Daniel

Cassie’s fourteenth birthday went with little celebration. Though their congratulations were genuine, they had no cake, sweets, or presents. She took it surprisingly well, telling everyone not to worry. Daniel felt thankful not to have to deal with another piece of drama in their current state.

They were more careful on the road than ever, and it sucked the joy from exploration. They methodically stopped at every crossroads, bubble door, and Terminal portal to Listen for trouble. They often hid beneath Rana’s Camouflaged foam, sometimes for hours.

They passed strange creatures of all sorts. Mages traveling in groups whizzed along their roads, always hurrying. If some distant unknown thing making the ground tremble wandered too close, they dared not catch a glimpse. Their strategy of avoiding encounters was working.

That’s not to say their life passed without marvels.

Once, while traveling through a red bubble hall, something extraordinary happened. Rocky tundra stretched for miles in either direction. Pure white obscured the sky and the sun. They felt the cold, though no polar winds blew.

After hours of walking, Cassie landed in front of the others. “Lea, Kenta, could the two of you make a quick shelter?”

The Libra girl and Kaminoke looked at each other, then at the bat girl, then at their surroundings for signs of trouble.

“Hurry?” she said, not panicked, but nonetheless insistent.

Shrugging, they weaved caramboles and hair together in a protective dome. The red bubble above winked out seconds later. Everyone scurried under the makeshift umbrella as tons of snow crashed around them in an instant avalanche.

When the world went quiet again, the red bubble reappeared, hair and carambole untangled, and Wendi dug them a path to the surface. Daniel looked into the distance to find the world beyond the bubble hall had a similar depth of snow.

“I always wondered why the grass inside the bubble halls didn’t die of thirst.” The Taotie managing the bubble halls must let the rain in now and then… or let the snow fall eventually.

“A little more notice next time, Cass?”

The bat girl exploded from snow into sky. “Didn’t everything work out?”

Nobody had a comeback.

From time to time, Daniel collaborated with Paul on the wording and use of the candle boy’s Pathfinding magic, proud of the way his friend had taken control of the ability after so much struggle.

The past year of walking, work, and exercise did wonders for Paul after his previous sedentary lifestyle. As a result, he’d slimmed around the middle, grown taller, and gained weight. Combining those three things meant Paul was shifting towards a larger, more muscular frame, soon to be barreling through adolescence. And when Paul grew up, whether he knew it or not, he was likely to be a big guy.

On this day, when they opened a nodal gate, Cassie tensed, and her ears swiveled.

“What?”

“A beast,” she said, Listening.

“How big?”

“Nasty sized, but not crazy huge.”

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Lea rolled her eyes. “We would appreciate a description in proper metric, please.”

“If we mess with it, someone gets hurt. But…”

“But what?” Kenta raised an eyebrow.

Cassie ignored his tone and nodded to herself. “It’s asleep.”

That was different. The others exchanged glances, weighing variables. Slow progress, though safe, wore at their patience. They’d never catch up to the T.O. without taking some risks.

“Paul, I recall you said this was not the most dangerous path?” Lea asked.

“Y-yes, I did.”

Daniel pondered aloud, “Probably because it’s asleep… Let’s investigate.”

They crossed into a blue bubble hall. Patches of grass interrupted flats of rock, and mountains dominated the horizon. The beast wasn’t in the first room or the second, but something in the third caught their eye. Magical luminance emanated from a conspicuously large pile of dung.

“What do we have here?” Lea said.

“A very disappointing end of the rainbow?” Daniel offered.

Rana clarified the situation, “Beast poop.” Wendi suppressed a giggle. “Larger conjurations can’t sustain themselves on food alone.” She ejected a fire hose of slick slime from her hand, cutting through the crap to reveal a glowing sphere. “A Cintamani. I think they refresh the beast’s internal Glyphs. Then, after rain washes them out, the beast eats them again.”

She picked up the orb larger than a human skull. Then she washed it clean with copious slime and swallowed it whole. Their reaction was utterly juvenile.

“Ew!” Cassie squealed.

“You even knew where it’s been!” Kenta shouted.

Paul squirmed, “I couldn’t have done that, and I can’t smell!”

“Cool!” Wendi said.

Daniel marveled at Rana’s brash display as the group moved along.

:You really don’t give a crap,: he sent when they were alone. She ignored the pun like she had the smell. :Or is that the point?: Rana flinched. She could’ve been discreet, subtle. The act had been provocative. :Being gross isn’t something you enjoy. It’s a shield—: A mask?

Rana leveled a look at him so sour he daren’t go on.

She sliced open Pwyll’s Pouch with her sword pendant and withdrew a yellow brittlegill mushroom. Rana tossed it on the manure and focused, hand raised. Her fingers radiated an aura that resonated with the mushroom, and a fungal carpet sprouted to cover the night soil. From the mass arose a smaller version of the mycoid guardian they’d seen months ago. Task complete, Rana turned to rejoin the group.

Daniel frowned in confusion. “You’re not taking any?”

“Haven’t you heard of good karma?” He realized she wanted to ‘pay it forward’ here.

“Touché.”

As they traveled deeper into the tunnel, the bubbles shrank one after another. This narrowing of the hall funneled them between two hills. There, at the two-story bottleneck of the blue bubble hall, in the crook of this valley, lay the beast.

Four dog legs splayed across the path, limp. The beast would stand twenty feet tall at the withers. It had the skin of a naked mole-rat, hairless, pale to gray, with bulky folds in places like a baggy bodysuit. A crocodilian shovel mouth leaked drool from grinning sides. The rump ended with no tail, making the beast seem even more stupidly nude.

:We’re going to try and get past t-that?: Paul sent.

Rana nodded and stepped forward, volunteering herself. She hopped the beast in one go, arc low and smooth, then landed sliding to a stop without a sound. Lea went next on hovering Caramboles, then Kenta’s prehensile hair lifted him across with flawless dexterity. Cassie carried Paul the candlestick through the opening without rustling a blade of grass.

Last came Wendi and Daniel, granting him an up-close look at the beast. With incredible patience, she passed him over each of the four legs obstructing their path. Its lumpy flesh reminded him of cottage cheese, but its skin folds looked thick as blubber and hard as ivory. The beast twitched a leg and clicked its jagged teeth, dreaming of tearing into its prey.

:Isn’t this our best chance to surprise or at least immobilize the beast?: Daniel wondered.

:Remember what Cassie said? We don’t want to fight it,: Rana sent. :You’d have to end it in one blow, and beasts are tougher than they look. Also, Kenta would object.:

Daniel should have thought of that. A sneak attack on a sleeping foe would dishonor the Kaminoke.

The bubble hall widened as they made their escape. Something about a beast weighing eighty thousand pounds turned calm and measured steps into brisk and hurried ones. After putting a mile of distance behind them, Cassie froze.

“Did it wake up?” Daniel asked.

Cassie gulped and said, “It has our scent.”

“How fast is it?”

“Not as fast as me.” Cassie took to the air and transformed as the others climbed aboard into the flying configuration they’d used to escape the Facility. The six of them rode Cassie’s giant bat form and accelerated towards the node beyond the red bubble at the far end of the hall.

:Wait,: Paul sent, :Isn’t flying like this dangerous?:

Lea replied, :The chances of us running into something at the same time we’re escaping are—:

:—Three mages at twelve o’clock coming through the nodal gate ahead. They’ve seen us,: Cassie interrupted with the urgency of mounting panic.

:Apparently, the odds aren’t in our favor.: