[Aura of ??? : 90 (+10)]
[Crystals : ~4000 (+50)]
[Ghoul mother cores : 40 (+0)]
[Ghoul golem cores : 22 (+0)]
[Ghoul golem cores (broken) : 6 (+0)]
Thud. Thud.
Hikari walks into the mist.
Fully stocked with throwing daggers and ballista bolts.
Her wyvern sword in its hoister strapped to her back.
She draws it.
"Frost kills ghouls?"
She practiced a bit back in the warehouse.
Imbibing her sword with frost typically does not improve the cleaving power of her sword.
The searing heat of the wyvern flame works much better.
The RazenHeir flame would slowly eat away at her foe even if the punching power of the sword does not.
She channels her mana.
The mist burns but she has gotten more tolerant of it.
She feels the air around the blade cool.
It was working.
She sees a ghoul wandering around.
It does not see her.
She pulls out a throwing dagger.
Heart of wyvern frost.
She throws the frozen dagger.
It hits the ghoul.
It snarls briefly before disintegrating.
She retrieves the dagger.
It flies back to her.
"Did that do anything?"
She couldn't see enough of the ghoul through the mist.
Her throwing dagger kills it in one hit even without any added magic.
She shrugs.
Thud. Thud.
She marches forward.
A grey rocky formation lies just a head.
She approaches it.
"Grey salt."
The unassuming rock formation seems to repel the mist.
She sits down and tries to circulate her mana.
No burn.
She sends out a pulse through the ground.
She pushes even more.
She maps out the surrounding area.
Rocky formation protruding out of ground.
Uneven ground.
A wide chasm just ahead.
Small herds of ghouls.
A wandering golem.
Another grey salt formation just ahead.
She stands up.
This will be a good resting spot.
She doesn't need to just yet.
Boom. Boom.
She hears the faint sound of explosions in the distance.
Up in the sky.
She sees the faint shadow of zeppelins dropping bombs onto the ground.
"The push is starting."
It wasn't exactly a front row seat where she's standing.
She had done her part in moving the supplies forward.
"Before I forget."
She waves her hand gently, leaving behind a trace of RazenHeir flame.
A marker.
She is not sure how well it holds up in the mist, but she might as well try.
She turns her head.
The strong barrier of the town in the distance is still very visible even through the mist.
Finding her way back shouldn't be a problem.
She continues towards the hive.
She stopped.
She senses a golem ghoul right ahead.
She was just outside its detection range.
She draws her sword again.
The runes respond to her.
The blade turns cold.
"Let's see if this works."
She charges the golem.
Sword in a thrusting stance.
Before it could react.
She plunged the blade right into its chest, her momentum knocking it to the ground.
The golem is still alive.
She didn't hit its core.
But it couldn't move.
She notices the change in texture on its chest.
It flapped its arms helplessly.
"It stuns. Nice."
She drives her sword into the golems chest again.
It disintegrates.
She picks up its core and drops it into her harvest sack.
"What's that?"
A triplet of crystals growing out of a rock pillar.
She plucks them.
They were smaller but just slightly bigger than the ones dropped by ghouls.
She keeps them and continues.
[Ghoul golem cores : 23 (+1)]
[Mist crystals (Small) : 3 (+3)]
The next salt formation.
She sits down and takes out her map.
An old map of the Carla depths from back when the raiding town was active.
Towards the right of the map was the raiding town where she was stationed.
Markings denote locations of ghoul hives as seen from the observatory back up in Carla to the west.
Long line markings denoting the chasms she must avoid falling into.
Grey spots denoting the locations of grey salt formations.
The map so far has been pretty accurate.
The first ghoul hive was right after this salt formation.
She could sense the wandering hordes.
She channels her mana.
She is heading into a fight now.
She stands up.
The patrols outside should be picked off first.
She charges the first group of golem ghouls.
It surprises them.
A volley of frozen daggers hit the back two.
Hikari plunges her sword into the center one.
She dances back.
Expecting a counter attack.
But they couldn't move.
The frost daggers paralyzes them.
"Nice."
She darts forward again.
Her boots brushed aside the smaller ghouls.
She plunges her sword into the left one.
The right one slowly got up.
She watches.
It can move.
But not at its normal pace.
It tried to swing its arms.
Hikari danced right out of its reach.
She observes.
Though it could move, its movements were sluggish.
Its swings don't have the same weight behind it.
Parry.
Her sword hits its arm.
It hardens.
The golem ghoul drops its arm.
It drags its limp arm along the ground.
Stab.
Hikari puts it out of its misery.
She continues towards the hive.
She slows down.
The mist thickens.
It feels more suffocating.
She looks around.
"There."
A grey rock formation.
She sits down.
She still feels the influence of the mist.
Figures that a rock formation is not going to protect her against a stronger area.
She tests her mana forms.
Telekinesis works just fine.
She tries to leave behind a flame marker.
It flickers out after a while.
She tries to apply frost to her sword.
It burns a bit.
Still usable.
One by one, she chills her ballista bolts and throwing daggers.
She pulses the earth.
The range was limited.
She could see a portion of the hive.
Up ahead there was a pit.
A colony of ghoul mothers.
She could hear their snarls from here.
"This might be too many."
She notices something.
A floating eye in the sky.
"Ivory berries."
She quickly got up and ducked behind the salt formation.
She peered around the corner.
The floating eye scans the ground around it.
Smooth, pale skin. Similar to a ghoul.
It doesn't blink.
It doesn't seem to notice her.
She watches it closely.
It just quietly scans the ground below it.
Hikari reaches for a small pebble.
She flicks it in its direction.
Tick. Tack. Tack.
It bounces off the jagged, uneven stone ground.
The eye didn't seem to notice.
Hikari was surprised at how insensitive it was.
Cheekily, she picked up another pebble.
She flicks it at the floating eye.
It staggered. It gave out an annoyed hum.
But it maintained its position.
Going back to scanning the ground below it as though nothing happened.
After a while, it moves out.
Hikari comes out of hiding.
"No need to worry I guess."
She wanders deeper towards the hive.
The mist gets thicker and thicker.
The visibility was getting worse.
But she could see a conspicuous pillar right at the center.
"Whats that?"
She moves closer.
It was the biggest crystal formation she had seen yet.
The crystals each were about the size of her thumb.
"Wow."
She chisels it out of the rock with her sword.
She keeps an ear out for any ghouls that might attack her.
The range is limited, but she still can pulse the ground.
She pops the large crystals into her harvest sack.
"I can just loot can't I?"
She stopped getting closer to the center.
There was plenty of harvest in this area.
Her harvest sack was soon a quarter full.
She senses a patrol of ghouls within dagger throw range.
She stops to gauge their path.
They crawled past her.
She continued chiseling.
The patrol didn't seem to notice.
She popped the crystals into her harvest sack.
She stretches her arm.
It was getting close to her meal time.
Her harvest sack was half full.
The crystals she got were of pretty high quality, she thinks.
She can tell by the strong mana presence they emit as she holds them.
"Time to get back."
She turns around.
She stops.
Something was off.
She looks up.
A floating eye.
She stared directly at it.
It stopped too.
Fixing its gaze onto her.
"Ivory berries."