“Damnit and shit bloody-stupid bastard spider!” Agitha cursed as she jumped upright and hit her head on the ceiling of her cabin, making a hole in the planks and sparking another stream of innovative curses.

She had just reached into her pack for some of the delicious preserved snake meat she had stored only to touch the hairy bulbous body of Zell’s pet spider Goggles whom had snuck into her pack with the same appetite.

“Bait!” She yelled sticking her head outside to see Zell on his side by the campfire laughing uncontrollably at her expense.

“If I find this eight legged rat in my pack again I’m throwing you both in the ocean!” She threatened but it ringed hollow as she couldn’t help but also laugh at the absurd moment to herself.

“Goggles really likes you, he told me as much himself.” Zell teased her. “You should just give him a chance.”

“It’s bad enough that I have to second guess every object I see in camp with his camouflage.” Agitha slumped onto a log in defeat. “Now he’s eating my food too!”

“I can’t catch enough bugs to keep him full.” Zell said in his pet’s defense. “He’s growing too fast.”

“Exactly. You’ll have a spider the size of watermelon by the time we leave this place. What are you gonna do then?” Agitha demanded to know.

“I’ll train him to hunt rats and stuff. That’s useful for all of us. He can already take down mice and birds, the snake meat is just too convenient and tasty to ignore.” Zell reasoned.

“I do admit, it’s well behaved for a spider and it’s interesting that you can sort of direct what it hunts but it’s still creepy and dangerous.” Agitha said with her typical prejudice of the doppelganger spider.

“Speaking of bugs.” Agitha said, shifting her tone to teacher mode. “How long are you going to waste time sitting around today? This is the fifth day I’ve sent you out and you still haven’t found any thunder beetles.” She admonished.

“I found moulted shells yesterday. I must be getting close. That tall grass is a nightmare, it cuts like razors. It’s all I can do to keep channeling mana to keep it from cutting me to shreds.” Zell complained as he stood up to gather his supplies.

Agitha eyed him intently as he moved.

“Make sure you start stretching more. You’re bulking up fast here, you’ll lose mobility if you aren’t careful” Agitha advised.

It was true that Zell was packing on muscle at an incredible pace under the tear’s constant weight. It was an indication that his mana was also growing rapidly, increasing his overall weight here.

“Aye teacher.” Zell said as he strapped on his demon bone pauldron and buckler.

“I’m helping the boys forage today so you won’t have a shadow, be extra careful.” She said loudly as he disappeared into the rainforest that was fast becoming his home.

Zell waved over his shoulder as he entered past the treeline. He had developed a new sense for the phenomenon of weighted mana in the tear and could now feel the subtle increase to his bodyweight as he ventured deeper into the rainforest. He moved with confidence toward the edge of the treacherous glade of tall grass.

He followed the trail he had been making through the glade during his previous five excursions and was thankful for his own effort in hacking through the grass with his gladius. Too soon he approached the end of the trail and once again hefted his sword and raised it to begin hacking. A feeling stopped him before the first swing.

He couldn’t place what it was, but all the hair on his arms was standing on end and his heart was suddenly beating rapidly. He dropped into a crouch and listened intently, controlling his breath and calming the blood rushing in his ears.

He heard what his subconscious had picked up a moment before. Ahead of him there was a very peculiar sound, like parchment being ripped over and over. The sound continued unabated and Zell cautiously moved ahead. After an hour of sawing the hated grass, he unexpectedly broke through to a dry clearing and the sound amplified.

It was a brown dirt mound with a huge hole fifty feet across in the center. Milling all around the perimeter were giant horned beetles the size of short legged cattle. They seemed to be using their massive mandibles to shear bundles of the razor sharp grass which they then carried to the huge pit before tossing it in.

Zell didn’t engage them. Agitha had simply ordered him to find a nest and report back, and he could see why. He didn’t need much imagination to guess the danger of those mandibles and sharp horns, watching them effortlessly slice the tough grass. Zell carefully began to back away, but a clicking sound behind him stopped him and made him turn.

