Shadow Motes and Water Foxes

"Are you really going to follow me everywhere?" I asked Adalgard.

"Like I said, I've never had a connection this strong before. I don't want to miss the moment that you're needed." She said.

"What if you have it backwards? What if I'm not tied to you but you're tied to me?" I asked.

"While that's not likely since you don't follow the Court, even if it is, I would need to stay near you to help you correct? Besides, you aren't saying anything to them." Adalgard indicated Lariss and Thelora.

The four of us were on our way to the Flask and Anvil. We wanted to get supplies for our quest and the festival. While I personally wanted to use the shadow element heart I just got to create some motes. I was only really annoyed with her presence since she nearly followed me into the restroom at the Union. I understood our connection pretty well, but there needed to be boundaries.

When we arrived at the shop many items were hastily being boxed up. Vegaror was barking orders at the staff about what to take and how everything needed to be packed.

"Are you changing locations?" I asked.

"As I'm sure you are aware, the Festival of the Gylltaine Stag will be starting. If we don't get there quickly, we won't get a good spot. Uhtric is busy packing what tools he can while I handle already made products. We'll try to help you with what we can but try not to get in our way." Vegaror said.

"Long time no see." Adalgard bonded forward and gave him a hug. His face contorted as he tried to push her away.

"Yes, it is always a pleasure Adalgard." He replied.

"I was hoping to use the library to create some motes." I said.

"That shouldn't be a problem. I'll grab some books out of there before you start." He said.

"I was also hoping you'd have even just a drop of Mana Liquid that I could buy. My catalyst has a chance of producing two motes." I said. As a mage himself, he would understand how important that is.

"That might be a little more difficult. We get a lot of custom orders during festivals like this so we need every drop." He said.

"Could you just spare a drop for Wilmaer? If he has more motes he'll be able to protect me better on quests." Lariss said.

His expression immediately softened. "I guess we can spare a drop or two. But it will be 100 gold each. And that's with a discount."

It was my turn to contort my face. I didn't even have enough for one drop.

"Don't worry, since the Elder Watchers think you're important to me, I'll cover you." Adalgard pulled out 200 gold to pay for the Mana Liquid.

"Oh, it's one of those situations. I'm tempted to give you another discount out of pity. But only tempted." He took her gold and led us to the back.

Adalgard repeated her greeting hug with Uhtric who responded by pulling her up and swinging her around. The rest stayed upstairs to shop and even help pack while Vegaror and I headed to the library.

"Now after this I won't let you use our space for at least three months. You're about to create your fourth and possible fifth mote in a few months. With a Silver Core you're running the risk of mana degradation if you keep up at this pace." Vegaror said after he helped prepare the room for me.

He had a valid concern that I wasn't thinking too much about. Creating motes puts strain on your core. While creating them too close together risked damaging the motes, creating too many within a short space of time, even spaced out as I was doing, risked damaging your core.

After he left I got down to business and could feel a slight strain on my core this time around. He was right to be worried. There wasn't going to be any risk of harm this time around but if I didn't wait, there would be a decent risk.

Another thing I noticed this time around was a different type of strain. I could feel my spirit trying to react as I pulled the mana into my body. Cedric warned that it would be difficult to strengthen both. I made sure to not open my spiritual sense since I had no idea what that might do.

When I was finished I was overjoyed to have created two shadow motes and even had a little left over to add to my mana core. I now had four air, three earth and shadow, two psychic and lightning, and one fire and water motes.

My auras were all in the Intermediate stage. My basic aura was the closest to breaking through to the Expert stage, followed by my Osgar Lineage, then my Lydos Lineage. Due to how Lineages interact with each other it should take my Lydos aura longer to reach the next stage.

At that time I felt a little dizzy and nauseous as the pain in my spirit didn't subside. It took several minutes until I was able to stand up and leave the room. I had to wonder if I was going to be able to train in spiritual magic and arcane magic at the same time if this was the reaction when I only just had the ability to sense spiritual ripples, let alone manipulate them.

The next morning we all gathered at the Union hall and set out for our quest. It took six days to reach the village of Hillshore. The closer we got to the village and less straight the roads became. They had to curve to go around numerous lakes and access good spots to cross rivers.

