Frostbitten Wayfarer

The Okiu took another step down the beaten path the boars made, and the impact of the goat’s hooves quaked the earth below Zoe’s feet. The Corrupted Okiu’s raw power washed over the group, and Zoe felt like she was standing in a wind tunnel.

Oozing darkness dripped from the Okiu and spilled onto the forest floor. The darkness spread like it were reaching for everything it could touch but withered away moments after it hit the ground. All that was left were shadows that seemed just a little darker than they should have been.

More darkness rocketed from the Okiu’s form to splatter on trees. Tendrils of darkness reached out as it tried to consume everything, but it too withered away and left a shadowy splotch of darkness where it was.

“HASTE US NOW!” Fred shouted from next to her.

Zoe looked back to the group she was with. Everybody had sweat beading on their brows, their faces were pale and stricken with fear. She cast haste on the group and dismissed the notification she got for it.

“GO!” Julie shouted and took off to the north, towards the road. The rest of the group followed close behind.

Zoe took a glance behind her to see if the Okiu would pursue, but it didn’t. It took another step towards where the boars went. Power ruptured from it and spewed through the forest. Darkness stretched from its form and tried to engulf the nearby trees.

The Okiu took another step and staggered, its body rocked back and forth as it tried to regain its balance. The slight movement blasted wind through the forest. Trees quivered, some snapped and fell to the ground in a slam that echoed around her.

Zoe thought to use her empathy for a moment and stopped running as soon as she did. Her empathy worked on it. She had never tried using it on an animal before, on anything other than another human for that matter. It was never something she needed. But it worked.

The fear that her hunting group felt was all but drowned out by the Okiu’s intense pain and sadness. She dug deeper with her empathy and felt a sense of dread, and loneliness. A longing feeling for something.

The creature was dying, she felt that as clear as a bright summer’s day. And it knew that, too. It knew it was dying, and it didn’t want to die alone.

“COME ON! LETS GO!” Emma tugged on Zoe’s arm. The rest of the group was still running deeper into the forest.

Zoe shook her head. “I think it’s dying.”

“Good! We need to get far away and hope it does then!” Emma shouted at her.

Zoe shook her head again. “No, I think it’s lonely. Maybe I’m crazy, but I don’t think it’s dangerous. At least not intentionally.”

Emma gestured around at the forest that was being battered by the Okiu’s oppressive power. “It doesn’t matter if it’s intentional! It’s dangerous! We need to go Zoe, now!"

“It’s higher level than the highest level I’ve ever even heard about. If it wanted us dead, we’d be dead. Running wouldn’t make a difference.” Zoe took a deep breath. “I’m going to try and help it.”

Emma’s jaw dropped. “You’re WHAT?!”

“Yeah. Maybe I’m insane but it’s not angry or hungry, it’s just sad. I don’t think I’m strong enough to kill it and put it out of its misery, but maybe I can help it feel less lonely at least.” Zoe said.

Emma hugged her. “Please come with me and leave? Please?”

“No I’m staying. It’s either going to kill us or it’s not. I couldn’t even outrun a light blue goat, let alone whatever the hell this colour is supposed to be.” Zoe said.

Emma took a deep breath and sighed. “Fine. Then I’m staying too.”

Zoe looked back at the Okiu. It had moved a bit during their conversation, but not as much as she would expect from something hunting stampeding boars or fleeing humans. It wobbled on its feet, and sent waves of wind through the trees.

“What’s your plan then? Huh? How are you gonna comfort it? Just walk up and hug the damn thing?” Emma asked. Her mouth was shaking as she stared at the Okiu’s staggered walk.

It still wasn’t coming to them. Zoe wasn’t sure if it had even seen them. She wasn’t sure how it wouldn’t have, but it just kept plodding along the path the boars carved through the forest.

“Uh, I dunno, actually. I haven’t gotten there yet. I think that getting close to it is bad though. I don’t know what that darkness does, but getting hit by it seems bad. And the power that’s spewing from it is probably not good either.” Zoe said.

