Potter
FulgrimLives
Lucid Dreaming
Expendable
Kero
Tim the Yeti
rush99999
Fading MemoryAsteria
Asteria's attack was successful! She’d landed on the fly and tore into its wing and back forcefully, ripping off a part of its wing. Mother rat’s attack injured it even more, and though it attempted to escape, the fly only managed to destabilize Asteria and throw her off with its trashing. The insect managed to tumble onto Asteria, exposing its belly in the process. One of her other companions took the opportunity to deliver the killing blow, and Asteria wriggled out from underneath the dying creature. Its legs continued twitching a while after, as was common with insect. Asteria inspected herself for injuries thoroughly, just in case the tumble had caused some sort of sprain or break. It was also possible she’d got scratched while under the insect, which could be a danger if the bloodingfly was venomous.
Just then, her attention was redirected to a blinding flash which was shortly followed by two others, all originating from the forest. Asteria closely observed the lights, wondering as to its purpose and effects. It disturbed the soil and put out the fire, and this made it all the more apparent this was some sort of magic rather than the product of technology. Who could have cast such a thing? More importantly, she had to get information on the spell itself! It was perhaps a larger scale one than she’d ever witnessed before, so there was merit in trying to figure it out. Mana analysis! Mana sense! She activated her skills, but beyond that, she focused intently on the lights, observing them carefully and trying to actively feel the residual magic that was surely present.
When the spell was done, the fire put out, and the plains saved, Asteria blinked, regaining awareness of the rest of her environment. In the distance, villagers were shouting, the sight of such grand magic awing them as much as it had her, and it seemed they were now on the lookout for more magic. The sun had also set, and their night-time vision was better than the humans’, so if there was any sneaking and stealing to be done, now would be the time. However, Asteria had some things to do before that.
Firstly, there were her skills to consider. She was almost tempted to not invest them into anything yet, but according to the system, she was close to another level up. I should get something I’m not likely to level up by myself…One of those heal skills could be useful, but we do have leftover herbs and the unknown plants. For now, then…7 points into Telepathy, 3 points into Plant Analysis. She tested one of her skills right away, still remembering how Jason had used and trained it. Not only could she and Ed communicate unobtrusively with it, perhaps even Mother Rat could be taught, just as she’d seen Mother Slime had been.
With that in mind, she approached Ed first, touching him with a paw. She closed her eyes and focused on transmitting her thoughts, getting a feel for the spell. “Got telepathy. Will train. Could help. With Mother. And stealing,” she sent the five short thoughts in intervals, though doing so felt embarrassingly similar to a senior unused to technology trying to use a phone for sending messages. When she was done, she removed the paw from Ed, and opened her eyes. “I hope that worked. I’d like to get it to level 2 soon, maybe even before we get near the humans, but I don’t know if I have enough mana for that. Let me just try this with Mother rat, to see how she responds,” she trailed off, and approached her Mother. She nuzzled up to her, so they were touching, but this time, instead of transmitting words, she used the telepathy to send her feelings of affection, calm, soothing, and slight concern. She hoped the other dire’s rat reaction would be positive rather than bewildered.
When she was done testing her new spell, she went over to the bloodingfly, examining its parts. There were two things she wanted from it currently; its stinger, the hollow needle-esque end to its proboscis, and the wings. Asteria took her time to carefully dislodge the stinger, the needle, and the remaining wing from the corpse. If her claws and teeth proved futile, she’d sharpen a small piece of rock to help with the removal. She also closely inspected the fly’s antennae and claws. Examining one corpse this reminded Asteria there was still the dead ant to consider. The most obvious part she might be able to use were its antennae, and she plucked them off carefully. It had a hard, tough chitinous exoskeleton, but Asteria wasn’t confident she could harvest, or more difficult yet, use it to craft anything yet. Just in case there was something she’d missed about the ant, she used Monster Analysis on it as well.
Lastly, to prevent further incidents, she stored all the plants (and monster parts) she’d gathered deep into the hole they’d dug, making a small niche for them. “When we get all the parts that we could use from these two,” she indicated the insect corpses with a nod, “We should either eat, store, or burry them. Just so no other monsters are drawn to us because of the smell,” she noted. "Then...we can rest a bit and wait till the humans are asleep, or try do the heist right away," she added, curious for Ed's opinion on the matter.