Serpent of the south

by J-90

Chapter 3 Highlights of the new life... With potential exposition

Day numbeeer... Maybe around a week or so after finding the pyramid-temple-ruin I have made my home in. Finally got last of the plant's besieging the stonework, and it was quite an undertaking overall; pulling, cutting them out, burning them to ashes and occasionally getting slapped on my face by some of the vines when they finally got loose after pulling them from between the stone bricks.
After all that work, the place sure looked a lot nicer and cleaner, but it still had that ancient ruin vibe to it. And I liked it.

Also the 'weed-burning' allowed me to hone my fire magic to three levels. Now alongside of my basic fireball and a steady stream of flame, I got explosive fire-bolt, that looked almost solid red orb before impact with the target. Not as destructive as flare, just basic flames expanding from impact point to reasonably large area before going out. Decided to name them Fire 1,2 and 3 in said order... Genius naming, I know...

Night's went well enough in one of the temple rooms with some type of wee-olden like kitchen thing in its neighbour room, even though sleeping on my own tail began to get old. That in mind I begun to search some proper like bedding materials.
Making an comfortable enough bed for some giant snake-creature like me, took around four or five days. The bedding was somewhat messy combination of few roughly cut wooden beams, some straws, some wild growing cotton and several soft furred skins of some animals from the jungle. I named one of the animals a 'Dire sloth' and it was a HUGE one. Maybe around twice my size while both of us where standing upwards.

Only reason I managed to take one down was little attack I seemed to 'unlock'; a mustard smelling lump ,hacked out from my throat, that became gaseous upon impact. Knocked the beastie out cold after it tried to take a swipe at me, but I did get a sore throat afterwards. Dubbed the move 'Mustard Bomb' in honor of same move in FF-series.

Another weird animal in the jungle was a huge one-eyed bear. A Nandi bear, if my memory about random drops of knowledge about crypto-zoology were right. And its single eye could actually fire magical beams, that seemingly could paralyze its target. At least I think that what it was supposed to do, since beams that did hit me only made my tail go slightly numb. And said face-off revealed little nifty feature about swords; they could actually absorb magic when activated with a certain thought, and I felt slightly energized after it happened. Reminded me about the Runic-blade ability, and thus named the skill after it.

After all of those scuffles with the jungles fluffy killer animals, I managed to heal myself with another 'unlocked' move or skill; simple physical injury healing spell and another that seemed to heal ailments, so I guess they where close to 'Cure' and 'Esuna'. And yes, I named them so.

Date... Probably two weeks after getting myself a good enough bed to sleep in. In order to ward off boredom, I started using my blades, which seemed to be eternally sharp, to carve the walls of one of the rooms, which was left from the main entrance and opposite from my bedroom doorway. Maybe it used to be an storage room back when this temple was brand new.
Now it was going to be my little diary-wall, with simple carvings and some little text in english. First carving set was me getting hit by the sixteen wheeler, followed by stylized picture set of me getting transformed into a marilith form by the old squid-face, holding its arms above setting.
Following carving set-up line-work's were going to be about my short imprisonment and escape trip into the jungle. Details were going to need some work. Something for the later date.

Another thing alongside of starting the wall carving, I managed to locate a nice waterfall-pond combo, and after some little 'scouting', even a nice natural set of hot springs near enough to the temple. One the hot springs was actually big enough for me to fit in. So now I got some spot to wash myself and maybe occasionally relax.
And I think I should take up meditating to pass the time, when I'm not feeling up to carving or hunting. It might even keep me calm at times. But mostly to pass the time.

Finally figured out what the main altar room of the temple is for. First I thought it was just an ordinary fancy like room with an altar, with a diamond looking piece of glass in some holed stone structure. I was spending time in it during one cloudless night, when light from the full moon shined through the hole in the roof, right above the altar thing.
The result of that was the glass thing inside of the holed structure reflecting faint beams of light unto the walls, forming crude but still nice looking images, that seemed a lot like star charts.
That led me to believe this place was once some kind of ancient observatory of sorts, since I did managed to locate some of the images on the night sky. Of course it could have just been coincidence and they where just random images.

Even if I was wrong about the observatory-theory, the light images were still nice, and even soothing in their own way. A perfect spot for meditation then. And it only took almost over a month of living here to figure it out.