Up close, the thunder beetle was even more intimidating. It fully blocked Zell’s path, and its massive shining dark blue carapace was as tall as Zell’s chest. Zell considered leaping over it but quickly dismissed the idea. The muddy earth and his own greatly increased weight made such things impossible. The beetle slowly widened its mandibles and suddenly clapped them together with the sound of two boulders colliding.

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Every other nearby beetle repeated it, and the sound of rolling thunder filled the glade. With no other warning the beetle before him and all those around the mound began scuttling toward him at a surprising speed. Zell knew that a battle with any more than one of the beasts was a death sentence so he took the only option left. He plunged into the sharp grass to his side, channeling mana with all his might.

He tore through the grass as the grass tore back into him. Even with his defenses high, it was impossible to stop all of the cuts. Based on the sounds behind him, the beetles were not giving up their chase either. Zell instinctively retreated from his senses and pushed ahead, hoping he was on the right course. He wasn’t.

He broke out of the grass on the edge of a steep ravine, and unable to halt his momentum plunged over the side and into a painful bouncing descent. Before he could stop himself he careened over a sheer cliff and fell for what felt like forever, landing in the canopy of a tree far below. His hip cracked against a thick branch and another caught him full in the face. When he finally thudded in the dirt, he knew that he was near death.

He separated himself from the agony and focused on reaching into his belt with a prayer that the potion there would be intact. It was, and he shakily brought the cork to his teeth with a blood soaked hand. He quaffed the potion, as he felt his consciousness slip away.

He nodded off for what felt like just a second, but suddenly it was afternoon. He moved and didn’t feel pain, the potion had worked in time. He tried to stand but the weight of his body here was several times more intense than anywhere else he had been. He managed to get one knee under him and rose to his feet with a growl.

He looked up to the cliff, knowing immediately that scaling it under the intense weight would not be possible.

“Stay put.” He echoed Agitha’s stern words about what to do if he found himself lost. He couldn’t argue the logic. She knew the tear far better than he, and Merc could track him by scent alone. He took stock of his immediate situation.

He had enough water for a few days if he rationed. If he didn’t mean to travel then he wouldn’t need to worry about food for awhile. Building a fire seemed like a good idea, but he knew it was just as likely to draw in predators as signal Agitha. He decided to conserve energy for the night by settling into a hollow at the trunk of the great tree that had broken his fall.

He sat in the sheltered space between the huge roots with his legs crossed and his back supported. He meditated with the purpose of finding the best solution to his predicament. The intense weight was the largest hurdle. Agitha said it was the result of his mana having weight in The Tear. If he used mana would he then become lighter? Perhaps he could cast one of the spells he’d observed from Karakis, or even the Candle cantrip that had once defeated a massive demon.

He was hesitant to do that, if the spell he cast went out of control and over drained his mana it could leave him defenseless for days if not outright kill him.

Could beast communication magic reach Merc from this far away? Zell wondered. He dismissed the idea for now since there was the chance of accidentally advertising his presence to other beasts as well.

No matter how he looked at it staying put seemed to be his best option as much as he hated to accept it. He had left an easy trail to follow between the cut trail through the grass and the bloody path he had torn during his wild escape. He hoped Agitha wouldn’t have too much trouble with the beetles when she encountered them.

A subtle sensation drew him from his meditation. The ground was shaking in a peculiar pattern. Something huge walking. Zell realized. He made himself as small as possible and controlled his breathing and heart rate. The vibration was soon accompanied by booming thuds and the sound of branches breaking. A moment later he heard slow breathing, like great billows being steadily pumped. The ground shook like a small earthquake with every step.

Without warning a trumpeting sound reverberated off the cliff wall with deafening volume. Zell had heard the sound before from camp, but it had been so far away he had never even tried to guess at the source of it. The creature drew closer and Zell held his breath. After a few agonizing moments, it began to recede. Zell dared to peek around the corner and his eyes were drawn up and up as his mouth dropped open.

He recognized it from a children’s picture book. It was called a mammoth. Where the one in the book had long dark fur, this one had bare grey skin and big flapping ears. The size of it was unearthly. It could crush a house flat and likely not even notice. As it pushed through the trees in the direction of the cliff, they bent like tall grass around it.

