I squished myself to the ground just as the talons closed over me, but instead of grabbing my core, the harpy’s grasp closed only on slime.

  “Leave me alone!” I shouted, emboldened by my ally nearby. I grew a pseudopod and flung it at the wing mother. The limb struck her bird-like ankle and she withdrew with a frustrated series of chitters.

  Dorin put a fist to his lips. He filled his lungs before blowing through his fingers. A stream of fire shot towards the wing mother, forcing her to retreat several yards lest her feathers be caught in the inferno.

  “You alright?” Dorin asked gruffly, wiping a bit of fire mana from his lips. I double checked my status just to make sure.

  Health: 9/11

  Mana: 23/23

  Injury Index: 2 - Core damage due to Mana Exhaustion

  So, normal, then. The few hours of climbing up and down the cliff face had restored some of my health, even if my regeneration was still limited. It was enough.

  “I’m fine. Just glad I’m not in a stew.”

  Across the field, the wing mother and her shaman landed on the pile of bones. “So, it’s intelligent enough to speak,” said the leader. “It seems you were right, K’esil.”

  They exchanged several hasty chitters and whispers, never taking their eyes off me. Eventually, the wing mother stood to her full height, which wasn’t much compared to a burly man like Dorin, but was still impressive in its own way as she spread her wings wide.

  “I am L’aera, Wing Mother of the High Ridge Harpy Colony. This is Blood Sister K’esil, the shaman of our nest and speaker for the Great Mother.” Her words carried authority, and several of the harpies watching from the cliffs bowed their heads in respect.

  “Good for you,” Dorin muttered.

  He gripped his pick, his eyes flicking to the treetops. I spotted several harpies land above our heads. We were thoroughly surrounded.

  L’aera’s eye twitched and she narrowed her eyes. “You are greatly outnumbered, and both K’esil and myself are Second Tier in the eyes of the Great Mother. Any attempt to flee with the slime will be swiftly and unceremoniously put down.”

  “You sure do talk a lot for someone so confident in her superiority,” Dorin growled.

  “This is your single opportunity to surrender. We must speak with the slime.” Her eyes were cold and piercing.

  “Maybe the slime doesn’t want to speak with you,” I grumbled too quietly for anyone but the knight to hear.

  Dorin snorted his laughter. “You know what? My father warned me against trusting the sweet songs of sky sirens. I think I’ll pass.”

  Flames sprang into his hand, and he hurled it into the grass between us. Mana exploded in a blast of orange so bright I could barely see.

  “Come on!” he shouted.

  I leapt at him, clinging to his belt as he sprinted into the forest. Screams of fear and outrage echoed behind us as the wing mother tried to regain control of the situation.

  “Vi’sek! Get earth and water! Douse the fire before it spreads to the trees!” she shouted. “K’esil, with me! If they escape, the colony is doomed!”

  Dorin ran with the grace and skill of a hardened predator. He leapt over roots and ducked beneath branches. Every so often, he threw out a hand, grabbing the bark of a tree as he turned hard and continued his mad dash toward freedom.

  “Above us!” I cried, catching a glimpse of azure and crimson above.

  The harpies dove, hurtling towards the ground with talons bared. At my warning, Dorin slammed his feet down, and he skidded to a stop, brandished his war pick, and spun to face the enemy all in one fluid motion. He swing the pick, clipping the side of the harpy shaman in the same breath as the wing mother’s talons ripped into his shoulder, drawing blood.

  In the next moment, both harpies beat their wings and darted ahead. L’aera landed on a single talon, raising the bloody one off the ground. When her companion landed next to her, she offered the talon and the Blood Sister grinned. From the ragged leather that clothed her body, she pulled a out a small doll and let the blood drip onto it.

  “Damned witch,” Dorin grumbled. “Suri, I need you to get that doll and destroy it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because-” the draken choked before he could finish the thought. Thick veins of bloody mana sprang to life around him.

