Bones And Marrow II

"You have plenty of time before that thing reaches you. So take your time to chant your spell," Haro told Kies. Chanting a spell shouldn't be rushed, especially when one wasn't familiar with how the spell worked, and especially in this case as well where the enemy was moving at turtle speed. If one were to mess up with the chant then they would have to restart all over and depending on the spell, there may even be backlashes as well.

Kies thought back to the spells that Haro had taught him yesterday evening and chose a random offensive one to use against the undead. Kies stuck out his open palm and chanted, "Winds, gather, form, and pierce." A single jet of wind shot out like a javelin and tore a hole right through the undead's chest. The undead took a few more steps forward before it fell face first into the dirt. The spell was simple yet effective. It was a stronger version of the chantless spell he normally used to fight with.

"Hoot, once you're experienced enough, you can use the spell just by saying its name, and once you've completely mastered it, you can cast it without even having to say anything, just like a chantless spell. That's the beauty of chanted spells," Haro told Kies.

"How long will that take?"

Haro rubbed his beak with the tip of his wing and said, "Depends on the spell. But for the Wind Javelin you just used, I'd say around fifteen years. But since you're an Aeos and wind magic is your specialty, it'll probably take a lot less time than fifteen years. I can't give you the exact number though since I don't know."

"But what I do know is that..." Haro pointed his wing at a few other undead that slipped past everyone and was heading towards them. "There are a couple more undead for you to practice your magic on."

Kies cast Wind Javelin at the four undead that were in front of him and took each of them down with one hit of the spell. Though Kies wanted to test out the other spells that Haro had taught him as well, he decided that it would be better to test and figure out one spell at a time.

By the time Kies finished taking down the last undead that had strayed from the fight, the rest of the group was almost done killing off the rest of them. There were only a handful of undead left and they started retreating. But since they ran away at such a slow pace, they all got picked off before any of them could escape.

"We must make no wasted time. The old bone perceives our approach," Lisler told the rest of the group once the last undead was cut down. He sheathed his sword and ran off, beckoning for everyone else to quickly follow him.

Along the way, they encountered more undead but they looked like the stranglers that hadn't caught up with their horde in the front lines. Since they were all alone, the group decided to ignore them and only cut down the ones that got in their way.

After moving for several minutes, Bloodmane sensed that something was wrong and called for the rest of the group to stop. "Wait!" he shouted. Everyone stopped running and looked at Bloodmane.

"What troubles you," Lisler turns around and asks the werewolf.

"Don't you guys think that there's something off here?" Bloodmane said skeptically. Everyone looked around to try to figure what Bloodmane was talking about but couldn't find anything out of the ordinary. Kies spotted a lone undead slowly walking past them all the way to their right but there was nothing else here. There was nothing else...

Ammine recognized this scenario and quickly sent a pulse of magic to detect the areas around them. But it wasn't as she and Kies had expected. They weren't surrounded by undead as they had experienced before. They were completely alone other than a few undead here and there. "There's nothing..."

Haro saw that something was very wrong here and squinted his eyes to get a better look at the surroundings around them. He didn't find anything within the first few seconds of searching but suddenly saw something flash by in the corner of his eye. Haro's eyes instantly shot to where he saw the flash and recognized what the problem was. "Hoot, we appear to have entered and are currently trapped in an illusion."

"We have?" Ammine looked around but couldn't find anything that would indicate what Haro just said. Demons were also quite sensitive to magic so why was it that she hadn't noticed when they first entered the illusion? Actually, why had none of them noticed? There were so many people here and yet none of them noticed anything.

"When did we enter the illusion?" Kies asked Haro.

"Hoot, I'm not sure," Haro responded. "But if I were to guess, I say when we were fighting those lesser undead."

Bloodmane walked over to a tree and swiped at it. He felt his claws hit the bark of the tree. Were they really in an illusion? Everything looked normal. He could still feel things physically and nothing looked off. The only thing that tipped him was a strange feeling that he kept getting. His whole body was tingling for seemingly no apparent reason. "So, how do we get out?" Bloodmane asked the owl.

Since Haro was the only one that noticed they were trapped in an illusion, he should also be the only one that would know how to get out. He was also the best magic-user here out of the group and was the most knowledgeable as well. If anyone knew a thing, it would be him. Bloodmane walked over to the owl who was perched on top of Kies's shoulder and looked at him, awaiting an answer.

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