Aether Beasts

The beast, or whatever it was, looked like no recognizable animal, or any beasts I'd ever seen or heard of. It looked like a mass of sickly white flash with disfigured head and long tentacle-like limbs. Its mouth gaped wide open and as it let out another screech, I had to press my hands to my ears as my entire body shook. That was a mistake, as I had taken my attention for the abomination and just as I looked back up I felt one of the limbs smack into my side and send my flying a dozen feet away. I let out a cry of pain as I rolled across the ground.

"Aiden!"

I coughed and raised my head just in time to see Misty jump on the back onto the abomination, her eyes full of pure hatred and fury and her fingers tipped in her aether claws. She tore into its back, but no blood or viscera sprayed. Its flesh was torn, but it seemed to regrow at a rapid pace.

"That's not going to work," Zirani said.

"Then what!" Sandra replied as she sent half a dozen daggers of darkness into the abomination.

It elt out another screech which stunned Misty long enough for it took tear her off its back with one of its tentacles. The vampire though didn't land as I had. Instead, she used her unnatural grace and agility to land on her feet, and without taking any damage.

At this point, I'd made it back to my feet, and formed my armor around myself.

"Zirani what do we do?" I asked.

Neither Misty claws nor Sandra daggers had done anything to it. In fact, it just looked more pissed than ever with its tentacles flailing about wildly, as it elt out screech after screech.

"Its head," She replied. "Go for its head."

"Got it," I said. "Misty you distract it. Sandra, try to bombard its head with ranged attacks and keep the tentacles off me. I'll go in up close."

Misty took off just as I formed two impact seeds and launched them at the abomination, Thyes truck its side, and the shockwaves sent pieces of white flesh into the air, but the wound disappeared in moments as new flesh filled up the wound.

"Fuck," I hissed. "I guess it is just the head then."

Misty tore into it with claws, jumping in and out, dodging its attacks with her vampiric speed while sending ranged balls of death at it when she wasn't up close. Sandra had its other side, and her bloodline was active. Smoky darkness rose from her as blade-like shadow tendrils countered the abomination's tentacles.

This was my chance. I formed a lashing vine in my left hand and formed a large bark spike on my right gauntlet. When I was close enough I sent the vine to wrap around the abomination's head and then pulled myself to it as fast as I could. Tentacles shot towards me, but Sandra had me covered. Her shadow tendrils sliced them apart, and when they regrew, Misty was there to destroy them once again with her claws.

My feet hit what I assumed was this thing's shoulders and with a roar, I rammed my spike into its head. The abomination let out a stretch that was cut of hallways as my spike tore itself out of the other side of its head.

For a second there was no movement, but then abomination stilled. Then like it had never been there, the abomination began to fade into white ash. I jumped off just before the area I was standing on vanished.

"What the…"

Sandra's words trailed off as the last of the abomination's body vanished, leaving nothing in its wake but white ash. We all stared at where the unnatural beast had been just moments ago, now just a pile of white ash. No core, no body, no nothing. This thing definitely wasn't an aether beast. Even with the no blood and regeneration, if this thing had possed a core then it could have just been a really odd looking aether beast since there were definitely beasts that looked far odder than most, but no core meant this wasn't an aether beast, and I refused to believe it was a normal animal. Normal animals didn't appear in aether towers, only aether beasts did.

I let out a sigh of relief. "What in the hell was that?"

"An abomination," Zirani said. "Remember how I told of the arcanist who'd spoken of a story of a place like this and how they'd said they ran into abominations. Well, he describes them just like this. Masses of pale flesh. If both his descriptions of the place and these abominations are real then we need to get to training right away."

"Why?" Misty asked.

"Because he never made it out of the tower normally," Zirani said. "He said it vanished around him. whatever the twin horn has done, it's happened before, and we need to take full advantage and make our way up it before that happens. When we get back I'm going to start on my alchemy, Aiden, do have that alchemy set I had you buy?"

I nodded. "I do."

"Good. " She nodded. "Then let's get back to the treehouse. We've searched enough of the mountain, and I've got all the information I need."

"What if we run into any more of those things?" Misty asked.

"Then we deal with them as we dealt with this one," Zirani answered. "Now let's get going."

We quickly left the pile of white ash behind and made out way back to the treehouse. From the way everyone kept looking around, I could tell everyone was on edge, which wasn't a surprise since I too was a bit worried. What if there were more of those things. We may have taken it done without getting injured, but that had been abuse we'd worked together. If I'd had to fight it alone then it would have taken much more effort. Zirani was right, we really did need to get stronger quickly.

Once we made it back to the treehouse, I handed Zirani the alchemy set and all the plants and herbs I'd gathered.

"Take today off," Zirani said. "Starting tomorrow, it will be nothing but training. This will be the last rest you get for a while."

I wasn't really happy about that, but neither was I going to complain. I'd chosen the life of an arcanist, and had chosen to trust in Zirani. If I wanted to cross the great scar and find out why my parents had left me, then I needed to be more powerful. I also never wanted to be in a position like I'd been in during the war. Where I'd had to think up a plan of retreat. I wanted to be strong enough that no one could ever think about harming West Vale or the lands where I'd been born. Who knew, perhaps when I returned from the great scar and was a lot more powerful I'd create my own sect in the plains, or just make sure everyone knew the price of messing with my friends, my family, and my town.

I headed over to my room to take a quick rest, and to my surprise I found Sandra waiting there, with a nervous look on her face.

"Did you want to talk about something?" I asked as I pulled my sleeping roll from my ring and set it out on the floor. I hadn't had a chance to yesterday, what with Misty and her draining my blood.

"I do," She replied slowly. "Could you close the door please?'

I frowned. "Sure, is this private?"

She bit her lip. "Sort of."

I closed the door then turned back to face her, only to find her a few feet away from my face.

"I'm not good at these types of things," Sandra said. "And I don't really know how to say this, so I'll just say it as I think it. I like you Aiden."

I froze, and my eyes moved down to meet hers. "Like as in?'

"Romantically, yes?"

Well damn, I'd had a suspicion this was going to happen, either with me confessing to her, or her confessing to me. I hadn't thought it would happen so soon, although, from the way she acted when she found out about Misty drinking my blood and all the other things like the kiss she'd given me when we'd been in Orton, I should't have been too surprised.

"Well?" She asked worriedly. "Are you."

Instead of replying, I decided to take a page from Zirani. I leaned forward and kissed her. She froze for only a second as our warm lips touched, but then her arms slowly wrapped around my shoulders as our kiss deepened.

"I take that as a yes?" She said with a smile.

"What do you think?" I replied with a chuckle.

"I think I'm glad I made you close that door," She said with a sultry smirk that set my heart racing.. "Now let's have some fun."