FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

The shrine was quiet.

I waited for a brief moment, wondering whether the disembodied voice of the self-professed goddess would manifest itself once more, or whether any magical wards would activate immediately upon its disappearance, but nothing happened.

Her statue, once briefly animated by the dragoness' power, was still and lifeless once again, nothing more than a painted piece of stone in the half-ruined temple. A blessed relief from the twitch-inducing duality of mundane inanimate objects and ones brought temporarily to life via divine powers.

The 'Lady' had ended our audience with her.

A few more seconds passed.

I looked around, unable to discard the expectation of something, anything, to happen, and left pondering over the meaning of the dragoness' last words, and why she was urging me to perform the blood sacrifice with such urgency, and with such difficulty considering the struggle she had put into the message.

Why?

The 'Lady' was prone to sudden mood swings, at least judging from our conversation, a behaviour in line with the myths about the spiteful, fickle gods from the ancient Earth's history, but her last plea sounded a bit more desperate than I had thought her to be.

Then it was a matter of trust.

Not only wasn't I entirely certain I could truly believe anything she did say.

The fact that she could speak every same language as we did without any significant difficulty or effort cast the shadow of suspicion on everything that humans did on behalf of their draconic deities - they could communicate with us all that time, and opted not to do so.

Or perhaps the Priestesses could not understand us, just as the normal humans couldn't, and dragons, motivated by ancient rivalries, opted to not divulge any details to their own followers.

The explanation that dragoness provided - blaming everything on their internal politics between, at the very least, five distinct entities - was at the very least-semi plausible, but ultimately I was a complete stranger to the world of intrigue.

It made me wonder whether the Serpent knew.

I focused.

I could sense its presence.

It preferred to stay inside, a reclusive, fleeting presence at the edge of Ari's consciousness, merely peeking out into the pure organised chaos represented by the thousands of minds boiling into the storm. I didn't even know whether the Serpent was male or female, or something else entirely.

This meant Ari was, in fact, connected to the hive mind, and it was shocking she wasn't going mad from the process.

I was on the edge of the unheard whispers lurking somewhere beyond my mind overwhelming me and started to regret trying to reach the Serpent.

It was a shy, or secretive, entity, with few insights to share and no preferences, content with letting me make the tough choices, making the interaction rarely worth the risk if I feared the loss of self in the face of the hive mind.

But should I fear it in the first place?

My further thoughts were, however, soon interrupted by the outburst of the very familiar red smoke, and the new notification had appeared in front of my eyes. It made me jerk in surprise, even if it was one I had seen so many times before. I was simply too consumed with the struggle to even do a whole telepathic handshake.

Sometimes it came to me naturally, but then I was suddenly losing myself.

"For Master!"

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Major Enemy killed. FIve more to advance the General level.

Skill "Messengers of the Ever-Living Horde lvl. 12" Gained.

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I waved it away.

Our host was once again reinforced by seven freshly spawned chiropteran 'Fleshspeakers'.

The bat girls jumped around, rather impatiently, trying to crowd around me, but their considerably wide wings made shared proximity quite difficult. There were fourteen of them in total, crowding the shrine's courtyard, and I was getting worried.

"For Master!" They chirped in unison, providing no explanation, just eager to be introduced to the flock. My original plan to leave the shrine as soon as possible was hampered, though it was apparent that their sisters were fighting elsewhere already, and demanding to be teleported there was undeniably dangerous.

"What is Angela doing?" I demanded, regretting I didn't take Arke with me to put their response into spoken language, as I could already sense the bat's mind touching mine, replying faster than anyone else could.

I had to get used to this.

"For Master!" They vocalized.,

"What do you mean by capturing a priestess?"

"For Master! For Master!" they cried in unison.

"To make armour for me?" I asked. For all the headache it may induce, even the telepathy didn't bring me closer to understanding the logic behind this.

"For Master!" They replied in unison.

I shook my head almost as I tried to drive the plethora of alien sensations this produced, likely instinctive knowledge of their specific power failing to translate.

At least, some of it was comprehensible, but still raised more questions than it answered.

"But the poison was too deadly? What..." I said, then turning to Narita which was closest: "Get me Sora and the Displacers. Bring us to the safest place near Angela! Would someone help Ari with the damage control here?"