“So what then? Send it good vibes from a distance?” Emma took a step back from the Okiu.

“Yeah, I guess. I’ve never even tried to see how far the limit on my Frost skill is. Maybe I make an ice sculpture and send it over.” Zoe said.

Emma took a deep breath. “You’re really going to do this then? We’re so going to die. Really?”

“Yeah. I don’t think it’s evil, it’s just… too powerful. Is that a thing?” Zoe asked.

“I don’t know. How would I know. I didn’t even know levels went that high.” Emma said.

“Okay. So ice sculpture then.” Zoe said.

She focused on her frost skill and tried to form a fist sized sculpture of a human and goat sitting down with a bit of distance between them. It ended up rather crude, but close enough to get the message across if it had any intelligence, she hoped.

Then she turned her attention to her enchanting skill. She had never tried enchanting her frost either, but now that she thought about it, there was no reason it couldn’t work. Her frost was a material just the same as any other. She could draw it back into herself and regain some of the mana. But if she didn’t do that, then it just behaved like normal ice. It was cold, it melted, and it would eventually evaporate.

She found that not only was she able to enchant it, doing so was extremely simple. The frost that she created was already saturated with her mana so all she had to do was twist it into the shape that she wanted. She imbued her sculpture with serenity through her Vampyric Empathy skill.

“Alright. All that’s left is to see if I can get it all the way to the Okiu.” Zoe said.

It was a little under a hundred meters away, and the furthest Zoe had ever even tried using her Frost skill was about two meters. She didn’t feel any restriction with it, nothing told her she couldn’t go farther. She just never had a reason to. She hoped it would reach the Okiu, and that the Okiu would understand.

If it didn’t, maybe she’d die. But for some reason she just didn’t feel that she would. It was so close to them before, and even now a measly hundred meters was a short dash for Zoe. Let alone the highest level creature she’d ever seen, something so high level that she wasn’t even sure if most people even knew it was possible.

The Okiu took another step, and its leg gave out. The Okiu fell to the ground, and darkness spewed from the broken leg. It spread across the forest floor before it too withered away and left a shadowy splotch everywhere it could reach.

Zoe tried to send her ice sculpture over, but her magic only reached about halfway across the hundred meter gap. She walked towards the Okiu as slow and carefully as she could while she crept the sculpture towards it.

The Okiu turned and looked at her, its eyes pulsed with magical darkness that twisted and churned. It looked pitiful as it laid on the ground. Darkness spewed from it, reaching for anything that it could but never made it far before it withered away.

She made it to the halfway point, and set her sculpture down in front of the Okiu. The edges of the darkness’s tendrils were still well away from her, whatever magic held it together not enough to reach her at the distance she was.

The Okiu looked at her sculpture, and Zoe felt a flash of comfort wash over it. She sat down in the snow and watched the Okiu. It shivered. Power ruptured from it and shook the nearby trees, but it was weakening. The power that Zoe felt now couldn’t be compared to the overwhelming pressure she felt earlier.

Emma stood a few feet behind Zoe, her anxiety and fear blasting Zoe’s empathy. Zoe tried not to use it around friends, but it was hard to ignore the intense emotions Emma was feeling in the moment.

Zoe watched as the Okiu rested its head on the ground. Darkness kept pulsating from its form. It stretched and warped as it reached for anything it could grab. Zoe’s sculpture was consumed by it, and for a moment the darkness seemed to be invigorated and stretched on longer than it ever had before.

The Okiu lifted its head when it noticed and Zoe felt its fear as it watched the darkness stretch towards her. But it didn’t even reach halfway, and left a stretching shadow in the snow. Relief washed over the Okiu, and Zoe smiled.

“It was scared for us.” Zoe said.

“Scared? It’s DOING this!” Emma shouted at her.

“I don’t know, honestly. It’s Corrupted, right?” Zoe said.