Something weird and interesting happened today, maybe a week after thinking the observatory theory about this place. After finishing a very good meditation session, during which I think I was for a moment completely zen, a tiny root looking plant had sprouted in front of me. And it was seemingly holding a softly glowing green crystal.
After gently picking up the said crystal, the root-thingie withdrew back into the ground. The very touch of it felt alive and soothing. And soon I felt something in my mind, trying to reach me. Something young but old, feeling curious about me.
So I mentally opened up for it, but still being wary just in case. To simply sum it up, the crystal was condensed form of raw wild magic, that had felt drawn to me during my zen-moment. I can only guess my magical presence during meditation becomes a type of a beacon for the wilder magical energies to gather to, and maybe take a physical form near it.

The first green crystal seemed to have greater healing powers, than I do naturally. It in a way... Told me all that? It was weird experience to say the least, to have a crystal tell me about itself. I can only guess if there are other types of crystal that might want to materialize before me, especially if these are like materia from the good ol' seventh story of final fantasy...
Something to maybe look forward I guess?

Two month's have passed after the 'materia-crystal' appearance, and luckily no bounty hunters have appeared. I guess they have either given up, forgotten me or the bounty is lifted from my head. Who knows...
And now the first crystal is not alone. After 'bonding' with it through calm meditation, it actually spawned another green crystal. Only this one was a lot smaller and perfectly round ball and a little bit weaker, like it would need training and bonding to grow stronger.

I even tried to repeat the condensing process, only to fail when I knowingly tried to do it. Only when I just normally meditated and reached the zen phase, did more crystals started appearing sometimes.

Now I also have different colored variants of crystals; Green, Red, Yellow, Blue and Purple. Currently green is most common, yellow, blue and purple are in-between, and red is rarest one. The singular red one seemingly held something incredibly powerful entity, that felt overwhelmingly holy sort... So I think I wont be calling upon it's power, unless things are absolutely desperate sort with no other option... Other colors held a different sorts of powers for healing, support and elemental attack's.
So now I have company during my meditations... Sorta... Still would like to actually talk to someone... Only problems are that I am alone here and I can't actually talk the common language of this world. Only some roars, grunts or hisses. Something to hopefully fix in the future...

'Imma eating bear tonight, with some chopped up fruits on the side' were my thoughts when slithering trough the jungle, while carrying two nandi bear corpses on the back of my tail, tied together with some vines, and random edible fruits in a simple bag, made out of crudely stitched animal skins.
It was worth it to make an effort in making it, so I don't need to carry everything in my hands, even though I do have six of them. I might need them for other things if such a thing comes up. Whether it be gesturing or maybe self-defence with either sword or sorcery.

And with that thought, almost like on cue I moved some taller bushes out of my way, coming to a natural path, that my slithering had widened a little bit in the last few years. Then my ears reached some terrified sounding voices, followed by smelling something familiar like...
With a turn of my head, the source of the noise; a rather sizeable group of creatures, carrying plenty of stuff that was necessary for camping or maybe even settling down somewhere. Said group was colorful in races; there was a couple of griffons, couple of minotaurs and plenty of ponies of all types, meaning earth pony, unicorn and pegasi. Then I saw that amongst the ponies where few of the bat-winged variety. Thestrals I think they are called? And I think there was also one or two some kind of a hybrid of a pony and griffin... Hippogriff's maybe?

We all just stared at each other for a few seconds, waiting for someone to do something... And it was me who did something... By giving a smile and waving at them with one hand.
After that I carried on with my slithering down the path, towards my temple home. Hopefully thing's could work out between me and these new arrivals...

'I cant believe this... After ten years of trying to live normal married life with my Falgo, we end up bumping into the very beastie that almost killed our old bounty hunter-group nearly ten times over in several ways...' the unicorn mare thought nervously, instinctively pulling her travelling capes hood over her head with a grey aura of magic.
Next to her was her griffon friend-turned-husband, Falgo, who was carrying most of their few belongings. She herself was carrying their firstborn son, a five year old hippogriff, Hermes, on her back and hopefully second one soon...

For a moment, none of our group did nothing... And then the serpent just gave us all a smile and wave... And just left, carrying the corpses of two bear looking things, with just one eye, tied on to its tail. Everybeing in the group seemed to be relieved for it leaving them alone without any aggressiveness towards them.
"Honey? Did we just see the serpent-beast we used to chase and survive among our fellow-travelers?" she heard Falgo ask, sounding very confused and relieved at the same time, with his brown feathers still slightly puffed up.
"I... Think so?" was all she could mutter back to him.

"Mommy? What was that big snakey thingy?" said slightly squeaky voice of curious Hermes from her back. Falgo seemed to be hesitant to answer to that question. Shadow Petal, after little thinking, not so much.
"Something your momma and papa hope does not hold a grudge..." Petal answered, while looking at the direction where the serpent had slithered away...