Ember of Invention

On his cue, the three of them acted, but not simultaneously. Lindle had the advantage of being the one to set the others off, his arm already in motion when his friends heard him. Enhanced by the Technique, the vial of alchemist’s fire flew, aimed at the middle of the largest gathering of skeletons on the side of the mammoth corpse closest to them. The vial shattered, and flames burst outward, engulfing several undead. Bones wouldn’t normally be susceptible to being burnt, but undead were notoriously weak to fire, catching flame as if they were covered in oil as the necromantic energy animating them was consumed. Empowered by [Alchemical Bomber], the hungry flames swiftly consumed three of them and their blackened bones fell apart.

Humphrey wasn’t far behind, likely drawing on his higher Dex stat, letting loose with his bow while Lindle’s vial was still midflight. The arrow slammed into the skull of a skeleton next to the group Lindle had targeted. Between the blunt head and the holy oil covering it, the skeleton’s skull cracked and burst apart with golden light and flame.

Where most other creatures would react with fright, confusion, or at the very least flinch at the sudden and dramatic destruction of almost half their number, the undead reacted instead with unnatural swiftness and efficiency. Alerted to their presence, the rest of the skeletal beasts began sprinting for them. That was when Thalia finished casting her spell.

“[Grasping Patch],” Thalia spoke aloud for their benefit, pointing her wand at the ground before them. A twisting field of vines and thorns grew out of the snow, the skeletons at the front of the pack getting their feet tangled. The thorns didn’t cut into the bone, but it caused them to stumble awkwardly. The magical vines tightened around their legs, keeping the skeletons in place until they forced themselves free. Instead of running into the spell as Lindle had expected, the rest of the undead split into two groups around the field of vines, sending snow up into the air as the skeletons closed into melee with them.

Lindle’s eyes widened as they moved quicker than they had when they fought the mammoth. How were they so much faster- the mammoth! He spit out a curse as he realized his mistake. The undead had all leveled up once they had killed the mammoth, probably more than once considering how many of them had died, leaving a much lower number to split the XP. Humphrey and Thalia had bow and wand raised, having expected to be able to shoot down more before the undead reached them.

Humphrey reacted quicker, leaping backward to dodge the skeleton that pounced for him, claws outstretched as it passed through the space he had been occupying. Thalia attempted something similar but was hit as a feline skeleton caught her with a swipe of its claw, sending Thalia down onto her side.

The world slowed down as Lindle activated [Flow]. He watched as the skeleton opened its jaw in order to bite down on Thalia’s prone form. Looking down at her, he was happy to see she looked mostly uninjured, one of Frostgreeds scales likely having blunted the impact, but she was still in danger. He spared a glance for Humphrey, looking back and watching the ranger dodging the undead’s attacks, kiting it as tried to fit an arrow onto his bowstring. He would be fine for the next few seconds. Having made his decision, Lindle rushed forward, fist cocked back as he used [Power Strike] to punch the skeleton in the skull, forcing it off of Thalia.

Using [Flow] in actual combat felt strange. Everything happened much slower, including his own body, but his mind felt sharp and calm. His earlier panic and frustration felt numbed, and as he hit the undead, he didn’t feel the haze of red that he expected to begin to descend. Instead of feeling like he was in a fight, it felt like was working on a problem, like he was still imagining the plan to win the fight instead of executing it.

Thalia, taking the opportunity he had given her, quickly transformed. Instead of her usual dire wolf form, the druid wildshaped into a new shape. She grew, standing taller than Lindle, even discounting her new massive antlers, into a megaloceros. She shook her head wildly, taking the skeleton Lindle had punched with her antlers and sending it sprawling to the ground. Unlike the unfortunate skeleton, Thalia managed to follow up successfully, putting her hoof to its skull and crushing it.

It seemed like Lindle could still be taken by surprise even with [Flow] active, staring up at Thalia as the giant elk was covered in floating white scales for a moment. Luckily, that was only a subjective moment, and he refocused. He turned away, trusting her to be able to take the remaining skeleton facing her. He saw Humphrey, now being attacked by two skeletons and dodging with everything he had as they attempted to maul him, unable to get a shot off. Frostgreed absorbed a few blows as Lindle thought quickly. He gathered his mana points and cast a spell on his friend.

“Humphrey! Jump!”

Humphrey’s gaze flickered to him, not understanding, but he complied, and [Levitate] kept him from coming back down. The pair of undead tried to get to him, silently jumping but unable to reach Humphrey. The ranger looked confused for a second, but a grin spread across his face, and he quickly pulled an arrow back, and sent it rocketing down, blasting apart a skull. A second arrow did the same to the other skeleton.