I suspect the Viceroy would be angry at destroying his garden - not to mention that I didn't have an idea what to do with the priest - but there were currently other things to worry about.

This all came at a very inconvenient time! I would curse the gods, if I hadn't just met one. This changes one's perspective of profanity.

"We need some backup for whatever fight Angela got herself into." I declared, and when space itself split with the 'Displacers' ready to pull me through their special rifts, I still managed to remind them:

"Don't drop me from heights!"

The idea of being teleported into the open air was terrifying as I still didn't come to terms with my fear of heights. They terrified me. The risk that we would reemerge from the portal up above in the sky, already in free fall, was the most nightmarish part of the 'Displacer's manner of transport.

I was getting used to falling through the void itself. The odd place beyond, an endless emptiness filled with the ever-shifting energies and the impossible geometries my felines phased through at a whim, wasn't as unsettling as the idea of falling out the other end of their rifts.

Nevertheless. I had no opportunity to ponder about this paradox, since reality restored itself swiftly afterwards, and we were back in mundane material space, still somewhat behest to some laws of physics. Sometimes.

Only slightly disoriented, I stood on a cobbled road among fields, with a distant treeline to either side.

I leaned towards Sora. She brought me here personally this time, and didn't rush away so I could cling to her a little while.

"Thank you for not dropping me from above." I reminded the cat-girl.

"We would never let you fall," she replied. "I wouldn't do that, Master."

"Thank you for being there with me too, Sora." I added, realising that it might be preferable to hang with, and to her, should the enemies appear.

"I want to, Master."

Good. I wasn't still sure how to handle the whole sharing senses the 'Alphas' did so routinely, so I still had to be close to the front line to even understand what was going on. It was the confusion that brought me here after all.

In front of me lay a native village, the typical thatched roofs peaking over the wooden palisade, more of the tall fence than a serious fortification considering the absence of the sturdy gate to hold enemies at bay.

"Bring my girls to the other side, too." I commanded.

My words were more than a little unclear, I realised once I let them out - I meant the second gate this place had to have if the road ran through it - but my girls understood it quite well.

The screams of terror and panicked shouts in the human's tongue filled the air, broken by the paralysing shrieks of my chiropteran monsters circling above the village. There were only a handful of them at first, but then the skies split open with spatial rifts, raining down the rest of my chiropteran menagerie down upon the defenceless village.

The flying bat girls didn't mind dropping from above, being creatures of the sky, and swooped, banking above us for another approach above the settlement.

With their arrival, the chaos was complete, judging from the scared villagers fleeing their homes in terror, and towards us as I assumed the second entrance had been blocked.

They stopped when they spotted me, women and children staying back, freezing, or more desperately scattering into the fields rather than face me and the rest of my retinue.

"Don't fight anyone running." I said, hoping that my decision would reach the rest of my furry menagerie. The host answered in unison, all minds united in their purpose as the constant murmur lingering somewhere at the edge of my brain, the growing intensity of the communication risking to spill over.

"Yes, Master."

It was not necessary for Sora to confirm it even before the rest arrived.

The flyby of my bat girls didn't stun anyone in the thinning crowd. At least, their shrieks did not, as most of the humans took the hint and opted to run for it, not eager to fight the growing crowd of monster girls.

I think Ekaterina commanded quite a large measure of respect. She was a big girl, after all.

Still, it wouldn't be one of the human villages in this world if there wasn't at least one suicidally hostile person.

Two of the natives, men braver than the others, armed with woodchopping axes, charged me, only to be whisked away by Sora's power as the rifts swallowed them, dropping the bodies mangled by the void in front of the rest.

The final stragglers, about a half-dozen human males, armed with sickles and rakes, reconsidered their chances, dropped their improvised weapons, and fled for the woods.

"Let them run." I ordered, and none of my girls moved to give chase.

There was no reason - the entire valley probably knew we were here at this point with all the fighting and the castle siege, so does it matter if some peasant made it to the other town rambling about monsters?

But were we in the valley?

Where were we, exactly?

I was about to look around to determine that and then...