“Yeah, and?” Emma asked.

“Maybe the corruption is its own thing and the Okiu isn’t the real cause of any of this.” Zoe suggested.

“Why are we doing this Zoe? We should leave.” Emma said.

Zoe shook her head again. “Surely you can see it now too. It’s dying, and it doesn’t want to be alone.”

“Okay then we let it die while we’re getting somewhere safe then. What happens when it dies and the corruption loses its host if your theory is right?" Emma asked.

Zoe looked to the Okiu and watched it take deep, ragged breaths. Darkness flooded from its mouth as it exhaled and covered the forest floor around it in a deep shadow.

“Even when it, I dunno, ate my mana? It still only reached halfway before it withered away. And it’s not super quick, even if it could reach over here we could run. Maybe we can’t outrun it but we’ve got a headstart, we’ll be okay I think.” Zoe said.

“This is stupid, you know that, right?” Emma said.

“Mhm.” Zoe agreed.

“Then why are you doing it?" Emma asked.

“I know what it’s going through, I guess. I think. I mean, if something like this lived around here then we would have heard about it right?” Zoe said.

“Right. Probably.” Emma said.

“So it’s not from around here. Where did it come from?” Zoe asked.

“I don’t know. Does that matter?” Emma said.

The Okiu’s breathing began to slow, and the ripples of power grew less intense. From the distance Zoe and Emma were, it felt like a gentle breeze that blew their hair around. The tendrils of darkness stretched for the trees nearby but struggled to reach them. Long streaks of shadows were left in the snow and trodden earth around the Okiu.

“It does matter. I think that it’s from very far away and ended up here through some freak accident.” Zoe said.

“Like what happened to you?” Emma asked.

“Yeah. Maybe. I can’t think of another explanation. If it came here on its own power, it wouldn’t be dying like this. Probably. I know that when I showed up, I would have appreciated something helping me out. Anything, really. Just something there to tell me that it’s okay, that I’m seen and understood.” Zoe said.

“And you think it understands you?” Emma asked.

Zoe nodded her head. “It felt comfortable when it saw my sculpture. It was afraid when the corruption ate it and rushed at us, and it felt relieved when the corruption didn’t make it. I think it’s intelligent. It knows we’re here to give it company.”

She watched the Okiu. Its eyes had closed. Darkness continued spewing from its form but even that was pitiful at this point. All it could manage were some short tendrils of darkness that reached out a few inches from the Okiu’s body. The power that radiated from the Okiu was almost completely gone, just a faint reminder of what once was as a few of the low hanging leaves were stirred by the soft waves of power.

Zoe watched as its body raised and fell with each breath. The periods between growing longer and longer. She felt tears dripping down her cheeks and wiped them away. Her Vampyric Empathy showed its emotions twist and then settle on appreciation and contentedness. And then the emotions cut off.

As soon as they did, the remnants of the darkness erupted from the Okiu’s form and splattered on the nearby trees. It stretched and reached for anything it could find, and then the forest was overcome with silence as the last remains of the creature withered away. Zoe got a notification but dismissed it. She could check it later when she was more in the mood.

“It appreciated us.” Zoe said and wiped away the tears that fell down her face. “That’s the last thing I felt from it. Appreciation. I’m really glad I stayed behind for it.”

Emma sighed. “You did a good thing, Zoe.”

“I hope so.” Zoe stood up. “Lets get back to town. I want to sleep.”

Emma nodded her head.

Zoe cast haste on the two of them, and they jogged back to the main road and then towards town. They didn’t talk on the way back, both of them just jogged in silence as they reflected on the experience they had.

It was incredible, Zoe thought. Such a pure and primal experience. Just Zoe, Emma, and the effective incarnation of fear itself. Though more than fear, she felt pity for it. She wished that she could have met it in some other circumstance. Maybe they could have grown to have some kind of mutual respect, maybe she could have watched it in its beautiful glory rather than just witnessed its brief demise.