Niphru awoke from his fitful sleep to another burniion, realizing he had fotten to expel excess mana when he made it babsp; He quickly focused again on being able to safely store more mana, feeling the burning fade as all excess mana shifted towards his mana stone he was carrying. As the mana stone grew, he could feel his thoughts slow and memories bee foggy again.

  Clearly he couldn’t afford tet again like this, but hopefully this would allow him much more leeway with where he went. Before he could fet again, he created dozens of mana tendrils and broke them off at the base, draining his mana to almost nothing, though this left him feeling exhausted and sibsp; Apparently draining all his mana was also a problem.

  Regardless, Niphru now felt a bit better, and decided to try expl further dowrail tonight, as it seemed all the animals avoided it as much as possible, so it ought to be retively safe. Exiting his burrow, he kept the illusion over himself and began down the barren path. He could see more and more of the odd floating trees over the opy the further he traveled.

  At one point, he saw a tree hanging at an odd ah only one vine holding it in pbsp; As he watched the vi sck as something severed it, sending the tree sailing up into the sky. He knew he ought to feel scared of whatever did it, but he could only feel curiosity for some reason, advang faster in hopes of seeing what had happened.

  A momehe forest shook as an immense boom echoed from ahead, the force throwing him off his feet. He scrambled back to his feet and looked around, finding nothing out of the ordinary nearby—at least ordinary for the madness of the forest. He tinued his travel into the forest, feeling the mana being signifitly denser as he did so.

  Shortly afterward, he ran across what he thought had made the noise, an utterly massive shell blog his path and a signifit distao either side as well. Huge limbs stuck out at the edges, barely visible through the forest, ying limp beside the shell. Looking closer, it appeared the shell had e down on several trees, judging by the huge amount of splintered wood scattered around it.

  As he carefully circled around it, he saw one of the limbs twitch, showing that the creature was still alive, and heard a loud snap from the dire he was heading. Looking more carefully through the woods, he saw an immeurtle head slowly stretg forward towards the remains of a vine on the ground.

  He got closer to observe, seeing the gargantuan turtle snap up another k of vine. As he did however, the turtle’s eye turo stare straight at him. Fortunately, it appeared to have no i, as it merely blinked before turning back towards the vine. Relieved at being ignored, he quickly left before it could potentially ge its mind.

  With his maing too full again, he expelled a signifit k via cutting off mana tendrils as he had before. This time he was careful not to do too many, avoiding ending up tired or feeling sick.

  Deg to stay in his den the rest of the night, he headed back dowrail. Nothing bothered him along the way, though he did hear things moving around nearby. He also spotted an odd deer with moss growing from its skin, and green liquid dripping from its antlers, though it stayed far away and ignored him.

  Arriving back at the burrow, he curled up to sleep. sidering what Amilya had told him, the Church of flict’s warriors would likely arrive tomorrow and spend the day in the vilge, then begin hunting in the forest, so he should have another day of safety from them.

  Niphru awoke again in the m aurned his illusion bato foxfire form as he left the den. If the warriors were going to hunt in the forest, there was a good ce such a unique feature as the barren trail he was currently staying at would be followed. Due to this reasoning, he decided to try to produother den in the forest itself today.

  Having learned his lesson from before, he made sure to expel most of his mana again before leaving. While doing so, he tried f cepts into the mana to see if he could figure out casting spells, but that did not work. Uerred, he paiime.

  He headed back dowrail a while before turning into the forest to the right. Thinking back to before, the wolves had been able to track him by st, so he rolled around on the forest floor for a few moments, trying to cover up his smell with that of the forest. To help prevent ambushes even more, he also expanded his mana out inte sphere again so he could feel life around himself. As he did so, he noticed something alive on a tree nearby that he had not seen.

  Tapping the being with a mana-link, he saw a blur fall off of the tree. As he watched, the brown color shifted to match that of the forest floor and it vanished again. By spinning his foxfire around it, he was able to make out that it was a lizard, going by the shape of the shadows. Since he wasn’t hungry, he took back his foxfire and tinued oing the lizard get back to its life.

  A few times during his journey into the forest, he was startled by the odd birds, but none of them tried to attack him. Aside from that, it was much more peaceful thaerday. After about an hour of travel, he found a pear a fallen tree and began digging his new den. As he dug, he spread his illusion over himself and the burrow, hiding what he was doing in case anything happeo e by.

  As he fihe chamber he would sleep in, he heard howling in the distanbsp; Fortunately, this time it sounded like it was far away. Additionally, all the replying howls seemed as if they were a fair distance away as well. He wondered for a moment what they were hunting, gd it wasn’t him this time.

  Having pleted his new den, he headed outside, keeping his illusion up, and began looking for something to eat. Pausing, he noticed his mana was getting close to the limit, so he expelled some more, trying again to push cepts into the tendrils he was cutting off, though again he failed at making any effects occur.

  After a while of searg, he came across a strange creature eating berries from a bush. It seemed as if it may have started out as a rabbit, but now it barely resembled such a creature. It stood on two legs, supported by half a dozeacles emerging from its babsp; Viciously sharp teeth shredded the bush more than anything else, and a ring of eyes blinked in unison as they gazed in every dire at onbsp; It had stunted ears, and the nose seemed to have sealed over at some point, however.

  Taking in the features of the beast, Niphru decided that perhaps it was best to just stay hidden in his illusion and wait for it to leave. Fortunately, it seemed to have eaten a fair bit, as it only remained a few more moments before leaving with an odd wobbling gait.

  He moved forward towards the remains of the berry bush after the creature had left, sniffing carefully. The berries that remained had a nearly irresistible smell to them, and he quickly snatched one up, chewing on it for a sed before the juices burst into his mouth. Even Amilya’s meals were nothing pared to the taste of this berry. He savored the taste, grabbing another single berry when he fio try to make them st as long as possible.

  After about an hour, and several handfuls of berries, he finally felt full, afully left the bush behind, returning to his den. Along the way, he saw a bird fall from the sky, smming into the ground with enough force it embedded halfway into the forest floor. Following behind it at a much more sedate pace was a smaller bird covered in spines, whided nearby and began peg at the body.

  Arriving back at his deered it only to be shocked to find a number of roots had grown through it and were squirming around like worms. Shifting his illusion bato foxfire, he sent it in to burn the roots away, finding they actually pulled bato the soil as they ignited.

  He was quite wary of the possibility of them returning, but he was too tired to try to dig another burrow and hope it wouldn’t happen again. He curled up into a ball a his foxfire spinning around himself with hopes it would burn anything that showed up while he was sleeping for the day.