Glad to no longer be thirsty and a little less glad for the redundant notification, Nira's attention was able to fully focus on the situation at hand. But as she prepared to help, she saw Femus's attacker getting blown back. Her companion's new spell looked to be quite effective even if it hadn't taken the opponent out. With the mana orb becoming tougher to restrain though, she had little time to focus on her previous thought. She was surprised at how it seemed to be building up power the longer she held onto it.
As the thing got up from being blasted, Nira took aim at it's back to make sure she wouldn't miss and fired, the spell crackling like electricity as it shot into the attacker, driving them to the ground. In the process its mask was knocked off to reveal a scarred and wrinkled, but otherwise regular hobgoblin face. Just as she was starting to relax again, she saw Femus light a up a bright green for a moment, which made her tense up in confusion for a split second as she tried to figure out why he'd done that. Realizing quickly that he probably meant to communicate that things were fine, Nira sighed and Fluttered down to the fresh hobgoblin corpse, speaking up as she did so.
"Maybe you could give a short briefing on what your color signals mean before you go using them next time? Gave me a little jump, though probably not as big of a one as this thing gave you." She said as she lightly kicked the arm of the now dead hobgoblin. Looking it over, she realized that some parts of its cloak were likely still salvageable, which would mean they would have some cloth they could use if need be. Looking around for a sharp stone, Nira picked up the best one she could find and went to work on trying to distinguish the uncharred parts of the cloak from the charred ones before using the rock to rip them off in pieces. Speaking as she worked, she aimed a question at Femus. "Are you doing ok by the way?"
Nira color=a062de Echo-Voice color=a187ae
> N/A > N/A > N/A > N/A
Unspent Skill Points: 20 Current Skills: Alert I (1.45) Lesser Flight I (1.65) Minor Heal I (1.0) Muffle (1.55) Shield I (1.05) Mana Orb I (1.05) Meditate I (1.0) Aqua Sphere I (1.0) <UNUSABLE> Crafting (0.1) Keen Ear (0.2) Mana Strike (0.1) Point Strike (0.2) Stealth Kill (0.3) Suppress Presence (0.5) Monster Analysis (0.3) Smash (0.1) Faster (0.3) Magic Analysis (0.6) Iron Gullet (0.2) Charisma (0.9) Charm (0.4) Deception (0.2) Pacify Animal (0.2) Taming (0.1) Plant Analysis (0.3) Mana Sense (0.2) Spell Chant (0.3) Stronger (0.1) Use Light Equipment (0.05) Mana Shape (0.2)
Staring at the completed orb and acknowledging the notification, Nira knew she'd succeeded. Quick to double check on the potential fire, she was glad that it had hadn't truly caught and that the sparks had gone out on their own. Breathing a sigh of relief, she looked back to the water orb in her hands and notice that some of the leaves around her had lost their dew and wilted, implying that this spell drew water from her surroundings to form itself. Shrugging, she figured it made sense when she thought back to how it had condensed into a mist around her hands in previous attempts. Carefully bringing the orb of water up to her lips, Nira tried to take a sip while hoping that the spell wouldn't break and splash the water all over her.
Unfortunately, the sound of something running caught her attention, and she wandered in its direction just in time to see the thing take a swing at Femus with what she could only assume could be its long, freaky arm. Almost immediately, she forgot about the water spell and quickly tried to cast shield on Femus before charging up a mana orb and waiting for a moment to shoot at whatever it was that was attacking him. Whatever this thing was, it wasn't one of the goblins she had seen over the past days. None of them had an arm that long.
Nira color=a062de Echo-Voice color=a187ae
> N/A > N/A > N/A > N/A
Unspent Skill Points: 20 Current Skills: Alert I (1.45) Lesser Flight I (1.65) Minor Heal I (1.0) Muffle (1.55) Shield I (1.05) Mana Orb I (1.05) Meditate I (1.0) Aqua Sphere I (1.0) <UNUSABLE> Crafting (0.1) Keen Ear (0.2) Mana Strike (0.1) Point Strike (0.2) Stealth Kill (0.3) Suppress Presence (0.5) Monster Analysis (0.3) Smash (0.1) Faster (0.3) Magic Analysis (0.6) Iron Gullet (0.2) Charisma (0.9) Charm (0.4) Deception (0.2) Pacify Animal (0.2) Taming (0.1) Plant Analysis (0.3) Mana Sense (0.2) Spell Chant (0.3) Stronger (0.1) Use Light Equipment (0.05) Mana Shape (0.2)
*you notice that I have scavenged several hundreds of pounds worth of circuitry, odds and ends pieces, and that I am making bombs out of the propane tanks you brought me over time*
Shinji: oh, hey.
Hey... *After another moment's rest, I get up.* Think this will be enough?
*makes his way through the city silently, as to not alert the creatures*
*After what seems like a week, I come back carrying a platform of propane tanks, my by grip on the ropes looking strained and my flight path looking a bit unstable until I land the platform and myself up on the roof, taking a moment to rest.*
So her interactions with the pixie had been noted by the system. Interesting. Pushing the thought aside as she settled back down on the branch and resumed her attempts at making water, it seemed that she was onto something. Not only had she felt the droplets before her concentration broke, but she had also gotten a system message about fast skill progression.
But it still wasn't quite stable yet. It didn't feel like it had any force, which was nice. But it had still dispersed when she lost focus, which indicated that there was something missing. Thinking on it a bit, Nira had two guesses. Her first was that the water was still more inclined to redisperse because it hadn't yet lost all of its initial heat from when it was a gas.
Her second however, was that it wasn't compressed enough. She had been creating mist and droplets, only to let them float around. With the spell being called aqua orb, Nira was willing to bet that she couldn't just aimlessly conjure up a sphere of water, and instead needed to focus on the idea of the water pulling itself together.
