A Salamander, but Mighty

POV: Tamara

She waited until the sun had gone so low that it was no longer visible; Tamara hadn't chosen any Feat that would have allowed her to see in the dark and so if she wanted to get to work she could only do so shortly before dawn and shortly after sunset... why? Because Luchael and Helen were still injured from their previous fight and in no condition to fight, they needed to rest, and she would make sure they could do so in peace and safety.

At that moment only Luchael was present in the stable, busy tuning his lute to try to earn some more leuns by performing for the village, which in all probability did not have a [Bard] present and therefore they would also take the art of people who, despite lacking the ability to reach such levels of excellence, were still quite good. Helen had gone out, probably to purchase the monster parts Luchael needed to create the Accelerated Recovery concoctions needed for the full healing of her hand and his face.

Perfect time for a solo sortie.

Taking advantage of one of the many cracks in the wooden planks that made up the walls of the stable, Tamara stuck her head out; golden eyes with vertical pupils of the great predators of the past and of myth scanned the surroundings, without finding any witness of her passage that could raise the alarm within the village. She advanced, moving quickly through the tall grass and continuing her expedition, keeping low until she reached a safe position among the pine forests that climbed up the rocky ridges.

This is also a wonderful opportunity to try using [Flying Membrane], she thought looking around, with all these trees, I could move quickly and attack monsters from above while saving some Mana with lightning attacks.

Tamara approached a tree with branches low enough to allow her to climb quickly; after a few attempts she finally managed to climb the tree, reaching a height of about six meters above the ground. The view from the tree was fantastic: green peaks stretched towards the sky, climbing up the slopes of the mountain range until they gave way first to yellowed patches of grass and then to the pointed mountain peaks where the dense, white snow reflected the twilight sunset light. For a moment, Tamara was absorbed in contemplating how beautiful Tala's world could be.

Now, where was she?

Right: the flight test.

Let's see, in the documentaries they said that flying animals have a natural instinct for flight. Maybe I just need to spread my wings and…

Only at that point did Tamara realize that the membrane she had developed was probably not remotely sufficient to allow her sustained flight, so... maybe she could glide, like a flying squirrel! A flying squirrel-salamander…

So, let's try to stretch the membrane as much as possible, she thought, trying to stand up on her hind legs. The mountain breeze hit part of the thin yellow and black membrane that perhaps would become her wings in the future, making her feel a completely new sensation. She tried to open her arms even more, trying to let the salmadrer instinct take control over that part of the flight mechanics, as a human she had never had wings, so she wouldn't have known what to do otherwise. Feel the wind, Tamara, let its strength push against you...

"There it is! The wind is coming!” She exclaimed, trying to straighten her back even more, “in their tongue, she's dovahkiin! Fus ro dWOAH!!!”

A sudden gust of wind tore her away from the branch she had chosen as her support base. She was not psychologically prepared and therefore the air pushed her into the void causing her to initially fall like a sack of potatoes towards the ground.

“Calm down! CALM DOWN!”

Tamara completely abandoned herself to her salmadrer instincts: instead of reasoning and trying to conceptualize what she was doing, she let her body and that monster soul that was trying to join her tell her what to do, as if the information she needed was not outside of her but inside of her, something that she had been born with - in her monstrous form - and that had always been there, simply ignored. She turned her stomach down, facing the ground and bent her body, lowering her hips below shoulder level.

The membrane was not enough to fly, but it could, in fact, be enough to glide: when there were still three meters left from the ground, what would have been a bad fall was replaced by a fast - but controlled - descent that ended with a rough landing from which she emerged unscathed.

Maybe it's best if I don't try to cross crevasses until I have a pair of… bigger wings, she concluded after that brief experience… and after her heart had stopped exploding in her chest.

She took a few minutes to calm her body and only then began exploring the surroundings of the village again, distancing herself further and further with the awareness that in this case she could always climb a tree, look in which direction the village is and then start to glide in its direction. She was on the hunting trail, and she wouldn't turn back until she shed blood.

And gained experience points, of course.

In the end, Tamara ended up finding exactly what she was looking for: it was a monster that must have been about the size of a lynx, but more muscular and with a long tail. It didn't seem to be a threat to the peaceful village of Wadencap, it was minding its own business, and most importantly, it didn't even notice the salmadrer spying on it.

[Laolix – Lv.10]

Tamara crouched down, pressing her belly and abdomen against the ground, then began to approach, trying to get behind the monster, who in the meantime continued to drink from a tiny trickle of water. Tamara let her Mana flow into the acid gland when it was just under one and a half metres, took good aim, concentrated a modest amount of Mana and spat; [Acid Spit]'s ball shot through the air in a perfect arc before… missing its target.

The laolix pricked up its ears and moments before [Acid Spit] could crash into its piebald coat it made a leap on the spot, a leap so high that it left Tamara speechless. The feline monster almost seemed to fly driven by an invisible air current, landing on a branch with the delicacy of a feather and turning hungry eyes towards her.

How is it possible? I'm six levels higher than it! Tamara thought before being interrupted by the laolix. The feline beast projected towards her from above, hurtling like a bullet with perfect aerodynamics. Are its base stats that much higher than mine??

