The fungal bear was stirring but it had not made a move yet. Its eyes opened and it stared at us. I focused on my magic and released a necrotic ray. That got the monster's attention. I had expected a roar, a cry, or some sort of sound. But there was nothing. The bear simply stood up and charged.

My ray hit the bear in the face. Part of its snout was withering but it did not seem to care too much. I stopped my spell as the bear arrived at the goblin line, sadly the monster plowed straight through them.

"Nyx!" I shouted, and my trusty feline companion acted.

Nyx charged the bear. She was currently only slightly smaller than the creature. While the goblins had been too small and weak to stop it, Nyx had a lot more success. Nyx pounced and the bear stumbled. Nyx' claws dug into the bear's hide and she tried biting it as they both rolled around the floor.

The bear tried biting back. Half of its face had been withered by now and it almost looked like a zombie. As they continued to roll around, the clearing filled with spores. Partly from the bear's back and partly from mushrooms on the floor. My goblins had advanced and formed a circle around the brawling creatures. The zombies who had been flung aside by the bear's charge were still intact, only slightly damaged. That was nice, I gave them a small heal.

I did not dare advance into the spore infested clearing. So I just watched the brawl, contemplating how I could help. Hitting the bear with my magic was too difficult with how entangled it was with Nyx. I could throw a small heal on her from the distance but that was it. Maybe I should look into learning more ice magic. I needed a way to influence the battlefield itself.

Meanwhile, Nyx stopped biting and unleashed her breath attack. She combined her water and death magic into her mist. That meant I could no longer observe the battle as they were now hidden inside the cloud. But I was confident in Nyx. So far the bear had failed to do any significant damage to her hardened bones. The spores mostly helped the thing survive. It was a truly evil creature meant to not kill its opponents but infect them instead.

"Ma'am, how are we going to deal with the spores?" Finn asked.

It was a good question. We had to somehow cleanse the entire clearing and all trees around it. If only Cassie were here. She would have something to burn down everything. I could always send someone back to the camp and request support, I suppose. Or could I cover everything with death magic?

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While fire was great at destroying things, death magic did excel at killing. How would I flood the entire area though? Maybe Nyx could cover everything in her cloud? I really should learn a death cloud myself. It would be a great spell to support an undead horde and I did have a small undead horde.

"I am not sure." I finally replied. "We will have to see if Nyx can't use her breath to kill most of the spores. I am concerned since they are in the air. Thankfully there is not a lot of wind. Maybe we should request help from the camp."

I looked at the clearing once more and came to a conclusion: "Jeff, get back to the camp and explain the situation to Captain Sarah. We will make sure nothing enters the clearing until help arrives." The situation was too dangerous for experimentation. And it certainly taught me that I needed more spells.

While we were talking, Nyx' cloud started dissolving and I could see the aftermath of the battle. Nyx was sitting on a dead bear… and eating it.

"Nyx! That is disgusting! You are eating mushrooms!" I shouted.

She ignored me and kept munching. At least if she devoured them they would be gone, I suppose…

I ordered the squad to step back even further while we waited. The zombies guarded the clearing to make sure no animal wandered in and got infected. When Nyx returned I summoned some water and threw it on her from a distance, hoping to wash her. The death cloud should have killed any spores sticking to her but I was slightly paranoid.

Nyx looked at me like I was being silly. Then she started to clean herself.

"It is weird how a skeleton can summon a tongue to lick itself…" Mac said.

"Does she have saliva? How does that work?" Irma wondered.

"How did she even eat things? Where does it go?" Bram asked.

I looked at my squad. I was so used to Nyx I had never bothered to explain much about her. And the last fight had been at night when they might not have seen much. "She devours when eating. Essentially she absorbs the magic in things and I think she can use the bones to strengthen her own. Mostly she is just a glutton though. She also has a water affinity, so she certainly can make her tongue wet."

After Nyx was clean she sat next to me, still in her large form. I petted her and she purred. My squad kept their distance.

After a while Jeff returned with Captain Sarah and two other soldiers. I saluted and gave her a report.

"Good thing you called me. You can't take those spores lightly. I have brought some fire bombs to deal with this. I can help with my wind magic to keep things contained. I need your water magic to ensure the fire does not spread. And the undead need to be cleaned before they can return." She ordered.

The whole affair took an hour. I had my undead clean each other with water I created. Meanwhile, we drenched the area around the clearing to stop a fire from spreading. Once we were prepared Sarah threw the potions to ignite everything. As a spellblade she had limited mana for spells but it was enough for some wind. While she managed the air I moved around and ensured that no fire started outside of the clearing. I was exhausted once it was done.

"Good job, Koyuki." Sarah praised me. "That could have been a real mess."

While Captain Sarah returned to the camp we had a small lunch break. It had been an exhausting encounter but we had triumphed over the mushrooms. I was looking forward to telling Helena about it in the evening.

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