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Ivy felt the cold bony fingers of fear wrapping around her heart. The dark forest seemed to be staring at her, talking to her with the wind. Ullr shivered beside her. The trees creaked and groaned while they slowly swayed in the bone chilling wind.
Six low-level spells, no more and I'm tapping in my lifespan. Ivy's thoughts echoed against the walls of her mind. Shadows occasionally flickered over the little light that was able to pierce the trees. "We may have gone too deep in the forest." Angela mowed. "I've noticed." Ivy retorted quickly. Some bushes before them start shaking. "It doesn't smell like the salamander." Ullr comments. "That's probably not as good as it sounds." Luna says to the kitten voicing Ivy's thoughts.
Slowly a long green scaled snake slithers out of the covers, it's serpentine eyes narrow on the group. The wind picks up a bit. Is it just a normal snake? The ivy on some trees collapsed to the ground. That's concerning. The snake forked tongue slithered out before quickly shooting back in. A low menacing his escaped the serpent's lips. The ivy on the ground surged forward trapping Ivy and the rest in the plants. The snake meanwhile coiled around itself its muscles tensing like a spring.
Ivy tensed as the creature jumped at a horrifying speed. Twitching her ear Ivy summoned five dirt walls slamming it against the creature's jaw. It flew backwards exposing its underside and with another flick of her ear a sharp pillar of earth shot from the ground. Luna stared holding her breath while Angela fazed through the plants. Ivy's stomach flipped and dropped into hell as the spike shattered on impact. Time to use my lifespan I guess. Ivy flicked her ear and nausea started to build as she felt her life seeping away. Water condensed above the staggered snake turning to ice. It expanded into a flat blade, all of Ivy's concentration gathered towards the strength and sharpness of it. With a final flick of the ear it dropped severing the snake's head.
The ivy around the group loosened enough for them to walk out. Ivy stumbled away quickly to relieve her stomach of its content. As she returned she spotted Luna busy removing its core. Ullr who was staring at the snake decided it was still not dead and swatted at it earning a giggle from the rest. Angela walked up and took a good chunk out of the snake and gulped it down. As she went in for another bite she turned to look at Luna. Ivy meanwhile also made her way over and took a bite listening to what Angela and Luna were saying. "You don't want a bite Luna? You look so weirded out." "No it's rather poisonous." Angela blinked in confusion Ivy mimicking her. "No it's not as far as I know." Now it was Luna's turn to blink with confusion. "It's a rather well-known fact that snake-type monsters are incredibly poisonous." Ullr chimes in. "Maybe it's poisonous for her but not for us." All three nod. "Yeah that's probably it." Ivy shrugs and goes for another piece. Her vision becomes blurry around the edges and before she knows it her head explodes in pain white-hot and furious, it doesn't take long for her vision to go black.
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--Spirit world.
Ivy groans as she opens her eyes, her head still in searing pain. "I'm sorry to call you so abruptly my child, you're not dead." Ivy blinks in recognition at the voice: Tsalice. The massive goddess looms over her, next to her stands a towering black dragon who introduces himself as Doroadum. The dragon nods before shooting a questioning look at Tsalice. "How did you summon her while she was awake? No god can do that." Tsalice briefly tenses at the question. What are they talking about aren't gods all-powerful? The dragon turns his head to mine. "We're not all-powerful. We grow stronger the more we age, and with the number of followers we have." His eyes narrow on Ivy. "I'm one of the oldest gods and yours is one of the newest a newborn basically." Tsalice smacks the Doroadum on the head with one of her tail. The dragon looks back at the fox and asks once again how she summoned Ivy without her sleeping. "I may have used a tail to create a body for her." The dragon grumbles
something Ivy didn't pick up. He opens his jaw to speak while swinging his head back to regard Ivy. "So there's a small black dragon being tortured by the human king, he may send it after you but I ask as kindly as I can, don't kill it but free it from the shackles binding him to the king. His is threatened with his already dead mother." He puffs and smoke rises out his nostrils. "That's all." Tsalice nods before waving her tail and Ivy collapses to the ground.
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--Physical world.
Ivy grumbled as paws shook her. She opened her eyes with annoyance only to be met by Ullr's worried face. "It's nothing my dear," Ivy paused to take a breath. "Tsalice called for me, but I'm fine."Now that I think about it did Doroadum read my mind? A shiver crawls up Ivy's spine. I don't even want to think about that. With a grunt she rises to her paws. She parts her jaw letting the air caress her scent glands. Nothing dangerous in the area. With a nod she picks up Ullr and follows the scent trail left by Luna.
Ivy spots Luna and Angela standing over a salamander's corpse. Its core placed beside it next to that of the snake. Ivy grumbles at the cores. I hate it that I have to purify them each time. She approaches them with a greeting which they return with worried glances. Ullr approaches and explains what Ivy told him. I swear, next time I see Tsalice I'm going to ask her to allow me to absorb mana from impure cores.
