Eldritch Creature's Guide

Thus, the Old Man Bahar dragged Yvreaine to somewhere on the floating island, where an extensive cave system was located. Some of the floating islands had very big underground spaces, but that only applied only to the biggest floating islands. Fortunately for them, the one where the Old Bahar chose his place to live as a hermit, was one of the biggest floating islands and thus had even very big underground space attached.

Soon they entered the cave's darkness, searching for some Stone Trolls for her to fight. The trolls as a whole preferred this type of environment, and aside from them, many other magical beasts could be found in underground cave systems like this.

Sadly for them this time , aside from the mushrooms and some swarm of Iron-Tier bats that were living in the cave, they found nothing even after twenty minutes of walking around.

At that point, even Yvraine was to return already because she didn't like the enviroment here, it was all wet, and the stench was terrible here, like something was rotting. When the rotten smell was getting stronger and more powerful, both of them realized that they were nearing the troll nest.

Like others from the Greenskin menace, Trolls also had the habit of storing the corpses of their killed prey for a later time, often eating the rotten flesh of humans, something considered as a delicacy among the trolls. From the point of view of other species the "gastronomy" of Trolls was considered as disgusting to put it mildly.

Not like they were the most intelligent beings ever, especially when even goblins could be considered smarter than trolls. Unfortunately for the goblins, among the greenskins, intelligence rarely mattered something.

"It is really terrible here and the smell is just getting worse and worse."

Yvraine just complained when they were nearing the place where the trolls were cooking or doing something, and Baharhidon just chuckled at that. He himself didn't like this place very much, but he was much better at it compared to Yvraine because he was already very old and had spent a long time already on the floating islands.

"Indeed it is... they are probably cooking something... maybe one of their famous soups."

He teased her, while Yvraine wanted to throw up as her imagination already ran wild. Troll soups were typically made from the rotting flesh of their prey, together with various disgusting things that were the source of the smell, so the Trolls were probably cooking something good this time.

These "delicacies" were the most famous about trolls, as they most often made the soups from everything they could find, threw it to the point, and let it boil, until it melted together, becoming some weird substance. It certainly was countless times worse than it sounded.

When they came near, they saw one huge troll sitting around the bonfire with an enormous cauldron while the content of the cauldron was bubbling. The troll was around 4 meters tall, with grey skin, and even had some rocks stuck on his shoulders and back.

Yvraine held her nose as she cast some spell to block up the terrible smell of the cauldron, especially when she saw the stone troll dropping some rotten flesh, judging by the decaying human torso which the troll threw there. Nobody knew why the trolls preferred eating flesh that already started to rot; some speculated that it tasted better for them in that way and some that rotting flesh was producing some kind of substance that caused it to have hallucinogenic effects.

Or they were just twisted in their heads; who knew where the truth lay.

"You can now start."

After saying his piece, Baharhidon Elvyn Yaennernamis sat down on the ground and returned to reading the magic tome he was reading previously, while Yvraine's brow twitched a little, but in the end, she relented and went to fight against the Stone Troll with just her magical abilities and nothing else.

The first thing she did, was to cast a stealth spell on her; it was 3rd Level Elemental Spell from the Elemntia Magicae, which allowed her to blend with darkness temporarily, sneaking up on the Stone Troll, who was endorsed in the cooking proceed.

Right now adding some squirrel shit into the soup.

Yeh, this was the sophisticated troll cooking methods; really something to behold and learn from it.

And because the stone troll was busy with the cooking, it allowed Yvraine to come relatively close to the creature, as she stood at the perfect position before she looked at the huge bonfire and had a mischievous grin on her face.

With a wave of her hands, she instantly used two Metamagic Techniques at the same time, namely Maximize Spell and Empower Spell on the 1st Level Spell, Fire Infusion. This spell basically added the fire elements to the designated target and Yvraine's designated target was, of course, the bonfire.

Instantly the entire bonfire blazed on fire, hitting the stone troll directly, as the flames blazed on the creature, which in turn roared in pain because it was continuously burned by the hot scorching flames, which the Arcane drastically strengthened.

The effects of the Maximize Spell and Empower Spell were not something that could be ignored outright. In their combination, these two Metamagic Techniques were especially deadly, as it took several minutes for the flames to completely disperse, while the entire place smelled like burned meat.

Burned troll meat, to be exact.

When the flames subsumed, the large parts of the stone troll's body were charred like charcoal, but fortunately for the troll, his extremely potent regeneration capabilities were already working on regenerating the injury though it would take some time.

The stone troll itself dumbly looked around, then at the bonfire, then once again around and again at the bonfire. He tried to understand what had happened, but in the end, trolls weren't the smartest fellows around, so he sat down and returned back to cooking.

Yvraine looked shocked at this because even though she was aware of the mental athletics of the trolls, she thought that at least it would search around the cave for the potential enemy, but not, it returned back to the cooking as if nothing happened at all.

Now, she was a bit lost because she had prepared a nice trap for the stone troll several meters away, but clearly, the troll's low intelligence saved his life or maybe it was part of the troll's plan, but seeing the troll taking something out of his nose and eating it, probably not.

Thus, she decided to lure the troll there, and that was relatively easily done by projecting the illusion of a giant rat running here and there around the place where the trap was set. The trap itself was actually a Ward that would bind the stone troll in one place.

After binding the troll, Yvraine could test more Metamagic Techniques on the stone troll, exactly like the Lord Baharhidon instructed her to do. If not for that, she would have long used some sort of Light-attributed spells to conjure sun rays to kill the troll by turning him into a pile of stone.

Right now, because that insufferable old man ordered her to fight purely with her magical abilities, she needed to find a way how to bypass the troll's natural magical resistance. One way how to do it, was actually not using the Magic itself on the troll but rather creating something in the enviroment, which would, in turn, hurt the troll.

