Yesterday I was pretty strong. Had gear, occult spells, Hexis’s book, and a few custom built items specialized in giving the middle finger to specific enemies I might run into.

Right now, I had a lot less of that gear - but I had grifted Drakonis’s entire spell kit. And just about everything Lionheart had taught them in their return trip. Best of all, I’d gotten it for my favorite price point: Absolutely free.

He didn’t need to know that just yet, had a feeling he might get a tad salty if he knew. But I was a gracious god, and once he’d told me all of his spells and their uses, the hangarball was back in my court.

Maybe I felt a tad bit guilty about the near one-sided information squeeze, so I handed him a few bits of info I shouldn’t technically be telling a possible enemy.

Since he knew I was a Winterscar, he knew I came from Clan Altosk - a rather famous clan among Capra’Nor since they had close ties to Lord Atius. I told him our clan lord had shared with us some occult spells and their locations out in the wild, so that’s where we had our powers from. Flame, speed, occult mirrors and occult shields. That’s all our knights had displayed before, so that’s what the ‘Deathless’ kit we had to work with. Kidra and her honor guard were among the Deathless now, and had been going undercover so as to not stir up too much drama.

Where our real power came from wasn’t just the occult spells - it was the gear we were all using. That was a little more difficult to explain away.

“And you’ve seen this weapon eliminate Feathers?” He asked.

“Absolutely. I’ve got limited rounds until I visit a mite forge again, but it is very handy. Killed To’Aacar, but because those bastards can come back to life, it’s no longer as useful against Feathers. Other machines though? If we run into anything truly dangerous, one round would eliminate most things. The armguard's been more useful in general due to the occult spells Atius had us learn. But we only have a single version of it, so it's unique to me until you find a miteforge nice enough to generate occult edges for you and you feed it blueprints. They're a little temperamental sometimes.”

He stayed silent for a moment, jogging at my left. “Still have more questions?” I asked him.

“No. Only, it never occurred to me to ask a mite forge to create new equipment wholesale like this.” He said. “The explosive charges on your bandolier, those swords with the occult hilt guards, the fucking armguard shield, all of it. It seems so simple in hindsight - why limit ourselves to what’s within the mite forge’s databanks when it could simply craft any kind of weapon we can imagine? Fucking low reaching fruit, and we were all so convinced the mite forges only made what they already knew to make. Didn’t even occur to me.”

“There’s limits you know.” I said. “Mite forges will shoot down most data patterns you supply them. But occasionally they’ll give up and just print out what you’re asking for. My clan spent a good amount of time camped by one to get all our gear out, but haven’t had a chance to do that again ever since.”

The real sensitive information was the weaponsmith who built these things was right next to him, not a miteforge. But this miteforge excuse had a lot of advantages when it came to not painting targets on my back or my clan’s. Why go after the little clan with these weapons, when those dirty surface savages weren’t the source of all that tech? They just had a mite forge build it, no need to pay more attention to them.

“Getting closer.” Cathida said.

On the HUD, I could see the red outlines of paws, hooves and other tracks in the ash. And smoke up ahead. Lot of it. We weren’t particularly following the trail itself, but rather making a straight line to where my miteseeker was sending it’s location from. Just so happens we keep running back into the swarm’s trail.

They were going through the smoldering section of forest and out into the wider mite biome, then running right back into the burnt vale, like a kid dipping toes again and again into the baths and debating if it was too hot to jump in or not.

And there was still fire actually going on the edge there. Not as strongly, more like embers. A strong mist was just beyond, likely keeping things too moist for the fire to continue spreading outwards.

“Reaching the actual fire now.” I said. “How long do you think it’s been burning out here for?”

“Journey’s crunching some numbers and diverting calculations about death the gold for a drop forest against no squireshit filter bridge metal scrap metal-metal-metal-metal-met-” Cathida said then stalled, crackled and stopped.

“... uh, Cathida?”

“Engram corruption detected. Rebooting system.” Journey’s smooth voice stated.

There was silence for a moment before Cathida’s voice returned as if nothing happened. “Did you call my name deary? Something on your mind?”

“What happened earlier?”

“How should I know?” She huffed. “Journey’s left me a text log of events and no access to any other video footage or data feed besides what’s written here. Go ask it yourself, because it’s stating that my requests would lead to ‘destabilized responses’. Cathida wouldn’t be able to explain it in words basically.”