The vatnr foxes had been upending fishing boats and dragging livestock into the lakes and rivers to drown them. This wasn't out of the ordinary for the area but the rate was nearly ten times as high than in the past. Very few people were being directly harmed but the area's food sources were being affected.

Just as Lariss said, these monsters were hard to track. Even when we did catch sight of them, they were quick to run and dive into the nearest body of water where they were nearly impossible to see. Unlike normal foxes, they hunted in groups and our ranged attacks might be able to pick one of them off at a time. It was going to take awhile at this rate to bring the population down to manageable levels. Whatever Borhildr thought, this wasn't an easy quest and I thought it might take us until the end of the entire festival to kill them.

"We need to set some sort of trap for them." Kay said. "What is it that they want?"

"They're not people so I doubt we'll fully understand what they want. But it's obvious what they want; to eat, sleep, and mate, like all animals." I was getting really annoyed at Kay since for three days he's kept saying we need to set a trap but wanted to leave it to us to figure out.

"That sounds like a self reflection. Let me know if you need help with any of those." Thelora said.

"Come on, let's focus on the task at hand." Lariss was starting to switch back and forth with how she handled Thelora flirting with me. One day she would join in the flirtatious teasing and the next she'd try to redirect away from it immediately. I think she felt her place was even more threatened with how much Adalgard followed me around.

Speaking of Adalgard, she was always silent during these strategy sessions.

"My guess is there's a trick we're missing. Isn't that right B ranked adventurer?" I said.

She gave me a smile. "I was wondering when you were going to ask me for my help. But I don't want to give it. I'm very curious on how you plan to take care of this quest."

"Oh come on, we'll miss all the best parts of the festival if we have to stay here much longer." Sundri complained. I had come to find out his favorite parts were the farmers, brewers, and cooking competitions, since they involved food and drink. But they took place within the first week of the festival.

"Don't worry, I don't plan to let us miss the festival. If you can't figure something out in the next few days, I'll let you know how to deal with vatnr monsters. Unless this is what the Elder Watchers want." She said.

"How do you know that these Elder Watchers even care that much about us? Maybe you could just make your own decision." I asked, knowing that those in the Court I saw before my birth in this world didn't seem to be paying attention to what went on in this world. I was also curious about her religion.

"Well, there's three schools of thought on that. One states that the Elder Watchers are aware of everything and guide us to a higher purpose. The second states that they watch but only for their entertainment, whether we make the world a better place or not doesn't matter to them, they just like to watch the struggle. Lastly there are those that believe they set in motion the world and don't bother to pay attention. I lean more towards the first." She said.

"Well whatever way it is, we need to come up with a plan." I said.

"If only there was a way to just get rid of all this water." Sundri said.

"It's not about getting rid of the water but using it to our advantage." I had come to this conclusion after using my psychic motes to monitor Adalgard emotions as we threw out ideas. She thought it was funny that we'd try to get rid of the water. Adding that to her saying she'd tell us how to deal with all monsters with the water element, not specifically these foxes, I figured it was about making their strength our advantage.

I talked it over with Sundri and the two of us altered his Fireball spell. It took a day before we were able to find some more vatnr foxes. After we chased them to the water, Sundri launched a massive Compressed Fireball where they dived in. The explosion sent a concussive force through the water as well as heating the area to the point that steam started to come off the surface.

The monsters surfaced in confusion where Lariss, Thelora and Sundri picked them off with ranged attacks. Adalgard also had a ranged attack which consisted of a spectral chain with a spike on the end that would pierce their bodies and pull them towards her.

With our new strategy it took us two days to kill a few dozen foxes, lowering their population to the point that they wouldn't cause the villagers much harm.

"That was very clever. Most adventurers either use lightning spells to electrify the water or they heat or cool the water. Vatnr monsters can be sensitive to significant temperature changes. How'd you come up with your method?" Adalgard asked.

"It just came to me." I couldn't tell her that I saw someone fishing with dynamite in a movie. I intended to talk to Vegaror about creating an alchemic mixture that would duplicate the Compressed Fireball spell to make it a little easier next time.

With that finished we headed towards the village of Blueash for the Festival of the Gylltaine Stag.