Clonk… Clonk-Clonk… Thump.

What in the hell is that noise? Rubbing the sleep out of my eye I find some white furred monkey looking thing banging his hands on the dome of my spell.

“You think if we ignore it it’ll go away?” Glancing down at my chest at the source of voice I find Luna looking very unbothered while staring at the creature.

“What even is it? It looks like some weird monkey.” She snorts with a laugh at my remark, and I realize it’s because I’ve been called those exact words in front of her before. “The irony of my observation is not lost on me, but seriously what is this thing?”

“I believe it’s a yeti. I’ve never seen one with only two legs though, and never one this large.” It’s honestly not that huge, I’d say it’s maybe 20ft tall? Then again I think the Ursa has ruined my perception of how large things are.

“Interesting. I think I’m okay with ignoring it. Theoretically it shouldn’t smell us and it definitely can’t see us or hear us. Do you know how many hours it’s been since I put up the dome?”

“It’s just about sunset so I’d wager it’s been 6.5 or 7 hours. This dome only lasts for 8, correct?”

“Yup. You think it has any friends? Like do these things usually operate in packs?”

“Ignis. Why do you think I would know that? What about “Princess of the Night” says to you “she knows the intricate behavior of a niche creature”?”

“Wow, some princess woke up on the right side of the elf. I just ask you questions I don’t know the answer to. Are you saying you don’t know?”

Her face was pretty neutral before despite her sass but now she actually looks annoyed before letting out a big sigh. “No, they don’t typically travel in packs larger than two or three.”

“SEE! You did know! I never doubted you!” Her annoyed look starts to falter as she fights to keep the smile off her face when I start tousling her mane with my right hand.

After a few more seconds she finally caves and starts laughing and flailing, “CEASE THOUST NEFARIOUS PLOTS AT ONCE! It’ll take me ages to fix this!”

I notice a lot of movement out of the corner of my eye and completely freeze when I look outside of the dome. Luna realizes something is up from how abruptly I stopped moving and she freezes as well when she looks outside the dome. There’s at least 10 yeti’s standing and pointing at the dome, one of them is slowly approaching with a massive boulder. The one carrying the boulder is just a bit taller and wider than the others, must be the pack alpha or some equivalent.

“Okay we need a real plan now Luna. These things actually seem moderately intelligent, do you think it’s worth trying to communicate with them?”

“We won’t be able to. I’ve been trying to read their lips but they’re either making grunts and noises, or speaking in some other language, we won’t be able to communicate. We could try to posture ourselves to present as non-hostile, but I don’t know if that’ll work either.”

“What if I fight that big one and take him down? Maybe the rest will back off?”

“...That sounds insane, but if you actually think that’ll work then it’s probably the best option we have other than just ambushing them with magic as soon as the dome falls.”

We’ve probably still got 20 minutes left for the dome, so I’m just going to throw hands with this yeti. Since my power “Updated” I can smite with unarmed strikes now, so throwing hands doesn’t seem so crazy now. I pull the Moonblade off of my waist and set it down on the ground next to Luna, and I put on the Mizzium. “Enlarge!” Casting the same spell I used on the train but this time I doubled in height. Luna has a strange look in her eyes as I remove the Mizzium and roll my shoulders, eliciting a few cracks as I get ready to fight.

Standing up to my full height, my head and shoulders pop out of the dome. I immediately start mimicking monkey noises while hitting my chest and pointing at the biggest yeti.

Animal Handling.

3 + 2 = 5.

The yeti’s all step back in surprise at my sudden appearance from inside the dome, but quickly start to glance at each other in confusion while a few of them point at me. I was making an assumption that they would mimic monkey behaviors, but there’s a pretty good chance I just look like an idiot to them right now. Let’s change tactics, I point at myself then point at the alpha, then I form my right hand into a fist and punch my left palm. This is pretty much the universal way of saying “Let’s Fight.”

Intimidation.

19 + 1 = 20.

