With a small smile, he threw his extra, now bloody dagger, into the scabbard that was sold along with it, he didn't want the blood to contaminate the food also inside the bag.
Currently, the spell was having a fun time traveling about in different bird carcasses, though sadly, it only lasted for three minutes before it dissapated, which was pretty good for the make-shift garbage he had cut many corners on.
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Congratulations, Beyern, due to creating a jerry-rigged spell in a sudden combat scenario without preperation, 'Spell-craft' has surpassed 5-star, and has reached 6-star mastery!
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'By the flames of war, the greatest swords are forged', an old saying Beyern once doubted, but now approved of. When enlightened by experience, one's views start to change.
He could do the same thing as last time, causing a bit of chaos, but that probably wouldn't give as much help with his Masteries, so he had to think of a new way to kill some birdies.
He heard the clash between claw and sword along with a bit of magic a bit to his right, he quickly took a look, seeing the marchants, their carts, and their merchandise, being gathered by all the actually hired personel.
You see, a good few up and coming Exts ready for a city life buy off of a merchant a guarentee to enter the caravan, the merchants not being responsible for their deaths on the way, and just some extra hands to help out.
Well, some special characters, like Beyern, who used connections to get in weren't subjected to that, most of the time.
While running past, he kept an eye on one of the two with {Mana-concealment}, a spellsword who was proficiently tricking evolved dinosaurs with unconcealed mana.
Every strike of his sword wielding electric sparks, he tore through the bird-brains with palpable ease.
He recorded a few reactions with different mana placements and useages, along with a little tricks to remember for later.
His eyes scoured the warzone, and his eyes quickly zoned in on a female warrior with panic in her eyes, as she was doing her best to keep a bird that had landed ontop of her at bay with the side of her sword, holding it with one hand at the guard and the other on the blade.
Speaking of that blade, it looked quite good... I mean- The woman was about to die, Beyern couldn't allow that! He was a gentleman, no women shall be hurt in his presence- Well, only that woman, since there were others that were also getting attacked.
He reached his new destination within 3 seconds, the bird having gone past the warding of the sword. Others might've thought her a lost cause, but not Beyern, as he leaped onto the bird, pushing it off towards the side, it falling to it's side.
Not one to give away free stuff, he pushed one of his feet forwards to propell himself towards the top of the beast, where he slashed and then stabbed into the creature's throat with a back-handed grip.
He took back his dagger, and and rolled side-ways to get momentum to quickly stand-up, after which he returned to the woman who he had tried save.
Sadly, her skull fell in, and two large savage wounds on both the head and the neck made it certain her little life was over.
Beyern rapidly glanced around, finding the sword of the woman close by, he quickly ripped it's scabbard from the woman's side, and ran towards it, and picked it up while a sliding, quickly returning to a running motion.
He gave a quick look over the sword, specifically a short sword, there were few chips on the blade, but nothing he couldn't work with. Actually, this was more preferable compared to a long sword or two-handed one, with lack of the specific training to be able to wield such weapons.
A one-handed short sword was preferable overall, of course, he kept a dagger close-by for whenever he needed it.
He started to flow out his mana, like a bottle of poison veiled by the visage of a tasty little worm.
He quickly looked about to find where the next attacker will be, from behind.
He slowed himself to absolute zero speed, the walked to the side while keeping the ball of mana where it was, not moving at all.
He tightened his grip on his newly acquired sword, trying to get used to it's weight distribution for a moment, then steeled himself for some good ol' trial by fire.
With another deep breath, he got ready for a sprint.
Looking at the bird that took the bait, instead of attempting to pick the supposed creature up into the sky, it attempted to use the momentum of a some-what falling bird the size of a human and quite a bit heavier than one too, to push the mana-caused mirage of a living being down to the ground.
He had thought after the woman was being attack by that bird on top of it, why did it do that instead of just picking her up? What kind of pattern could he use? Was it chance, or was there a condition?
Using what he had seen from the spellsword, it was usually when standing still, or something else, he didn't have enough experience to know them in and out anyways, and he wasn't planning on coming over the next day and ripping out their hearts again.
While the bird was confused on the ground, it's instincts malfunctioning due to a lack of prey to kill, Beyern ran up from behind, the sounds of his steps causing the bird to react.
Though not fast enough to realize that something was there to kill it, as stepped on the back of the bird, causing it to shake quite a lot, but not enough to make him lose balance as he stepped once more, about half-way through the birds length.