About a dozen mutant cockroaches, all of them large as hunting dogs, spilled out of the gate and over the settlement's wooden wall, disappearing into the field of millet all around us, all in dead pursuit after the humans.

Gigantic insects were something I didn't quite expect, however, it wasn't hard to guess where they had come from, not with the 'Fleshspeakers' around.

"Arke!" I yelled, "Call off the roaches!"

Or better yet:

"Angela!"

She had to be there, somewhere. Arke landed a few metres ahead, looking around almost as if she was looking for something, and indeed, a weird collection of the mutated roaches did return from their hiding among the crop field, or their hunt after the humans, confirming they were indeed the creation of my 'Fleshspeakers'.

I stepped forward to review the madness.

"Thank you, Arke." I said, maintaining my calm, but already starting to feel the guilt over what had transpired.

"Angela's creations are ready for your inspection, Master." Arke announced, and the weird abomination chittered, but then froze and waited, almost like they were trained hounds, or mindless drones controlled like puppets by the 'Fleshspeakers'. The tatter was more likely.

I looked at those revolting... things... with trepidation.

While they looked, from a distance, like oversized cockroaches larger than any insect had the right to be and twice as disgusting, their body structure betrayed they were rather a random collection of insects mashed together, taking parts equally from spider, roaches, and cancerous growths, and some others things I had no name for, mashed together to create the ultimate insult to nature with roach mandibles grafted onto spider maws drooling very toxic smelling liquids.

I was very hesitant to approach them.

More of them crawled over the ramshackle palisade, revealing there were more of those things.

Then the 'Fleshspeakers' came landing around, their girlish voices filled with excitement and pride, all of them speaking over each other.

"For Master! Master! Master!" They chanted as their disgusting creations skittered, but I didn't need a telepathic link to understand their meaning: Look what we made!

"Arke showed me already." I replied, and I found it hard to believe they somehow managed to create those things literally overnight.

"Angela and Irene were bored." Arke informed me, "She originally intended to use a snake to poison and capture the human priestess to create an armour, but then got overexcited."

The part about armour did confuse me somewhat once again, but then I looked at Arke and how she was dressed. Her outfit, something between the mini-dress, armour and the corset, was a living thing, reminding me that their breed's power didn't end with zombifying and mind-controlling humans, but reshaping the flesh to their whims.

It was what they tried to do.

Arke wrapped her wings around herself to rest her arms.

"...and decided to raid the random village..." I said, pausing to wrestled with the minor storm in the back of my head, then continued: "...to obtain a material."

"The nights are cold and long, Master." Tama remarked in her usual sultry tone, somewhere behind me.

"You managed to make the insects grow to ... this? Overnight?" I asked, trying to calculate how fast they could work, aware how 'Corruptors' were running around turning the entire forest.

"It's late afternoon, Master." Tama reminded me, "We enjoyed your attention for a while before we were so rudely called out by that dragon..."

"It was the work of Angela and Irene, and their respective groups in Northern Village and the Southern Maiville, Master." Arke explained helpfully.

The 'Northern Village' was an awful name, but it was beyond the point at the moment..

I threw a glimpse at the 'roach hounds', or whether those things should be called. I dreaded consulting the system. The fifteen bored 'Fleshspeakers' could create this - in a mere twelve hours.

Given I was certain that insects couldn't realistically grow this big, I concluded that the magic which created them simply didn't care about things like the pesky limitations of mother nature.

"Impressive." I added absentmindedly.

"Master." Arke said, along with her sister in unison, and I was certain they meant they would and could make them bigger if I dared them.

It was horrific, but somehow, I couldn't bring myself to be angry at my cute bat girls, even if they were bringers of living nightmares. After all, their entire breed was what the 'Corruptors' did with the plants, only turning to eleven, and aimed at the entire animal kingdom rather than flora.

If anyone should feel guilty for what my girls did, it should be me.

Another village, their population scattered to the wind.

I looked around. The line of mountains was behind us in the distance at the moment, but there was no other landmark around to orientate myself with. I also didn't recall any village with a palisade, even one as useless as this one.

"Where are we, exactly?" I asked finally. "I wanted to leave the rest of the valley alone."

"We are not in the valley, Master." Sora purred, securing her place at my side, which was usually held by Miwah and Tama.

