The sounds of combat penetrated the dirt and rock shell around Oberon and let him know that the Goblins had begun to fight the goat as Digbie intended, but without a line of sight or some other clue he wouldn’t be able to tell how the fight was progressing or say exactly what was happening. Not knowing, and therefore not being able to act or react to what was happening, left the Sprite with an uneasy feeling; it wasn’t that he disagreed with Digbie’s plan, or that he didn’t trust Torrent and Ash to be able to handle things if need be, but being left in the literal dark was not a good state to be in.

[color=f49ac2]“I’d rather go further into the forest than into the mountains; more hospitable and we’re not putting an impassable obstacle to our backs.”[/color] If anything Oberon wanted to go beyond the forest, out past the trees and into whatever lay beyond. It was probably impractical given their current situation, but a part of him was hoping to return to something approximating civilisation. With everything they’d experience so far it was clear the forest didn’t have that.

Digbie explained that the book he had found was a prayer book for one of this world’s deities; Oberon wasn’t much one for religion in his own life, but since they were now living in what could probably be described as some form of afterlife he wasn’t about to dismiss the idea. With everything they had experienced he felt confident in saying that gods and demons existed in one form or another here and that there was probably some real power to be found I worshipping this Jehanne; like a Cleric or Priest character. He would have to ask to read that book later, out of curiosity if nothing else.

[color=f49ac2]“You have a quest? From a system message?”[/color] That was an interesting idea and it made sense that they would happen given how closely this world seemed to follow video game tropes and logic, but it raised a few questions. Namely, who or what set the quest? Jehanne in this case it seemed, but could anyone do it or just the powers above? If he asked Digbie to do something, gave him a task and promised a reward, would that trigger a quest or was it something that only certain beings could do? Did it imply that Jehanne and other gods had some kind of control over the system itself? Up until now he’d half believed the system was something that they only had because the Demon King had given it to them, even though he said he wasn’t giving them cheat skills, but if this Jehanne was setting quests then it might be something that was just part of this world. [color=f49ac2]“I’ll help you with it later, after we deal with these Goblins. In return, can you let me read that book?”[/color]

With that little mystery solved, and a much larger one put in its place, Oberon turned his attention to the fight happening outside. With the opening of the cave sealed and the both of them bathed in darkness there wasn’t much the Sprite could do but listen and try to interpret what was happening outside. It would be nice if he had some way of sensing what was going on the way Digbie and Torrent seemed to be able to with their Earth magic; he had a couple of skills like Air Read and Mana Sense that may let him do the same but they were both far from complete. Air Read might not even work since he was sealed into this cave but if he could sense the Mana of the Goblins and the goat he would at least know where they were.

How did that work anyway? He had probably gained experience in that skill during his experiments with the various elements, particularly the way he kept trying to extend his senses outward to locate Mana of a particular flavour in the midst of the ambient Mana around him. When he meditated he could feel the Mana around him entering his body, when he’d practised Aqua Sphere and Wind Break he’d felt the Mana in the water and air respectively and brought it in to the Mana Orb; could he expand his senses in the same way and feel the larger amounts of Mana that existed inside living creatures?

The Sprite closed his eyes and let himself enter the kind of empty minded state he used for meditation. He opened up his senses and tried to feel the ambient Mana in the air around him but rather than try to draw it in or open himself up to let it in naturally he tried to just feel it, imagine that he could see it like a light fog that filled the empty space of the cave around him. He tried to stretch his reach further, to see further, and imagined the fog reaching further. If this was working then he should soon start to feel and see differences in the fog; he should see a difference between the wind Mana of the air and the earth Mana of the dirt and rock walls, he should see a denser mass of Mana that was Digbie next to him.

Could he see them? Or was he just imagining that he could?

[hider=Action Report]
Attempted to sense Mana as a way of mapping surroundings and locating other living creatures.
[/hider]

[@Gardevoiran][@Zeroth]