The two companions spent the rest of the evening slowly making their way towards their cave home, when close by they deviated from a direct return to find something tasty to hunt, and at Luna's insistence as fluffy as possible as she wanted some better furs to sleep on.
As Violet was actually all for getting something comfy to sleep on they spent some time hunting around until we came across a truly peculiar creature. It looked like a giant ball of fluff. Easily 1 metre across, it moved by rolling along the ground but it also had 2 multijointed limbs poking out of the side that it used like rudders to steer its movements.
We observed it for some time trying to get a feel for its strength, unable to really come to any conclusions we decided to go for a blitz attack from stealth. I charged up a shadow spear and once I noticed that Luna was ready to dash forwards I launched my attack and she instant followed behind it.
KREEEE!
My spear landed on its side and managed to sever one of its limbs, as that happened it released a horrific screech that caused both of us to stagger and I noticed the Luna who was now out in the open had blood trickling out of her ears! Managing to shake myself of the screams stunning effect I quickly fired off 3 Arcane bolts to halt its charge towards Luna who was still somewhat stunned.
BOOM, BOOM, BOOM.
Whilst seemingly not dealing all to much damage it did knock the creature off course and instead of hitting Luna head on, it only landed a glancing blow instead. This finally snapped her out of the stupor and she responded quickly with an ice coated fist slamming into its side as it rolled past her.
Deciding to try something new as the creature was now stopped in a patch of shifting shadows I tried to command the shadows to latch onto it and halt its movement. I watched as the shadows around the creature seemed to somewhat solidify and snap onto its remaining limb.
Sadly however it was not quite strong enough and it rolled once again snapping my shadows. I physically felt the mana recoil back to me from that leaving me with a splitting headache. Gritting my teeth I summoned another shadow spear and fired it off towards it as Luna delivered a series of powerful blows. We continued on like this for some time.
Luna would hold its attention in the middle and it would roll at and past her whilst trying to grab her with its odd limb. I in turn would either pelt it with multiple smaller bolts or the occasional spear spell to keep the damage up.
Eventually it did fall with Luna only having suffered a single blow the whole fight despite it lasting quite a while.
[Your group has defeated Mutated Gerbil lvl 15 exp rewarded]
[Your skills have advanced]
Shadow Bolt lvl 1->2
Shadow Spear lvl 2->3
Shadow Manipulation lvl 4->5
Happy with the kill and the skill advancements both Violet and Luna began to haul the mutilated fluff ball back to the cave.
Upon getting it back Luna tasked Violet with skinning the creature whilst she went back outside to gather plenty of sticks for a fire. By the time she came back Violet was just finishing off removing the hide from the gerbil and now had a decently sized pelt on the floor that needed some cleaning before it could be used.
Deciding to get started on that Luna grabbed the scraping stone she had used previously and began to scrape away on the back side of the hide. Violet whilst watching her spoke up, "so your just trying to get rid of all the wet stuff and leave the skin right?"
Looking up at her whilst continuing to scrape Luna replied. "Yeah that's the best I can do for now it won't be perfect but it will have to do." Ideally Luna would want to properly dry and prepare the hide so that it would last a long time but she lacked everything that she would need to do so sadly, including the knowledge.
"Hmm let me try." As Violet said this she moved up to the hide and looked it over carefully. Luna not seeing a reason not to let her try sat back to watch. Then Violet used her shadow manipulation to cover the hide and willed it to clean the hide and to both of their delight the shadows seemed to eat everything but the hide leaving a near perfectly prepared hide.
Luna sat there for a while in stunned disbelief, "how is that even fair! How can a dragon not even a month old possibly be better at cleaning hides than me!!" Not for the first time Luna truly felt that dragons were unfair existences.
Violet however, found Lunas mild breakdown highly amusing, "haha silly small one oh course I'm amazing I am a dragon!" She states with pride even tilting her head up in the process.
Huffing indignantly Luna moved over to the fire pit she had used before and started working on that instead. "Well at least you can't start a fire or cook so I have that going for me I suppose." She sullenly muttered to herself.
Seeing her companion begin to look sad again Violet padded over to her and crawled into her lap and settled down forcing her friend to give up on sulking to instead do something much more productive. What would that be you may ask? Why providing skritches of course!
And sure enough soon the girl was smiling happily down at Violet, after a moment she softly spoke up. "Thank you Violet, for everything."
Sensing that this was not the right time for any jokes Violet simply purred for a while whilst enjoying Lunas pampering before softly speaking up herself. "Thank you Luna, I don't think I realised how lonely I was until I met you but now I have you so I don't need to be lonely anymore. We are companions and will never be apart."
Silence fell upon the two young girls as they just enjoyed each others company for a while. However, it was eventually interrupted by Lunas stomach rumbling causing them both to laugh. "Ok get off me ya oversized lizard I need to make a fire and start cooking! Can you cut up some of the meat for us?"
Huffing in mild annoyance at that but sensing the affection through their bond Violet didn't protest much past gently swatting Luna with her tail as she got up.
Before long the fire was burning hot and Luna was sat cooking up the meat skewers for the two of them. Making sure to cook two at once so she didn't have hers stolen again by the greedy dragon. As they enjoyed their meal together they both revived a surprising notification.
[Your skill has advanced]
Companion bond with Violet/Luna lvl 1->2
"Hu looks like our bond just leveled up. Can you feel anything different now?" Luna asked of the dragon.
"Hmm I think I can feel how healthy you are? Lemme try." And before Luna could respond Violet quickly poked the girl with a claw deep enough to draw blood.
"Oww! What was that for!?" Luna exclaimed looking down at the dragon with annoyance.
"Testing! I felt that through the bond! Now we know if other is hurt!" Violet explained happily.
Blinking down at the mischievous little dragon Luna muttered. "Did you have to stab me to figure that out though?"
"No but was fun!" Violet shamelessly stated. This left Luna truly baffled, I mean how are you supposed to argue with that level of shamelessness?
But after some more harmless bickering the two girls called it for the night and retreated to the new fur bedding they now had. Taking their now usual positions with Luna on her side and Violet curled up in a ball pressed against her stomach. Soon enough the companions fell fast asleep, basking in each others presence.
For the Second time since Violet was born the morning came but this time there was no sunlight to wake her, instead she was awoken but the flash of lightning. Or it could have been the loud rumble of thunder half a second after the flash. Regardless Luna bolted upright in a wild panic shouting out for Luna whilst summoning 2 Arcane Spears and aiming towards the cave mouth.
Luna was also awoken by the sound of the thunder but she had a slightly different reaction to it that Violet. Luna froze upon looking outside and seeing the storm raging outside and a shudder ran up her spine. However when she looked over at Violet some of her tension left her and she let out a small chuckle.
"You can relax Violet, at least hopefully we can. It seems like the storm has arrived but you don't need to be worried about the lightning and thunder." Luna spoke with a slight tremor in her voice towards the end.
"What's that?" Was violets only response, she did however, reluctantly release her hold on the magic and walked over towards Luna.
Realising she would have to explain it to her Luna sat down towards the mouth of the cave and began to tell her inquisitive dragon about the storm.