"The valley is this way, Master." She gestured towards these mountain ridges in the distance. "This is the road that continued to the east past the pass you ordered collapsed."

I blinked, thought about it a little, then finally understood.

Angela and her sisters didn't go over the river to get here.

They crossed the mountains instead and were sending raiding parties outside the valley, which explained why we were so restricted by the 'Displacers' carrying capacity since we were farther away than my bats could fly - now the exhausted kittens had to rest before they brought more reinforcements.

But there were a hundred or more of my people already...

It felt rather like a pointless detour, unnecessary to our long-term goals, but then...

...then something else occurred to me.

What the dragoness had said before she shut down her attempt to share the vision of the next scroll hiding place, one of many which we had to leave our valley to reach.

All of them had to be outside the valley, in fact, and this regrettable attack would be inevitable should I order to launch expeditions to find the artefacts. It would be very unfair to yell at Angela for something I would have to order later - some artifacts may be relegated to ruins or inhospitable remote locations beyond impassable terrain, but others may require us to fight our way through.

Some could be easily grabbed true. I suspected that the bottom of the sea wouldn't have many visitors, access limited only by our ability to dive deep, but vaults and temples would have some protectors to keep the enterprising treasure hunters out.

It wasn't hard to remember that this war humans were embroiled in was likely for the very same artefacts everyone craved.

I pointed toward the mountains.

"There is the pass." I said, "This is west."

I regretted it immediately: It was rather dumb to say something obvious - if you go east, and then turn back, you would head west instead - but it wasn't what I had in mind.

"No, Master." Sora corrected me, "Our pass would be this direction."

Their sense of orientation was amazing. My kitty didn't even hesitate, she was as beautiful as she was smart - and my words were rather stupid, but I was getting there.

"Yes. No. I mean..." I said, gesturing in that direction once again, "Those hills run roughly from south to the north, making up the easternmost border of our valley."

"Yes, Master." Sora confirmed, but I stopped her before she interrupted my stream of consciousness.

"The hiding site of the next scroll is here somewhere. We were supposed to leave the valley by its eastern pass and continue north. This is where we are."

"Arke." I said, "Send out flyers to the pass, then head north, following the mountains. Look for a burial mound in the forest, if you could spot it from the air. You do it better than Sora from free fall."

"Yes, Master." My feline companion said, looking somewhat disappointed by the prospect she wouldn't be doing any skydiving this time, with or without me.

My flock of bat-girls took flight one by one, circling around, then heading towards where I assumed north would be. We would have to camp here, or at least at the edge of the hills, or to house either the human sage, or the priest, which should help us locate the scrolls.

I, however, needed to move them, and as far I knew, our portals were lethal to all humans save Ari, a mechanism I didn't quite understand, but was a reminder just a couple of moments ago.

There were still two bodies left on the road, a reminder of how the rifts could be used offensively, and that they still killed humans passing through. As useful as this feature seemed, I was in desperate need of a power that allowed me to transport humans, something I didn't quite understand how it worked.

Perhaps guides were out of the question, but then we were left with no option to combat the magical wards.

If not with food and shelter, then at least with a lot of vegetation to harvest with Narita's power, and this village had both - forest and fields.

The prospect of getting to the artefact was suddenly far more exciting, though it still didn't erase the guilt of displacing the entire village population once again.

I had to assess the damage.

Then either bring Ari here, to convince the natives we didn't mean harm - this was a temporary staging point, I told myself.

"Dispose of the corpses, please." I ordered, and I headed into the village.

The insect abominations did chitter the moment I passed, and unable to resist the glance, I noticed them swarming on the bodies to the amusement of the rest of my girls, especially the 'Fleshspeakers' that didn't head out with the search party.

I tried to ignore this method of disposal, but it would be hypocritical to object to it. Mai was also given free rein in selecting her own method. My attention returned to the village.

It was a relatively compact place, individual homes huddling together within the confines of their not quite useful wall, now left in complete disarray when most humans fled their homes in panic, likely causing more damage in the process than from the fighting itself.

There were signs everywhere, most homes bearing marks of being broken too, overturned baskets scattered about, even some tools left lying on the street, not to mention at least a few bodies left behind in the wake of the attack, all soon swept over as the rest of my company streamed in.

