The group progressed into the forest in the direction of the purple light. Barry was disappointed to learn that part of the advice his demon guide had told him relating to where to travel to was actually common knowledge, Tuti had said that everyone was told that the purple light represented the door to the second stage of the trials. It seemed the sly demon had duped him. He also learned a bit about the vixant race. Tuti had explained that they were forest dwelling beings, meaning she felt right at home in their current environment. She explained that they tended to live in impressive homes built into the sides of trees, elevated high in the air. There were many tribes of vixants, each with slightly different physical traits, but all sporting fur, pointed ears and a tail. Barry learned that they came from a planet known as Engma, and they didn’t have much in the way of technology. They lived as hunters and gatherers in their small tribes, and it sounded like the total population, as far as Tuti was aware, was more in the hundreds of thousands compared to the billions of humans. Vixants prided themselves on their relationship and bonds with nature, so Tuti was ecstatic to learn of her beast affinity and the way she was able to from a connection with Swirly. Additionally, vixants considered apes sacred creatures who often lived amongst them in the trees. So, forming a bond with Swirly when they met here in the training grounds was a no brainer. Barry glanced across at Swirly who was sitting on a low branch rotating between picking his nose and scratching his bum.

“Doesn’t look overly sacred to me,” he thought.

They progressed forward, into a strange, almost desolate section of forest. Towering trees with black, spiralling trunks stretched upwards around them. The branches were short and protruded diagonally upwards from the main trunk of the trees. There was not a single leaf attached to the branches, they were bare and barren. Instead, piles of brown and orange leaves covered the ground, like it was the middle of autumn. As the group walked their feet crushed bundles of leaves, causing loud crunching noises with every step. Swirly instead, preferred to jump from tree to tree, swinging effortlessly between the branches. After thirty minutes the group had not passed a single other creature and Barry was starting to doubt if this particular area was inhabited at all. Just as the thought entered his mind Swirly screeched and Tuti shouted out towards him.

“Get down!”

Barry’s didn’t react nearly fast enough, and his eyes caught a glimpse of a shadow rapidly approaching. Wack! Something hit him directly in the back of the head and he fell forward flat on his face, causing scratchy leaves to push up against his skin.

“Oh no, he died,” Tuti said with just a hint of emotion.

Barry stood back up, rubbing the back of his throbbing head with his hand.

“Not dead yet,” he groaned, “And maybe try and sound like you care a bit next time.”

Tuti just smirked and returned her gaze to the flying beast above.

Barry followed Tuti’s gaze and eyed the creature that had ambushed him. The beast had feathery wings that spanned around two metres and were a greyish black colour that matched the tone of the surrounding trees. It had a long, red beak and strange legs that were skinny proximally, but thick and block like at the peripheries where one would expect talons to be. It was as if the bird had a metal brick attached to its legs. Barry quickly understood that it was this solid protrusion that the beast had slammed into the back of his head during its assault. On inspection he learned that the beast was appropriately called a clobberfoot falcon, it was level four, and specialised in dexterity.

“Watch out for its block feet things,” Barry said.

“Well duh doofus,” Tuti sarcastically replied, “Anyway it seems to be eyeing you off, not us. Would you like us to take it out for you?” she offered.

“No, I’ll take it down myself, I think I owe it one,” Barry answered.

The beast began its attack, flying forward at incredible speed. Barry readied himself and summoned his aura chain. He studied the falcon’s trajectory and as it approached he swung down powerfully, aiming for its neck. The beast reacted quicker though, as it turned its body in the air, slipping straight past the chain and slamming its block feet into Barry’s side. Barry winced as the air was knocked out of him and he leant forward with his hands on his knees to catch his breath. Tuti went to step towards him, but Barry waved her away.

“It’s fine, I’ve got this,” he spluttered.

Swirly was still making screeching and hooting sounds, and Tuti was tutting in disappointment, but it appeared the falcon had eyes only for Barry.

Gritting his teeth Barry ran behind a nearby tree trunk, momentarily going out of view of the creature. A second later he reappeared and faced the flying beast, chain at the ready. The creature squawked and Barry saw it glow. As it did so the blocks on its feet began to reshape and mould together into a single triangular blade that faced forward.

