"Wh--Huh?" Damien stuttered out as he spotted the small girl kneeling on the ground. She was incredibly tiny. Maybe fifty centimeters tall if you counted the pink cone hat resting atop her head. As soon as he regained his bearings, he focused on gathering any details he could from her.
'She's wearing a pink skirt so she's not an adventuring type. I don't see a camp or any traveling equipment, so we're likely not far from civilization. A major plus right out the gate.' Shifting his attention to the struggling Marionette Mite, he observed it with more detail.
'Hard to tell with the skin bag its wearing, but it's seriously hurt. It's covered in blood and the two bottom left blades at its side are barely moving. My best bet is to stick to that side if it comes to that...'
As he made note of these details, Marionette Mite seemed to have finished recovering from the thrashing and started to emit that all too familiar clicking sound. It's wide smile not reaching its bloodshot eyes as it gave some threatening swings with its blades. He'd really be over the moon if it just quietly went back into the cave, but something told him it wasn't the 'forgive and forget' type. Especially after he'd just played wack a mole with its henchmen and rearranged its insides.
Damien couldn't help but have a gloomy look on his face. This thing was something, alright. It was tall, leathery and absolutely haunting. He'd much rather hide back in the cave than get anywhere near the thing, but he couldn't abandon the first sign of seemingly intelligent life he's encountered. So without further ado, Damien began to infuse his darkness into his staff and body. He'd gotten the hang of it after all this time. As long as he imagined the staff was just another part of his body, he could just about manage both.
With that out of the way, he lowered his stance and charged toward the tiny girl. Marionette Mite lagged behind, but seemed to catch on to his plan; starting its charge at her as well. Likely trying to take them both out in one go. Fortunately, that delay made a big difference, and Damien reached the girl first. Grabbing her and wasting no time, he jumped back to regain some distance.
"Gasp* wh--What?!" The girl, seemingly reanimated by the sudden pull started to speak. Which lifted Damien's mood a great deal as he noted the word she let out.
'Oh, great! she talks! That was definitely English too! I suspected as much, since Dharc's Journal was also in English, but man is it great to confirm it!' Damien thought excitedly as he jumped back several meters to regain some distance from Marionette. Unfortunately, the next series of words brought back a different feeling.
"WAIT! STOP! Please don't eat me! I don't even taste good! I promise! I'm really bland! I--I'll give you a tummy ache! I can be useful! I'll gather berries! You eat those, right?! please!? if not, I can hunt! I can set traps....I--I can learn to set traps! blah blah! blah blah--!" on and on and on she went, barely even taking breaths as a stream of tears continued to fall like a broken dam.
'Oh no...She talks...' was Damien's thought as she continued to scream about all the severe and deadly ailments that you can get from eating a poor gnome girl.
Trying his best to tune her out, Damien focused on another useful detain. He'd never noticed, likely due to the limited range of dark vision, but he was actually fairly quick. Not just worlds faster than his human self. He figured he must be moving at least 30 km/h(20 miles give or take) and felt he could go even faster. He joked earlier about sprint records, but he wondered if he could actually give bolt himself a run for his money.
'Focus, Damien' He chastised himself as he pushed the thought aside. He'd been watching Marionette Mite closely as it chased him mercilessly. Trying to see if there was anything new, but aside from it being a little slower than him, he didn't see anything else of note.
'Well, I may have a chatterbox here with me, but she at least dropped a piece of info. She's a Gnome, which is pretty obvious now that I think about it. Let's see if she can give me any details about where we are...'
"--And I have this weird mark on my left butt cheek that's awful suspicious! It could be dangerous if you-"
"OKAY! You're officially in TMI territory!" I shouted back. Causing her to finally stop her endless bombardment of words long enough for me to hopefully get my point across. "I'm not trying to eat you! I don't eat Gnomes. This monster and I came from inside the cave and I'm just trying to get us away from it!" relieved he could get his words across, he continued to play keep away with Marionette Mite as he eagerly waited for his words to sink in.
"H-huh?!" She finally stopped the water works long enough to look up at her captor's expression. Surprised by how much kinder, if not annoyed, it seemed compared to just moments ago.
'Father did say wars could bring out a warriors darkness...was it something like that?'
Not lingering on it much longer, and realizing her kin may actually be safe, she finally managed to regain some of her composure to observe the situation. She may still be immature, but she is still the elders daughter. Watching the giant monster chasing them more closely, she made note of how hurt it seemed and connected the dots with everything else she'd seen and heard prior. Turning back to her captor in confusion, she finally responded.
"Wait-- You wanna get away from it? Weren't you walloping it up to this point? Why don't you just finish it off?!"
'A fair question...' Damien thought as he pondered how much info he should volunteer. Figuring that keeping it truthful but slightly vague was the best course of action.
"That was all due to a spell I was using, and it just wore out. I doubt I'll be able to cast it again right now, and I'm not really a fighter, so I'm not too confident in getting close to that thing." he said as the charging Marionette Mite let out an aggravated series of clicks. Still chasing him around the ravine.
He was having a hard time keeping the conversation going while managing his darkness, so he opted to take from his staff for now and just focus on body enhancements.
"Guh-- I--I see I'm sorry if I dishonored y-you sir.... I think I can...help guide you thru the forest to get a-away." The gnome girl replied, though she seemed to be struggling to. Damien, thinking he was holding her a bit too tightly opted to ease up on his grip just in case and kept his eyes on the Marionette Mite as he dodged its charges.
"That would be great. This thing seems to be holding a pretty major grudge, It's passed the cave entrance a few times now in the chase and hasn't opted to go back yet. So it's definitely after me. We can lure it somewhere away from your village before we lose it in the woods. If need be, I'll let you go somewhere safe so I can lure it away from you..."
"u--um t-thanks...." came the still struggling response from the gnome girl.
Seeming to be tired of the cat and mouse game, Marionette Mite finally stopped its charge. Finally giving Damien some much needed breathing room a fair distance away. Not wanting to waste the opportunity, he quickly glanced down at the Gnome girl to coordinate. Finally noticing something was wrong.
The gnome girl was pale. She seemed to be wrestling with a lot of discomfort and he wondered if he was still gripping her too tightly before finally spotting the issue. When he focused more of his darkness onto his body, some of it started seeping into the gnome. Although it wasn't much, it seemed to be having a very adverse effect on her. Quickly focusing on keeping the darkness away from her tiny form, he couldn't help but be bewildered by the whole thing.
'I'd made near zero progress getting my darkness to work on anything other than my staff for days! Now you're telling me its attacking this gnome by accident?' As he thought about it, the darkness finally left her body completely and she suddenly took a series of deep breaths like her life was returning to her.
'Think, Damien. What's changed? I couldn't even infuse a rock before. Unstable Evolution? No, That's not right. Even after I got it, I struggled to push darkness into my dagger. we have two negative and three positive results...Dagger and stone were a no go... Myself, the staff, and now the gnome are a yes...whats the common variable...?'
Thinking about it more and more, one factor stuck out.
'I'd never tried to infuse another living creature before, but that can't be right, my staff isn't living. It's an inanimate object made of....!!!'
Realization finally struck Damien as he quickly turned to look at his staff. 'Bones...! The staff is made of a monsters bones and feathers! It's originally organic!'