The flying centipede-like creatures approached, pushing aside the foliage as they swarmed towards me and Rufi. Rufi growled, taking flight as I used my free hand to summon an ice crystal. Ever since entering the goddess' dungeon I had yet to encounter a fight that truly threatened my growing abilities, and I didn't figure these bugs would be the first to break that trend, so I was more interested in testing new abilities than pounding them out of existence with tried and true ones.
My icicle shot towards one of the bugs in the swarm, impaling one of the midsections of its segmented body and sending it twirling out of the air. Rufi, seeing my restraint, merely sent out a few arrows of dark flame, culling the bugs drawing the closest to us.
"Mind Numbing." I said aloud, hoping the system would do the rest to activate the skill. I felt my senses expand, touching on the consciousnesses of the creatures nearby. I tried to focus on the prickly, hostile feeling I felt approaching, and then opened my eyes again to see if it had had any effect. Some of the bugs at the forefront of the swarm seemed to falter, slowing in the air to quickly be overtaken by those behind them, disappearing into the rest of the swarm before I had a chance to verify its full effect.
The swarm was basically upon us, and Rufi was still a little hesitant to attack, looking at me for signs of what she should do. "Final test," I told her as I closed my eyes to focus. Magic swirled around me and I tried to channel it into an unfamiliar shape. The system immediately leapt to help me, but instead of letting it take control, I forced the magic into its hands, willfully overcharging the circuit it was trying to construct. The power went wild within me, chafing at my control as it overflowed its channels until finally I let it all out in a burst of wind magic that whirled around me pushing all the bugs swarming to attack me back in a burst of discharged air. More than Wind Magic lvl. 1, but also...ow. It felt like my veins were stinging after the overcharge of magic.
Rufi chirped gleefully seeing me accomplish what I had wanted to, and closed her eyes, concentrating her own magic as if in imitation of me. I watched amused as the bugs around us struggled to reorient themselves on the twisted air currents I had unleashed. Dark Lightning began to crackle on the surface of Rufi's skin, raising the ends of her fur, the eyes of the snake at the end of her tail glowing white, her wings stilling as she seemed to float in mid-air.
"RAWR" Her voice was suddenly deep and ancient as she roared, dark purple and white lightning unleashing in all directions save towards me, frying all the bugs left around us. In a blinding flash all the lightning was gone and all the bugs were falling to the ground, their fried limbs devoid of life. Rufi opened her eyes, her wings resuming their flapping as she zipped down to the ground, pawing among the falling carcasses until she grabbed something in her mouth and began dragging it back to me.
In her fangs she held the fried remains of one of the brightly-colored birds that made the canopy their home, evidently caught up in her spell along with all the bugs. She dragged the carcass to my feet, before looking up expectantly at me. "Ruf!" She chirped happily, putting her legs up on mine, her snake-tail inexplicably wagging behind her. "Good girl," I grinned, stooping down to pet her. "Is that for me, or is that for you?" I asked, pointing at the bird carcass. "Ruf!" She pushed the bird carcass towards me with her head then rushed back into the heap of bug remains. Eventually after a bit more digging she emerged with another bird carcass. She dragged it out of the heap, and then began gnawing at its neck, still a ways away from me.
"I see. One for me and one for you, huh?" I looked at the charred bird carcass at my feet. While it was a very nice gesture, and I had been rather hungry in my living form, it wasn't like I was just going to eat the bird as it was. Nor did I really know anything else I could do with it. Looking around again for anything that might help me out of my predicament, I suddenly caught a hint of smoke, wafting above the trees just at the reach of what I could make out. Smoke? I don't think that's just mist. Did we accidentally light something on fire? I looked back at Rufi who seemed to be more playing with her food than eating it.
She had eaten the ice foxes raw, but I supposed it was entirely possible she didn't prefer it that way, and I certainly didn't. They were already a bit fried from the lightning, but grilling them probably wouldn't hurt anything. And if there's a fire already lit… Rufi might have lightning magic under her control, but I didn't, nor did I think I had the survival skills to light a fire from scratch.
I stood up, taking the bird carcass in one of my hands, grateful I was still a skeleton. "Come on, Rufi," I said. "Let's check out that smoke."
I approached the fire hesitantly, sensing a presence tending to the fire with my spirit sight, but unable to tell their intentions or identity. At last I pushed aside some foliage to reveal a brown-skinned, bare-chested man, his well-defined muscles curling as he bent over to turn a skewer on the fire.
"Welcome." He said, without looking up at us. "Come, sit. Bring your prey here and we will exchange food and stories." He looked up at me with a grin that felt subtly unnerving. "We have much to discuss."