Chapter 16: Chapter 16: a plucked bird

Waking to the sun peeking over the horizon and the sound of the calm river is quite nice. 

My sparks have returned, albeit in a slightly reduced manner. Focusing then to jump between my fingers as I sit up, lets me play some simple tunes. I can’t help but smile at the recognizable tune. Still not good at it, but I like it quite a lot.

Hang on a moment. If I can decide where they are, can’t I have them in my mouth and use my voice? Trying it, I find the familiar pleasant feeling inside my mouth. Kinda odd, not unpleasant, but very much something I had never expected to feel.

Opening my mouth, the sound comes out significantly different from just doing it with my fingers. It sounds softer? Varmer? Not sure how to describe it, but the sound makes me laugh, and combined with the buzzing sound it sounds super strange, causing me to laugh even more.

I just roll around on the bed laughing for a while. Soon enough my stomach rumbles and my laughing calms down. I can think of so many uses for this, everything from intimidation to singing. I stop focusing the sparks and think of what to eat. No more fish? Maybe I should fish in the river?

I jump out of bed and look into the river. No fish to be seen, despite the clear water. No fish then. Deer or goat? Not feeling like butchering, I just take out a piece of the stag. Maybe I should cook it properly instead of flash frying it? Holding the piece in both hands, I run electricity through it, limiting the power. I regularly change the points I hold, and soon enough it is smoking.

Still tastes like stag, and not anything better even though it’s properly cooked. Don’t know what I was expecting, since I don’t even have salt.

Now that breakfast is finished, it’s time to move on. If I want spices, I have to get to civilization. That’s not the only reason, but it’s the one on my mind right now.

During yesterday’s game night, as we ended up calling it, I asked Danievil what the fifth direction was. She answered that it’s the quest marker from the game, and that it currently points towards a demon city, so that’s the way to go for now.

I pack away my bed, and jump across the river to follow the marker north-east, but what do I spot in the middle of the jump? A fat fish. With a split second decision, I fire a lightning strike through my foot and down into the river.

After landing I immediately turn around and jump into the river to pick up the fish, and whatever else got caught in the crossfire, which turns out to be two other fishes, and a turtle? Tortoise? The lizard with the shell. Wonder what that tastes like.

Well, I’m wet now… should have considered that before jumping into the river. 

Sigh…

I should take the opportunity to scrub myself down. At least the burn marks don't hurt anymore. And I can see small hair starting to sprout from the areas I previously lost them.

Combing through my fur and submerging into the water is the best I can do for now. Kinda makes me wish I had soap, once again. You know what? It doesn’t kinda make me want soap, it DEFINITELY makes me want soap.

After getting as clean as I can, I jump out of the river and shake off as much water as I can manage. The sun and the sparks will have to cooperate on the rest.

Following the quest marker eventually causes my path to diverge from the lakeside towards some mountains in the distance. Still quite fun to run through the forest, and I even manage to catch a low flying bird! It had mostly black feathers, but more akin to a black songbird, rather than a raven. I jumped after it when I spotted it, caught it mid air and didn’t even stop to electrocute and stow it away! Kinda proud of that actually.

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Eventually I reach the foot of the mountain, with the quest marker pointing slightly to the left of the peak. Should I go around, or over the mountain? Had I still been in my human body, I would have walked around, but now I kinda want to see the view, if not from the top, at least from a fair bit up the side. So, with the decision made, I resume my electric humming while trekking up the mountainside.

It’s not that steep, all things considered, and by the time I’m halfway up the side, the sun is setting. Would love to say that it’s a great view, but I still haven’t left the forest, do the trees are in the way. The biggest problem is that I have no flat ground to put my bed on when I need to go to sleep. Should I dig into the ground to level it, or elevate the feets of the bed?

Putting off the decision, I continue a bit further after the sun sets. And a bit later, I find a spot that's at least level enough for me to not roll off the bed in my sleep. Not quite level enough for the canopy with its damaged leg though. I’ll fix that some other time, since it doesn’t look like it’ll rain anytime soon.

Not feeling quite ready to sleep yet, I think of what to do for a moment, before starting to defeather the blackbird so that I can just eat it tomorrow. As a bonus I will probably be able to use the feathers to craft something.

 

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In a cave in a mountain side an elven vampire awakens from his slumber as the sun sets. He stretches his tall slender frame before heading out to look for suitable prey. Elves are his favorite, but anything with blood and mana will do. At some point in the past, he was but a simple elven hunter, but ever since he turned, he has found that elves are no longer the friends he thought they were. On the other hand, the few demons he has met, have been a lot more forgiving of his affliction despite what he used to think of them beforehand.

His bright red eyes glimmer in the moonlight as he wanders through the mountainside. Looking around and sensing his surroundings, he finds that a new beast has entered his territory. This has him worried, as the beast does not seem weak, injured maybe, but not weak.

After following the trail for a bit, which has a slightly electric feel to it, he starts to hear the crackling of lightning. This either means that there is a goat nearby, or the beast is electric in nature. This can be bad as the goats are the weakest electric monster he has faced, with the two otters being so much stronger than him, that he refused to even engage with them, fleeing at the sight. 

The goats are hard enough to deal with as they can charge quite fast, and stun him by mere proximity. The goats are some of his least favorite prey, so hopefully it’s not a herd of those.

Crouching down and minimizing his presence, he slowly approaches the source of the sound, and when he finally can see it through the bushes, he is confused by what he sees. In between the trees, there stands a bed of fine craftsmanship, and on that bed sits a white fox monster plucking the feathers of a blackbird.

Intelligent monsters are known to occasionally steal furniture and do other unusual activities like this, and he would have realized it quite quickly, had he not seen the red eyes on the monster.

Why would a vampiric monster defeather such a small bird? He thinks, while staring intently at its unusual behavior and the small lightning bolts crawling across its fur. The burn marks covering it shows that his intuition on it being injured is true, but it’s behavior doesn’t reflect pain, so the injury is likely old and mostly healed.

He can tell that it has significantøy more mana than him, so he would like to avoid a confrontation, but he cannot simply let it take over his territory.

Just as he makes up his mind, he realize that the monster is staring at him.