Anika nodded as Philip finished telling them about his adventures with Panu yesterday. It had taken the entire trip to the dungeon with Philip telling the story of the last day in a similar manner to Lily’s excited ramblings. No wonder they got along. Of course, Lily also served to make Philip’s story take longer, as she kept interrupting with questions.

  To Anika, it sounded like Philip and Panu had a productive day, even though Philip indicated Zali hadn’t been pleased with his performance. Philip did fine when they leveled together, so she knew that today would go well.

  The group approached a body of water in the same dungeon they had found the wolves last time. With her eyes, she followed the path of the stream that flowed down the side of the mountain, tracing its path from the pool in front of her up until it disappeared high above them. Philip and Epona took the lead, followed by Anika and Lily, with Leka bringing up the rear, staying back to ensure they continued to have the opportunity to engage the monsters without her involvement.

  On the side of the pond closest to them, a pack of Komodo dragon sized lizards sprawled on rocks. Unlike Komodo dragons, these reptiles had elongated necks and chameleon shaped heads attached to slender bodies and short tails. Their six slender legs ended in claws that seemed hilariously misproportioned to the rest of their body, which made them dangerous. The sun glinted off their mottled scales in shades of orange, yellow, and red. The color evoked the image of the fire their magic produced.

  Anika hoped that she could offer more to the fight with a body of water nearby. Her control still needed a lot of work, but she doubted the combat would require a significant amount of fine control. She planned to just try hurling water at the lizards, similar to her magical tantrum a few days prior in the spring. Not that she had a clue what type of damage she could do with the water.

  The Splash spell still barely did anything useful in combat, even with the improvement she received at level 8. She had seen massive amounts of water wreak havoc in storms and floods, and water at high pressure could cut through steel and cause serious injury. While neither of those examples reflected her abilities with magic now, she hoped that someday she would find more similarities between her magic and a firehouse than a dripping faucet.

  Lily bumped against Anika’s leg, “Anika, what do these monsters do?”

  Realizing she had stared into space caught in her thoughts, she shook her head to refocus.

  ”They use fire magic, but the book made it sound like they mostly use it to overheat their bodies and attack with burning claws. They don’t breathe fire or anything, but I wouldn’t let them touch you.”

  ”I’ll keep them away with my pitchfork.” Philip chimed in lazily.

  Anika held back a laugh at Philip’s persistent avoidance of calling his weapon a trident. “I think that’s wise. Of course, this first pack will be easy by the time Lily polymorphs them. I just wish the transformed monsters could do more than body block.”

  ”Yeah then there will only be three left to fight! Let’s go.” Lily began walking with an excited butt wiggle.

  Philip didn’t need any other instruction, and immediately led the charge forward, in step with Epona. Anika swooped down to grab Lily before she got carried away, “You don’t have to be that close to hit them and I don’t need you getting swatted by an enormous iguana today. I’d rather not test your scarf’s magic on a melee monster with claws that large.”

  ”Oh. Right. Those do have scary claws. I should always let Philip go first!”

  Anika put Lily down and they walked at a more sedate pace on the back line. Rather than grab her bow and pull an arrow from her quiver, Anika took some deep breaths and began concentrating on her magic, looking ahead at the body of water she could manipulate.

  As Philip approached, a few of the lizards drowsily raised their heads from their sunny rocks. They began hissing and growling, alerting the rest of the lizards to the presence of non-reptilian interlopers as they jumped from their rocks to meet Philip’s charge.

  The first wave of lizards took only a few steps before Lily transformed them into a group of five capybaras. The three lizards in the back hissed and immediately turned on their packmates as the five members of the Capy pack turned to amble back towards the remaining lizards.

  Philip and Epona arrived as the lizards engaged the capy pack, each heading towards a different reptile. Philip ran forward with his trident poised like a jousting lance, his trident sliding under the lizard’s neck, down its chest, and lifting it backwards slightly as he arrived in position. Epona, on the other hand, charged straight through her lizard, jumping onto it with her strong hooves as she trampled it.

  “Anika, I don’t think Philip’s trident is working.” Lily manipulated a rock through the air towards the head of the third lizard, attempting to bash it with her magic.