Tamara decided not to rely on [Obsidian Defense], she preferred to move to the side by rolling and letting the laolix only slash the air with its claws, the salamander monster and the lynx monster studied each other eye to eye, looking for an opening for their next attack. The laolix once again used its ability to move like the wind to attack quickly, but this time Tamara was prepared and her defense was much less clumsy; she moved nimbly to one side and intercepted her opponent by biting it on the shoulder, however with poor results due to the difference in size and strength. Tamara had developed a certain reliance on her magical abilities to survive, with the result that if she ran out of Mana in the middle of a fight, that would be the end of her.

The laolix seemed optimistic about its chances of being able to kill Tamara as it continued to attack, after all the claws and teeth of the salamander monster were not even remotely a threat to it, on the other hand, Tamara was far too agile because it could hit her in a way that would end the fight quickly. Their battle lasted for a few minutes without either of them managing to gain the upper hand over the other.

“MRAAAWWW!!!” The laolix roared.

“No, you!” Tamara replied.

The laolix growled and a violent vortex of air began to rise in front of it and hit Tamara squarely. She tried to resist by clinging to the grass with all four paws, determined to try to optimize her use of Mana instead of continuing to spam it as if she had an unlimited supply of it at every opportunity.

“Stop! This is unfair!”

The wind continued to beat against her with the same force until the grass tore and Tamara's little body was lifted into the air. At that point the laolix thought it had her in its grasp since if she didn't have contact with the ground she wouldn't be able to dodge, and so it used the wind against itself to project its body towards the salamander monster.

“You may be as graceful in the air as a sheet of paper, but I said SCISSORS!”

Tamara spread her arms opening the membrane, it wasn't enough to fly, but it was more than enough to make the laolix miscalculate, which at that point had put too much effort into its attempt to finish it off in a single strike. Tamara glided just above its head and decided to spend only a few points of Mana in [Obsidian Defense], causing some quills as black as night to grow on her body which stuck in the skull of the beast.

The two monsters fell to the ground, she landed roughly on the ground, the laolix instead crashed making an unpleasant sound of bones breaking. Tamara turned, approached the body of the monster she had just killed and verified that it was indeed dead.

"I won! I won!" She exclaimed, doing a dance with her hips which in her salamander form looked rather funny, "and now..."

The body of the lynx monster was still nice and warm, the smell of blood coming out of the grotesque wound on its head reached Tamara's nostrils, awakening her bestial appetite. She had no idea when that change had occurred, but she realized then how much she craved freshly killed raw meat and warm blood. She craved the taste of death in her mouth.

It... it's not that I want to eat carrions, I... I'm a person, I'm human! She told herself in her mind, her eyes fixed on the belly of the dead laolix, where the meat is most tender. She gulped, I have to do this for [Devourer], I have to level up fast! I wouldn't do it if I wasn't forced by fate!

And while she told herself this, she began to feast: using [Acid Spit] she partially loosened the tough skin, then buried her snout into the beast's intestines, using her short teeth to grasp the flesh and tear it. The taste she felt in her mouth was delicious, intoxicating, Tamara had to force herself to think if she had ever felt anything similar even in eating a slice of her favorite cake, but nothing came close, nothing even came close to the pleasure and the the ecstasy she felt as the blood of the defeated beast flowed down her throat.

SYSTEM: DING! You went up [1] level! [+3] Traits points to place, [+1] Feat available.

It was that notification from the system that awakened her from her trance and triggered a deep sense of shame, as if she had been seen performing obscene acts in a public place; she had consumed the laolix carcass and this, in addition to activating the benefits of the nourishment, had also given her enough EXP to level up thanks to [Devourer].

“Sta-status,” she stammered, backing away from the carcass, even though she couldn't move away from the monster she was becoming. She ignored the main screen, simply quickly adding the three points on Strength and then dedicating herself more carefully to the Feat list.

___

FEAT LIST:

► Bite (Lesser) II

Strenghtens all bites by 5%

► Flying Membrane II

Ability to fly increased by 15%

► Growth (Lesser) II

Increases user’s size by 7.5%

► Horned Assault (Lesser) I

Strenghtens headbutt damage by 5%

► Undomitable Will II

Faith increase of 4 points

► Tail-Whip (Lesser) I

Strenghtens all tail attacks by 5%

___

Even in this case there was no reason to think too much about what her choice was: she was tired of being a small animal to put inside a backpack and even if she saw the benefit of stealth in it, she also realized that growing in size was the faster way to make her less dependent on her magical abilities and to allow her to continue fighting even without Mana. Tamara focused her attention on the desired Feat.

SYSTEM: You have chosen [Growth (Lesser) II], do you want to confirm? Y/N.

Y.

SYSTEM: [Growth (Lesser) II] added to your Feats list. All slots are occupied, it is not possible to choose another Feat.

The effect of her choice was felt immediately: her body began to itch annoyingly everywhere, she felt her muscles tighten and swell to adapt to the new proportions, her bones lengthened and widened like those of a newborn if he had grown a year in seconds… Tamara couldn't be sure, but the impression she was getting from the distance between her head and the ground was that she was starting to approach the size of an average dog.

“Maybe it's best if I go back to Wadencap,” she said to herself aloud in an attempt to comfort and tell to herself that she still has her humanity, she was changing, and doing so faster than she thought, “and pretend nothing out of the ordinary happened.”