Chapter 75: 73
Draugr - in Scandinavian mythology, a living dead, in his habits comparable to a maddened and starving vampire.
The body of a draugr can swell to a huge size, become much heavier, and their bodies do not decompose, they only dry out, but this does not make them weaker, rather the opposite. This and unbridled appetite bring draugr and vampires together. The latter, during a period of long fasting, also dry out and become insane, attacking any living creature, mostly intelligent, in order to satisfy their hunger.
The appearance of the draugr depends on the type of their death: water constantly flows from the drowned man, and bleeding wounds gape on the body of the fallen soldier. The skin can vary from deathly white to corpse blue. To summarize, the appearance depends on the place of death, as well as the mana with which the corpse was saturated. Draugr are often spoken of as guardians of the treasures of burial mounds, which is understandable - the dead are a much better defense than the living.
There are also rarer types of draugr, those that have retained not only a semblance of "life", but also a soul. Such opponents have much greater physical and, what is much worse, magical power.
Draugr have only two purposes in their semblance of life: protecting a protected area, and also devouring the lives of the living. They generally prefer the intelligent ones.
Superhuman strength, speed, reserve and fighting skills. "Living" dead who have no fear of death; they will not stop until they destroy the enemy. And if they also retained their soul, then all this can be safely multiplied by three. The friends are so strong, although they are not intelligent (in the full sense of the word), which makes it not easy to cope with them, but this is not an impossible feat.
Now let's return to our situation. Draugr elves. What's special about them? The answer is banal and simple - every such dead man retains his soul. Yes, that's exactly it. Due to their nature of immortality, the souls of elves are closely intertwined with their body, which makes it much more difficult to make them draugr, but if you succeed... You will have an incredibly strong unit under your command, capable of primitive thinking.
"The situation is not pleasant," Croco's voice brought me out of my thoughts. The tea magically evaporated somewhere. Granted, you'll never say that he's a tea drinker. And the shape of his face, which looks more like a mouth, is not very suitable for this. - How many draugr did you manage to discover?
"I couldn't get far, they could have discovered me," the vampire began his answer. "But I counted about six dozen."
"It's bad," Flitwick frowned, getting up from his place. - If there are so many of them, then we may well encounter the Lich.
Everyone here was instantly overwhelmed by the current situation, and it was not a pleasant one. A lich is a "dead" magician of at least the Grand Master level who has retained his mind, distorted, filled with cruelty, madness and a thirst for destruction, but no less dangerous. To be faced with this, and even in the presence of an entourage, is not the most pleasant situation.
"Well, we have no choice," Ogrim said, taking another sip from the bottle. "The contract between our star and the guild has already been concluded; we cannot return empty-handed." And it's not the first time for us," he shrugged. "It's true this time everything is much more complicated," he drawled and looked at me.
Following his example, everyone else turned their heads in my direction. You can understand them - an apprentice, not capable of much in combat, and a child at that. In a word - ballast.
"I have a proposal," I said, raising my hand above myself. After waiting for a nod from Flitwick, he continued. "As you know, I am an apprentice healer, so I can heal most of the typical injuries," nods were my answer. "But I can also help with reconnaissance."
- You? In intelligence? Don't make me laugh," Ogrim began, but noticing the professor's serious look, he fell silent.
- And how can you help us? - the professor asked.
"I can turn into a bird and conduct reconnaissance from the air, and then report to you about what I see - there is no point in hiding it, they already know a lot about my capabilities." But I'll hold off on mentalism and the magic of space for now.
"I have no reason to doubt your words, but!" — Deputy leader Kroko took the floor. — Draugr have a great sense of mana and prana. And right now you are pouring mana all over the area.
— I can fly at a fairly decent altitude, the only one who can sense me is the Lich. However, I myself will not fly deep into the territory of the draugr," I responded to his statement. "I'm really confused by the wyvern that Ed noticed, but they don't seem to pay attention to small birds." And they don't have a sense of mana, like their older relatives, - and yes, the book that the teacher gave me talked about this. After reading it, I began to have vague doubts about Norbert, but more on that later, not the time now.
- Right. The wyverns won't pay attention to you either, so your approach may well work.
"Oh, yes, Ed," I began. —You couldn't determine how ancient the draugr are? "I read that the older they are, the stronger," I asked him a question. And this was also written in the book. Praise be to previous explorers of these lands.
"I didn't get close to them." So no," he shrugged. "And I don't have a sense of mana, so the only way is direct contact." And I'm not yet crazy enough to attack them alone. After all, such beauties are waiting for me at the camp! - at the end he could not stand it and, instantly finding himself next to the elves, hugged them, for which he naturally received cabbage soup.
HM interesting.
"Okay," Flitwick clapped his hands, attracting attention. "As it became clear, we have no choice." We must be here for the next month. Therefore, we will have to reconnoiter the situation and, quite possibly, encounter the draugr in battle. Therefore, leaving the camp without a good reason is prohibited. Also, we will not rely only on protective charms, but will keep a 24-hour guard, in pairs. All clear?
Each of those present here listened carefully to his words and nodded in confirmation where necessary. They respect him and listen to his words. It was not for nothing that he was the commander of this detachment for several years.
"Calder," he turned to me, after giving advice. - Fly around the area, look around the area, maybe you'll notice something interesting or important. And if you notice Alistair, tell him to quickly move to the camp. He should also know about the current situation," with a nod agreeing with his words, I headed outside the camp.