And with a jump, Beyern mentally noted his own trajectory, and adjusted his sword to account for the bird's turning head. And so, with the help of gravity, and the pretty good quality of the sword, it was forced into the bird's neck as he landed to the left of the bird's head.
But that wasn't enough for Beyern, he pulled the sword which was pointing upwards to the left, towards him while changing his grip to a back-handed one, twisting the birds neck to a level of contortion it's instincts usually wouldn't allow, and pulled his blade out with all his might.
With the janking motion, momentum forced him to allow the blade to go all the way to his own side, making use of it to spin the sword back to a front-handed grip, twisting his front to his left to support the planned strike.
The sword was hightened slightly, and then forced the sword down with all his might, twisting back and even beyond his original position, the sword's downwards forced being redirected into a upside down arch that lead straight through the twisted neck of the beast, cutting it off.
He looked at the carcass falling limp to the floor after taking a few steps back, which twitched violently for a few moments, claws and wings panicking around.
-And that's why monster hunting is pretty dangerous, somewhat infrequently a monster's corpse goes twitching on for some unknown reason.
Feeling his muscles complaining about his sudden act of using them close to their limit, he decided to be smart and run towards the gathering spot he had previously spotted.
With a few slashes a good bit of the blood on the sword was cast off, after which he threw it into the sheath he had looted off of the woman's corpse.
Now, it was time to run, from the forest, run! 'Nope, nope, nope, I ain't dying today!' Seeing that he wasn't raking in mastery like a Fleyr warchief and the Greitli'ik kingdom's curses, he was not wasting his time, or endangering his life anymore.
It seemed like his useage of mana as bait wasn't really the most impressive of useages, though putting the primitive version of a marker/curse in a living being is.
He passed different groups of birds enjoying their meal, but there was a singular bird enjoying their own little feast. It was too peaceful, and it was also eating a body with a bow along with a pretty full quiver.
He gathered some mana, about ten seconds worth once more, birds getting antsy at the sight, bringing a small small to Beyern's face.
He projected the sphere of spiritual energy infront of him, and a thought came to him; 'Do they avoid mana that's coming towards them like a spell, or can they tell the difference between normal mana and attack spell mana?'
He Forced the ball into the form of a cone, the spikey bit pointing forwards, and he started to give a few moments to a tide, and then forced it into a spell at a rapid pace, having put a good bit of mental energy into pushing it forwards with a burst.
The lone bird quickly reacted and did so by quickly leaping to the side, but that was just a part of Beyern's great design, as the bird took a few moments to stand back up, so had taken out his dagger and had closed in.
He was close enough for pretty free control of his mana, around the creature. So he took a second of mana out in the form of a sphere, again... He chose to form it as a square, just for a pinch of variety.
He quickly blasted it behind the little pest, while he swerved around to the side.
The bird brain, not having good eyes- as he had deduced from previous experience- turned around to it's back, and slash at the imaginary attacker that stood there, Beyern mentally laughing at it's idiocy, though it not appearing on his physical form.
Getting to the side of said idiot, while it was attacking thin air, he took a deep breath, and a with sudden burst of power in his legs and a dagger in hand, he pierced the bird's wing, instantly starting to channel, and then put it into the beast.
He had to steel his will, and keep his hand on the dagger's hilt in spite of the violent thrashing of the bird. After three seconds of the most difficult physical work he's done in the last week, he decided that it was no longer reasonable to do this, and janked his precious item out of the man-eater, after spell-ify-ing the mana and the linkage.
Running for the hills once again, he proudly heard the chaos unfold behind him.
About 15 seconds later, he had reached the make-shift bastion that was still in the works, the building Exts really putting in the work.
It was still being besieged by birds, with the hired hands still resisting with a pretty relaxed disposition all things considered.
Beyern was pretty confused as to why, since the only ones really using mana were the two with concealed mana on their beck and call.
But then it clicked, the metaphorical flame of knowledge being stoked; 'The mages capable of healing magic are healing the wounded, probably the merchants first, then the escorts, then the people who got picked up by a guarantor.'
Beyern looked for a place to run through the fray, into the camp, but seeing no openings, he sighed and got ready to force some friendly fire.
This time taking out his sword, thinking of a few lies to spew if they questioned why he didn't use some magic instead of a sword and some base mana -Well, more like a half-truth.