"You don't need to wait." Ivy yelps in surprise spinning around to search for Tsalice. "Relax I'm not there. You're an extension of my body of course I can communicate with it." Well that answers my question why I alone seem to hear her. Ivy glances at Ullr who's swatting at Luna. "So you want to absorb mana from impure cores. You know I'm not going to be easy on it." Tsalice continues. "I know, what's your price for it?" Silence stretches for a bit before Tsalice breaks it. "Let's say three years and half your mana." Ivy's stomach dips at the offer. "I do have to warn you that each time you absorb mana from an impure core it will take a week of your lifespan." The pit in Ivy's stomach deepens. "You know it's worth it." Silence fills the air only broken by the playful laughter of Luna and Ullr. "Alright." Tsalice confirms.
Ivy's chest tightens and her body starts feeling drained along with her mana. She steps forward, after her body starts feeling normal again, and grabs the snake's core into her mouth with fear she shatters it. Her muscles stiffen, lock, stretch and cramp what feels like at the same time, her stomach threatens to spill over, as the impure mana starts flowing through her. Her body starts relaxing a bit as the pure mana separates from the impurities and collect in her core boosting her mana. The impurities remain for a moment longer, numbing her body. Finally it starts to move gathering in her stomach, her body once again starts feeling sluggish and a strangely warm energy starts to crystallize around the impurities. Ivy starts wheezing rapidly trying to get as much air as possible in her scorching lungs. Her stomach muscles start contracting pushing up the impure crystal. Ivy gags once, twice, trice and out falls a slimy slightly bloodied pulsating black crystal.
Ivy shifts and picks up the surprisingly hot crystal, it is like holding a warm mug. The crystal hums and pulsates ominously with restricted energy. It feels almost… fragile. Voices start ringing in her ear. "Throw the crystal!" "Kill!" "Disfigure the guilty!" They start ringing louder, repeating endlessly in a twisted melody. Another starts rising above the rest. "Eradicate the flesh bags, devour their children, wear their pelt." The chorus grows insistent, Ivy's vision starts reddening, and her body trembling. "Avenge us." The voices boom through her mind echoing down her spine. Abruptly they stop leaving nothing but silence. Ivy's vision clears and her body stops trembling. Slowly she looks at Ullr who seems to have gotten on her shoulder somewhere in her distraction. He rubs his head against Ivy's, purring with glee. "I love mommy." I reach over and ruffle his pelt between his ears, when I retract my hand it spikes up a bit. A giggle escapes my lips.
"Luna, Angela please come here, and take the core with you. I want to throw this crystal on the corpses and see what happens." They nod and Angela approaches, while Luna quickly grabs the core and hurries to catch up to the floating cat. They all step away a bit more until Ivy is sure that they're a safe distance. She slowly puts Ullr on the ground and tells him to sit still, he nods in response. I hope with all my might that we're far enough. With that thought Ivy flings the crystal at the corpses. The crystal hums as it speeds through the shattering on impact with the corpses. Energy crackles through the air like black lighting bending at sharp angles melting holes into the lifeless flesh, but it's all fades with a blink like it never happened the only evidence suggesting otherwise are the hole-filled corpses with visible tendrils of steam. A rancid smell wafts over, causing Luna to abruptly run behind a tree a few moments later the sound of vomiting is travels through the area. Ivy gags as the scent also hits her, Ullr beside her mimicking Luna but instead of a tree his choice is a bush. Angela floats besides Ivy clearly not bothered by the rancid stench. Ivy grabs the core, Luna apparently dropped in her hurry to alleviate her stomach, and shatters it. A few moments later she's down more of her lifespan, but up another crystal and mana.
Later that evening the group had made a temporary den, Ivy's body was aching painfully by the time everything was finished. With a sigh she practically threw herself onto her nest and pressed Ullr closer to her as he curled up beside her. "Tsalice, can you hear me?" Ivy waits a moment still weirded out by the ability to call on Tsalice just by thinking. Just as she started growing impatient did she finally hear the goddess's sweet voice in her mind. "What is it my dear?" "Are there any requests from my people? It would be nice to increase my lifespan a bit now that it takes that resource To gain more mana." A confused noise echoes through Ivy's mind. "It doesn't take your lifespan to increase your mana, it just does that when you extract mana from impure cores not pure ones. If you don't want to sacrifice your lifespan, just purify the cores it's that simple." Ivy rolls her eyes. "I know that! It's just safer right now to extract directly from an impure core, instead of waiting for it to purify." Once again silence greets us with glee before going away when Tsalice responds. "Well I do have a request from a cub. She asked that you could send Ullr to us so she could play with him… She offered two months in return." Ivy's face contorts into anger for a few seconds before going smooth again. "How would I send up Ullr? Will it only be him fully or only his soul?" Ivy asks through her mind. "Don't worry he will be fully summoned and I'll send him back right after." "I will think about it." With that Ivy closes the conversation. If there's something I won't do is sending Ullr to somewhere he doesn't want to go. I will ask him tomorrow how he feels about the matter.
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Character info.
Ivy : lifespans decrease to around eleven months. Mana decrease two just two medium-level spells while also gaining the ability to extract mana from impure cores at the cost of lifespan.
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Thank you for reading this chapter :-).
Btw "hello" is speaking aloud, "hello" is telepathic and hello are the thoughts if anyone was confused here you go.
Also yes Ivy he did in fact do that.