> Oh, dear. A detection Challenge. Those are always troublesome.

>

> – Radio transmission from Voices for Non-Citizens

I could see in every direction, but it didn’t do me much good.

In front of me? Fog.

Behind me? Fog.

Above me? Fog.

Fog everywhere, lit by an ambient glow with no clear source.

The only place I saw anything different was beneath me, where my feet dug slightly into damp ground. I took a step, testing. The ground had a pliant, sandy texture, but my feet didn’t sink in very far. It reminded me of the part of a beach where the tide had just receded but the sand hadn’t yet dried, except that the surface wasn’t a smooth, flat, plane. It was stippled, like the ground had been hit by a succession of raindrops the size of golf balls. Even so, my footprints stood out, flat areas ten times the size of any other divot. The ground was pretty pleasant to walk on, but every step would leave a track. That could be useful… or dangerous.

My other senses told me more. Not smell, of course - my baseline human senses there didn’t detect anything other than dampness - but I heard something, and Analyze confirmed that the pitch and timbre were consistent with a human voice, so I likely wasn’t completely alone. My Life Sense was picking up a number of living things, although they didn’t feel like anything I recognized, lacking the mental flavors I’d come to associate with monsters and humans, or even with Earth plants and animals. That confused me. For a moment, I worried that I could no longer distinguish people from monsters, but when I took a few cautious steps toward the source of the screams, I picked up a human being at the edge of my range. People still felt normal; that was a relief, even if I didn’t know what was up with everything else.

“Hello?” I called, cupping my hands around my mouth and shouting toward the person I’d detected. “Do you need help?”

Any response was drowned out by the system’s voice.

Transfers complete. Congratulations on being eligible for this Challenge. Minimal rewards will be given for surviving for four hours. Complete hidden-

There was a pause in the message. It lasted less than a second, but it was noticeable, especially because the system seemed to correct itself.

Complete optional objectives to earn improved rewards. Optional objectives include defeating powerful Titan-equivalent monsters and locating and exploring hidden areas. Pursuing either optional objective will increase the danger contestants face. The aid of other contestants may improve your odds of survival, but will also decrease any additional rewards earned as they are shared amongst you.

“The fuck?” I muttered.

The message had been helpful and informative, and it clearly hadn’t been the original message. True, it didn’t tell us everything. We didn’t know exactly what monsters and dangers we’d face, but it gave us a good idea of power level - “Titan-equivalent” - and had let us know that hidden areas weren’t the safe bunkers someone finding them might first assume. It even offered up the idea of teaming up with other Challengers. Ostensibly, it suggested this only as a way to discourage us from doing so, by mentioning the decreased rewards we’d receive, but the fact that it had mentioned co-operation at all was… new.

Maybe my complaints to Pointy had been premature.

Focus, I told myself, and braced myself to make an Announcement at my maximum range, just under a mile.

This is Meghan Moretti of Huntsville, Alabama. If anyone who knows me is here, let’s try to connect! For everyone else, if you see someone wearing black-and-white stripes, they’ve agreed not to start fights with other humans, and to work together if at all possible. Black-and-white stripes equals friendship. Let’s team up and stay alive!

In all likelihood, I’d just blasted unintelligible garbage to a number of non-English speakers, but I’d tried to keep my words slow and simple and my tone warm and friendly. Even someone who didn’t really speak English might know the words for “black,” “white’’ and “friend,” the way I didn’t speak Spanish but still knew the words “blanco y negro” and “amigo.” If people at least hesitated before attacking each other, that might be enough to save lives.

Mom! I am here! Where are you? I don’t know where I am. It’s all fog.

Gavin’s ruler message unknotted something within me. At least one of my kids was here! I could do something to protect someone in my family. And if he was here, it raised the odds that the rest of my family was present.

Unfortunately, Gavin had now used his only ruler message for the day.

