By the time Poniard and Si-Pon were done gathering not only the death energy from the fallen portal monsters, the orb in my goblin's hand shone like a baseball-sized spotlight bulb with a black-light coating. However, they were not done because once the electric trails left the bodies and air the ground surrounding them for a few dozen yards all around began crawling with a murky purplish black mist that covered the bottom few inches of grass.
This fog of death energy swirled inward to the center in a vaguely bubbling and slow moving whirl that made me think of a viscous toxic sludge. The central point of the whirl under Poniard slowly rose up to his hand and gathered around the orb. Unlike before, though, The mist also interacted with Poniard's body by crawling over and through him with the growing whirl.
The 'magic lines' on my familiar's face began glowing and reacting brightly enough that I could see it from the warped pine, probably growing like they had done while he harvested impure death stone shards. I could not help but recall Poniard's reasoning for wanting a mount as I watched the flow of the whirl switch from directly to the orb and begin swirling up Poniard's body. As the column of toxic mana grew up toward the orb now held over Poniard's head, I could not help but wonder just how big the little goblin would become.
Would Poniard become a hob like most goblins or would they become some form of magical variant? They had eaten enough parts of different magical creatures outside the usual diet to have some effect, right? Human hearts alone were one of my core tests right now.
Even if Poniard became a hob, there was no way he would be any SIMPLE hob, magic alone makes hims a special variant. Rare death and darkness elemental magic makes him an even rarer hob variant! With the increase in physical stats alone… it would be a perfect all-round fighter and probably capable of killing me if I did not have a gun.
"Did you see that?" Lucinda remarks suddenly while pointing at me. "A second ago, he looked like a winning parent at a piano recital. Now he looks like he just ate shit. Malcolm, did you finally realize just how hugely you screwed the pooch when you made Poniard? Remember what you told me about why the bird gets special treatment? What do you think is going to happen with your goblin?!"
Watching the short inverted cyclone of death mana slowly dwindle away into the orb while revealing Poniard from the feet up, I could only wait with baited breath for what I was about to see. However, nothing happened. Once the mana disappeared into the orb, Poniard looked the same as ever besides the thin glowing features.
Starting forward with no small amount of relief, my relief slowly fades away as the distance continued to shrink but the glowing about Poniard's head and exposed body did not diminish at all. By the time I was close enough to see the actual lines themselves, I was worried. Not only had the existing lines on Poniard's body because vaguely jagged or curved in placed but there were new lines entirely about his neck and chest and arms.
All of them were still brightly glowing and showed no signs of stopping.
"Si-Pon, is this good or bad?" I ask a little loudly, unsure of how to ask exactly what this was without giving one of them the wrong impression.
"It is good," Si-Pon reassures me, flying over from the main dead serpent to land on the ground a few feet away from me. "I had originally intended for the simple exposure to enhance Pon-pon's mana pool but Pon-pon discovered a way to refine their mana with the ritual. There are few growths left that can be made in their current state, Pon-pon will need to… evolve soon. Should not be long before then, though."
"Oh, okay," I say more to myself than the bird. Then, when the bird starts to walk away, "Quick question. The lines on his body, what even are they?"
Flapping lightly up into the air at about head height, the bird elemental says, "They are physical manifestations of their mana. Beings from our world with strong magic will have them. What you call a hobgoblin would have half the amount as Pon-pon with the same amount of mana. The actual functions of these lines are varied and numerous. From what I can tell, Pon-pon uses magic with their body so their body is enhanced by it with greater healing and strengths."
Si-Pon then flew away before I could bother it with another question. Only then did I remember that I had left the kobold untied with the others and turned around to check the damage. I was surprised to find that Lucinda was actually touching its head while it bared its teeth at Bernard.
When I looked back at the bird and goblin, the bird was perched on the back of the mount serpent's skull and had pecked a large hole in it. Into this hole was where Poniard walked up and placed the orb. Both of them began making low and quiet noises that carried with a bizarre volume on a wind that suddenly sprang up. The wind was cold and it blew outward from their position, lowering the surrounding temperature to the point that my breath fogged up my visor.
The serpent's body began crackling randomly with purplish black bolts of what I could only describe as 'death static' which ran outward over the body from the orb. Then the orb began filling the body with the misty sludge. Within seconds, the body bubbled and poured out mist as if it were being boiled from the inside.
Then the area became dark and foggy around the dead serpent and the mages as death energy once again filled the area. I was honestly more than a little terrified despite being about thirty yards away from it all. I was already chilled to the point of fighting shivers.
When the murky fog filling the air began to recede into the body, the once giant reptile had somewhat receded into its body which had grown larger in response. The legs were only slightly long for a monitor reptile while the body was longer. The neck was shorter and a little thicker and the head had shrunk down into an angled arrowhead shape but the tail had only grown long with a number of upward curving black ivory blades replacing the old keratin spikes.