  Anika saw Philip’s trident slide off the scales. The book said they had strong scales, but Anika hadn’t expected a weapon to have too much difficulty piercing them. But maybe the scales had more defense versus a piercing weapon than a slashing weapon. That would definitely impact their success. But Anika tried to push that to the back of her mind as she focused on the orb of water she raised from the lake, moving it towards the lizard Lily targeted with her rock.

  The scales of the lizards began to glow as the group collectively engaged the monsters, their large talons turning red with heat. Philip’s target reared up on its back two legs, raising its clawed front legs to simultaneously slash towards Philip, a move Philip blocked with his shield. The claws left blackened scorch marks on the front of his shield.

  Epona didn’t stay in melee range, continuing her run away from the monster before turning. The lizards moved relatively quickly, but Epona’s unexpected charge left the monster stunned and turning groggily towards her. She had managed to land a solid hoof to the lizard’s head, which seemed less protected than its neck and body.

  Lily discovered this as well, as her rock managed to daze the lizard as she repeatedly brought her rock into contact with the lizard’s head. It attempted to move away from the aerial attack, retreating away from the group.

  Anika had her water positioned above the retreating lizard as it began to turn. She watched and anticipated its movement like she would when shooting her bow, and then mentally thrust her ball of water down onto the lizard, her hands slamming the air in front of her as she used the physical movement to help shape her magical action.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  The ball of water cannon-balled onto the monster’s back, squashing it into the ground, its six legs sprawling out beneath it as if on roller skates. The water hissed and bubbled, steam rising from the creature’s back as it splashed up and away from the monster, the glow of its fiery scales flickering in time with the sputtering of the sizzling water.

  Anika hadn’t prepared herself for the magnificent explosion of water that resulted from her magical attack and only managed to retain control of about a quarter of the water, the rest splattering into the ground or evaporating into the air. She recollected it into a small ball as the reptile half hissed, half croaked, its head swaying side to side in stupor.

  As the monster’s legs struggled to push its body into a standing position once more, Lily thwacked its head with her rock again. Its legs splayed out on the ground once more as its head thudded into the ground, the weight of Lily’s rock introducing the lizard to the hard place.

  The reptile’s scales still held some sparkle, so Anika assumed the creature had not yet met its maker and prepared her orb to smash down on it again. With a smaller orb of water, she targeted the creature’s head, deciding to add magical insult to injury as she thrust her hand down to direct her magic onto the unconscious creature.

  This time, the water impacted the lizard’s head with a slightly more condensed orb, resulting in a gush of water running down the creature’s head, Anika’s magic able to force all the water to continue down. The head of the creature depressed every so slightly into the ground with the force of the impact, and the glowing scales flickered and faded.

  “Yay! We did it!” Lily cheered and spun around, her enthusiasm transferring to her levitating rock, which spun through the air to crash into the ground next to one of her transformed capybaras.

  Anika noted that, at the very least, this time Lily hadn’t gotten distracted and just dropped the rock on whatever unsuspecting creature or structure happened to be beneath her levitating object. The transformed capybara turned and stared at Lily, which surprised Anika more than her success in killing a monster by herself. Well, almost killing it by herself. Lily helped.

  But the transformed capybara’s in the past hadn’t shown much sign of intelligence or awareness of their own, something that contributed to their usefulness as fodder but didn’t lead to many other strategies. If they gained awareness and power as Lily leveled and gained experience, that would lead to more options. Of course, their attack capability still involved little more than capybara nose booping. But maybe they would gain other abilities as well.

  “Anika, are you okay?” Lily stared up at Anika with concern, the celebration in her voice turned timid and scared.

  Anika shook herself. Now was not the time to get distracted by pondering new strategies - Philip and Epona still had a lizard each attacking them!

  “Yes! I’m fine! We did good! Sorry I got distracted, but now we need to help Philip and Epona!”

  Anika looked over at Philip, who blocked another double clawed attack with his shield. He simultaneously tried to stab again at the beast, but his trident failed to find purchase against the smooth, hard scales of the lizard. Epona stood back from her lizard, which looked like it had taken several more stomps to the head and neck as Epona trampled the lizard, and a Gust of wind battered the lizard. The air magic had minimal impact compared to the stellar display of Anika’s water magic.

