[h3][color=f49ac2]「Natalia」[/color]and [b][color=bc8dbf]Moira[/color][/b][/h3]

The pair hunted until sunset, picking up T1 reagents of all sorts along the way. Time that would normally be spent searching was drastically cut down by Natalia’s ability to see through flying creatures, manabeast or otherwise. Another notable pickup includes a Lightning reagent. The Lightning manabeast had proven to be a bit trickier, as the pair couldn’t get terribly close due to all of the electricity. But an emergency Earth wall here and there protected them from harm and the boulder dealt the lethal blow. There were also Crystal manabeasts, specifically of the ice variant, roaming around near the top of the mountain. It wasn’t too difficult to just straight up drop a boulder on the slow moving creatures. Turns out that not many things could survive a large heavy object falling on top of them. 

“That was really productive,” Natalia says cheerfully, “I’m set on all of the new elements I wanted to go into. Thanks for helping, Moira. We’ll definitely get you a Darkness artifact tonight and we’ll journey to a Death biome tomorrow. Let’s take a break and eat dinner before searching for a Darkness manabeast though. The sun hasn’t completely set yet.”

“I could use a break.” Moira admits. She opens up the bag and sets out a thin tarp -- the ground was pretty cold with all the snow. Earthen walls also enclosed all sides to shield them from the wind. A Fire artifact sits in the center, radiating warmth and light.

Natalia grabs two sandwiches from her bag and hands one to Moira. She also spreads out a scroll on the that partially mapped out the wilderness. “So we’re here,” Natalia points to a mountain on depicted on map, “And it’ll probably take us several hours to walk to the ghost town. Is there anything you might want along the way?” 

“Hmm... we really should have rented airboards as well. Too bad it would have been too expensive. We can start walking now, and maybe we’ll find a Darkness manabeast on the way.” 

“Yeah, we should have enough for them next time. And making progress towards the ghost town would be more efficient, especially since using Psyche to look around is less effective during the night.” 

“I can take over scouting now, the darkness is so thick, it’s easy to tell when something is moving around.” Moira points out. “Are you going to have any troubles navigating? I can go by feel, but you...” 

“I’m able to tell where you are relative to me and how you’re dealing with the environment,” Natalia responds, “Maybe I’ll even get lucky and come across a creature that has good nocturnal vision.” 

“Whatever works then.” Moira shrugs and lays back. “Let’s rest a little longer before we head out though, it’s nice to warm up.” 

The pair sit around the Fire artifact a bit longer, greedily taking in its warmth before packing up their belongings. They travel back down the mountain, a feat increased in difficulty for Natalia due to the sun setting and with her trying her best not to slip, and start making their way to the ghost town. By then, complete darkness had fallen upon the pair. This was Moira’s domain now, as she tugs Natalia along the right direction. They trudge along for what seems like ages, scanning for Darkness manabeasts and ignoring the T1 and T2 manabeasts.

Finally, Moira pauses in place as she senses motion in the emptiness before her. Natalia nearly bumps into Moira as she catches herself suddenly, alert. “Manabeast...” Moira murmurs, trying to discern the form of the creature through the surrounding mana. Shadows darker than the surrounding night coalesce in front of the pair into the shape of a wolf. Its ebony fur gleams under the faint moonlight and the beast growls, tensing its muscles in preparation for a lunge. Moira yanks Natalia out of the way just as it leaps. Natalia frantically tries to get a grasp of the situation and locks onto the wolf’s senses. The world around her is extremely sharp, but washed in shades of gray, and a smaller field of view. The wolf’s hearing is also excellent, Natalia had briefly considered trying to flank the manabeast, but their footsteps would give it away. 

“Moira! I’ll provide covering fire,” Natalia shouts, breaking away from Moira and shooting rapid rounds with her gunblade. Moira calls out in affirmation and readies her mana, stabbing forward with a shadowspike. The wolf deftly hops sideways and dodges, starting to circle around Moira. A few water bullets connect with the wolf, prompting several agonized yelps before it disperses into the darkness. [i]I’ll be difficult to kill if it keeps going into that form.[/i] With that in mind, Natalia mentally changes gears. Moira calls out a warning to Natalia about the manabeast materializing behind her, but Natalia still was piggybacking on its senses -- she already had turned around  and fired a shot at the creature. It hits a leg, and this time the  water freezes shortly after, slowing the Darkness manabeast’s movements a little bit. 

With the wolf slowed, Moira is able to score a glancing blow with another shadowspike, catching the manabeast in the flank as it twisted to avoid her. Gradually, with Natalia slowing the wolf and Moira managing to injure it half the time, they wore down the manabeast. At the end of it’s life, blood dripping off of it’s fur from countless small wounds, the duskwolf mounts a suicidal charge at Moira, shrugging off her hastily throw blade of shadow and knocking her to the ground. As she falls, she manages to drive another spear of shadow through the wolf’s chest, finishing it. 

Slightly out of breath, Natalia states, “We should set up camp and sleep. We’re a good bit a ways to the ghost town ad we need to rest up before we hunt two T3s tomorrow.”

