Even after we returned to our camp, it took me almost another hour to remove the various shards and splinters from my body, a process that ultimately left me exhausted and with a bit of lingering soreness, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t able to discuss the entire issue with my daughters. And there were a few things we needed to discuss, mainly what our next steps would be, if we wanted to linger and challenge this entire region, including whatever monster decided to try blowing up a hillside to get me, or if we wanted to play it safe and get out while the getting was good.

“So, what do we actually know about these creatures?” I started our discussion, trying to establish some facts first before we got into potential plans and opportunities.

“Know?” Luna asked in return, “Not a whole lot, you are the only one who has seen them from somewhat close range, the rest of us can only go by our observations from a distance, though what those, and my instincts, tell me isn’t good,” she added, her voice just a little snarky, evidence of how shaken the way these monsters had interrupted my ritual had left her. Which, to be fair, I could understand, knowing that our enemies were capable of locating and utterly annihilating a ritual site over a kilometre from the current boundaries of their territory was quite scary, to say nothing of the sheer devastation they had wrought. I could do the same, sure, but it would take me a bit of time to set up and prepare, not something I could just whip out to interrupt an opponent's attack. Perhaps it would be worthwhile to try to create something in advance, so that if it were ever necessary, I could simply activate it and have it work immediately.

“She’s right, I can’t tell you a whole lot either, just that I saw those waves of burning death goop flying towards us, grabbed you and got us out of there immediately. How they found us, I couldn’t say, nor could I tell you what they noticed. You’d have to consider the steps of your ritual and try calculating how long that goop would be in the air, while estimating how long it might take for it to be launched from the simulus those things received. That way, you have an idea what riled them up and you can make sure not to do it again, unless you want to have more fiery death goop flung at you,” Lia piped in, her reasoning solid and quite compelling, making me wonder just what might have been noticeable enough for them to pick up. The ritual I had used had multiple parts that were possible, and I couldn’t easily guess which was the right, or wrong, one, as I had no idea how long it would take for these creatures to act, whether they had some sort of messenger system, a hive-mind or some other method. Nor did I have any idea how long the goop had been in the air, and, without fairly good observations regarding its trajectory and speed, I wouldn’t be able to accurately calculate where it came from.

“Sadly, I can’t tell you a whole lot from my observations either,” I admitted, “I just saw that they use parts of their bodies as projectiles and regenerate the launched parts. Oh, they also seem to be made from the same material as the ground they spread, though whether that means they are merely extensions from some creature that literally is that ground or if they are just walking on it and spreading that goop to extend their influence, I also don’t know.”

Both Lia and Luna nodded at my explanation, while Silva gave out a somewhat angry growl, letting me know that she didn’t appreciate these monsters and wanted to see them destroyed if at all possible, a sentiment I readily agreed with. Even now, kilometres away from these monsters, I could faintly smell their stench of fire and ash, not something I wanted to allow spreading any further than absolutely necessary.

It didn’t take long for us to reach the consensus that we would continue to try to curb the spread of this strange infection. Not only was it absolutely noxious to smell, it was also dangerous, and who knew whether it would burn out eventually? It wasn’t as if this was a normal fire; it burned far more than the vegetation, and it did so while the plants and ground were quite wet. Thus, if the fire lasted until the weather changed and the sun did its part and dried the ground and plants, things might get seriously nasty when a conflagration scorched large parts of the countryside. I had no desire to have that happen, even if we would be able to outrun it with relative ease, it was the uncertainty that got to me. We didn’t know how dangerous this phenomenon was, nor did we know what caused it, so trying our best to curb its spread was deemed the best choice.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

And opened up the question of how we were supposed to accomplish that task. Obviously, the attempt to use a wide-scale magical ritual had failed, at least if the ritual could be considered an attack on these creatures and their territory, leaving us with the option to contain them first, similar to the way I had shielded that farm in the valley from the flood, or to destroy the goop men one at a time, hoping that they wouldn’t simply regenerate and continue doing their thing. Or, worse, we didn’t know if any attack on an individual goop man would trigger the same kind of retaliatory attack my ritual had triggered. Because, if that happened to be the case, we wouldn’t be able to fight this infection at all, and the only valid tactic would be to get away from this area post-haste.

With that in mind, we decided to begin experimenting once I recovered from the interrupted ritual. Or rather, continue experimentation as the previous ritual could be considered the first experiment, especially as it had yielded some interesting, if highly flammable, results.

Once that decision was made, the conversation largely died down, and I had some additional time to focus on the bound spirit. Looking at the figurine, I noticed a few strange distortions in the otherwise clear Ice and started to carefully investigate. What I found was somewhat annoying, though I probably should have expected it. The figurine had suffered the same sort of backlash I had endured, and the visible distortions were only the tip of the iceberg. Magically, there were countless shards embedded everywhere, and, to make matters worse, the Astral Power within wasn’t purely mine any longer; it was a strange mix of my own Astral Power and the power the spirit used, meaning I couldn’t readily influence the splinters.

After poking and prodding them a few times, I quickly came to the conclusion that only waiting would resolve the issue. Eventually, likely in a few days, maybe a week or two, the Astral Power would have dissipated enough to let the spirit regenerate its form, but until that happened, it would most likely be unable to do a whole lot. Feeding it Astral Power, as I had done, would likely strengthen it a little more, but that was all I could do to help; the rest would only be solved by time, as annoying as that was.

A part of me realised with a fair bit of amusement that the bound spirit was passively absorbing a bit of my Astral Power, just the amount I would usually lose back into the environment or the Astral River, likely trying to get stronger. Granted, it also strengthened its bindings as it did so, meaning the stronger it got, the tighter its bindings would tie it to me, so I didn’t really mind. But I was amused by the fact that I had managed to find another entity that fed off my power, though luckily this one fed passively, not like Lia, who needed to directly drink my blood.

Grinning to myself, I focused my mind back to the task for the morrow, how I could get a better understanding of these creatures without exposing myself to danger. Long-range attacks would be the first way to test things, some sort of launched javelin, trying to hit one of them before escaping as quickly as possible, maybe even before my attack got anywhere close to the target. Additionally, trying to see if I could shadow-step within their territory would be vital, and if I could, stepping in, using Observe and stepping back out might be the smart thing to do. We desperately needed more information on these monsters; if we wanted to contain and defeat this infection, we didn’t even know what level they were.

With numerous thoughts and ideas swirling through my mind, I let myself drift off to sleep, exhaustion and pain quickly silencing my racing mind.