Humphrey laughed. “Haha! I could get used to this!” He drew another arrow, firing down at the skeletons still struggling to get out of Thalia’s spell and swiftly blowing apart their skulls with holy golden flames.

Lindle counted nine skeletons and turned around to see Thalia destroying number ten, trampling it back to death. She turned around, looking around and seeing no more undead, and transformed out of her megaloceros form.

“I think that’s all of them.” She scanned the area again. “Where’s Humphrey?”

“Up here!” Humphrey called down. “Look at… me…” He trailed off as he noticed that he was still slowly floating upwards. “Lindle…How do I get down from here?”

Lindle deactivated [Flow], getting an idea and attempting to keep a straight face. The spell allowed the caster to slowly pull the target up or down, and he had already done that to keep Humphrey from floating off into the sky at the same speed he had jumped at, but Humphrey didn’t know that.

“I’m gonna need to turn the spell off! Brace yourself!” Lindle shouted up to Humphrey, pretending to go to the ground below the ranger to test if it was soft enough to drop him onto.

“What!? No! Don’t do that!” Humphrey shouted back. Swiping his arms as he tried to swim back to the ground.

Thalia walked up next to him, a look of concern on her face, drawing her wand. “Should I…” The concern faded as she saw him holding back snickers. She sighed, putting her face in her hand.

Lindle watched Humphrey flail wildly for a few more seconds. “Ready? Three, two, one!”

Humphrey closed his eyes and curled up, bracing himself for impact, and Lindle, instead of dismissing the spell, began pulling Humphrey back to the ground. He held the position for a few moments, before opening an eye and looking around in confusion. Realization grew on his face and he glared down at Lindle, uncurling and crossing his arms.

“You’re a dick.”

Lindle snickered and brought him back down to the ground, dismissing the spell once both feet were safely on the snow. “Sorry, it was too good to pass up.”

“Well, turnabout is fair play, so just watch your back,” Humphrey warned.

Thalia rolled her eyes. “Boys. We’re supposed to be on a quest. Can you please take this seriously?”

“Ah… yeah. Sorry.” Lindle apologized more genuinely. He looked around at the scattered bones. “That was actually closer than I expected. Is everyone okay?”

Humphrey shook his arm. “I took some hits, your magic scales helped a lot, but I’d still appreciate some healing.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Thalia waved Lindle off as he started to reach into his pouch for a healing potion. “I got plenty of Mana left, don’t waste the potion.” She pointed her wand at Humphrey, and green energy flowed up from the ground and wrapped around his body, seeping into him as her spell healed him.

The three of them spread out. Humphrey went to retrieve his arrows and started looking for the path the undead used to get here. Thalia got to work dismissing her [Grasping Patch] spell, untangling the vines and returning them to the earth, And Lindle started inspecting the remains of the undead under his Ethos sense.

It was interesting, undead Ethos was in some ways similar to draconid Ethos in that there seemed to be a faded overarching aspect that seemed to encompass undeath in general. It felt weak, in the same way he suspected that the draconid Ethos from the zmey had been weak because it was a weak example of the type, but no less potent than the other most dominant aspect present. There was also a skeletal aspect, and a secondary aspect of beasts and what he suspected the species the creature had been in life, due to this aspect being different when comparing the feline and the canine skeletons. Overall, skeletons seemed to have a much simpler set of aspects in their Ethos compared to most materials he had worked with before. If he wanted to make an artifact out of one, he’d likely only have the undeath and skeletal aspects to work with.

One interesting thing to note however, was that when it came to the skeletons that Humphrey had slain, the undeath aspect was almost entirely gone. He only noticed it because he was expecting it to be there after inspecting the skeletons Thalia had killed first. The holy magic on Humphrey’s arrows seemed to have almost burned the aspect of undeath away. Lindle wondered if the Ethos of the skeletons he had burned using alchemical fire experienced something similar.

Lindle rushed down the ridge, passing Humphrey as he peered into the woods. He kneeled down next to the trio of skeletons he had gotten next to the corpse of the White Mammoth and activated his Ethos sense. Lindle froze, as he did confirm that the aspect of undeath in these skeletons was weakened, though not to the same degree as the ones hit with holy magic. More importantly, however, was that he could sense the powerful aspect of undeath present in the white mammoth's corpse. An active aspect of undeath.

Humphrey approached Lindle. “Hey, found the trail- woah!” He shouted as Lindle shot to his feet and grabbed his friend, pulling him away.

“Move!” Lindle shouted.

The ground shook as the white mammoth shifted, opening its eyes.