  “I don’t believe I gave you permission to speak, kidnapper,” K’esil said calmly. She held a wing-claw over the doll’s sewn mouth, holding it shut.

  “Kidnapper? Look who’s talking.” I snapped back.

  The blood sister flinched but kept her resolve. “This is not how we wished this to play out. You must understand.”

  Rather than speaking, Dorin rushed ahead, swinging his pick at her head. It was intercepted by a blast of wind conjured by the wing mother. He faltered only for a step before bringing his pick down.

  K’esil hopped back nimbly, flapping her wings once to aid her retreat. Dorin took advantage, spinning around and putting a hand to his lips again. Flame washed over L’aera the wing mother before she could finish her strike.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  However, his flame breath was quickly interrupted as the shaman jabbed a rough claw into the doll’s stomach. Dorin doubled over, the crimson veins flaring as they crisscrossed beneath his skin. The wing mother recovered quickly and launched herself at him with talons bared. They sliced through his other shoulder, dragging a bloody trail through his dirty and mangled armor.

  Together they were a menace, built to fight in tandem as scout sister and blood sister. Dorin would not last long under their combined attention. It was up to me to intervene.

  After making sure my magic was aligned with Slayer’s Stance, I launched myself with all my strength at the harpy shaman’s chest. Sealing Touch cleanly severed the connection of her mana with the doll she carried, giving Dorin a moment to breathe. But, the effect was only temporary. I still needed to destroy it.

  “Wait, stop!” K’esil cried.

  She staggered back as I spread my slime wide as I wrapped around her stomach and up her back. Her screams made my slime tremble. The sound was so high-pitched, so filled with terror and pain as my acid ate away at her skin, but I didn’t relent. Flesh and feathers sizzled beneath me as I rippled up her wing towards the doll.

  Recognizing my goal, she threw the doll down. “Take it! Take it!”

  I gathered my slime back together, resting briefly on her wing before throwing myself at the doll. I engulfed it in an instant. It quickly dissolved to nothing.

  [Mana-dense object consumed.

  +5 mana ]

  The doll wasn’t the only object dangling from K’esil’s clothes. Another doll, a small crystal, and a bag of something with sweet tasting magic all hung tantalizingly within range. I hopped towards her, eager for the promise of more mana.

  “Stop! Please!” She panicked, hopping several paces back.

  I hopped closer again.

  Her eyes went wide with fear. She cast a glance at the sky, then down to the ground. Seemingly making a decision, she collapsed to her knees, covering her head with her wings. “Please! Vi’yera! Forgive me!”

  I stopped. “What did you say?”

  The harpy babbled in terror. “Vi’yera, forgive me for my mistreatment! I did not know your greatness and was scared for the future of the colony! Please, agent of the Great Mother, have mercy on me!”

  I…didn’t know that word. She called me “Vi’yera,” but I didn’t have the foggiest idea what that meant. She also called me an agent of the Great Mother, but that was just as confusing. I answered to no one, except possibly for Dragon’s Gate, since it was my home.

  “I did not know! If I had known you were intelligent, I never would have recommended that we snatch you! You know it is against our way! The Great Mother would punish me for recommending such cruelty!” She was practically hysterical, now. Her shoulders shook and every feather seemed to tremble.

  “Then why did you continue chasing us after I escaped?”

  Tears streamed down her face as she pressed her forehead into the earth. “I was scared! The colony depends on you, and the draken wouldn’t listen! Please forgive me!”

  I slid back from the harpy. Eating a creature begging for its life wouldn’t be right, even if she did just try to kidnap me and put me in a stew.

  “I’m not going to eat you. Just your stuff.”

  “Take it!” she ripped the extra doll from her shawl and threw it before me.

  No encouragement was required. I devoured the doll. On second taste, I found it had a metallic taste, which was odd since this one had not been dipped in Dorin’s blood. Perhaps it was simply the taste of K’esil’s magic, blood-tainted as it was.