Metamorphism, how I adore it. All the changes that happened to me didn't really affect him much. My abilities in this field have become stronger rather than weaker. And control didn't drop very much, about ten percent.
Having moved about five meters from the camp, right on the move, in just a second, he turned into a peregrine falcon. There was an idea to turn into a swift, but the first one's vision and reaction were at a higher level than the second one.
Flapping my wings vigorously, I took off over the camp. Having flown the circle of honor and caught the air flow, he began to fly away from the camp in a spiral, examining the entire territory that he flew under.
I noticed Alistair literally five minutes after the start of the flight. At the moment, he was slowly returning to camp. Al was moving from the direction opposite to where the vampire had returned.
Having issued a warning trill, I began to dive towards him. Somewhere at a distance of three meters from the ground, I slowed myself down with telekinesis and turned back.
As we stepped softly into the snow, I looked at Alistair. He was currently looking at me with a little surprise.
"Hello," I said, raising my hand in greeting. "I have an urgent message from Flitwick." He asks to return to camp as soon as possible.
"Got it," he nodded in an instant. - What is the reason?
"Draugrs," Al heard this and frowned slightly. Well, yes, I can understand him. "Elven draugr," but now it was as if he had been plunged into a hole. He was so shocked and gloomy.
"I'll be right back," Alistair said and jumped out of his seat. With every second his speed increased more and more, until at one moment, while running, he turned into a giant wolf, two meters at the withers.
After following him with my gaze for a few more minutes, I moved on myself. Taking off into the sky and again catching the stream, he went in the direction from which the vampire came. As it was not difficult to guess, it was there that the castle was located, floored by a magical barrier.
Time flew past me as I slowly flew over the ground. An endless winter wasteland is the first impression of this land, but as I flew further and further I realized how wrong this opinion was.
The first thing that catches your eye is the small hills. There were so many of them that it was impossible to count them. Having flown up to one of them and not feeling anyone nearby, I used telekinesis to remove the top layer of snow.
Light blue ice is what caught my eye. Angular, strangely shaped, but still ice. Only after clearing some more snow did I realize that it was not just ice, but a tree that had become ice. And its size is also not small. Approaching another "hill" and repeating the procedure, I saw the same thing.
Having risen into the air, he moved on. It turns out interesting, the trees turned into ice, the elves became draugr. What will be next? It is quite possible that some kind of disaster occurred here. The only question is, where do the elves come from? Either this is a city of elves, or they simply were here at the wrong time. One out of two.
Flying further, I began to notice that the ground seemed to rise at an upward angle. Barely noticeable, but not avoidable. And the hills with trees underneath them became larger. It's amazing how we didn't notice this when we showed up here. Possibly because of the snow, but this is not certain.
I've been flying forward for half an hour, but I still haven't been able to spot the draugr. The barrier was getting closer and closer due to which I began to see more details. For example, the castle was partially covered with snow. About one quarter of its height. Also, the ice tree did not destroy the castle, but the castle was built on it. This is evidenced by the bridges that connected the individual parts of the castle.
After about another ten minutes I was able to see the first draugr. It was located in some semblance of a town, or rather what was left of it. Each building was also part of the hills and ice trees. Having flown around and noticing a couple more dead people, I began to descend.
A two-meter giant with white skin covered with corpse spots, looking unseeingly at the wall of some building. Having flown closer to him, I was able to notice the characteristic ears for elves, and he reeked of mana so much that I felt sick. A mixture of ice and death, seasoned with the decay of old age.
As an experiment, I decided to check at what distance he could sense me. Slowly, moving in a spiral, I began to go down. Somewhere about eighty meters away, the draugr turned in my direction and roared.
- Ro-o-A! - his insane cry was filled with rage, anger and incredible hunger. This hit my brain quite hard, which is why I even hovered in one place, but after a second I rushed upward, dodging the ice spear that was flying at me.
As if answering his cry, similar screams were heard from all sides of the town. With my magical sense I managed to spot at least two dozen dead people. Having taken off to a sufficient distance, I began to observe what was happening below.
Two tens, Ha. I was the one who was optimistic. At least a hundred and there was more fat. More draugr emerged straight from the snow. With every second the number grew until they filled the entire area. Their blue-colored holes in the place of the eyes stared at where my mana was still hovering, as well as a little prana.
It's clear. At a distance of one and a half hundred meters they cannot see me.
After standing in one place and casting a couple more spells, they dispersed to different places, some of them buried themselves in the snow again. Five minutes and nothing more indicated their number. I'm starting to like this less and less.
After following for some more time, the lonely draugr went further into the territory towards the castle. There was no one here except elves and it's scary.
The number of idly leaning draugr grew as they approached the whirlwind. I also began to see more and more buildings and ice trees. It's as if I'm moving from the outback by train towards the capital. There are more and more traces of "civilization".
At a distance of ten kilometers from the barrier, I stopped my flight. My magical sense simply screamed danger. At first I didn't understand what exactly happened, but then...
The entire space was filled with death mana. It was like locusts covering everything around, but it stopped at the ten kilometer mark.
Still a Lich. Only they have such a huge reserve of death mana. Well, either the Grand Master of the School of Death, but I doubt that he will sit in one place for several tens or hundreds of years and fill all the space around with his mana.
Well, I've learned enough. It's time to go back. Having soared even higher into the skies, so that even he himself began to have difficulty distinguishing the landscape above him (you never know if they noticed me, but they won't be able to follow me), he set off on his return flight.
I have something to say.
Weekly Power Status
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