She looked back at the notification, trying to think how she would've felt about this before... she wouldn't approve of her current self she decided. This blessing may be fruitful but no doubt it would push her into more situations like this, it would cause her to risk her life for greater and greater massacres all to appease this mysterious being. Probably one of the Timeless? These gods and goddesses of this world.
One had already messed with her enough as it is and that was without her consent! What could one do if she openly accepted its blessing? What kind of danger would that bring to Lily when she found her?
"No!"
Alice responded audibly to the notification, she could have just mentally focused on it but if these beings were watching her she wanted them to her defiance and rejection. The air was still for a moment, the blood around her began to lose color and then the shadows grew longer in response. Alice gulped, this was dangerous right?
But just as it began it stopped, Alice let out a sigh of relief. She really didn't like being in between some struggle between divine beings. She moved away from the center of the massacre going towards where Xana had passed out. She was about to nudge her to wake her up when her ears flicked, she could hear the sound of bone breaking apart and reconstructing within Xana... was she... evolving?
Alice had never witnessed an evolution before... and she didn't know if it was safe to move Xana while she evolved. She only had one real choice, to sit there and watch over her friend, purely to protect her evolving body of course! Not at all because she was curious to see what evolution looked like from the outside.
For a while nothing happened, there was the occasional shift in the body but nothing more than that. Maybe she was just doing a simple evolution? That could be-
Xanas body began to contort, her skin peeled off, turning into ash as Alice was suddenly much more familiar with the salamanders insides than she ever wanted to be. She watched as the muscles melted into a blue liquid that then climbed up the skeleton of the salamander, searing its bones as the blue liquid took the shape of arcane sigils, before long the entire skeleton was covered in them, they glowed lightly as bones cracked and broke off, from each other before the ends grew attaching back together.
Alice felt... well uncomfortable was an understatement. She had experienced this in the Dark Place but never actually watched it happen. It was a brutal reminder that not only had she reincarnated in an entirely new body she wasn't even truly that first body she had obtained. The little brown furred bat was long gone. It begged the question of how much her remained? How much had she truly changed since coming to this world? She didn't even have a good idea of how long it had been, there had not been any way to tell time was passing here without any sun.
A few more moments of a complete reconstruction of Xana's body passed, every bit that fell off or was discarded either turned into ash or was melted down and added back to the body in some way, finally a much more slender salamander, her scales had a feint blue hue to them now rather than the orange from before but what Alice focused on was the lack of an arm. Her mothers words echoed in her head at that.
Lose a limb and no evolution will bring it back
As Alice thought back on those words Xana stirred, slowly getting up she looked around the area and then looked at Alice, her mouth opening a bit and then closing and then opening.
"Al-Alice did you do all of this? How... why?"
Alice tilted her head, her ears flopping lightly to the side before she laughed a bit.
"What do you mean? I couldn't let them attack you while you were unconscious and they all ended up attacking sooo I didn't really have a choice?"
Xana stared at her, her eyes widening more and more, her blue hued scales became brighter for a moment, before she shook her head.
"Honestly, first you disappear and then you come back way stronger, I really thought you were dead you know, I mourned you."
Alice was more confused now, sure they were friends but they had barely known each other, yet Xana seemed to have attached herself to Alice so quickly. Maybe because she was a Salamander? Or maybe she just hadn't had any friends in a long time.
"Well I did almost die, but I got better after I drained a health potion from a treasure chest in a dungeon."
Xana blinked slowly, looked around briefly before looking back at Alice, her face scrunched oddly.
"You're being serious? How did you even... no wait we should get somewhere safe."
She began to stumble forward, pausing when she nearly fell after expecting her left arm to be there. Alice winced, she wanted to go support her but her wings weren't the best option for that.
"Are you alr-"
"I'll be fine!"
Alice frowned at her sudden cut off, she sighed and moved over.
"How about I fly us back over? It'll be easier and I have the physical ability for it now."
Xana seemed to consider it, maybe even considered saying no but ultimately agreed with a deep sigh of resignation.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
What wasn't easy was how much she squirmed! Alice had her wrap around her from below, using her lower feet to grasp onto her and had Xana cling to her with her remaining arm. But for some reason Xana's light glow shined so much brighter the entire time which made it harder to see as she flew and Xana kept squirming and rubbing against her! It was so weird, but she guessed it made sense after all this must be embarrassing for Xana.
Alice barely glanced at the notification, it had been some work to get her inside but luckily Xana was able to still use her magic and utilized the [Shape Earth] spell she had used to create the abode to begin with.
"I guess I'll have to open and close the entrance for you from now on."
Xana commented as she got comfortable.
"So tell me everything."
Alice sighed before she began to explain.
"Basically right after you left a [Three Eye Crow] named Ricket attacked me, he seriously messed me up but I was able to escape by falling down deeper into the Cave. From there I fell into something called the Lower Dungeons, which is this big maze with monsters. I saw [Skeletons] and [Slimes] down there and ended up having to fight [Slimes]. Luckily they're pretty weak if you can hit their core."