Scales that were once small had now doubled in area coverage and thickness while the underlying skin had turned black with bright jagged lines of glowing purple. All of these lines were disconnected from one another but could be traced back to a glowing mass of swirls spiraling around the glowing orb in the undead creature's forehead. Even freakier than all of that, though, was the slow and rhythmic expansion and contraction of the creature's ribs.
It was freaking breathing.
Placing a hand on the creature's head, Poniard looks over at me and says, "Up, Malco!" Then the now solid black eyes of the beat opened and glowing purple slit pupils brightened into view. After that, the remodeled undead lizard raised its head and slowly pushed itself up onto its large clawed feet for the first time.
"You named him after me," I remark with an awkward smile, slowly walking forward to approach the pair.
"Sifu Malco, Malco," Poniard says while pointing to us both and nodding enthusiastically. Then, pointing to his head, Poniard says, "Ponyerd think, Malco do. Malco, open," he says as if to prove his point even though he verbally told the beast to open its mouth. Still, watching the beast open its now blackened maw wide open on command was impressive in its own right.
Then, climbing up onto the beast's back, Poniard proudly poses with his fists on his hips as the beast walks in a slow and lumbering circle. Si-Pon seems to chortle as a form of applause before saying, "As expected of such a rare talent, Poniard, you did excellently." Then he said some more stuff in a language that the goblin would understand.
If I was actually friends with the bird on the level I would be with another human, I might make a joke questioning Si-Pon's sexuality. Then it occurred to me that elemental beings probably did not have the same genders that we did. In which case, if he liked my goblin, I could only make sure anything that took place took place with Poniard's consent.
This goblin was willing to fight and die for me, I had to be willing to do the same to protect his chastity. For now, all I could do was watch as the bird pervert perches on the side of the lizard's head and carried a light conversation with Poniard. The lizard was still walking in circles.
Walking forward to better appreciate the circling beast, I step over its tail and into the center to just watch the rippling of its muscles and skin as it moved. "Sifu," Poniard suddenly says after a few seconds of me watching the lizard, breaking away from his conversation. "Malco good job, Sifu?"
Because the lizard had suddenly stopped walking with the goblin's mental distraction, I could not help but glance at the bird before walking over to reach up and rub Poniard's head. "You did great, little buddy. I would have never imagined it possible to begin with. I can't wait to see what you come up with, next," I add to encourage him before glancing at the bird again in a more pointed, threatening, manner.
Happy to have been so thoroughly praised, even if he did not really know what I said, Poniard happily starts the undead lizard walking again. This time, though, it was trotting at twice the original speed and heading toward the others by the warped pin. When the sitting Glaive saw us on our way over, they finally ignored the even more distant Bernard and started backing away toward the crooked tree.
To keep the kobold under control, I had to jog ahead and reassure the others of the undead lizard's doll- or robot-like command following. Then I simply hung back by the kobold and sat down to reassure them with my presence. I did not know if it would really matter, but Glaive stopped cowering behind the too-small tree and hid more behind me.
If not for how huge the kobold was, it would have almost been cute like a scared puppy. As it was, I could not help but wonder if it was the lizard or Poniard that Glaive was so afraid of. If it was Poniard then that would make a lot of things much simpler in the future.
While Bernard and Lucinda made a show of braving up to the lizard and examining it, I reminded them to give Poniard lots of praise and even told Lucinda to rub his head. Bernard tried to rub Poniard's head but the goblin's human-like smile vanished in an instant and the man stopped with his hand inches away from the goblin. If he had braved those last few inches then Poniard would have warmed up to him but, as it was, Bernard was now Poniard's bitch.
After a few minutes of poking and prodding and even measuring the lizard with a scanner, I had Si-Pon collect a large sheet of metal from the barn's roof and then use his powers to dig up the tree and its surrounding dirt. The dirt and root system within were then safely encased in the sheet metal for transport. For transport, I had Poniard put his new mount to work dragging the estimated ton of weight with its tail.
With the warped pine taken care of, the rest of us set to work skinning the other gutted beasts and collecting their tails to feed the kobolds. I carried the few hundred pounds of saggy skins while Glaive carried their tails. Lucinda and Bernard simply walked back alongside the undead lizard while having a cooing conversation with the bird and Poniard.
Once we got back to camp I let Glaive gather the scattered groups of kobolds together and feed them the lizard tails while the rest of us prepared to start leaving for the north gate. Even if entry from the north was not permitted, we were on assignment and had been flown in so we had also been given special permissions. If not, I would not be able to bring the warped pine tree with me.
When we finally left the junk yard with all of our loot and belongings gathered up it was to make an agonizingly slow walk to the north wall. The kobolds dragged a sheet metal sled laden with scrap while I continued carrying multiple hundreds of pounds in hides rolled up on my back By the time we actually made it to the wall the sun had already set and we were traveling by the light of a half moon and the lights we brought with us.
None of the subhumans or I needed a light, though, so only Bernard and Lucinda were shining flashlights around to give away our location in the dark. I was not worried, though. We had two mages, a giant undead lizard, a kobold, a C grade sniper, Lucinda, and myself to protect the lesser kobolds who were all tied together and to the sled.
*