A lone 'Displacer' was standing over one of the lifeless bodies, while the others rushed by to comb through the place in search of anything valuable, or to sniff out hidden opponents.

The feline monster girl, kitted out with the flesh-crafted outfit my 'Fleshspeakers' usually wore, complete with sharp chitinous claws fitted on one forearm, waved her hand, almost as to signify the effectiveness of her new weapon.

The body she stood over twitched suddenly, convulsing, still alive. The cat girl paid it no mind, now she saw me.

"For Master!" The 'Displacer' anthropomorphic kitten vocalised, excited, uncaring about the devastation left behind, if not proud of it.

"What do you mean, poison is working?" I asked, "Is Angela still around?"

"For Master!" The little 'Displacer' replied, grabbing my hand with hers, careful not to use the one with the claw attached. She led me further into the settlement towards the place I did assume was the local shrine. I think I was understanding the key parts of the architecture they always had, even if their cultural significance was beyond me.

I didn't catch which of the dragons this shrine was dedicated to.

Here, on what seemed like the side alley, I found the 'Fleshspeaker' in question, the chiropteran girl hopping around yet another body.

This time, however, the victim wore the traditional garb of the local priestess rather than the bland tunics of the native peasantry.

There was even another dead priestess, further away, towards the shrine gate, curled in the foetal position. There was no blood on these two.

Angela seems upset, waving her wings in agitation, not in an attempt to fly, but in frustration over how her power doesn't work on the body anymore. I could actually sense it - the disappointment she felt when the body was no longer a valid target for her powers.

Only the dead escaped the twisted flesh-warping power of my bat girls.

I made a few steps forward, at which point my Angela noticed me, rushing to give me a hug.

"For Master! Master!" She said, wrapping me with her massive winged arms. The bat girl rested her arm on my chest thanks to her diminutive statue, but the leathery wings wrapped around me thanks to the considerable span. I enjoyed it - it was strange, since I was supposed to berate the girl.

"For Master." She said coyly

"You are sorry?" I asked. The 'Fleshspeaker' was genuinely sorry. I could tell as much with her mind now touching mine, the telepathic connection making me twitch, but it wasn't the fact she took some of her sisters and cousins on the raid for what she regretted, or for humans which may have died in the entire endeavour. It was that she failed in her goal.

Angela, the cute and deadly anthropomorphic bat, had feelings, but none of those were for humans.

They cared for me, even for her sisters and cousins, but humans - they were the piece of clay that dared to die before they could be turned into a gift for me.

What I could tell about the being which considered turning a human into a piece of living armour as a completely normal course of action?

Yet, I couldn't be angry at the bat girl. She was mine, and if I should be angry at someone, I should be angry at myself.

We were one - forever bound by the mysterious power. This little furry bat girl with its wide wings and vulpine-like features was as much a part of me as I was a part of her.

However, there wasn't much time to ponder the ramifications.

A sudden jolt of pain brought me to my knees, and only Angela's hug supported me, when an 'Eviscerator' suddenly materialised nearby from the usual puff of red smoke only to collapse down.

"For Master!" She whined.

Then another burst of red fog, another of my followers forming out of the ruby mist, with the similar effect - the obnoxious mental sting combined with the sudden weakness of the respawned companion. It was the 'Fleshspeakers' this time.

I knew what it meant. That shrine I saw only the entrance of, it was guarded by the same magical wards as the ones that plagued me before.

Angela let me go, trying to help, but her powers didn't work on our own people. It was meant to be used to enthrall the outsiders, compared to the more healing focused 'Defilers'.

"Narita!" I called, distressed, and my rat girl rushed to us immediately.

In that short moment, I didn't care from where the life force fueling the healing came, and if the 'Defilers' used the very essence of the few survivors present to cure the artificial exhaustion inflicted on my furry menagerie.

"Did someone take a glimpse of the statue colour back in that shrine?" I asked.

"Red, Master." Was the answer, and all the guilt I was feeling for allowing this whole incursion was instantly gone, replaced by the anger. The 'Red' was the dragon which had caused all the suffering to my people, refusing to back down, sending his servants after us.

My heart thrummed.