“Why would it be going that way?” Zell wondered quietly.

His curiosity got the better of him and he crept as quietly as he could in the giant beast’s wake. He could justify it somewhat, no predator would likely go near the mammoth and it was far too large to likely consider him a threat even if he was noticed.

His decision was rewarded a moment later. The mammoth led him to a giant cave mouth in the side of the cliff no more than a hundred feet from where he had landed. A powerful odor reminiscent of horse dung emanated from the cave, and the mammoth entered without hesitation.

Zell peered after the massive beast, and to his surprise there was daylight deep within. He did some mental calculations and came to a realization.

The hole where the beetles were tossing grass! They’re feeding the mammoth? Why? He grew ever more curious and found himself creeping along the dark cavern wall. He rounded the slight bend and an astonishing sight greeted him.

Two mammoths were happily using their massive trunks to stuff the cut grass from the giant mound into their mouths, apparently immune to the sharp edges. There were beetles busily working in the cavern as well. They seemed to be gathering elephant droppings by rolling massive balls of it into various side passages.

Most importantly Zell noticed that he felt somewhat lighter here in the cave, and looking up could see a roughly excavated path spiraling out of the pit. Perhaps he wouldn’t need to rely on rescue after all, if the beetles retired after dark that was. He would know soon enough, dusk was approaching fast.

He breathed a sigh roughly an hour later as the massive mammoths passed his tiny recessed hiding spot without incident. He looked and saw with relief dozens of beetles filing down the spiral path and disappearing into the many side tunnels of their nest. A few remained near the grass pile as if acting as sentries. Zell imagined dozens of bells on his clothes, as he had worn in his many stealth training sessions with his thief teacher Teya.

He crept in silence, and hugged the wall. He tested every step with the ball of his foot before slowly and smoothly transitioning his weight. He made the bottom of the spiral path and began his slow ascent. He gained confidence the further he climbed. It felt like the pull of The Tear was lessening with every step.

The pit was deep, at least two hundred feet. Zell didn’t look down and kept his focus on one careful step at a time. A skittering sound above him made his heart leap. A straggling beetle was coming down!

Thinking as quickly as he could, he dropped to his belly and slowly guided his body over the edge. He gripped onto the edge of the path as his body dangled at least twenty feet from the path below, and a hundred feet from the cavern floor below that.

He held his breath as the seconds passed. His forearms were on fire, and his grip was failing as the slow moving beetle scuttled past him. He waited until the last possible second to hoist himself back to the ledge.

Unfortunately, the dagger sheathed on his thigh had shifted during the movement and when he rolled onto the ledge the hilt struck the rocky surface, making a clear noise. Down the path, the sound of a thunder beetle’s mandibles cracking together echoed throughout the cavern.

Zell jumped to his feet and sprinted up the spiral path for his life as the sound of thunder rolled around the cavern.

As he crested the top of the gaping pit, Zell’s heart sank. Three of the massive thunder beetles had apparently remained on the surface as well, and were now aggressively closing in on him.

With no other choice, Zell drew his gladius and dove into a roll away from the pit. He overestimated the distance between him and the first pursuing beetle and as he was rising to his feet a sharp horn punctured the armor on his rear left shoulder and pierced his flesh.

Even as he growled at the pain, Zell was flung high into the air and into the path of the other two beetles. He landed hard on his back and the air was blasted from his lungs. Bleeding heavily and gasping for air, Zell wasn’t even conscious of his actions as a beetle closed in with mandibles snapping.

He caught one mandible in each hand, pushing away with all his might. The sharp insides of the wicked pincers cut into Zell’s fingers but he didn’t feel it. He twisted and roared, and defying all logic the huge insect was flipped to its back where it kicked and scrambled in an instinctive panic.

Zell broke away and turned to flee but was now surrounded by more than a dozen beetles with more flooding in from below. Hope drained away and he pictured Rin with what he believed to be his last thoughts. He steeled himself for whatever would come and raised his weapon.