Anika and Lily stared at the circle of five murmuring capybaras that Lily had polymorphed from the giant lizards.. Anika had thought she saw a sign of intelligence in the reaction that one of the capybaras gave Lily when she dropped a rock near it earlier. But in the heat of combat, she had mostly blown it off. Last night, Lily said that the transformed creatures would get better as she gained levels, but she hadn’t expected going from level 8 to 9 to bring much change.
Of course, maybe these lizards had more intelligence than the wolves and her hypothesis about intelligence improving the transformed creatures abilities had come true? Then again, the reptiles had not seemed much more intelligent than the wolves in this fight, but maybe they had better tactics in a larger group? They did alert for backup. And more lizards actually showed up, unlike the wolves where only the Alpha was able to bring in reinforcements.
“No, I forgot to tell them anything once I made them into capybaras because I focused on the fighting. And then we won and I was excited! I didn’t know they could talk.”
“Well… they sure seem to be talking now.”
Leka moved to stand next to Anika, also gazing at the circle of capybaras.
“Interesting.” She commented, examining the creatures from her new vantage point.
Philip hung his shield and trident on Epona’s saddle and looked from the capy pack to the women standing and staring.
“What do you mean talking? They’re just making cute noises. Can I pet them?”
“They‘re clearly having a conversation.” Anika remembered she was holding Lily suspended in midair like Simba on pride rock and put Lily down in front of her.
“Go talk to them, Lily.” Anika gave a soft nudge on Lily’s hindquarters to make her step forward.
“Okay!” Lily bounded forward to join the group of five capybaras, their full sized capybara bodies looking massive next to her still growing, child-sized form.
Epona must have told Philip that he could, indeed, pet the capybaras, as he wandered into the circle after Lily, reaching towards the nearest transformed capybara. Rather than follow Philip, Epona moved to stand nearer to Anika and Leka.
As Lily started chirping at the group of capybaras, Anika turned to Leka, “Are these lizards more intelligent than the wolves we fought?”
“I would say they are about the same. We do not notice either group in this dungeon using any specific tactics that would convey higher intelligence. The monsters in these low level dungeons are animalistic. Some higher level dungeons get monsters that are more clever, even devious.”
“So… you think this is just Lily’s power getting better?”
“Most abilities do improve with each level a person… or creature… attains. This often manifests as increased size or increased power, though in some cases it adds to the amount of distinct objects in the spell, like Lily gaining the ability to transform additional creatures. I do not, however, have any knowledge of Lily’s abilities, so I can only assume that added intelligence is a way of increasing the power of the ability. She seems to have unique abilities unlike what a normal Kineta magician would have. Of course, we have seen that all the companions have unique abilities. We just do not know the specifics of those abilities if they do not choose to share them.”
Anika watched as Lily chortled her odd little laser beam noises while she bounced with excitement over Philip, who had made little dirt monsters for the capybaras to chase and pounce. “I wonder why the gods made new abilities just for the companions. Wouldn’t it have been easier to just give them the normal abilities that everyone has?”
“We do not know if the gods determined what abilities to give them or if they simply allowed the magic to manifest with abilities given specific guidelines. Magic itself can manifest different abilities, as we see within the monsters of the dungeons. The gods may have built the magic in such a way that they would manifest the abilities that were needed by the person they bonded with. That would explain why Lily has a bonus to experience gain, something we would have never expected to see before you arrived.”
“Yeah… that makes sense, I suppose. I’m definitely going to have to talk to Lily more to try to figure out what all her abilities do.”
“Indeed! But for now, we have a dungeon to continue into!”
“Right! Let me break up the capy commune…” Anika walked towards the group, still playing with Philip’s dirt monsters, and called out to Lily, “So, Lily, what do your friends have to say?”
Lily immediately spun around, racing over to meet Anika, “They are boring. At least until Philip came! They just talked about smells. And grass. And how they wanted to eat grass. And which grass smelled good, but tasted bad. Though one of them was angry I almost dropped a rock on its head, I think. It just kept saying rock.”
“Well, that sounds like normal animal conversation. You only find it boring because you aren’t a normal capybara.” Anika bent down to scratch behind Lily’s ears and she cooed with delight.
“Oh, yes, that does sound like animal talking! But I think they will still do what I tell them! Not that I told them much this time. I was too busy helping you! And you did awesome Anika!” Lily added the last bit while jumping up to rest her front feet on Anika’s shin to make her point.
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“Right, it did go a lot better than normal! I actually did damage!”
“Yeah,” Philip turned to face Anika, letting his little Earth monsters dissipate back into the ground, “You killed them with your water. I couldn’t hurt them with my pitchfork.” Philip both looked and sounded heartbroken with the last statement.
Leka arrived next to Philip as he spoke, “You must learn to use more than your trident in battle! As you saw today, monsters will not always be susceptible to all damage types. You need to have an arsenal of other things you can do to them, and think of creative ways to use your magic!”
“Yeah, Zali said I need to use my magic more. And she says I need to use all my spells. But I forget sometimes. I focus on the monsters and that is all I think of.”
