“They are draining him fast!” Kevin was starting to panic.

  “Which way?” I asked, and Kevin pointed. “Stay here and feed him energy,” I said to Kevin.

  I shaped my aura and then searched around for Felix to back me up. Shit, no Felix. A stab went through me as I realised I was on my own. These hit me at different times.

  “Stay with Kevin,“ I said to Kiri and Pānihi. “If I need rescuing, follow the dead plant trail.”

  This was going to be an exercise in energy management. My Spiritual energy is at 121, which is a combination of my Spiritual attributes. Freezing flowers is not energy-intensive, but I need to move fast. My Spiritual Toughness does not use my energy, so I need to freeze just enough flowers so that my spiritual toughness is not used up.

  When I first got Solar Flare, it used all my Spiritual Energy, and that was back when I had around 75 rather than the 121 I now have. I want to keep a Solar Flare available. If I can’t, Solar Flame will have to do.

  I wade into the dead flowers as my Cosmic Aura shapes my Frigid Void. Some seeds survive and land on me so I widen the aura slightly. Spiritually Tough is working, but I need to keep it manageable.

  The best-case scenario is I get in, grab Kahz and retreat down the same path I am now making. This is definitely a monster. Things never work in the best-case scenario, hence I want a Flare to be available.

  I step up the pace. Kahz is on a timer, and I am not going to let him die like I let Felix.

  The flowers were getting stronger the further in I went. Spiritually Tough went up to 9, the top of the Apprentice level. I widened my aura a bit.

  I got to the top of the rise and picked out Kahz in the distance. He flapped upward drunkenly and got ten or fifteen meters before crashing into a new patch, which would then explode.

  “Tell Kahz to stay put and not disturb more of the seeds!” I yelled back to Kevin.

  “He can’t! The roots attack him!” My Hearing Aid picked up.

  Shit roots? I looked down, but I was killing the plants, so their roots were dead too. The way Kahz was acting seemed to suggest that there might be more regular poison disorientating him as well. That would make sense, but my Poison Resistance was relatively low, and I hadn’t felt any effects. Yet.

  Get Kahz and get out. I moved to a jog. The plants were becoming more resistant and harder to kill. I hope it was because they were stronger here, not because they were actually developing a resistance.

  I was about halfway to Kahz and had to slow down. There was poison affecting me. My poison Resistance kicked up a notch, and I was feeling like the world was spinning around me.

  Kahz was not making it more than five meters a hop now.

  I stretched out my aura toward Kahz and carpeted a layer of Solar Flame. Holding on to my energy was going to get Kahz killed.

  It was a narrow corridor to reach as far as I could. The flowers on either side of the corridor burst their seeds, so I was running through a sea of floating seeds.

  Suddenly, it was like a weight had been lifted spiritually, and my spiritual toughness skill burst through to Journeyman level.

  I sped up.

  Then I tripped. The world was spinning faster, and knowing up from down was getting problematic.

  I flash Solar Flame in a sphere around me. I sensed inside, extracted impurities from my lungs, and set Purify Blood to max. I should have done this from the start, but I was only expecting a Spiritual Attack, not a poison one as well.

  I got up, and the spinning was slowing. I couldn’t see Kahz. Kahz would not have the resistance to my Solar Flame or Frigid Void, so I had to be careful.

  Hearing Aid picked up a pained cry, “Kaaaahzzz!”

  Shit, am I too late? No! I spread my Void Sensing out beyond my Cosmic Aura. It is not something I usually do. I found Kahz lying on the ground, and roots were growing over him. Fuck they were growing into him. I moved.

  It shouldn’t take long to get to him from here. I just held my aura close and became a figure of flame. I did keep it away from my belt, but I ran through the exploding flowers.

  When I reached Kahz, he was still breathing. I cut the roots with my claws and picked him up. I then expanded my Aura, freezing the flowers near us and then burning the ones further away.

  I then went to work on Kahz, using all the skills and bonuses from my Field Medic Class. I set Purify Blood to work on cleaning his blood up, and Extract Impurities to not only clean out his lungs but also the roots that were burrowing into him. He is small, and it didn’t take much to poison him as opposed to a behemoth like me.

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  I gave him a shot of Solar Infusion to boost his healing. Then I gave myself a boost, too.

  I used Blood Clot to stop the bleeding where the roots had penetrated.

  I felt Field Medic level up. The automatic point in Mental Agility made me think there must be more I could do.

  He was breathing, his heart was pumping, but he was unconscious. What else could I do? Getting him back to Kevin will help, but there must be something more.

  My Hearing Aid heard the running, stumbling of feet. I looked up to see Kevin stumble over the rise following my trail. Then Kiri and Pānihi came over, trying to shelter him from the spores. At least they had covered their mouth and noses, so they didn’t breathe it in as much. There was nothing that could hold Kevin back.