Just as she was about to focus again though, she heard a loud Crack and glanced over to see that one of Femus's experiments had left a portion of the ground charred and some of the grass on fire. It was a great result ut the potential fire left her a bit more worried now. Nira returned to focusing on the spell with renewed intent.
She didn't just visualize an orb of water this time, she visualized a tiny droplet forming, growing bigger and bigger as the air around it grew colder. She felt the air around her hands chill, and recalled the sensation of water, willing the mist between her hands to coalesce tightly into one sphere, stable and ready to go. She not only wanted something to drink at this point, she wanted a way to put out a fire in case she needed to.
Nira color=a062de
Echo-Voice color=a187ae
> N/A > N/A > N/A > N/A
Unspent Skill Points: 20 Current Skills: Alert I (1.45) Lesser Flight I (1.65) Minor Heal I (1.0) Muffle (1.55) Shield I (1.05) Mana Orb I (1.05) Meditate I (1.0) <UNUSABLE> Crafting (0.1) Keen Ear (0.2) Mana Strike (0.1) Point Strike (0.2) Stealth Kill (0.3) Suppress Presence (0.5) Monster Analysis (0.3) Smash (0.1) Faster (0.3) Magic Analysis (0.6) Iron Gullet (0.2) Charisma (0.9) Charm (0.4) Deception (0.2) Pacify Animal (0.2) Taming (0.1) Plant Analysis (0.3) Mana Sense (0.2) Spell Chant (0.3) Stronger (0.1) Use Light Equipment (0.05) Mana Shape (0.2) Aqua Sphere (0.4)
Well this was interesting. Two more kids and someone looking vaguely familiar. Seemed like they were dealing with their own swarm of lost with one hell of a turret which explained the noise. No time to help though, more were coming and she hadn't been noticed yet. Turning back for now, Diamond figured that introductions could happen if they both survived this. Right now though, it wouldn't do her any good to stay separated from the other two.
As she worked on getting water with magic, Nira was pleasantly surprised by the sensations the process created, and how they brought memories back to the surface. She had long forgotten the sensation of morning dew while trapped in the hospital, but as a little kid she had once rolled around in the morning grass with her dad, back when her body was strong enough to fight back for a few hours at a time. The moments of fun she had back then were nothing to the freedom she had now, but she cherished them nonetheless. Her skin getting colder as her attempt pushed on, the memory snippet was pushed aside as she opened her eyes and saw the mist gathering around her hands. As quick as her reaction of wonder though, it dispersed, leaving her to quickly try again. As she watched the process through fully this time, she could only describe the sight as mystical, settling down in her heart that this was indeed what she had been so inspired by in her last moments.
Her breath dissolving her progress, Nira stopped for a moment to check on if her attempts were yielding something, as well as to see if the system would respond. A part of her wondered if it really would be as simple as just asking, but indeed it seemed like it was. Half surprised, half thankful, she was glad to see that she was indeed making progress towards water orb, though the system was calling it aqua orb, which was interesting. Mana shape also seemed to be developing, which was probably due to her attempts at externally recreating mana structures. If she could learn how to imbue those structures with different properties, she might be able to solve the problem of flight before she lost her natural ability to do so. Returning to the list, several skills stood out to her as things she should focus on next. Plant, monster, and magic analysis would be invaluable in the long run, since it would give her a better understanding of the world.
Speaking of, she wondered if there were other forms of analysis, like mineral or culture analysis. It would make some sense for scholars to have that kind of skill, but on the other hand it was more likely that just proper study and memorization was encouraged by this world. There wasn't any skills that just did things for you as far as she had seen, so it was probably safer to assume that though basic tools were provided, there wasn't any easy road here. Looking at the list, there were several other skills she was curious about. This time she wanted to try doing this silently, so she mentally asked, *System, please describe faster, stronger, taming, and point strike.*
Just as the tree shuddered underneath her.
Promptly freaking out and jumping into the air, this was the first time Nira wasn't deep enough in her own thoughts to notice the weird deer, right before they promptly got spooked themselves and darted away from the herb patch she had visited earlier. Looking around with wide eyes, she wondered if anything had happened to the tree to cause this. The only things she could see around herself though were normal animals on the forest floor and Femus testing some magic from his branch. Deciding to ask him about it later, she tried to calm herself and returned to her attempts at water magic.
Remembering the sensations from earlier, Nira made a guess that maybe she'd get more mileage out of incorporating tactile memory alongside visualization as she attempted to make water magic. Closing her eyes and focusing again, she visualized a orb of water forming between her hands, recalling the cool sensation of running water from a sink. She would keep at it time and time again without opening her eyes until she could actually mover her hand and feel water, meditating as needed.
Nira color=a062de
Echo-Voice color=a187ae
> N/A > N/A > N/A > N/A
Unspent Skill Points: 20 Current Skills: Alert I (1.45) Lesser Flight I (1.65) Minor Heal I (1.0) Muffle (1.55) Shield I (1.05) Mana Orb I (1.05) Meditate I (1.0) <UNUSABLE> Crafting (0.1) Keen Ear (0.2) Mana Strike (0.1) Point Strike (0.2) Stealth Kill (0.3) Suppress Presence (0.5) Monster Analysis (0.3) Smash (0.1) Faster (0.3) Magic Analysis (0.6) Iron Gullet (0.2) Charisma (0.9) Charm (0.4) Deception (0.2) Pacify Animal (0.2) Taming (0.1) Plant Analysis (0.3) Mana Sense (0.2) Spell Chant (0.3) Stronger (0.1) Use Light Equipment (0.05) Mana Shape (0.2) Aqua Sphere (0.4)