“You’re good at using your magic, you just need more practice with how to do it. That’s why Zali is making you go level with Panu too, right?” Anika felt bad that she had been so focused on herself, she hadn’t paid attention to coming up with a way for Philip to be more effective with the monster, letting him stab uselessly with his trident. She had seen that his trident couldn’t pierce the scales, and had seen that Lily’s rock and Epona’s hooves had more effect.
“Yeah, and Zali is really smart. She tells me a lot of good things to try. And she is going to help me learn other weapons too!” Philip perked up a little when he talked about learning other weapons.
“Zali is an excellent trainer,” Leka said before Phlip could get too carried away. “But you must learn to be independent. And today is an important lesson to learn for all of you. Many monsters have strengths and weaknesses, especially concerning their defenses or what abilities work best on them. You must always be prepared for your magic or your weapon to be ineffective, and you must learn to adapt. You will also have times where, like today, your magic or weapon is especially effective against a certain monster. You must always adapt your strategy for what you are facing and play to the strengths of your party.”
Leka walked a few steps towards the corpse of one of the lizards, bending to lift its head. “Come feel the scales of the zanide. They are smooth and impenetrably tough. But they are also very thin. This makes them particularly good at stopping weapons like swords, arrows, and Philip’s trident, but poor defense against blunt and bruising damage, like they suffered from Epona and Lily. Their scales conduct heat, and their bodies go into shock if their temperature drops. This makes them highly susceptible to water damage, which quickly dissipates heat away from them and causes them to enter the shock state. This quickly leads to their demise.”
Anika and Philip both moved to Leka’s side and inspected the creature more closely. Lily bounded over after them and began sniffing at the legs of the beast. Anika bent and ran her fingers over the body of the lizard. She felt somewhat embarrassed that she had forgotten the name of the lizards after reading about them in the book. Luckily, she hadn’t had much opportunity to call the monster their name in the brief explanation she had given before the fight.
The zanide’s scales felt smooth as glass, despite the millions of tiny scales creating a pattern of diamonds on their body. The scales had a dull, mottled look without the glow of life and heat causing them to shimmer in the sun. She tried to scratch at the line between scales with her finger nail, seeing if she could feel any type of edge that indicated a break in the design where a weapon could penetrate. Each edge met seamlessly with the next, and Anika wondered how the scales managed to be both hard and flexible when she could find no sign of a gap that would allow movement. She supposed even monsters had magic as the answer.
“What if we don’t have any magic or weapons that work?” Philip asked, as he ran his hand over the neck of the zanide.
“You will never be in that situation.” Leka said sharply. “If you had not had the ability to kill these monsters, I would not have allowed you to come to this dungeon. As you move to higher level dungeons, we will require you to be in a party that has enough breadth of magic and weaponry that you will not ever be without a way to harm a monster.”
Anika breathed a small sigh of relief, as this confirmed that Leka wouldn’t allow Philip to go off with Zali and Panu to a higher level dungeon without giving them someone else who could assist with leveling. Anika may frequently say that she and Lily could get along on their own, but she knew that if they went to a dungeon alone, they probably wouldn’t survive. At least not yet.
Lily, clearly bored now by the educational part of the dungeon, jumped up on the dead zanide’s back. “I want to go fight more! My rocks are good at killing them!”
Leka laughed, “I agree! It is time to get back to the dungeon. You proved you could handle three of the zanide, but there are many more in other packs. Let’s see how you do against larger numbers.”
—----
Space entered the main control room of the Pantheon. Looking around, he saw the five gods spread around the room, engaged in different tasks. Water lounged on her favorite chair, Fire paced by her monitors, and the other three gods sat at individual stations, engaged in their own work. He cleared his throat to announce his entrance as he walked to the center of the room.
“I have news of the Chaos Eruption,” he announced, stopping in the center of the room to await their response.
The gods immediately stopped what they were doing and looked at him.
“Well? Spit it out.” Fire snapped, when Space did not immediately continue.
“I have been working with Light and Shadow to assess the magic at various locations in the vicinity of the Temple we have already determined to be near the epicenter. At this point, we have ruled out the dungeons to the south, as the magic flows there remain steady. The magic levels of all three dungeons in the vicinity of the towns of Asiwek and Paloselo to the north, and nearby Kanewek, however, fluctuate on a daily basis.”
“The dungeon closest to Asiwek is a Major dungeon. If that one has an eruption, the town could be wiped out.” Aether said aloud what they all thought.
“It’s also furthest away from the Temple for reinforcements to arrive.” Earth commented trepidatiously.
“We can’t narrow in on a specific dungeon yet. The magic levels in the area are building, but the magic could siphon into any of those dungeons. We still have time. Essence believes we will likely see precursor signs in all of the dungeons on the north side of the temple, including the one closest to the temple.”
“And what does Time say about when this will occur?!” Fire demanded.
“Within a few weeks, he still isn’t sure. The magic levels are fluctuating too much for us to develop an accurate prediction model.”
The gods all grumbled at that, and Space raised his hands placatingly. “Time thinks he can have a more accurate time frame by the end of the week.”
“We will begin to develop contingency plans to help our people prepare. The temple can prepare an initial team to station in Asiwek and begin planning additional response teams. We can move as soon as Time has more information to provide.” Aether directed the gods, and they returned to their consoles with new vigor to begin their plans.
