The journey away from the Goblins was, thankfully, fairly uneventful until they reached the creek. Along the way they passed by a number of plants, some of which Oberon had already seen and a few he hadn’t; he used Magic and Monster Analysis on the Blue Argeps and the Purple Ferns, still using the skills as a replacement for a true plant analysis ability until he managed to obtain one. Once he was sure the Argeps were safe he plucked a few from the bush and ate until he didn’t feel so empty anymore. With his small body that didn’t take very long.

At one point Ash discovered a fragment of the Flak Beetle on the ground, a piece of its mandible by the looks of it, and picked it up with what must have been Lesser Force. Aside from this there didn’t seem to be any signs of life in the forest, everything in the area probably being driven off by the explosion, until they found both a set of footprints and a tuft of fur caught on a branch; something had been through here fairly recently. Oberon used Monster Analysis on the footprints and the fur, curious to see if his skill would give him any information on a creature from those clues alone.

Overtime they began to reach parts of the forest that showed no signs of Goblin activity, going beyond the range of their expeditions to collect wood or food. Digbie said something, asking if he was a bad as the other Goblins, and while the Sprite wanted to reassure him that this wasn’t the case, that he had healed Torrent, helped them fight Rattleskull and so much more, by the time he had turned back to say anything Mourn and Ash were already there; the two former-humans had already said everything he was going to and Oberon couldn’t help but smile contentedly as the words seemed to have a positive effect on Digbie’s mood.

Once again their journey progressed without incident until they reached a small clearing and Oberon began to feel a tingle at the base of his neck. Turning around the Sprite scanned the trees around the clearing for creatures but saw nothing, or at least not directly. If he didn’t look directly at the branches he could almost make out a shape among them, a hanging tail or a serpentine body, but how much of that was real and how much was humans ability to see patterns where they didn’t exist he wasn’t sure. They walked a bit further and as they passed another bush laden with those blue berries a deer-like creature sprang from the bushed and disappeared before he could get a good look at it, seeing only curved horns and a blue-hide.

Whatever it was he was pretty sure it wasn’t the thing from the clearing however.

When they reached the creek it seemed like that would be their stopping point for now, allowing them the opportunity to gather fresh water and maybe even make this their shelter for the time being. Oberon used Magic and Monster Analysis on the frogs and stayed far away from the burrow that seemed to contain a rather irritable creature before returning to join the others.

[color=f49ac2]“I agree with the others on this Mourn. There’s no need to pick a fight and we don’t know anything about what’s in that burrow to begin with; a lack of information is what led to that mess with the Flak Beetle. Look, I used an analysis skill on it right before it blew up, none of us expected that thing to explode when Torrent hit it with a fireball, but the Beetle was filled with an explosive chemical that it uses to shoot projectiles at its prey. The creatures in this world aren’t like those back home, we can’t make any assumptions about what they’re like and we shouldn’t be attacking anything without finding out as much as we can about it first.”[/color] Oberon turned to face the Pygmy Drake before making one last point. [color=f49ac2]“And to be fair, the beetle attacked us. We didn’t pick that fight.”[/color]

Ash suggested building a shelter upstream from where they currently were and Digbie agreed to help. [color=f49ac2]“I can heal us at least. Give me a chance to recover my mana and I’ll patch us up; speaking of which I just learned an ability that can speed up mana recovery and I think we should all learn that as soon as possible. I haven’t seen anything like a mana crystal out here so far.”[/color] As Digbie began digging out a circle in the dirt in an attempt to recreate what he had done earlier and Mourn flew up to get a better view of the area, Oberon decided to do what he had done earlier and scout the local topography. [color=f49ac2]“I’ll fly up and see where we are. I think we were heading north so we should be closer to the mountains now.”[/color]

Oberon craned his head back to try and see which of the trees nearest to them was the highest and flew up towards it, this time not bothering to stop on every bough but instead push upwards, only stopping to rest if he felt himself start to tire. Like before, if the tree he had picked wasn’t the tallest he would move over to the next until he was sitting atop the tallest tree in the area, holding on to it as he turned full circle and scanned his surroundings.

While he was there, basking in the sunlight above the tree layer that otherwise covered the forest floor in shade, he decided to try and learn more about the Gather Light skill he had found out about earlier. He closed his eyes and focused on the warm feeling of the sunlight on his skin; so far he had absorbed light as a kind of side effect of using his mediation skill, opening himself up to the ambient mana around him and coincidentally opening himself up to this other source of power as well. Now he tried to focus on just the sunlight, to ignore the ambient mana around him and absorb just the energy from the sun’s rays.

If he could feel this working then he would then move on to the next step and try to use this energy to cast a spell. Since Mana Orb was the Sprite’s simplest spell as well as being neutral in terms of affinity, Oberon began to create an orb between his hands, attempting as he did so to use only the power he had gathered from the sun.

[hider=Action Report]
Used 'Magic Analysis' and 'Monster Analysis' on Blue Argeps
Used 'Magic Analysis' and 'Monster Analysis' on Purple Ferns
Used 'Monster Analysis' on Footprints
Used 'Monster Analysis' on tuft of black fur
Used 'Magic Analysis' and 'Monster Analysis' on Deadly Frog Monsters
Flew up to tree tops and scouted surrounding topography
Attempted to use 'Gather Light'
Attempt to use gathered light to cast 'Mana Orb'
[/hider]

[@Zeroth][@floodtalon][@Gardevoiran][@Old Amsterdam][@Rune_Alchemist]