Natalia hears a muffled assent emanate from the small girl lying limply under the manabeast corpse.

After harvesting the manabeast, the novice Artificers make camp and sleep. 

[hr]
Natalia blearily stirs from her sleep and sits up. She looks over to Moira and gently shakes her awake. 
“Ow.” Moira complains, feeling the myriad bruises and aches gained the day before.
“Sorry.”

The duo begin their journey once again, feeling relatively well-rested from last night’s sleep. An hour or two later, they reach their destination. The center plaza is filled with worn down and partially demolished buildings. The residential area had marks of a widespread fire, with the scorched planks and burn marks marring the houses. Instead of people, the place had become a den for manabeasts. Raindrops begin to drizzle from the sky and clouds covered the sun. It was almost as if the entire town was a wounded beast, crying silently for its loss. But their destination was the massive graveyard behind the pitiful remains of a church, destroyed to the point where Natalia and Moira could barely make out a symbol that indicated what religious sect it belonged to. 

Natalia whispers to Moira, “There’s an undead axeman northwest of us. That’s your Death artifact right there. We should keep our distance -- Death does some nasty things.”

“[i]I[/i] do some nasty things.” Moira smirks, striding forward. 
Natalia shoots her gun to immobilize the axeman’s feet to the ground. Attacking in sync with Natalia, Moira’s salvo of shadow blades falls upon the axeman, each blade swinging several times, sending undead flesh flying. She held nothing back, rapidly expending her mana to finish the fight.

When it seems that victory is within their grasp, the injured undead smashes the butt of his axe on the ground. The soil almost bubbles and an skeleton horse frees itself from the ground and stands obediently next to the marauder. The axeman climbs on and charges Natalia and Moira. Hordes of skeletons froth from the ground around them. 
“I...think we should run,” Natalia states uncertainly, staring at the many mobs around them. Too bad her boulder and earthen wall artifacts were used up. They would’ve made for a good inhibitor.

“I don’t think we harmed it as much as we thought, either.” Moira remarks, watching as the axeman knits its decaying flesh back together rapidly. Despite her best efforts, she’d never even managed to scratch the bones that peeked out beneath the patchy pale flesh.

“I’ll slow the horse down, I think we can outrun the normal skeletons,” Natalia comments, pulling out her Crystal artifact and creating a patch of ice on the ground in front of the undead horse.
The horse skids on the ice and loses its balance, falling over. The axeman jumps off of it before the horse hits the ground. 
The pair abscond. 

“Do you want to try going after a Psyche manabeast instead?” Natalia asks.

“Anything is better than what we just left behind.” Moira says dryly. She was wrong. 

[hr]
After wandering around a lake surrounded by a flower field, Natalia stiffens and slows to a stop as she senses a sizable concentration of Psyche mana overhead.
“Hmm?” Moira asks quizzically. 
“Psyche manabeast above us,” Natalia states hastily. 
A wyvern circles above them, letting out an ear-piercing screech. Natalia sees Moira drop to one knee, clutching her head and barely managing to activate her collar Artifact, causing a thick cloud of inky haze to obscure herself. Not before long, Natalia succumbs to the same painful effect herself and her senses are scrambled as she could barely feel or see anything. 
*cue Natalia’s battle music* [url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmOZL_0rj70[/url]
Natalia mentally flings herself into the other nearby creature’s minds, trying to regain her footing from the extreme mental disorientation. After that she could function a little, even with the pain in her head-- seems as if putting up with all the angst helped her after all. The Psyche manabeast dives towards Moira, almost certainly meaning the end for her. [i]No![/i] Natalia musters all of her will and manages to push Moira, tackling her to the side. Talons graze Natalia’s back instead, leaving sizable gashes behind. Natalia cries out in pain and rolls onto her side. [i]It looks like I can still feel pain[/i], Natalia grits her teeth. Using other creatures’s senses of sight, she shakily grabs her gun and aims it at the wyvern, blasting multiple shots that alternated haphazardly. Natalia could only hope that she would land a hit -- since she only had a third person point of view to go off of. It’s almost as if she’s watching herself in a movie. Natalia is hardly able to feel her own body too, aside from the pain and blood flowing from her wound. Only a single shot scores a hit on the wyvern, but it is hardly affected. Out of sheer frustration, Natalia pulls out her Lightning artifact and starts firing bolts of lightning at the beast in conjunction with the bullets. The wyvern nimbly dodges most of them until a bolt clips it, causing wyvern to screech more in indignation as it falters for a moment. The pain in Natalia’s head is overwhelming now, but she somehow is able to squeeze the trigger and arc a lightning bolt simultaneously onto the wyvern. The Psyche manabeast falls silent as its body plummets to the ground. Although the pain subsides, Natalia’s mind still feels fuzzy from blood loss. She shifts her head to check on Moira, seeing her begin to recover. Natalia breathes a sigh of relief before slipping unconscious. 

