“I’ll have to admit, I did not expect that,” I muttered to Luna after we remotely released our latest experiment into the wilds. We had been trying to figure out the best elements to imbue into different animals, trying to see if some species were inherently more biased towards certain elements or if elemental affinities were an entirely individual thing in beasts. In humans, I hadn’t come across any inherent general elemental bias but from my Character Creation back when Road to Purgatory existed, I remembered that Firn Elves supposedly had a general elemental bias towards Ice and Darkness. Or I might recall it the wrong way, it might have been the case that Firn Elf was recommended to me because I, the individual, already carried the bias towards Ice and Darkness, making me a fitting part of the race. Either way, I was fairly certain that, according to the description, all Firn Elves had some affinity to Ice and Darkness, and now, we wanted to see what affinities different beasts had. Or if there was no correlation between species and elemental affinity at all.
So far, we were fairly confident that bears, at least the types we came across in this area, were generally biased towards Earth and took on an Earth Affinity with ease, as demonstrated by the high success rate of bestowing an Earth Affinity to the few bears we came across that didn’t have one already. Granted, we hadn’t tried to give them any other affinity just yet, mostly because I still remembered the shitshow near Kolyug, where some insane Fire Mage tried to artificially create magical beasts by inserting crystallised elemental essence into their bodies, culminating in an insane bear with a fire bias strong enough to cause major havoc. Fighting that thing hadn’t been all that fun and, from what I remembered, that bear had only been one of the guy’s experiments, though we had left the area before encountering the rest of them.
Not that bears were the only animals we experimented on. The latest experiment, the one that surprised me, was on a red fox, a fairly large example of the species. We had previously tried to bestow a Darkness Affinity to a few foxes and were met with mixed results, so, with a bit of a laugh in mind, I decided to see what would happen if we created a literal Fire Fox by bestowing one with an affinity to Fire.
The unexpected was that the result was a resounding success, with the strange twist that the fox’s tail split into two tails, both with the same colour, an orange which faded into red, incredibly reminiscent of fire, giving the thing a rather exotic look. And some awesome power, as I had just seen when the thing went toe-to-toe with a hog, roasting the thing using streams of fire shot from its twin tails.
Compared to this, the previous darkness variant was outright harmless. Or, they were as harmless as an incredibly devious carnivore able to turn itself the next best thing to invisible could be, meaning, not at all. Just not as outright destructive, more a rogue and assassin than the apparent mage the Fire Fox was. Still, it made me consider what it would take to tame one of these foxes, though I doubted they were as intelligent as Silva was or as Ylva and Lenore had been. That, once again, made me wonder about these vastly different expressions of intelligence, at least as humans understood it. Why were some animals sapient, much like humans and similar beings were, while others were, well, just animals, albeit smart animals? And where was the inherent difference?
“We could try augmenting a wolf with a Wind affinity next,” Luna suggested after we watched the Fire Fox tear into the hog it had roasted, apparently intending to devour its own body weight in roasted meat. Where the fox put all that food, I had no idea, but the hog was disappearing at an almost impossible rate.
“No, I don’t think that’d be smart,” I admitted, taking my gaze off the fox and looking over to Luna. “One of the primary expressions of Wind Magic is its speed, while another is scent and sound, meaning a Wolf with Wind Affinity would either be a whole lot faster than normal, maybe even capable of flying, or it might have the ability to move utterly sound and scentlessly, improving its stealth to an extraordinary level. Or, possibly the most annoying option for us, it might gain even better tracking abilities than ordinary wolves have, meaning it could hunt us down as long as it wanted, possibly striking at the absolutely worst moment,” I explained, getting a thoughtful look and nod in response.
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“Fair,” Luna admitted, “But don’t you think Silva could negotiate with them, just like you negotiated with the people in Idiotsville?” she suggested and now, it was my turn to don a thoughtful look. This sounded like a viable idea, though it came down to Silva’s ability to talk with wolves and convince them that our help could be beneficial to them. And the question of whether the wolves were trustworthy enough to have their bodies enhanced with abilities that might be a threat to us if the wolves chose to try attacking us.
Looking at Silva, I was amused to see a thoughtful expression on her canine face. However, it was followed by a shrug, indicating that she didn’t know how that would go either. Given my experiences with the wolves in the Windswept Steppes, I felt somewhat positive. If the wolves agreed that they wouldn’t attack us after the procedure was completed, I was fairly confident that they would keep their word.
“That has potential, though I’d honestly prefer to work on something less troublesome first. We might want to capture some of the deer in the area and see how they react to Wind Magic, or maybe one of the local birds,” I decided, unwilling to commit to the idea of enhancing wolves just yet.
“Another option would be to go for the enhancement, and once it’s done, I could use my wings to carry us across the next few mountains. I don’t think I’d be able to carry Silva and you for hours on end but if we simply take to the sky for an hour or three, no terrestrial predator should be able to follow us,” I added before shaking my head to chase away yet another of the incredibly annoying mosquitoes.
“But before we do any of that, I want to get rid of these pests,” I growled, my mind returning to the various ideas I had considered before, trying to combine them into something to keep these pests permanently at bay. Or wipe them all out, even if it might be hazardous to the food pyramid; these pests deserved to die a horrible, permanent death. All of them, without any exceptions.
Next to me, Luna giggled softly. Then, she leaned over and looked at the paper I was using to track ideas, offering her own opinion and insight into the matter.
With both of us working together, it didn’t take all that long to have a few variants of the enchantment that might just work. The next step was, obviously, to make the right kind of accessory to enchant, and with a bit of fiddling around to get the right idea, we soon landed on a simple choker. Making it from hide skinned off some local animal would give us a plentiful supply to experiment with, and by cutting the end into threads to braid together, we could get a fairly sturdy construction and closure, all from a single material. That way, the enchantments should tie in nicely with the entire piece, hopefully protecting us at all times so we didn’t have to worry about bloodthirsty bugs trying to drain us while we rested.
Over the next two days, we continued northwards, discussing possible enchantments while we walked, putting together prototypes while we rested during the day and catching the odd animal for our experiments during the evening. Of those experiments, the one which combined Wind Magic with a Weasel might be one of our most successful ones, producing an incredibly fast and nimble creature. If the weasel had a higher initial level, I wouldn’t have risked enhancing the thing that way, but given that it was only level thirty to start out, I wasn’t overly worried.
Similarly, our prototypes were slowly taking shape, getting closer to a working solution with each attempt. Or so we hoped; quite a few of our prototypes turned out to be excellent displays of things that didn’t work, but, as the saying went, each failure was just another step on our path to success. I just hoped we didn’t need all that many more steps; the mosquitoes were getting seriously annoying. I couldn’t wait to be in the freezing cold again, where no mosquito or similar critter could survive.
