Unsure if his words had had any effect or not, Oberon watched as Mourningstar seemed to snap out of whatever trance she was in before muttering to herself and wordlessly drifting back in the direction of the bonfire. Sighing, the pixie spent a moment just staring into empty space to recompose himself before he too began flying back towards the bonfire to re-join the others.

The somewhat… erratic behaviour of their self-proclaimed leader was somewhat worrying. Even beyond the brash plans, the megalomania and inflated sense of power, the way she sometimes seemed to almost flip between one persona and another at the drop of a hat was probably the most concerning character trait she had exhibited. Some peculiarities could be expected and even forgiven, considering their predicament; the fact that they had died, been reborn and then thrown into bodies that were not their own or even human and placed into a situation would place a lot of strain on anyone. It was to be expected that some of them would have a negative reaction and begin to behave… strangely.

Oberon thought that he was handling things fairly well, considering. Aside from the fact that he was treating this whole event like a campaign from a table top RPG, perhaps justifiably given the similarities between this world and those games, he wasn’t behaving any differently than he did back home. Part of that might just be down to the fact that he hadn’t truly had time to process the realities of his new life.

Mourningstar on the other hand… it made him start to wonder exactly what she was like in her past life. And if she was ever really stable to begin with.

Drifting over towards Digbie and his flambéed rat, Oberon stared down at the charred corpse that was apparently their breakfast. He examined the thing closely, attempting to use some kind of analysis skill to determine if the thing was even edible. [color=f49ac2]“Is this really safe to eat?”[/color] Glancing around at the others he saw that some of them were already eating the burnt flesh, suggesting that the meat was a least safe, if not exactly appetising. With a shrug he reached down and tore off a chunk of flesh for himself, grimacing at the feel of it before he began eating as fast as he could stomach while also trying to avoid eating any fur. The combination of alternating raw and burnt meat made him heave, but somehow he was able to keep it down.

Flying over to sit on the ground by himself Oberon settled himself so as to be able to observe the rest of the group. It seemed they had grown in numbers somewhat following the battle, the lizard he had healed earlier had stuck around and a pixie with bizarre colouration was over with Mourningstar around the remains of the bonfire. They seemed to be talking about something and he briefly considered joining in before dismissing that idea; let them socialise for a bit, while he had some free time Oberon had a few things to deal with.

At some point after the battle he had levelled up again. It was a surprise to have it happen again so quickly but given how many Goblin’s they had just fought it probably made sense; as always in these games the best way to earn experience was through fighting. Typical, the players who focused on good RPing never got the just rewards they deserved.

Whatever had caused it, having another level up so soon after the last one left him with a surplus of skill points to spend and a number of skills to spend them on. If Oberon guessed correctly then skills should level up every time they reached a whole number and each skill point would probably raise each skill by 0.1 points. Shield was close to levelling up again if that was the case, perhaps not surprising with how much he was using it, and both Minor Heal and Lesser Flight were progressing, if not as quickly as he would have liked.

In fact, the reason he and Mourningstar were unable to catch-up to the retreating Goblin’s had been due to a lack of speed. While he wasn’t particularly upset about that fact it was troubling to think that if he couldn’t catch-up to a Goblin, he probably couldn’t outrun one either, making flight a worthy skill to invest in.

[color=f49ac2]“Put 1 skill point into Lesser Flight.”[/color] Oberon paused a moment, waiting to see what happened just in case a single skill point really was an entire skill level. When no message appeared he put another four skill points into the Lesser Flight skill.

With that dealt with, Oberon turned his attention to what he had been working on this morning before their search for food had turned into all-out war; magical experimentation. If Oberon had to put a word to his overall goal in this world, it was ‘versatility’; rather than just become powerful he wanted to be able to cast a wide range of magic, to be able to have an answer to any situation. Or even multiple answers. If you just wanted to hit things as hard as you could you would become a fighter or a barbarian; spell casters were supposed to be the classes that let you do more than just kill things.

Offense, defence, healing, support, crowd control, status effects, buffing and de-buffing; eventually Oberon wanted to be able to do all of that and more and hopefully do it well. At the moment however he only had three spells and while they still covered the areas of offence, defence and healing fairly well, he wanted more.

The quickest path to being able to make more spells would probably be in learning how to manipulate mana a bit more freely. When he had created Mana Orb all he had really done was try to form raw mana into a certain shape and then throw it. This morning he had seen Mourningstar try to shape the Mana Orb into something else and apparently it had worked out because she had been able to hit a Goblin with a cutting blade of mana. Being able to shape his mana into different configurations would at least let him diversify his spell list a little.

The unusable skill he had, Mana Shape, must be exactly what he was looking for. He had probably earned some points in that skill while trying to create Mana Orb and would hopefully earn enough to turn it into a true skill with what he was about to do. Much like this morning, Oberon brought his hands up in front of him and began to gather mana between his palms. He shaped the mana into a sphere the same way he did instinctively when firing Mana Orb but this time he tried to do it manually, focusing on what he was doing and stopping just before the spell was complete.

Oberon could feel the mana struggling against his control, wanting to leap from between his hands like an ordinary Mana Orb, but he kept it contained. He then began to try and shape the mana, forcing it out of its spherical shape, forcing it to flatten and to stretch, to take on a long and narrow shape like an arrow made of magic. All the while he was absorbed utterly by his task, completely unaware of what was going on around him.

[@Zeroth]