The haze of pain quickly fades away from Moira, bringing sweet lucid relief. She stands up to find an unconscious manabeast and a dead friend. Wait, no. The wyvern -- she could tell it was a wyvern now -- appeared more dead than Natalia, with all the burns covering its scaled body. While the bloody gashes oozing blood looked bad, Moira thought she saw the wounded girl twitch in her sleep. 

Rifling through Natalia’s bag of holding and humming to herself, Moira quickly locates the medical supplies and treats the long parallel gouges carved into her friend’s back. That done, Moira sits back and realizes that Natalia might not wake up for some time. [i]Time to make the most of this opportunity.[/i] Moira grins widely, not needing to hide her ominous expression without anyone there to see it. She lifts up Natalia’s long, soft pink hair and raises it to her nose, inhaling deeply. The hair was so soft. So long. So luscious. Moira continues sniffing Natalia’s hair for several more minutes before deciding to “check over Natalia’s body for other wounds”. Every single inch. In meticulous and caring detail. Hey, the unseen wound was the deadliest. 

[hr]
Half an hour later, Moira straightens Natalia’s shirt and steps back in satisfaction. She’d changed Natalia’s ruined shirt and placed the girl onto a tarp, with a pillow under Natalia’s sleepy head. Moira then tied the pillow and tarp to the sides of Natalia’s body so she’ll stay on it. A dozen feet to the side, the harvested wyvern lay in a chalk circle, having been converted to a reagent already. 

Chirping an apology, Moira picks up Natalia’s legs and starts the long walk back to the nearest landboat stop, dragging the girl behind her. Hopefully the pillow she’d affixed would soften the bumps Natalia is being dragged over.

[hr]
The landboat ride on their return trip is uneventful. A kindly Artificer helps load Natalia’s still unconscious form onto the landboat, saving the girl some more bumps and bruises. Moira also makes a stop by the rental shop to return their bag of holding, dragging Natalia all the way. Several customers give Moira odd looks about the unconscious Natalia. By the time the two girls return to the orphanage, it’s late at night. Leaving Natalia on the floor just inside the orphanage entrance, Moira walks off to the healer’s office in the central wing, a nondescript room filled with mostly chairs and a single cot. Only one cot was needed since magical healing is a quick process. Wards showing up late at night with bloody wounds was par for the course, and the healer doesn’t even raise an eyebrow as she takes a look at Moira’s shoulder. A quick jolt of Life mana and Moira is immediately in peak condition. Thanking the healer, Moira nearly walks out the office before remembering she nearly forgot Natalia. 

“Oh, right! My friend is laying just inside the entrance so if you could heal her, that’d be great thanks! Goodnight!” Moira says cheerily as she exits. 

[hr]
Natalia stirs, regaining consciousness, and sits up straight immediately. Wide-eyed, she scans her surroundings and locks her sight on one of the orphanage’s healers. 
“Your friend brought you back while you were unconscious and asked me to heal you,” the healer says amicably. 
“Moira? Is she alright?”
“Yes, she’s fine. You should go get some rest now.”
Natalia nods and pushes herself unsteadily to her feet.
“Do you need help getting back to your room?” 
“No, I’m good. I can handle myself.”

Back in her room, Natalia spreads out the spoils of their trip on the ground. [i]It looks like Moira didn’t take her share of the reagents. I’ll bring it to her room after I finish turning this Water and Psyche reagent into proper artifacts.[/i]
Natalia converts a Water reagent into another bracelet for daily wear. This artifact would have the ability to create a sphere of water. The rest of the Water reagents would be stored for later use in case her gun ran out of ammo. The Psyche reagent, a piece of scale from the wyvern, became a necklace around her neck, that allows her to block the senses of others. Her Lightning and Crystal rings were still on her fingers from the previous fight. Both artifacts were pretty generic, the Lightning one emits a bolt of lightning and the Crystal one creates ice. Natalia scoops up Moira’s share of the T1 reagents and makes her way to her friend’s room. [i]I also need to thank her. Who knows what would have happened if I had been by myself?[/i] Reaching Moira’s room, Natalia knocks quietly on the door. 
No answer.
Natalia knocks again to make sure.
There is still no answer or sounds, but Moira is definitely in there -- as Natalia could sense her mind.
“I’m coming in,” Natalia announces as she twists the doorknob and enters the room.
It’s completely dark and the only thing that can be heard is the faint snoozing noise coming from the bed. Natalia blinks several times as she waits for her eyes to adjust and she spies a pair of ears peeking out from the blanket. 
Natalia carefully sneaks around to Moira’s desk, dumping all the reagents onto it. They make more noise than Natalia intends for them to, clattering against each other and the wooden desk. She freezes and look back at Moira. An ear twitches, but there is no sign that Moira had been disturbed. Natalia breathes a small sigh of relief and starts making her way out of the room. But, Natalia slips on one of the many things on the ground and falls comfortably onto the layer of clothes lying on the ground. The coziness and warmth make Natalia realize just exactly how tired she is. And with that, Natalia falls asleep too.