  “Vi’yera,” she began in a soft, trembling voice. “You have no reason to answer. I have failed the Great Mother in more ways than I care to count. But, if you have any compassion within you, tell me how to save my people?”

  “Save them from what?”

  K’esil bowed her head. “The darkness encroaches. I’ve done my best to listen. The stars tell of great suffering to come, the winds carry the howls of the death walkers, and the entrails warn that the colony will be next.

  “Ours is not a large colony. Already, we have lost nearly half of our number to the dread ghosts who seep from the shadows. Many of our sisters are sick. A score of them have already lost their wings and become death walkers. If this continues, the song of our colony will be silenced forever.”

  Dread ghosts? Death walkers? Though the names were different, my mind immediately thought of the wraiths and shamblers we fought at the human town. The big shambler had not been human. Were the monsters just as vulnerable to this plague as the humans were? From their position on the cliffs, shamblers wouldn’t be as much of a threat as the wraiths who emerged from the ground like water bubbling from a spring. They could attack the harpies in their own homes.

  “The humans suffer from this evil, as well,” I said, hopping closer. I wobbled the words for “danger” and “not,” hoping that some of the meaning might reach the terrified harpy.

  “The whole forest does, but–” K’esil pulled at a knot on the pouch that still dangled from her shawl— “the entrails guided me to you. You can fix it? Protect us from the darkness?”

  She pulled out a rock and clutched it between two wing-claws before offering it to me. It shimmered with earth magic, as well as a trace of her own bloody mana. I took it with a pseudopod, tasting it thoroughly. It wasn’t large, probably not even the size of my core. The outside was covered with moss, but the edges of each strand were frayed by some kind of acid. Where the acid had been exposed to the rock itself, it tasted different, almost sweet. I took it into myself, dissolving it and analyzing it, trying to perfectly memorize every detail of its flavor and texture.

  The crystalline rock fell apart in sections, my slime eating away along small veins more easily than the rest. Where it ate quickly, the rock tasted like water and metal. Where it ate slowly, it was more like sweet honey. Yet, the texture was strong and sharp throughout.

  K’esil gasped. “You…that symbol…it’s Vi’yera!”

  “What?”

  “The way you dissolved the rock, it’s in the symbol of kinship. The one from the old tongue!”

  [Mana dense object consumed.

  +3 mana

  Unknown evolution requirement revealed.

  Evolution path: Unknown, Tier 3

  Requirements:

  Consume Rocks: completed

  Consume dungeon bronze: 2/10

  Catalogue unique types of rock: 0/5

  Consume Mana-dense rocks: 1/5

  Unknown: 0/3]

  I still didn’t know what on earth K’esil was talking about. The rock dissolved in my slime completely a moment later, removing any trace of the sign she supposedly saw inside me. But, the Creator’s revelation supported her claims. The rock had mana, and quite a lot of it to give three whole mana to my pool. I was nearly back to full, with 21 mana out of the “normal” 23.

  “Do you promise not to put me in a stew or use me as a ritual component?” I asked.

  She pressed her head to the ground. “Of course not, Vi’yera! It would be against the Great Mother’s teachings!”

  That would warrant more investigation later. The limited knowledge I had of harpies from my birth said that they practiced many dark rituals filled with blood magic and wicked intent. Her words didn’t match that, and though I loathed to believe that the Creator didn’t really know about harpies, I could agree that she worked in mysterious ways. Perhaps she wanted me to learn for myself, develop my own opinions about this species of monster.

  I reached out with a pseudopod. Between the pulses of my core, I shifted my mana to match Healer’s Bearing before resting the pod on K’esil’s head. Mana passed from me to her, healing the worst of the burns caused by my frantic climb across her body. K’esil raised her head, her eyes wide with surprise.

  I just wobbled my slime happily. “Then call me Suri.”