That filter I setup was breaking down the engram in some way, but I didn’t quite know why and Journey couldn’t communicate that to Cathida because it would break her down before she could answer. Fuck.

“Winterscar, my armor’s claiming we’ll be reaching that ping of yours in about two minutes. You all there? You seem distracted.”

“Mostly.” I said. “Just ruminating about things while we run. I’ll deal with it later.”

He gave a slow nod at that, taking his rifle out and preparing it for war while we jogged after the green line. A ticking timer appeared right next to it, counting down until we reached our target.

“They’re aware you’re on their trail at least,” Cathida said. “Animals made a few heavy turns into the wider forest and then back into the vale a few times to lose your trail. I think they noticed it didn’t work. They’re trying to go faster now.”

All right, time to put all that scrapshit for future Keith to deal with and get my gear back.

We moved through the charred vale like two rampaging warfrigates, boots stomping down into the ground and crushing any kind of tree or burnt remains, our rifles primed to fire on the slightest visual.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

I signaled Drakonis, and we both came to a stop.

We found animals all right. And they were being pinned down. The swarm of feral beasts were trying desperately to run away from us, but each time they began to stream one direction, a pack of giant white dogs raced over to their side, slashing actual occult blades held in their mouths.

“Drakonis…” I asked.

“Winterscar.” He answered in the usual deadpan. “No, I don’t know what the fuck I’m looking at either.”

“Okay, just wanted to check.”

I don’t think I’ve seen bigger dogs than these. Gods above, I think they were actually larger than I was, if I were out of my armor. Golden era humans had stories and articles about the more wild version of dogs, and my head automatically categorized these giant animals as exactly that: Wolves.

“Is every animal down here super sized or is it just me?” I asked. “First the lizard creatures, then the bears, and now giant dogs.”

“Armor says those are wolves.” Drakonis corrected. “They’re not native to our strata, and before you ask, I’d remember if I saw dogs using fucking occult blades.”

It wasn’t just a small pack of them either, they were harassing the swarm of animals from multiple sides, attacking each time they found anything semi-isolated.

The attacks were equally strategic, a quick dart in, slash and dart out. No attempt to do more, or even secure a kill. They were whittling down their enemy. And were equally not taking any chances. To add to the whole confusing mess, the wolves were clearly wearing gear of some kind. Primitive straps that held pouches and other bags, supplies, and so forth. Clearly someone else had been taming these animals.

Things went to a strange standstill as both the feral swarm of animals and the wolves caught sight of us at the same time.

Of the two factions, the frenzied animals acted first, trying to surge away from both of us. The wolves reacted to that, cutting them off from getting further into the dense forest, snapping and barking at the beasts as if trying to herd them.

The swarm tried once more to dart another direction, but it was clear they had been surrounded. They could break through, but they’d just be bleeding out slowly as the pack got more licks in and I got the feeling they all knew it too.

At the center of the whole thing, I could see a few feral deer, holding parts of my gear from straps tangled in the antlers. I pointed a stupified finger right at the thief. “That’s my stuff.” I hissed, taking a few steps forward.

“They’re dumb fucking animals, Winterscar.” Drakonis said. “They can’t understand a word you’re saying.”

“Maybe not the words exactly.” I said, watching as the swarm of animals make some snap decision between trying their luck with the wolves or trying to roll over the two humans standing on the other end.

The swarm turned and lunged after Drakonis and I. We returned fire immediately, taking out a good handful of the creatures before they reached melee range.

“Kill the feral animals, leave the wolves for later?” Drakonis asked.

Of all the animals out here, the wolves circling around were the most dangerous, they had actual occult blades in their mouths and seemed to know how to use them. Both of us had full shields, and Drakonis had his occult spells at the ready to empower those shields, but a threat was still a threat.

“If they attack us, we attack them back.” I said, outright shoulder tackling a deer trying to jump at me. Between the two masses, I won. “Otherwise, let’s deal with the violent critters first.”

“Good enough for me.” Drakonis wasn’t as quick with a blade as I was, and neither could he see in every direction. So he relied instead on his shockwave occult spell to keep the enemy off of him, while his rifle barked out death.

Me on the other hand? I had two daggers, my armguard, and I’d fought opponents who had far more speed than this. Using bullets felt like a waste now that the enemy was in range and not trying to run. Diving into the middle of the enemy was equally something I felt comfortable with from my time on the bridge with the quantum cube. This was child’s play.