The other yeti’s start making strange noises as they move away from the dome and myself. They walk a few feet to the left and form a circle. The alpha has been giving me a glare the whole time, but once they form their circle he drops the rock with a loud thud, gives a big huff out of his nose and points to the circle. It’s been about 18 seconds since i casted Enlarge.

Making an effort to keep my chest held high I slowly walk into the circle with the larger yeti. Once we’re in the circle we start slowly walking around the outer edge of the circle across from each other, eyeing each other up.

Roll For Initiative.

13 + 5 = 18.

Launching forward with my right fist raised in the air, I let out a roar as my fist arcs over my head and down towards the stomach of the yeti. He swings his left fish up to try and make our fists collide, but my plan was always to feint. I pivot to the right and my entire body is on his inside now with arm going straight up, he’s wide open. Let’s finish this in one hit, to finish the move I swing up towards his head and deliver a jumping uppercut to the yeti.

16 + 5 = 21.

4 Bludgeoning Damage.

Level 4 Smite: 5d8 = 21 Radiant Damage.

My fist connects with its jaw with a loud crack and explosion as the yeti stumbles back a few steps looking dazed. A small trail of blood is pouring out of its mouth from the bottom and running down to its blunt chin. All the noise the spectator yetis were making instantly falls silent. Before it can recover I’m going to hit it again. Unfortunately I can’t smite again, but that’s fine. I swapped out Mage Hand for Shocking Grasp since I can use telekinesis on demand now.

With one big step I close the distance and slam my left arm forward imitating a palm strike. The yeti tries to flail an arm into the path of my strike, but that’s what I was hoping for. My flat palm quickly snaps into a death grip onto the wrist of the yeti. I yell out, “Fulgor!” and cast Shocking Grasp.

14 + 9 = 23.

13 Lightning Damage.

My bracers glow indicating I can use my bonus action to recast Shocking Grasp, and that’s exactly what I do. While the yeti is twitching with a yelp from the electricity running through him, I squeeze his wrist again and shout out the same spell.

19 + 9 = 28.

19 Lightning Damage.

The yeti’s arm starts to smoke from getting fried with current, and it snatches its arm backwards escaping my grasp. I start to panic a bit when the yeti flexes both of its hands and long claws pop out of its fingers. The yeti gives me a killer mean mug as it stabs its hand forward trying to impale me. I barely manage to step back and avoid the stab but it leans forward and swipes down, slashing me from my shoulder down to the middle of my chest.

Hit Points: 59/75.

Okay fuck this. I squint at the yeti and quietly mutter the incantation for Hold Monster. I watch as silver lines appear over the yeti and it stops moving. It seems like the other yeti’s aren’t even aware something has happened. My turn ends and after a couple of seconds I can instinctively tell it’s my turn again, so it failed its second saving throw. I take two big steps at the yeti and throw my right fist backwards, and half way through my wind up I start shrinking back to normal size. Shit, Enlarge and Hold Monster are both concentration. It doesn’t matter, this is a guaranteed critical.

Letting out another roar I lean forward and punch the yetis gut as hard as I can.

Automatic Critical.

4 Bludgeoning Damage.

Level 5 Smite: 6d8 + 48 = 75 Radiant Damage.

It sounds like a massive clap of thunder as my fist makes contact with the yeti. As soon as I hit it a huge explosion of silver light erupts from the yeti’s backside and its pupils disappear showing only the whites of its eyes. Should I kill it?

I decide to spare its life and stop concentrating on Hold Monster. As soon as I do it drops onto its knees then falls forward laying flat on its stomach. A pool of blood starts to form under its head, it seems like that punch gave it some serious internal bleeding that’s leaking out of its mouth. I watch as a small cloud of fog comes out of my mouth as I let out a big sigh and start slowly turning and looking at the yetis surrounding me. Closing my eyes I stop suppressing my mana.

Intimidation (Advantage.)

20 and 19. 20 + 1 = 21.

