Anyone can claim to be the successor to Missouri. All it takes is the river crossing a corner of your territory.

Nahmer Rajeen, Third Sheriff of True Missouri

Petra pulled up the streamlined black headgear over her head, shaking her hair.

“Does it work?”

“It’s too bad you don’t get any way of replying or even hearing him. But yes, I’m sure I reached Mark. Hope he wasn’t too busy.”

“It’s a bit weird we didn’t hear you.”

“It doesn’t work if you actually talk,” the former Zahl bartender replied.

“I’m sure you made jokes at his expense,” Peter speculated.

She made a “who, me?” face, before admitting, “I may have suggested him to propose to Adria. His father would thank him. Before he finally kicks him out of his home.”

Peter snorted, and even Johanna had to smile.

“I wonder if they caught him already,” Petra added. “It’s one thing to become a bit better with training, but growing overnight. The Ancient rules of ten thousand hours to master something isn’t for nothing.”

“Hope he sticks to the story, getting a Talent on top by luck,” Tom said.

“I’m a bit more worried about people trying to get to Fallen Hill to get Talents. We killed some of the threats there, but who knows?” Laura said.

“Can’t be helped. Not without telling people how we give Talents,” Johanna countered. “Later, yes.”

Dim Hope was a small town, the size of Cattlemen Glory back at the frontier of the Marches of the Montana. It was barely larger than two-three typical farm complexes like Johanna’s original birthplace, stuck together. The local inn reflected that and getting three rooms basically had them taking over half of it. Thankfully, the prices reflected the basic quality of it.

The real fun part was that dinner there was in the form of cold snacks, while they always had made hot dinner on the road. Despite that, it was still relatively tasty, and the slices of meat, while cold, were fresh.

“Not much money,” Laura noted.

“No. That general store probably doesn’t have a way of selling stuff. We got mostly ripped off.”

“Except for the booze,” Peter countered.

“That’s probably the best-selling product we could offer. But even then, Birdy offered more for the weird liquor with grass.”

That was in those times that Johanna briefly regretted Grievar. For all of the backstabbing when he suggested them for the conscription, the salvage specialist back in Valetta had been scrupulously fair in all his dealings, offering good value for what they found. At least if you assumed that he really had no idea how much an Artifact like Swordcutter could sell for.

“But that puts an end to the idea of going to salvage on the road for additional money. Wasting a day or two for $400?”

“Pays for the night. And more food,” Tom remarked.

“Yeah, but I think we’d be better if we just move faster,” she replied.

“So, we skip ruins? Those four hundred is a good month’s wage…” Petra stopped herself immediately.

“Not when split in five, no,” Laura smiled.

The temperature felt back in the mid-thirties as they cleared the gates of Dim Hope. The only good thing they’d picked, besides restocking travel food, was a set of relatively detailed maps.

Johanna and the team had pored over them after dinner, packed in Johanna’s room, trying to map the best course. As she’d originally planned, following the river looked like it was still the most promising itinerary. There was a long stretch of what was recorded as mana zones, with no roads and no settlements, but the main roads went in the wrong directions, forcing large detours.

“The river goes south after this lake. It should be straightforward to catch it.”

They followed the lake banks until the shore turned southward, then went straight across the plains. One of the advantages of the plains was that you had lots of visibility, compared to the forested areas of the Montana. Johanna was pretty sure some of her history lessons had covered how the frontier between the two Marches had been set, but as Catherine had said while talking about the Rocastle Demesnes, it was probably mostly an accident of history rather than what appeared to be the change in geography and flora.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

The border of the mana zone was both subtle and clear. Nothing appeared different, but the grass up until the invisible limit was sparse, winter grass, and beyond was almost up to early spring levels. There was no obvious difference in the grass, just an unnatural amount of growth, made more obvious by the fact that it changed over a straight, yet invisible border.

Beyond the zone limit, nothing else differed. A few birds moved in the skies, tracing lazy limits, but Johanna suspected there would be few preys on the ground, despite the mild mid-March.

A few miles later, they spotted simultaneously what looked like the Missouri river banks and a small ruin.

“I don’t see any sign of an Artifact,” Petra noted.

“Me neither. And it’s not in good shape, I don’t think we’re likely to find books.”

She checked the sun’s place.

“If it was a couple of hours later, I’d say we camp there and take the opportunity to see if anything’s there, but it’s not worth the time.”

“Felid,” Peter said, incongruously.

For a second, she thought he’d spotted one in the ruins, but the small Improviser was pointing out in the plains, and she quickly found the lone small furred shape.

The Felid has obviously spotted them and was coming to investigate, but what surprised Johanna was when he stopped. He’d noticed them stopping as well, she realized, and was not that anxious to fight them.