The knives had small range, so I ducked and danced far closer to the attacking animals. The few that did manage to jump at me from an angle I couldn’t slip past, I shoulder tackled back, crushing their bones and organs without issue. A bear would have been more of a match against Journey’s relic powered strength, these common animals had no chance.

There was a plan besides ‘attack’ in my head. And it involved the deer stuck in the center of the swarm, with my gear hanging from the antlers.

Pretty soon I had slashed, hacked and kicked my way right to my fleeing target, a duck under its hoof strike gave me the chance to simultaneously sheath my blade back into the chest holster, execute a quick punch into the deer’s face, then yank my longblade from it’s antlers.

I finally felt whole again. The blade ignited back to life in my grip, ready to use.

Once I had my occult longsword, it was far easier to scythe through the creatures, cutting entire necks and heads off. Drakonis provided support fire behind me, culling anything that I couldn’t get in range of and we worked as a good team to clear out the swarm. Halfway through, I cut down the beaver-like creature holding onto the mite seeker, and took my time to put back on my belt where it belonged. Rest of my gear was equally taken back one dead animal at a time. It wasn’t just my gear that the animals here had taken, they had all kinds of scrap and loose items that might have been knocked out from the airspeeder crash. Or had been Drakonis’s stuff originally.

Our stuff now.

A few animals tried to race away, only to be cut down by the wolves circling the edges. But it was clear the wolves were equally worried about us as we were about them.

“Wonder why they decided to try fighting us instead of escaping?” I asked over the comms while we butchered down the feral creatures.

“If they’re actually smart, it’s because this is the only option they had.” Drakonis said. “Think about it like a commander would, Winterscar. They tried running already, and we caught up. The wolves out there are just a speedbump at best, passing by them wouldn’t change the fact we’ll catch them no matter what. And if they tried running, they’ll lose lives to the wolves and our guns as we chase behind. This is as strong as they’ll ever be, so if they can’t overwhelm us right now, there won’t ever be a better chance to do so.”

“When you put it like that.” I said, blade and occult slashing out, butchering animals by the dozens every few seconds, “I guess it makes sense.”

It looked like a suicide charge to me. We outmatched these animals in every single category except numbers, and they still attacked as if there was some chance of winning. I didn’t understand, but Drakonis had a point about it.

It took a bit longer than I had expected, but with one final slash, the last creature attacking me was cut down. Some kind of furry monkey, about as big as my arm. Drakonis took a few steady steps into the clearing, bullet fire cleaning whatever was left, boot stomping on a large weasel creature at his feet trying to limp away.

“Well. That was something.” I said. Up ahead, I could see the wolves in the distance, circling around the clearing, shooting each other looks and short barks. “What do we do about them?”

“Do they have any of your gear?” Drakonis asked.

“Got it all back.” I said.

“Do you see them attacking us at all?”

“Nope.”

The Deathless shrugged. “Then we follow priorities. Find a mite fountain, guarantee we have our armors operational for more than a day, and then we can go and discover who’s been training this pack of wolves and if they’re a threat to us or not. It might be a feral Deathless who’s been lost to this strata for all we know.”

I wrapped some loose fabric around the hilt of my longsword and affixed it to my belt in a makeshift sword sheath until I could find a new one. “What if the wolf master knows where a mite fountain is? If they had enough time to train all these wolves, they had enough time to scout this whole place out. Maybe we can get the pack here to bring us back?”

Drakonis looked over the wolves who were regrouping together, and then up at a single giant one, who stared back down at us from the elevated terrain. There was a sort of calm pragmatic stare behind the eyes of that wolf, as if he was judging us in some way.

Very odd.

“If the wolfmaster wants to meet us, they’ll find us. We don’t need to find them.” He said. “Mite fountains usually end up by landmarks, and there’s one giant landmark I saw earlier in this biome, so I’d vote we start making our way there.”

“The giant tree.”

He nodded. “The giant tree.”

Well. He had a point. And the wolves were clearly already skittish of us, for probably good reason given the mass amounts of dead animals laying at our feet.

Getting a source of power mapped out was more important than any other priorities minus getting my gear back before it was stolen away too far for recovery. I was curious about the wolves, and I did want to meet whoever trained them this well. Or trained the feral creatures. But until I had food, water and power all taken care of, curiosity had to be put as a luxury.

“Lead the way.” I said with a wave.

We turned and started a quick sprint out of the smoking vale and into the forest at large.