When we saw the mess we were heading towards, the first thing we did was stop. Even from afar, we could see that there was a lot going on there, but without getting a lot closer, we couldn’t tell what that entailed. So, instead of running in like fools and finding out what dangers were there by using our bodies, we got comfortable, and I conjured my usual scrying constructs.

Curiously, conjuring the ravens was a little easier than it used to be. It only took me a moment to assume a connection between the measurable advancement of my ability to summon constructs and the binding of the Wind Spirit. To test my assumption, I channelled some power through the bound spirit and conjured yet another raven, and that one was even easier. Almost as if I was using the figurine I had bound the spirit into, though I obviously wasn’t about to risk the figurine on that, it was quite valuable after all.

Soon, I had half a dozen ravens fly through the air, allowing me to see the world from a few different perspectives. Here, the effects of the bound spirit came through even more than before, as they let me keep my focus broad without forcing me to expend a large amount of mental effort juggling the various processes needed to keep the constructs in the air. Instead, I could mentally sit back, almost as if I was watching multiple feeds on screens without having to concentrate too hard on any one of them. It was quite relaxing, especially in comparison to the effort usually needed, making me wonder if I might be able to keep a few constructs in the air at all times, simply letting them fly around the group and add a layer of safety and security by warning me of incoming threats.

But those were considerations for later. For now, I had six constructs fly over the burned area, getting glimpses of these strange, mostly humanoid figures moving around on the ground, setting what little vegetation left there ablaze, like some sort of demented garbage crew. Only, instead of picking up litter and disposing of it, they were flinging some strange, flaming goop everywhere, making me wonder what it was and where it came from.

The flying constructs allowed me to see a lot further than our position on the hill allowed, though even from above, I couldn’t make out as much as I would have liked. The air was simply choked with smoke, and while my constructs couldn’t breathe in the first place, I felt myself cough in sympathy, simply because there was so much crud in the air. That part was purely psychosomatic on my end, but the hindrance to my constructs’ sight was very real, greatly limiting how much I could observe.

To make matters worse, I got only a brief glimpse of something shooting towards one of my constructs before said construct disappeared from my senses, leaving me with a faint, quickly fading headache from its violent dispersion and a heightened sense of paranoia regarding the enemies waiting for us in the mess. Sure, my constructs weren’t terribly sturdy, nor did they fly high to avoid attacks from below; the smoky air made that impossible, but that didn’t mean that destroying them, or rather detecting them, should be as simple as this singular attack made it seem. And it was only a single attack, launched at my scrying construct, striking it with enough power to disperse it.

Realising I needed to consolidate my efforts, I pulled the other ravens into something resembling a formation while keeping a lot of space between the individual constructs. I didn’t want multiple of them to be close enough together to get hit with a single attack, but I wanted to know what destroyed my constructs if it happened again. For that, each raven needed to be in line of sight of at least one other, and I had them form up in a W-formation to make it so.

It didn’t take long for my precaution to prove itself useful, though I could have done without watching a wave of goopy brown liquid get flung at something I was looking through, meaning it appeared to me as if the liquid was thrown at me. To make matters worse, said liquid was also on fire and spread into a wide wave of disgusting sludge, preventing my construct from dodging it and moments later, I was treated to yet another stinging pain as the raven flying in the front-left position of the W was violently dispelled. At least now I knew that something down there was slinging waves of brown goop that looked far too much like diarrhoea after bad Mexican food to make me comfortable, though I could have done without that knowledge. Maybe that sentiment was unfair; I was happy to have the knowledge and warning it entailed, but I could have done without the reality of the situation. Having flaming piles of something looking like shit get flung about the place was not my idea of a good time and it reminded me far too much of that strange elemental we had fought near that water-treatment facility almost a year ago.

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Maybe this demonstrated that a large part of the civilisation before the change was based on things one didn’t want to think about too much. After all, there had to be a reason why places like slaughterhouses and sewage treatment facilities had been changed as they had, though I didn’t want to think about those reasons too much. To my surprise, there actually were limits to my curiosity; I honestly hadn’t expected that.

Having a fairly good idea where the wave of sludge had come from, I had one of my constructs dive down, hoping to get a better look at the enemy. The smoke and ash in the air continued to limit what I might have seen until my construct was low enough to be beneath most of that crud. In this case, that meant my construct was maybe three metres above ground and almost exactly on a collision course with the strangely shaped head of one of these humanoid constructs I had seen from afar, allowing me to get a much better look at this one.

Vaguely humanoid described its form fairly well. Sure, there were two legs and two arms with a torso connecting the limbs together and a head sitting atop that torso, but that was about it. The arms lacked any distinct joints, making them look more like long, floppy noodles that the thing could control and apparently harden at will, and the legs didn’t look much more articulate, more a thick tendril or tentacle than an actual leg. Similarly, the head was simply a misshapen blob of the same black-brown material that made up the rest of the thing. Nothing indicated that this was a living creature. If anything, the lack of discernible features made me think of a plant, or maybe a truly primitive animal. Though even as I thought that, I realised that I shouldn’t think like that, after all, from a human perspective, a cephalopod looked utterly alien and weird, but, when tested, their intelligence was amongst the highest in the animal kingdom. Strange appearance wasn’t an indication of intelligence or sapience, and I would be well-advised to keep an open mind.

And to dodge, as I was violently reminded a moment later when the mishappen, brown-black creature lashed out with one of its limbs, the noodle stretching out into something akin to a whip and lighting on fire as it tried to strike my construct from the air.

To make matters worse, while I managed to dodge the initial attack, the thing repeated its earlier demonstration and proved that it wasn’t limited to flailing around with its limbs by launching yet another of these wonderful waves of burning brown sludge, only that I now had a front-row seat to see the process directly.

Which meant I could watch the thing start swinging its arm, only for said arm to detach and spread out in a wave, showing me that it wasn’t really launching these waves but lobbing its body parts around. Only for the launched body part to regenerate moments later, as I could see the beginning of said process just before the wave hit my construct, giving me yet another flash of phantom pain thanks to its destruction.

“Well, this might get messy,” I admitted after I pulled the remaining three constructs a little higher into the sky, hoping to escape further waves of brown goop while my constructs explored just how big the region these creatures were burning was. And if there was more to this area than these goop-men, something to indicate that the effort would be worth it, because, if not, I might just turn around and walk away. Fighting what might be endless waves of humanoid goop constructs, especially if they could regenerate, was not my cup of tea; it sounded like a horrible time, doubly so if everything was on fire, as the case seemed to be here.