She made a sign, and the five of them started again. She kept looking at the Felid, who was watching them go, and she was starting to relax when she noticed it starting to trot again toward them. She held her fist up in warning, and the Changed beast almost immediately stopped as well.

“Looks like it’s following us,” she said.

“It probably wants to ambush us. Smart Felid,” Peter said.

“Yeah, it looks like it’s smarter than most. The problem is, what do we do?”

Peter laughed.

“We ambush it back. Or rather, I do.”

“Hey, if we get separated, I can’t heal you,” Laura immediately replied.

“If I am very careful, this one won’t even notice until the head is cut,” he said, fingering the handle of Swordcutter.

“That’s a bit of a risk. I say, we start moving back, showing him that we’re not easily cowed. Maybe it will cause him to run away,” Johanna said instead.

At least this one was smarter than the average Felid, she thought. Most Changed beasts had a lot of confidence and didn’t think of humans as threats. Still, it was one Felid, versus five humans. Even if the beast didn’t have a way to tell they were Talented, five normal people could spell trouble for a lone beast without additional magics.

When they started moving, the beast retreated immediately, stopping only once they also stopped.

“And fuck,” Johanna swore.

“An enemy that doesn’t want to fight you is the worst,” Petra noted.

She turned to look at the still-distant little ruin, an idea coming up.

“Looks like we are going to make camp early,” she started.

“Defensive position?” Tom asked.

“There is not much in the way of walls still up, but it’s better than nothing. Peter can set an ambush there, while we’re close by. I wonder if he’s smart enough to figure out if we’re sleeping or not.”

“Are Changed beasts always that smart?” Petra asked.

“I don’t know. The ones that we had in the Montana aren’t, not particularly.”

“Mistress Vanu said that Felid was a generic term, and there were lots of different species before the Fall,” Peter added.

They moved toward the ruins on the shore, the Felid slowly following. Johanna estimated that they had a bit under three hours left until sunset. It was close to the coming up of the Equinox, and days were lengthening nicely, after all.

Up close, the ruins showed their tiny extent. There were maybe two dozen traces of old buildings, with the tallest remains topping at four feet high.

“We’ll set close to the border. I doubt he will try to confuse us by going through the ruins. More likely, he will attack from the open side.”

“And if he doesn’t? At all, I mean,” Laura asked.

Johanna stopped. Then she shrugged.

“Then tomorrow, we move and see if we have a companion for the rest of the trip. It’s four days to the next town on the map.”

They put up their tents against one of the ruined walls, keeping watch on the Felid. The Changed beast kept a very wide separation, staying easily two hundred yards away. Sitting on the ground, watching like he had all the time in the world. He even started cleaning himself, like he had nothing better to do until nightfall.

“That’s spooky.”

“Changed beasts are going to be Changed beasts,” Peter shrugged.

“Okay. Time to ambush it,” Johanna decided.

“Really?”

“We’re closer, we’re watching and ready. Can you reach him fast enough if the beast does too much damage?” she asked Laura.

“My teleportation doesn’t go that far,” the Combat Fixer warned.

“Grab you and use rush?” Tom offered.

“Eeep,” she squeaked back, as the big man shrugged.

“Okay, we’ll improvise,” Johanna said. “Peter?”

She realized the small man wasn’t around and sighed.

“Does he do this all the time?” Petra asked.

“He’s gotten much better after Kootenai Gap. Like all of us, actually. It used to be you could keep track of him if you really knew he was there and kept watching, but that’s almost impossible now. Okay, don’t look too much at the Felid. I don’t want to spook him when Peter attacks.”

It was anti-climactic. At one instant, the Felid was still cleaning his paws yet again. The next, a brief yowl came and the furred body fell on the ground, the head almost separated from the body. They all immediately started running toward Peter, who was flicking Swordcutter to clean its unnatural steel of the blood. He sheathed it almost theatrically before they reached him.

“I guess perfect occasion and execution do help,” Johanna said.

“Easy peasy. It’s only one, static target, etcetera.”

“Come. We’ve made camp, we might as well take the opportunity to check the ruins before dinner.”

One-fifth, this time, Moore noted. The level 3 Felid was very straightforward, yielding 300XP to everyone, and he assumed nothing for Petra, despite the Earth Shaper having her System tools at the ready.

That wasn’t the only XP he got. Odd bursts of experience had started again in Zahl, very irregularly, and after a month of nothing, had resumed. He still had no idea where those came from, but he quite liked them, even if they did not measure to the first batch. As it was, his personal XP pool slowly grew. He was far from having a safe buffer, but he was getting to the point where, if necessary, he could try to pull Johanna again. Not that he intended to, but it was at least one milestone.

Now, to wait until I see what third ability I have.