Like Yvraine did with the bonfire.

If she did use the same procedure but cast some offensive fire-attributed spell like a Fireball, then the FIre would be just an Arcane Energy; thus Mana, transformed into a form of fire, which would be negated largely by the troll's natural magic resistance.

But... if she used already existing fire that was flaming somewhere and just overloaded it tremendously till it reached the power of the 4th Level Spell, injuring even the Bronze-Tier Stone Troll was not out of the option.

After the Stone Troll saw the huge rat, which of course, was just an illusion Yvriane created, the creature salivated, as various rat-type magical beasts were often favorite snacks of the trolls. It instantly stood up from its place and started rushing at the rat.

Not even seconds later, the spell ward activated itself when it sensed that the Stone Troll had entered its perimeters, and in a split of a second, the Stone Troll found himself being bound in one place.

Right now, because this was the Bronze-Tier Stone Troll, it meant it had complete resistance towards the 3rd Spells and lower, meaning if Yvraine wanted to hurt and subsequently kill the monster, she needed to create a spell with the offensive prowess comparable to that of the 4th and 5th Level Spells.

Though, even though it would have lowered effect on the creature unless she played her cards smartly, which of course she did, by spamming one curse after another at the poor Stone Troll, who just looked around and started shaking with as much force as possible.

It was evident that he was trying to escape his bindings, but there was little chance of that. Yvraine noticed that the troll was only a newly advanced one because the Level of the Troll was 30, judging by the Mana around him. If not for that, if it was some older stone troll, then this fight would be much higher because the older the trolls were, the stronger their passive innate abilities became, like their hide resistant against Magic or their regeneration.

So, when she was creating the Ward, she made sure it would be able to withstand even peak Bronze-Tiers of Level 50 outright, so one weak Stone Troll was not a problem for her Ward.

Surprisingly, the Stone Troll was taking all those curses relatively well, but they already started showing their effect slowly yet steadily. The Magic Resistance was something different from the Curse Resistance.

One could say that the Magic Resistance included in itself even the Curse Resistance, but the problem was that only to a lesser degree, compared to a situation when somebody had a separate Curse Resistance.

That was because the Curses, aside from Magic, used another component which was Negative Energy, and while the Magic Resistance could deal with the magical aspects of the Curse, it couldn't really handle the Curse part where the Negative Energies came in the play.

Thus the Stone Troll was getting constantly weaker bit by bit. After Yvraine judged it was enough, she used Spell Penetration Metamagic Technique to conjure a wind blade spell, which shot towards the ceiling where tens of shart stalactites were, as the ceiling then started shaking upon the impact.

Second, later, the first stone stalactite cracked and fell down onto the defenseless Stone Troll. The creature couldn't even raise its hands to defend itself from the falling stalactite as it directly fell down onto his right hand, crushing it to mush.

Seconds later, or not even that, other stalactites followed, and soon enough, the Stone Troll was killed under the pile of falling blocks of stone from the ceiling, a rather ironical ending for the monster that spends here its whole life.

But in the end, the Stone Troll was done, and technically speaking, Yvraine completed the orders exactly within the Baharhidon specifications; she used only Magic to achieve her kill and even incorporated several Metamagic Techniques from her Level 3 Ultimate Ability Metamagic.

After she killed the Stone Troll, the old elf finally showed himself; probably, he finished reading whatever he was reading in his grimoire or magic tome and looked around, inspecting the results of Yvraine's achievements.

"Hmm... good."

The elderly elf stated relatively indifferently while observing the results, it was almost impossible to tell what he was thinking if he was satisfied or unhappy with the results.

"Next time, it would be more logical to fight something where you can take advantage of the natural enviroment."

Afterward, he again ran his hand through his long beard while looking at the Stone Troll, which was lying on the floor, crushed into a meaty mess from the falling stalactites. When he was done looking at the Stone Troll, he noticed the grievous effect of the Necrotic Curses that were still in the corpse of the Stone Troll.

"I take it those ones aren't originating from the Elementia Magicae?"

He asked to which Yvraine shook her head in denial.

"They are very powerful for just being a bunch of Low-Level Spells in the hands of mortal... try to be careful with casting those, or the Negative Energy will bring you more severe backslash than just a fatigue and unease feeling."

Baharhidon Elvyn Yaennernamis was a very powerful and experienced Arcanist, and with a single glance, he could tell the hidden dangers of those Necrotic Arts, which was something that wasn't widespread knowledge.

Normally the Necrotric Arts themselves were not widespread too much, and only a few people used them. And from those who used the Necrotic Arts, used was the Necronamancy, and even that came with countless hidden dangers. Not speaking about the fact that Gods of Dead hated Necromancers with passion because they disrupted the natural order, there were other dangers to it.

Especially manipulating the Negative Energy by someone who was not used to it or learned how to use it accordingly, it was very dangerous even to attempt, as the backslash could be very severe if someone used the Necrotic Arts without proper training.

But what was interesting was that Yvraine managed to cast them flawlessly without any mistake, meaning somebody taught her very well. Contrary to his descendant, Lord Moon Sword Elraroth Daeric Yaennernamis, he was unaware of the relationship between her and the Holy Son of the Hall of Kadath.

Yet he was able to recognize the fact that Yvraine masterfully used some low-level curses of the Necromantic Arts with such precious and skill that somebody must have taught it to her, step by step. At the same time, he was not experienced with the Necromancy, and the Necrotic Arts as a whole, because, for many elves, it was dark and unsavory Magic that should not be touched at any cost.

Of course, Yvriane didn't really care about such prejudice against that type of Magic because, for her, it was power, and only power mattered; other things were inconsequential.

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