His shrine would burn.

"Call Tama. Torch the shrine down." I said and went to inspect the freshly respawned 'Eviscerator'. My canine girl, infused with energy, was recovering, while the anger within me rose.

"And while you are at it, teleport the dead priestesses to the city's shrine and shower her statue with the blood. Slam them against the stone, or something." I said coldly, "The Lady can have her blood sacrifice."

My orders were carried immediately, and the fiery conflagration of the blue flames soon consumed the shrine I was not going to inspect.

I told the 'Red' he would not be allowed to touch my girls ever again. The fact that the wards they left behind were hurting my kin only because one of my followers went on an unsanctioned raid was still less important..

The magical wards burned my girls, and, by extension, me, more than the guilt.

I thought I was losing myself a little to the sensation, walking out of the settlement, but then, suddenly, a notification popped out in front of my view, startling me with its unexpected appearance.

However, before I could read it, the voice of the 'Lady' - the blue-green dragoness that spoke with me before - echoed through my ears with unparalleled intensity.

"Hmpppth! Thank you, Root. It seems we are stuck together now ."

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*Blood of the blessed spilt upon the altar of the divine! *

*Pact has been sealed: Lesser Divinity Obtained through alliance! Requirement for next level waived! *

We are rushing towards the end of days!

Level 8 achieved. Unit cap doubles.

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I blinked in shock and from the sheer overload of sensations where even the most basic of them defied comprehension, filling every nook and cranny of my brain with things I couldn't even begin to describe.

The heavens above raged, and with them, a flash of lightning came down on me, delivering agony that transcended physical limitations, driving me down to the ground even as Narita's power fed me with the life force from the surroundings.

"No, brother! You shall not smite the Root." The 'Lady' hissed, and all the pain, all the suffering, was washed away.

"What..." I asked, puzzled, but then, all the floodgates were open and the red ruby fog swallowed the entire area, bringing thousands of my creatures into existence, and I felt a little better now that the countless voices made the world just a little more beautiful.

It was quite paradoxical that the unity of the joined mind threatening to erase the sense of myself was also one which gave me peace after the harrowing experience.

Still on the ground, and tended by my beloved Narita and Miwah, I said the keywords. As non-intuitive as it was, I would have to make a choice before the enemy's aggression forces it upon. There was no telling how deep in enemy territory we were.

"Select skill."

I could sense the voice of the 'Lady' as she called herself in my ears. I wondered whether it was the dragoness' ceaseless nattering which drove her priest to madness, or whether all the Priestesses were so violently hostile because they were all driven insane by their respective patrons.

Maybe she would explain what was going on once she finishes swearing vengeance upon her brothers.

However, as useful as the explanation for why I was stuck with her, and struck by others, seemed to pale in comparison with my duty to bring a new species into existence.

I never thought of it in that way.

Nevertheless, it didn't matter now - there was a choice to make, one that would allow me to solve this conflict once and for all.

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Select your eighth element

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Skill: "Slayer of the Blessed"

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Element: Air / Poison

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| --- | --- |

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Skill: "Weaver of All Lies"

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Element: Shadow / Illusion

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| --- | --- |

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Skill: "Harbinger Of War Eternal"

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Element: Flesh / Death

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| --- | --- |

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Skill: "Viridian Dominions Unbound"

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Element: Wood / Arcane

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Skill: "Enslaver That Thirsts"

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Element: Mind / Soul

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There were five choices, all of them worded in the way that would make them both sinister sounding, and impossible to decipher, but this time, this time I felt a little more enlightened.

Some choices were almost guaranteed to bring horrific results. Some were unique, not tied with any of my breeds, but some ...

... wasn't the 'arcane' the elusive element that made my girls stronger?

The 'Ravagers' had power which let them shape metal, but it was the 'arcane' that evolved them to stronger forms, and I was tempted to risk the seemingly weaker option for the benefit of the whole, for we were many.

Or would the other choice be more powerful?

I looked around, submerged in thoughts for what seemed an eternity as the endless horde of my creatures scattered to all sides, though still a lot of them remained, curious and caring, ready to protect us and ours.

It was my duty to care for them, as I cared about them.

With a restored vigour, I made my choice.