all of them went into my bag of experimental goods.

This bag was a plastic-like woven and sealed sack containing literally everything I was going to use in my experiments relatively mashed together. If my assumptions were correct, I could use a makeshift ritual of cross-affinity magics to stimulate or simulate the gathering of natural magic energies. With this, I might spawn wisps.

With luck, I might spawn wisp variants.

Whether due to the passage of previous persons having taken care of those in previous areas or just chance, we never encountered anything that actively sought out magic until the end of our second night following the river. Of course, a few hours after making camp, for first aggressive beasts I would ever encounter were giant spiders.

Unlike the usual cases where drones supposedly traveled in small groups of three or four, it seemed like the curve in the river where we made camp was a designated rendezvous r the spiders. Gryn and Carth, who were in charge of first watch, awoke us all by identifying the intruders in shouts and calling numbers to each other.

There were ten arnids overall and three of them had already entered the camp to attack the pair. I, as the most magical person, was situation in the middle of camp while Gryn and Carth had been on opposing banks of the river. The girls and Eman were situated between the water and I while I was closest to the fire.

Beside the fire, the arnids were less apt to come rushing at me, but they had no problems slipping in around the sides behind Carth and Gryn. Even though I was the first person on their feet from the wake up calls, I did not even have to move to defend myself because Hilda and Eman had already moved to head the arnids off.

Layla actually came to me and stood with her back to mine and an arrow drawn on her bowstring while aiming over the fire. The reactions and dedication to their roles even at their young ages were almost inspiring, but they were somewhat wasted. With a snap of my fingers I produced a magically enriched sound that was fanned out in both audible and inaudible frequencies.

The infrasonic noise spread out in a fluttering manner like the beating of gossamer wings, triggering instinctive fear and paralysis in the spiders as their minds recognized the signs of a preying giant wasp.

The fact that this worked was both a relief and a fright. Not only did I stun the arnids with the sound of a predatory insect, but there actually existed predatory insects big enough to scare an English bulldog sized spider.

Once all of them sat still within the reach of my consciousness for more than a second, they were all held tightly within my grasp and further pinned in place. Without insult or injury- to any of us- the arnids were almost leisurely dispatched by crossbow darts and arrows as if they were target dummies.

Despite the relatively Flawless Victory in which we all gained a great deal of stored experience, the arrival of so many predators took away just enough of our sense of security that nobody went back to sleep. Instead, we boiled up spider legs like crab legs, gathered up the core organs like hearts and brains, stockpiled venom, and even put together a stack of whole arnid backs which were said to make cheap armor.

If I transmuted the stack together into a solid plate, it could make a shield strong enough to fend off blunt or bladed blows from my own hands, but the individual carapaces would need some serious treatments to be of any value.

Since nobody could sleep, once the light of dawn started creeping into the sky, we abandoned camp and continued on our way into the valley. Once the proper valley walls started rising up, we left the riverside to climb the forming ridge from which we could more easily transition to a lesser fall.

Even though last night was a bit of an anti-climactic fight scene, I was more than ready to see what trouble I could create this night.

*