Alice thought for a moment and decided to not tell Xana about the Humans. Too much trauma there for Xana.
"The entire time the System was telling me how close I was to death, eventually I was able to find a treasure chest that had red liquids in them that had spilled from broken bottles after I knocked the chest over to open it. I had to risk it so I drank them the same way I do blood and it healed me."
Xana nodded along, before speaking up.
"Is that where you got that Necklace?"
Alice paused, she had basically forgotten about the necklace, although it had been useful prior since Xana had clutched onto it when wrapping her arm around Alice proved useless.
"Oh, yeah the System told me it would be bound to me if I equipped it but it would change size to fit me. No clue what it does, apparently it has to be appraised?"
Xana nodded.
"I can see some dense magical energy flowing off of it, no clue what for though. Unfortunately my [Blinded Eye of the Dragon] doesn't work like most appraisal skills."
Alice shrugged.
"I'll figure it out eventually, after that I escaped but ended up in some weird forest with floating water and purple trees. I did meet some [Goblins] though! They were pretty friendly but I had to claw [Human Language] into the ground to communicate with the single [Goblin] that spoke it. They gave me a safe spot to evolve but when I woke up they were being attacked by [Kobolds]."
Xana seemed more shocked now, as she listened to Alice talk about how she ended up fighting Kobolds and winning.
"From there I just kinda flew up and came back, I did see the [Earth Dragon] on my way back but it didn't bother me much."
Xana took a moment to collect herself, as if trying to discern if what she had been told was true or not.
"Well I can certainly understand why you got so much stronger so quickly. You were fighting some very scary Monsters. Luckily you didn't encounter any Humans, I understand they like to stalk through places like the Lower Dungeon due to those treasure chests and the large amount of Monsters."
Alice simply nodded with a dumb smile, she definitely couldn't tell Xana about Anno and the others, nope no way!
"What about you? What have you been up to?"
Xana glanced at her before sighing.
"Well after I mourned your death. I kept an eye on the Rat Kingdom, things are getting bad. Von gets more troops every day it seems, I don't know how. And you saw them, they're dangerous, all of them are Variant Evolutions.. and what's worse is I got a look at him. Von is a Ratkin now, not just a Rat."
Alice tilted her head.
"Why does being a Ratkin mean that much? It's just another variant right?"
Xana shook her head.
"No its much worse, that's like saying that if I evolved into a Dragon that its the same as me now. There are levels of advancements to this, that's basically the next advancement for most Rats."
Alice nodded, that made sense. She wondered what her next stage would be, some kind of Batkin? That'd be weird, to be almost human.
"He might be a Ratkin but I'm an Adult [Vampire Bat], an epic evolution! I got this!"
She said smugly before looking at Xana with curiosity.
"What about you?"
Xana considered her for a moment, maybe she was deciding if she should tell her? Perhaps by saying she was a [Vampire Bat] she had broken some taboo.
"Well I was given a few options... but ultimately I chose an [Arcane Salamander], keeping on with the Flame line felt as if I was going to end up a [Dragon] and I wasn't interested in that."
That made sense, the [Dragon] line was sure to be powerful but it wouldn't help Xana complete her goals. Alice stretched out, she was tired she moved over to the moss bed and curled into herself.
"We'll deal with them in the morning..." She mumbled as she closed her eyes.
Xana looked upon the sleeping bat, morning. What an odd word, it wasn't used in the Cave because they had no such thing. So why had Alice used? It had been something she had said as she passed out, as if it was instinct rather than something she thought about. Xana thought back to the shadow she had seen from Alice.
A frown formed on her snout, who was Alice really? She had advanced so quickly and even picked up [Human Language] nearly instantly and knew the language from that weird book as well.
Xana sighed as she placed her hand on the stub where her arm had been. She had been stupid, lost an arm to it and now she was permanently weakened. Who knew if Alice would keep protecting her... but then again she had fought the Crows for her... fought the Crows and won. So maybe it didn't matter who... or what Alice was because if she was some Human transformed into a Bat even better, she'd be able to help her get out of here.
Plus... there was the way Alice made her feel... how she had looked when she came crashing down to save her... No! Xana shook her head, there was no point in thinking about that. Alice was clueless and younger than her.
She moved in closer on the Moss Bed, a smile formed on her snout as she rubbed into the soft fur of the Bat who was twice her size now. She had just evolved but right now... sleep seemed like an amazing choice.
"Ohhh... this will do just fine."
Von looked upon the corpse of Ricket and the other Crows who had been slaughtered. His mindless [Undead Rats] stood without making a single noise. He stood up off his "throne". The [Undead Rat Lord] he had under his control, he so enjoyed using it as a throne. It truly was the simple pleasures in life that really made it worth it.
"[Knit and combine, profane this holy realm, spit upon the Great Mothers grave and bring forth her Anathema, open the doors of the Dark One and break them! RAISE UNDEAD]"