The yetis yelp and scatter leaving their alpha to die on the ground. Crouching down I place my hand on the yeti alpha and cast Cure Wounds at 3rd level. To my shock I see that 3rd level Cure Wounds is 6d8 now instead of 3d8. Apparently part of the update included a buff to Cure Wounds so it's 2d8 at level 1 and increases by 2d8 every level.
6d8 + 1 = 41 Hit Points.

Within a few seconds the yeti rolls over onto its back with wide eyes, it looks pretty shook to be honest. The yeti sits up and uses its hands to slide backwards away from me as it looks around and realizes it’s been left alone. It’s starting to breathe rapidly so I put my hand against the slashes on my chest and cast Cure Wounds again, but at 2nd level.

4d8 + 1 = 19 Hit Points: 75/75.

The gashes glow brightly and then close up leaving very light scars. After that it seems like the yeti realized I used the same healing on him, he stands up straight and holds his right fist against his chest before slowly walking away. Walking back into the dome I drop down onto my ass and notice Luna staring at me. “Do I have something on my face?”

“Your cloak is torn again.”

“Oh…yeah. I can fix it pretty easily now, though!” I put on the Mizzium and cast Mending a few times. It takes 1 minute per cast but it fixes any tears or holes in an object as long as its less than 1 foot in all directions. “There we go, good as new.”

“Interesting, our version of that spell requires raw material for whatever you’re repairing. The more I see of your magic the more I think Tia’s initial judgment was inaccurate. Your spell casting does seem designed to intentionally limit you, but some of your spells are much more practical or efficient compared to ours.”

“She’s right. I never told either of you about the folly of Karsus did I?” She shakes her head no. “It’s a bit of a long one so I’ll explain it while we continue west.”

“So he harnessed the power of a cosmic level spell and tried to become the God of Magic, but instead he severely damaged the fundamental foundation of your magic system. The God of Magic had to sacrifice themself and magic stopped working briefly, which caused several floating cities to fall and killed thousands?” Luna gives a small recap as she slowly maneuvers her way down a steep decline.

“Yep. The future of an entire empire weighed down on his shoulders and with the motivation of such a burden he overstepped his capabilities. After that the Weave was repaired and the new God of Magic implemented a few strict restrictions on all magic for us mortals. To make sure something like that never happens again.”

“I can’t imagine somepony’s domain being Magic. Cadence's domain can theoretically surpass mine and Tia’s, but I can’t imagine Magic ever being surpassed.”

“If it’s this world? I agree, but Mystryl or Mystra back in the Forgotten Realms were not the most powerful gods. I think they were up there for sure, but the Overgod was the most powerful.”

“Oh Ignis, I just remembered something! When you stopped suppressing your presence with the yeti’s I felt it inside the dome. I know our Equestria spell’s can’t travel through the barrier because I was unable to teleport our food inside, but I think raw mana can actually pass through the barrier.”

“That’s…surprising. Maybe that’s why the yeti’s were interested in it to begin with? Perhaps they’re able to see or sense mana like Celestia and they noticed something was inside the dome?” Now that we’re traversing mountains our progress has slowed considerably. I’m starting to wonder why we don’t just fly? “Luna, can we just fly from here? You’re full of mana now so you should be able to give me wings. I know we didn’t fly before because I can’t fly very fast so it’d have likely been the same speed as walking, but it’d save us a ton of time here.”

“We could I suppose…if you’re tired of spending time with your Princess then I guess we can fly to the colony tonight…” Oh so that’s how it is?

“You did mention that we’d have less time together once the thestrals are fully integrated…yeah we can keep walking.”

We ended up climbing over the 2nd mountain and made it to the peak of the 3rd mountain a couple of hours after the sun came up. Typically we’d continue for another hour or two but we’d rather make camp up here on the peak to enjoy the view.

Author's Note

Another slow chapter, but we'll likely reach the thestral colony within 1 or 2 chapters..... assuming nothing crazy happens. Oh I just realized I forgot XP for the yeti, hmmmm, I'm not fixing it tonight I'm tired I'll just bring it up first thing next chapter. It's not enough for level 12 anyways so no biggie.

Thanks for reading!