The first skill Fabrisse activated was Spectral Appraisal.

[Spectral Appraisal — Active]

Target: Voidtouched Skitterwhit

— Status: Completely Healthy, Reasonably Angered

‣ STR (Strength): 38

‣ DEX (Dexterity): 27

‣ FOR (Fortitude): 12

‣ INT (Intuition): 9

‣ RES (Inner Resonance): 5

‣ EMO (Emotional Attunement): ???

‣ SYN (Synaptic Clarity): 5

[Failed to retrieve additional information. Upgrade your skill or engage with the adversary to learn more about their combat style.]

38 STR, Fabrisse thought. This flying fluffball can slam me to the ground and choke me dead. Liene's STR is 14. My STR is . . . okay, let's not think about that.

"It's . . . angry, Liene," he whispered.

The air went thick like syrup. Liene took a step back, and Fabrisse did too. The Skitterwhit simply hovered, impossibly still, as though it was glued in the air.

Liene raised both hands very slowly, palms open.

"There's no need for anything rash," she said with the same tone she used with wayward cats. "Most aetheric creatures aren't aggressive toward humans. Especially not the wild-born ones. They don't see us as food or threat." Then she took half a step forward, towards the beast. "Hi, hi . . . I noticed you're a bit . . . voidtouched. I bet you were just minding your own magical business when some nasty rift anomaly drifted by and now everyone's afraid of you. But not me, no Sir. I see you. You're just a big floaty trauma puff, aren't you?"

The Skitterwhit twitched.

Fabrisse tensed. "It's twitching." He placed one hand over his satchel just in case.

"It's responding!" Liene smiled. "Aren't you? You're probably just confused. Your tummy hurts from all the residual aether toxicity and your aura's a little aggressive, but that's okay. You don't want to hurt anyone, do you?"

The Skitterwhit drifted forward an inch. Its body pulsed like a heartbeat of pure shadow, and the wind around it dropped to silence.

Liene tilted her head, her voice dropping to a purr. "You're not mad, you're just misunderstood. I bet your name is something soft. Like Morrowfluff. Or Zuzu. Can I call you Zuzu? You're a good boy, aren't you Sir? Yes you are—"

The creature let out a ripple of soundless magic and surged forward like a launched arrow.

Fabrisse yelped, but Liene was faster.

She whipped her hand. "No, Zuzu! Bad!"

A disc of light flashed into existence between them—Warding Gleam. The Skitterwhit slammed into it with a muffled thud, bounced back, and hissed like a kettle being throttled.

Target: Voidtouched Skitterwhit

[Status: Completely Healthy, Reasonably Angered]

Liene's hair was blown back from the impact. "Okay!" she said through gritted teeth. "So! Zuzu is a liar!"

The Skitterwhit slammed against the Gleam again, and once more. It flew back, then launched forward again. Its shape seemed to blur as though it were being smeared through the air.

"I said don't move!" Liene snapped. Still maintaining her Warding Gleam, sharp flick of her wrist summoned a bright pinwheel of radiant energy. Fabrisse didn't remember the name of this spell, but it was meant to paralyze low-level threats.

It struck the Skitterwhit. Then vanished. Absorbed, like a sugar cube dropped in hot tea.

"Huh?" Liene said.

The Skitterwhit let out another hiss and veered sideways, circling them now. Liene threw up another sigil—Luxhold, a containment thread that looped like golden wire.

The loop never formed. The spell hit the creature and collapsed in on itself.

[Spell Effect: Nullified]

[Aetheric Signature Unstable]

Yes, I can see that . . .

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The Skitterwhit bulldozed forward again. This time, it smashed Liene's gleam into pieces upon impact, like glass. She staggered back.

Fabrisse pulled at her sleeve. "Liene. You have to hit it."

"I don't want to!" she snapped, casting another Gleam to intercept the creature's fourth lunge. This Gleam was twice as big. "We don't know if it's sentient! Maybe it just needs help—"

"It's trying to end us!"

The Skitterwhit slammed into the light disc again, harder this time. The shield cracked with a hairline shimmer.

"I don't know what to do!" Liene squeaked. "I . . . I don't fight!"

What can I do to help? He frantically scrolled through the list of spells he had. There was nothing he could do.

At least, not by himself.

The Voidtouched Skitterwhit wheeled around again, gliding through the air, but just beneath the shoulder joint of its forward wings—if the creature even had proper anatomy—was a subtle ripple in the dark. It darkened differently when it turned, like a smudge over glass, slightly concave.

Fabrisse's brain snapped to something he'd read once during a dry geomancy seminar—about anatomical parallels between magical insects and crystal-bonded carapaces.