  I smirked a little when I saw Pānihi. Kiri had loaded Kevin's and my packs onto him. She must hate that.

  I don’t have any specialised lore for birds; I just have Animal Lore. My Healing Lore is all about anatomy, physiology, organs and bones. How do I heal his mind?

  My Mental Skills can attack his mind with my Frigid Void and Solar Flare, so why can I not use Solar Infusion mentally?

  I felt his mind in my Aura. It was there, but it seemed dormant. That's not the right word, but close. Instead of slamming Tremor or Solar Flare, I tried to be gentle and slowly inject Solar Infusion. I am pretty sure I was injecting Solar Bloom first. They were similar.

  Solar Infusion gave a burst of energy and a boost to the body's natural healing that faded over time. I found the right skill and injected Solar Infusion into his mind. The effectiveness was reduced because it used my Mental Attributes rather than my Spiritual ones, but those skills were very effective.

  Kahz woke with a squawk and a flap of his wings. Then Kevin was there, and I passed Kahz to him while I put a hand on his shoulder and set Purify Blood to work on him, clearing out any Impurities.

  Kiri and Pānihi seemed better. They both had high Poison Resistance. It was Spiritual Energy they were losing.

  I checked my skills, but, just like the other mental skills, this had not changed; it had only risen a level. I don’t know what's up with that. Most people get specialist Mental Skills, and I don’t. It has to have something to do with my aura.

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Kevin said, and Kahz squawked.

  “We need to get out of here,” I said, turning to head back the way we came.

  “Kahz thinks it is shorter that way,” Kevin said, pointing.

  “Shorter is not easier,” I said.

  “Just over that rise,” Kevin pointed. I was about half the distance to the first rise.

  I spread my senses out in that direction. “The flowers are stronger,” I said.

  I looked at Kiri and Pānihi. “We just need to get out fast,” Kiri said. They were losing energy. She was cloaked in her dead bone armour, but she was still going backwards.

  Kevin and Kahz had less protection, fewer skills and less energy. I made a decision, “Follow me.”

  I ploughed forward, crushing the brittle frozen plants underfoot. Frigid Void did not seem to set off the adjoining flowers as the flames did.

  “I am going to slow down and clear a wide area. That should keep the spores away from you all, and I can recover energy,” I said. “It will just take time.” I realised there was no hurry when I could just clear a whole area and wait. The panic was over.

  ”I am envious,” Kiri said. “Your wide area skills are so useful, and the most I can manage is Triple Shot with my bow. Bones are not great at that either.”

  I shrugged, “You have pinpoint kills that I can’t manage.”

  “Do you need to when you can just obliterate the whole area?” she said, casting her hand wide as she pointed out the dead patch around us.

  I shrugged again. I don’t know. “It is not subtle,” I said, “and we are leaving a trail tens of meters wide.”

  “So if we are killing swathes of this thing, why don’t we try killing it all?” Kevin asked.

  I looked at the fields of flowers, “That will take some time,” I said.

  “Not necessarily,” Kevin said. We both looked at him. “See that path of dead plants you made?” We looked where he was pointing. “The ones on that side are wilting, but the ones on the other side are fine. I think there is a main root, or a source of energy flow, that you cut off. Maybe at the centre, there is a monster core?”

  “That there isn’t wilting,” Kiri pointed out.

  “So we haven't found the main root for that area yet,” Kevin said.

  “I didn’t notice anything different,“ I said.

  “But you were not looking, were you?” Kevin asked.

  I nodded acknowledgement of that, “So we start circling till we cut a root and follow it back to the centre?”

  “We are not in any danger now, and we can go slowly and carefully,” Kevin said.

  “That does seem logical,” Kiri said. “If we cut a path out first, then we will have an easy retreat.”

  “So we cut a path out, then we come back and find and follow that root?” I said questioningly.

  We all looked at each other. “We could try it?” Kiri said.

  “I am the one doing all the work here,” I point out.

  “You can have the core,” Kiri said.

  “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch. We may end up melting the core. Why are we doing this? It is just sitting here in the middle of nowhere,” I asked.

  “It is killing everything and will only grow bigger,” Kevin said. “It is an environmental disaster, and it is growing. If we report this, a Mercenary Guild Contract will be issued for it. Why shouldn’t we collect?”

  “Because there is no contract yet and therefore nothing to collect,” I pointed out.

  “The core is the most valuable thing in any monster contract,” Kevin said.

  Kiri and I both looked at Kevin, “Why are you so keen on this?” Kiri asked.

  “It almost killed Kahz. We should not leave it to kill someone else's bond. We can do this, so we should. It is a public duty.”

  I could tell Kiri only partially believed him. I could understand where he was coming from.

  “Ok,” I said, “We will try it, but if we give up because it is too hard, then we give up, and you can report it at Beitemark, and we let the Mercenary teams deal with it.”

  Kevin nodded, “Fair enough.”

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