  Anika didn’t waste anymore time. “Smack Philip’s lizard in the head with another big rock! It seems weak to blunt force damage. I’m going to get another big water bomb ready and finish off Epona’s first. It already looks dazed!”

  She directed her attention and magical energy towards the lake, collecting another large ball of water and floating it towards Epona’s reptilian foe. Her control moving water from place to place still required substantial concentration, and she couldn’t move her water balls nearly as fast as Lily could throw her rocks. Luckily, the monster hadn’t strayed too far from the beach where it had sunned itself prior to their encounter. It took only a few moments to float the ball of water into position.

  Epona charged forward, trampling the monster again and knocking it to the ground. At least one of its legs looked broken, and its head wavered slowly rather than tracking its attacker. Anika waited for Epona to clear the area before slamming her fist into her palm to direct the energies. She hoped that using a fist would help her retain control of more of the water when it crashed down, helping her focus the energy on maintaining more of the orb.

  The water slammed into the back of the creature, the sizzling hiss of water turning to steam combining with the keening hiss of a dying reptile as the water attack finished off the battered lizard. It collapsed into a pile of fading scales and awkward limbs as Anika’s water orb crushed into its back and warped around it, moving faster than the creature could fall.

  Water splashed up, rebounding in a geyser, but this time stayed closer to the core of Anika’s magical energy. She only lost about half her water ball this time, the rest settling back into her magical grasp as she lifted it away from the dead monster. She wasn’t sure how damaging the water that escaped her grasp would be to others, so before turning her magic on Philip, she called out to Epona and Philip.

  “Philip, back away so Epona can trample it. Use your magic to block it as you retreat. Let Epona trample it and then I will attack it with water!”

  Philip pivoted backwards, pulling his spear away from the monster as the dirt in front of him began to rise up, forming a wall in front of him. The lizard slashed at the wall, but Philip built it faster than the monster could tear it down, backing up as he did so. As soon as Philip had cleared the lizard, Epona charged the unsuspecting monster, its focus still on Philip and the dirt wall.

  The lizard took Epona’s hooves hard on its back and legs, its footing lost as it tumbled into the wall of dirt. Lily bashed the creature’s head again with her rock for good measure as Anika positioned her water orb.

  She considered trying to enhance the size of her orb with more water from the lake, but she had not yet practiced holding one shape and then forming another or merging two streams. She made a mental note to add that to her list of things to practice. Instead, she prepared to attack with the water she had left, deciding to just let this water disperse so she could get a new, fresh orb for a second attack.

  She slammed her hand down to direct the water onto the back of the lizard. Unlike the monster Epona had trampled several times, this one had not taken a beating from its encounter with Philip. Her water attack had the intended effect of pushing it back down onto the ground as it tried to stand up after Epona’s charge attack, but it did not cause as much damage as her attacks with a full water orb. The glow of its scales remained, though it did hiss its annoyance and pain at the attacks.

  Anika quickly focused on the lake beside the lizard, gathering another orb of water as quickly as possible and moving it towards the lizard. Lily double tapped its head with her rock again in the time it took Anika to prepare another strike. Epona, however, stayed back to allow Anika to deal her far more effective damage type.

  Anika knew the monster likely didn’t need another full force attack, but that was no reason to not practice. She repeated her process of slamming a fish into her palm, attempting to keep the water tight and condensed as it shot down towards the creature’s back. The dazed reptile hissed the last of its air out as her orb made contact with its back, pushing it down to form an indent in the sand. Its brilliance faded, the last hints of glowing scales vanishing like the sun melting into night.

  Anika released the rest of the water she held to wash over the reptile’s corpse as she took a deep breath, thrilled to finally feel useful in a fight. Closing her eyes for a moment, she reveled in the feeling of power that came with using her magic in battle for the first time.

  “Your water magic is so good Anika!” Lily’s cheerful voice interrupted Anika’s power trip.

  She leaned down to scoop up the capybara in her arms, “I finally did something!” She twirled around with Lily like a child dancing with a doll and then stopped, craning her neck back around to see what had caught her eye.

  The capy pack was sitting in a circle, chittering and chirping among themselves.

  Anika faced them and turned Lily towards the group of transformed capybaras.

  “Uhh… Lily… did you tell them to… talk?”