Unlike Vince, his ruler crown hadn’t been powered up to allow for extra messages, and unlike Flip, he had no vassals of his own. It seemed taking vassals actually reduced the number of messages you could send simultaneously to all followers, but gave you the option to message subjects individually.

Vince couldn’t message any of us through the ruler system, either. Flip’s second per day of Flight was too valuable to give up, especially since my husband didn’t yet have his own Specialty and couldn’t offer anything equivalent. Becoming Gavin’s vassal would have solved a lot of issues, but Vince was still our point of communication for too many others in the western US. That would hopefully change in the coming weeks, but it didn’t help us today.

I took a deep breath and made another Announcement.

There are children present. Please look out for them! Gavin, stay safe. I don’t know where I am either. I’ll try to find you.

Two max-power Announcements in under a minute… They’d been necessary, and I’d kept them brief, but I still felt it. I didn’t feel tired, exactly, but I no longer felt fresh.

I’d only taken a few steps so far, and the human I could feel on Life Sense had started to move away.

Too slow. Too careful, I chided myself. Gavin’s out there, somewhere. You need to find a balance.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

I headed out at a faster pace, using Telekinesis to drag an iron plate along the ground to my right. If I found human tracks, I wanted to know immediately if they were mine or not. The mist would make it easy to move in circles. Life Sense let me keep a better sense of my progress and direction than most people, but I could still get turned around if I didn’t focus.

My resolution to move quickly was soon tested, as I came to the first sources of life I could detect. Something ahead twisted under the ground. The shape was consistent with a plant’s root, but was it just scenery or was it the questing limb of some large octopoid monster? I could go around it, but then I’d have to walk through a field of equally-suspicious bedraggled weeds.

At least the weeds are small, I decided. I pulled a pair of hedge shears from my backpack and worked my Telekinesis to cut them off at the root.

The plants didn’t react to my aggression, falling limply like the weeds they resembled. I kept I close watch on them as I moved forward, but they did absolutely nothing, not reacting even as I crushed their corpses underfoot.

I felt a little silly, but… how was I to know?! It had the same mental flavor as everything else. I didn’t trust the apparent peace of my surroundings, so I had to treat everything alive and non-human as a threat.

I kept the shears out in front of me, moving a little more confidently as I continued my rampage against potentially-innocent plantlife.

That lasted until a large creature burst from beneath the sandy soil, attacking me.

I wasn’t taken completely off-guard - it may have felt identical in flavor to the plants I’d been rampaging through, but its shape had been entirely different - and I managed to interpose a pair of iron plates. The creature’s pounce had been powerful, overwhelming the limited strength I could bring to bear with my Telekinetic objects, but the defense was enough to throw it off. The plates were knocked aside, but the monster spun in the air, limbs flailing as it failed to correct its trajectory. I lifted my shield and activated Parry, fully halting the now-awkward attack, and used Assisted Strike to sink my sword deep into its side.

The monster rolled away when it hit the ground, but I’d injured it badly. I brought my cloud of Telekinetic objects close, hampering its movements and getting in the way whenever it tensed for another leap.

It was durable. The deep gash I’d made in its side was dripping some kind of orangeish fluid, but the monster didn’t seem to be favoring one side or slowing. Getting close to it while it could still move its massive digging claws so quickly seemed too risky, so I dropped my floating shears and sent a sawblade flying into the wound I’d created earlier. The monster’s muscles easily overpowered my Telekinesis, dragging the sawblade with it as it lunged at me again, but that was fine: all I had to do was keep the serrated disk from falling out of the wound, and the monster’s own motion should do the rest.

Three more awkwardly fended-off lunges later, it was clear my plan was working as the monster stumbled. I charged in, Assisted Strike guiding my sword to the point where its neck met its shoulder, a soft spot Analyze had suggested was absent of any bone.

The monster still didn’t die, but whatever nerves were sending commands to its right forearm were severed. The formerly-fearsome paw lost all tension, becoming a dead weight that did nothing other than get in the monster’s way.

