17 Deer

The king of wolves left as if he was part of the snow, disappearing into a white mist. After a bit of hesitation, I climbed down the tree and got back into the hole my body was resting in. It was hard to get back to sleep, but it soon came naturally.

...

Waking up I felt my hair had hardened considerably, it was not comfortable. After climbing the tree, my mind cast the fire spell.

If I didn't make that wooden stake I would probably already be dead, but it really does lack effectiveness. I was too reliant on Alyx's spell, I really needed some other spell I can rely on.

My thoughts drifted and suddenly came to how the tunnel spell was created. It consisted of one fundamental earth spell, however, it had many other functions that were unexamined. Thinking about it, there had to be a section that had to cause the dirt to part ways...

What if I combined Alyx's spell and the latter part of the tunnel spell?

With that, came the test, but I was unsure of how to connect them. First, my mind imitated the connection the tunnel spell originally had with the earth spell. In the process of casting, while forming Alyx's spell was fine, when my mind started to try to combine it with the tunnel spell there was backlash.

The mana around me disappeared and my stomach was in much more pain than normal casts. I coughed up some blood and slowly regained my bearings. My mind was unable to draw mana in for a few seconds. The mana returned but instead of casting the fire spell, my decision was to gamble it all on a different configuration.

My decision was to connect the core to the latter half of the tunnel spell. In the end, it was quite difficult to achieve but the spell was prepared. There was no guarantee about the effects, however. Warming myself with the fire spell my mind was about to prepare the tunnel spell.

Unfortunately, an eagle was attracted.

I guess I should be more careful whenever there is blood around.

My feet were in position to jump off the tree. The eagle ended up charging me, I decided this was a better time than ever to try out the spell.

There was a sudden shock and loss of consciousness.

My eyes opened and they were greeted by a splitting headache, The eagle was dead. Its wings were not attached to its body and were at their original size. At the same time, the eagle itself shrunk and lost the light in its eyes.

My mind forced itself to cast the fire spell even when with the strain in my head. My hands quickly went to cooking.

The meal was unpleasant. There was little hunger right now, thus my tongue was forced to experience the taste for what it was, rather than being blinded by hunger. It was very hard to tear the meat but that was the least of my worries.

I tried to cook some of the meat on the wings, but it started to smell really bad so my hand pulled away and my legs broke out into a sprint.

While running the fire spell out, I decided to prepare Alyx's spell rather than the null tunnel-like spell I cast. The experience of casting it was still haunting me, it seems if spells are not properly optimized the backlash is greatly increased.

Fighting now would be really bad, so I hoped that my luck was good enough to not run into anything.

It seemed I should not have depended on my luck.

To my dismay, there was an animal that looked similar to a deer. What made it scary was that it had white antlers that were both big and sharp. The fur itself was blue and was able to navigate the trees deftly, despite having huge antlers.

My mind had not yet prepared Alyx's spell, it was too hard to focus while running. In the back of my mind, there was a hope that it was not hostile, but that was hard to believe when it was charging right at me.

My only chance was completing Alyx's spell, but there was no time.

Unless...

My coat was in terrible condition, mostly torn apart. However, it was ripped into shreds now.

My skin started to tear apart.

Mana was wildly gathering around me, sending snow in all directions. The pain made my thoughts blurry, the only thing in my mind was to cast the spell.

The deer had lowered its head, antlers facing me. The deer was only a few meters away and charging. With my last strands of consciousness, I was able to cast the spell.

Wait... didn't this happen before, with the eagle? I died right after that...

Oh well, I lost consciousness anyway.

...

The floor was cold and my eyes had a hard time seeing. To top it all off I was really hungry.

While my feet were trying to get up from the ground, something nudged me. It was quite the fright, my shoulders jumped and my eyes peeked over.

My eyes quickly adjusted to the light, it was the deer from earlier. The deer was close by.

"Awake... Now..."

The deer spoke, the voice was quiet and delicate. My eyes took a better look at my surroundings. It was a vast cave, and it had many deer inside. Sun was coming from a huge hole in the ceiling and the ground had lots of grass, which was being eaten by all the deer inside.

Those deer looked normal and were not strangely large. My head turned back to face the blue deer.

"What... is happening?"

The blue deer looked down. After a few seconds, it looked back up at me.

"Snow... Bad... Lose... Mind... You... Help... My... Mind..."

I nodded.

I guess Alyx's spell was called something null, it seemed to cancel magic in an area temporarily. That is why it was kinda weird that the animals were so heavily affected by the spell.

Unless they were affected by magic in some way.

Feeling hungry, my first instinct was to go back to the forest to find something.

"How do I get back to the forest?"

The blue deer shook its head.

"Too... Dangerous... Now... Eat... This..."

There was a cabbage on the floor that the blue deer was rolling to me with its snout. The cabbage was blue and gave off a faint natural light. My hand gingerly picked it up and my mouth bit down.

It felt similar to the sensation of eating snow, except it was warm. My hunger was abated and my unknowingly tense muscles relaxed.

"Thanks."

The blue deer nodded.

"Sleep... Long... You... Treat... Body... Bad... Especially... Here..."

The blue deer touched my stomach, where my wound was. To my surprise, there was no pain. My eyes looked down to see that there was only a faint pink marking left. I was surprised.

"Did you do this?"

The blue deer nodded again.

"Want... Learn?"

I immediately nodded. The blue deer looked away from me.

"Watch... Closely..."

The blue deer started to cast a spell very slowly. Watching closely, my mind imitated the spell from one step behind. At first, it wasn't too bad, but the spell became more and more complex. If the deer did not slow down further my mind would have been unable to follow.

Straining my eyes, I followed the spell. The spell was slowly becoming the shape of a rose, when the rose was about to be completed my mind stopped moving the mana and held the spell.

"Thank you for teaching me, but why can't I go outside?"

The blue deer seemed afraid.

"Demons... Many... Demons..."

The way that the blue deer said that sent a chill down my spine. But...

"I have to go, I can't stay here."

The blue deer looked sad and wouldn't look at me. After a long silence, it gazed at me.

"Follow... Me..."

The blue deer led me through the grass field. Many of the deer were curious and nuzzled my arm with their snouts. The deer seemed innocent, looking at me with no fear.

I was eventually taken to a wall. Right before my question of why we were here was voiced out, the blue deer started to cast a spell.

The deer did it very quickly, my mind could not remember the process even if my life depended on it. The wall we came to started to shimmer and become translucent. The wall started to ripple as if it was made of water. The blue deer gave me one last look before walking back.

"Be... Careful..."

My body went through the translucent wall. My consciousness blurred and I felt something wrap tight around me. Then it was just me out in the cold, standing on the side of a mountain.

The sun hung high in the sky. My eyes surveyed the area and were barely able to make out a lake through the foliage. Considering that every other direction had snow and trees, it piqued my curiosity and I headed towards it.

Upon reaching the lake my foot stopped a distance away, leaving me under a tree near the lake. The lake spanned at least fifty meters. What made me confused was that the lake consisted mostly of water, yet there was only ice at the edges. The sound of the rushing water was loud.

Hearing a screech in the sky my back stuck closer to the tree, peeking past the leaves my eyes found an eagle flying in the sky. The ground started to tremble.

A giant black fish emerged from the lake. It had a large set of teeth and yellow eyes.

The fish sent water everywhere, some of which landed on me, colder than it had any right to be. The eagle in the sky got snatched by the fish. It struggled desperately but there was nothing it could do but get taken into the depths with the fish.

I started to back away and made a mental note.

Don't get close to the lake.