That spot. Right there. Near the thorax, above the ventral segment.

He grabbed a stone from his satchel.

Liene said, "What are you doing?"

"You block. I'll try hitting it," he replied.

"Wait—no. Don't. It'll mark you as a target."

The Voidtouched Skitterwhit made a sound akin to a violent wrench in the air. The pressure around them dropped. Then it launched again.

"Fabri—!" Liene's voice cracked.

She flung her arms wide, and the Warding Gleam expanded instantly, doubling in diameter and flashing blinding gold, with a charcoal glow at the edge. Light burst from the edges like she'd slammed open a vault of dawn.

The Skitterwhit hit the shield dead-on with an impact, then thrown backward in a spiraling tumble of smoke and sparks.

Target: Voidtouched Skitterwhit

[Status: Mostly Unscathed, Reasonably Angered]

"Fabri, tell me where to hit," Liene said, her voice low and taut like a bowstring.

She anchored one foot into the earth. Her hands pulled outward through the air. Light obeyed.

A spear began to form between her palms. Its haft solidified first, flickering with heatless fire, followed by a tapered head that glowed like a mirrored thorn.

The color kept shifting.

It flared pine green.

Then burned charcoal black.

Then throbbed gold.

The hues cycled like flames caught in an unstable wind, unable to decide whether they meant anxiety, fear, or devotion.

Liene's arms trembled slightly as she steadied the unstable spear. "Ah . . . I shouldn't have skipped class."

Fabrisse's eyes darted between her grip and the Voidtouched Skitterwhit as it gathered itself again. "See that darkened ripple?

"Uh . . . yeah."

"Throw it when I say," he said.

The Voidtouched Skitterwhit surged forward again. Liene's fingers flexed around the quivering haft of the spear.

Fabrisse stepped wide to judge the creature's path. Closer . . . Closer . . .

"Now!" he shouted.

Liene launched the spear.

The light split the air like a blazing comet.

It struck, right at the unstable ripple above the thorax.

For a moment, the spear sank into the creature. It was like watching something get swallowed. The void stretched and tried to devour the light whole. Threads of the glowing shaft unraveled into the dark.

But the absorption wasn't complete.

Midway through, the spear refused to vanish.

A flare of resistance pulsed from within—gold overcoming black—and the entire tip detonated like a flash bomb inside the Skitterwhit's body.

The creature screamed like a gale howling through hollow bones.

Target: Voidtouched Skitterwhit

[Status: Mild External Damage Suffered, Reasonably Angered]

It reeled and spasmed, and its voidtouched edges flickering in and out of focus like a corrupted mirage.

Fabrisse stared. "You got it."

The creature recovered in an instant.

It blitzed forward like an arrow from a siege bow, screaming through the grass.

Liene tried to summon another Gleam, but the motion was half a second too slow. The creature crashed into her side like a battering ram.

She went flying, slammed backwards into the brush with a choked gasp. As she was thrown, a thread of white-gold light spiraled into the sky and burst.

[Distress Flare — Activated]

A beacon of radiant magic snapped into the clouds like a rising sun in miniature, casting down whorls of illumination over the field. It was a spell meant for emergencies—visible to any trained mage within a set radius.

The flare's glow cascaded down like liquid dawn. Every blade of grass glistened. As the flare's light touched their fuzz, it refracted off of the hundreds of Skitterwhit scattering across the field, bent and split into dancing hues. Their aether fur caught the illumination and morphed the light into a prism-thread.

For a heartbeat, the Eastern Target Fields became a living constellation. It would've been so beautiful if they weren't about to die.

"I'm . . . I'm fine!" She said as she coughed, clutching her ribs and trying to prop herself up with one elbow.

Fabrisse wanted to sprint to her. To check how much damage she'd taken, to cast Spectral Appraisal, something—

But the creature turned on him.

It drifted forward with its wings jittering slightly, lightless eyes locked on his chest.

Fabrisse's breath caught. His hand darted into his satchel.

Stone. Stone. Where stone—

He grabbed one of the heavier stupenstones, flared it with an amber thread, and threw with every bit of STR he had, aiming at the weak spot by the thorax.

The stone struck, too high.

→ Trajectory Curvature: Stable ~ Consistent

→ Estimated Launch Velocity: 9.65 m/s (72% max) + 10% from Celestial Hoarding + 5% from Stonebound Synapse

→ Accuracy Deviation: ±11.8%

It bounced off with a hollow thunk, just barely grazing the intended point.

[Damage Dealt: Slight Itch]

Target: Voidtouched Skitterwhit

[Status: Mostly Unscathed, Unreasonably Angered]

"Oh no," Fabrisse whispered.

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