From there, finishing it off was easy.

I frowned at its body as I pulled my sword from its back, finally able to inspect it closely. It had massive clawed feet like a mole’s and a nose like an aardvark’s, held together by a muscular body with long limbs. Should I make another Announcement? I couldn’t keep doing that every time I got new information…

This one is especially dangerous for Gavin. Cassie has her Transport to protect her from an initial attack, and Vince and Micah have a good chance at noticing this is waiting, if its body temperature isn’t the same as the surrounding sand. Vince has his Infrared Vision, and Micah has a more limited form of the same thing with his temperature sense, if he’s focusing. Gavin is the one I know is here, and I can’t think of any way for him to avoid its ambush if he doesn’t know what to look for.

I sighed, scraping together a brief description of the monster and what it had looked like before it had attacked. I hadn’t really noticed at the time, but a review of my Eidetic Memory showed that its nose had been visible, a cylindrical protuberance from the sand that looked a bit like a chubby mushroom. It would have been nice if I’d had enough synergy to use Announcement to send out an image - that would have dealt with the language barrier too - but it wasn’t an option today. Maybe in the future, when I’d raised my synergy.

I shook myself after I made the Announcement, trying to stay focused. The person I’d been following had continued to move, but was clearly falling victim to the confusing mist, taking a meandering path that wobbled to and fro. I crossed it several times before I caught up, finding the body of a mole-monster. It was dead, but its claws were red with blood. Either the person I felt hadn’t understood my warning, or it hadn’t come soon enough.

A thick trail of blood led away from the scene, toward the person I could feel in the mist. They didn’t seem to be doing well. Their steps were uneven, and one arm was held tight against their body.

The scene of carnage made me want to hurry even faster, but bursting out of the mist and surprising someone who’d just been attacked and successfully killed their attacker didn’t seem like a smart move.

“Hello? Do you need help?” I tried to keep my tone concerned and pleasant, hopeful that my friendliness would come across even if my words weren’t understood.

A short Asian man stumbled out of the mists, leaning on a wooden spear and wearing the ragged remains of homemade armor. It had clearly been some kind of woven mat or basket, but now half of it was in shreds. The entire left side of the man’s body was criss-crossed with wounds. His left arm was pinned against the largest of these, trying to halt the bleeding from a gash in his side.

He spoke, and his words weren’t anything I could understand, even with a hurried scan of my memorized phrasebooks. Maybe some form of Chinese? Not Mandarin though, or at least not any of the phrases I knew.

His tone of voice and the expression on his face were clear, though: he was desperate for help.

To my shame, I couldn’t do much. I had some bandages with me, but he was suffering from a multitude of lacerations, and many of the smaller ones were bleeding just as heavily as the larger injury on his torso. His left hand was heavily injured, meaning that neither he nor I would be able to bind his wounds quickly. By the look of him and the trail of blood he’d been leaving, he had only minutes before he bled out.

I gripped his spear in Telekinesis and hoisted his good arm over my shoulder. His only hope was if we found a healer quickly… but we found no one for the next minute, and he quickly lost the strength to walk.

He was light enough that carrying him wasn’t a problem, but it made me nervous not to have my arms free. If another monster jumped us, I could put my iron plates in its way, but they weren’t strong enough to truly block it. I focused on Life Sense, straining myself to pick out the shape of everything around me, keeping an eye out for more moles, or anything else large and unfamiliar.

After a few minutes, I felt another human. I picked up my pace, excited, only to feel the presence in my arms fade to nothingness.

I was holding a corpse now, not a living human.

“Damn it,” I said softly.

I set him gently on the ground and paused for a second. It seemed that there should be something else, something to do in apology or remembrance, of this man whose name I didn’t know, who put his life in my hands only to have it slip free.

I couldn’t think of anything.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

I turned my back and moved on.