“You might not want to be hit by that one,” Tuti declared with a concerned frown on her face.

Barry just nodded as the falcon flew down rapidly in his direction. Its speed made it almost look like a blur in the sky, but Barry was unfazed and stood stoically as it quickly closed in. The beasts triangular foot blade propelled forward into Barry’s neck and Tuti gasped. However, confusion covered the face of both beast and vixant as they both noticed the blade slip straight through Barry without causing any blood or damage whatsoever. That moment of confusion was all Barry needed as he appeared from behind the tree and slammed his chain down into the side of the surprised falcon, sending it tumbling down and skidding into the ground over thirty metres away. Energy entered Barry and the notification of the kill appeared in his mind.

“You might have been fast, but you were dumb and fragile,” thought Barry as he dispelled his clone, retracted his chain and walked over towards Tuti, picking leaves out from his hair and clothes.

An excited Swirly bounded in Barry’s direction and hugged his shin before he made it to Tuti. Barry smiled and rubbed the little apes head.

“Its ok little guy, it takes more than that to take me down,” he said.

“You had me a little worried too,” said Tuti as she walked over, “Just how high is your vitality that you can take two hits like that and not even look injured?”

Barry awkwardly rubbed his head again and said, “Well it’s not like it didn’t hurt. But my vitality is pretty good for my level.”

“How good?” Tuti asked.

“Well, it’s good enough to be ranked,” he answered cryptically.

Tuti narrowed her eyes but didn’t press him further on that particular topic. Barry felt bad given how open she had been with him, but he still wanted to maintain some secrecy until he was sure he could trust her fully.

“Ok then. Well what sort of move was that before? Can you duplicate yourself or something?” she continued.

Barry felt uncomfortable talking about all his tricks, but he figured if they were going to work together it made sense she understood his abilities at least a bit, and she’d already seen him in action.

“Not quite. I can make an illusionary version of myself, and my chain,” he said.

“So is illusion your affinity?” Tuti asked.

“Yep.”

“Hmm, weird,” Tuti replied, before turning and pressing forward into the forest.

Barry just scratched his head and followed along after the unpredictable vixant.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

The group wandered forward for a few more hours, intermittently facing more solitary falcons. Barry took down a couple of them himself, with gradually improving efficiency after becoming familiar with their attacks. Tuti and Swirly however did the brunt of the work, defeating dozens of the beasts with much less effort. Swirly was able to literally swat the much smaller birds away with his palm when in his battle form. Barry was starting to feel somewhat inferior seeing the ease with which the two fought, but it was refreshing to see such effective teamwork. However, he had come to realise that their relationship was a little more complicated than it first seemed, for as well as they worked together, they also bickered relentlessly. Barry wasn’t sure if Tuti could comprehend the numerous noises Swirly made, but the way she spoke to him and responded to his screeches made him believe they at least had a basic level of understanding with each other.

After further trudging through leaves, and between stark trees Swirly finally stopped and made a new noise, a low dull growl. Tuti reacted quickly and called the ape to her side, where he crept up and sat on her shoulder, staring forward with a new, stern focus. Barry followed the apes gaze, but he couldn’t see anything.

“What is it?” Barry asked.

“Shhh, be quiet and stay alert,” Tuti snapped back harshly.

Shortly afterwards Barry was able to make out a group of figures emerging in the distance. The figures were humanoid in shape, but Barry found it hard to work out just how many of them there were due to the presence of a thick, swirling mist that surrounded them. The mist made it difficult to determine how many people were in the approaching group, as all the figures melded and merged the moment he tried to focus on one. His inspection skill wasn’t working, and he had an uneasy feeling in his stomach as they continued to head straight towards his group.

“Barry, can you make that clone of yours speak?” Tuti asked with a whisper.

Barry paused, instantly understanding the meaning behind her words.

“Sure can, want me to go and meet our new friends?” he replied.

“Yes, see if you can work out their intentions before they get too close."

“I’ll do my best, but I only have a range of about thirty metres, and I can only keep the clone active for around a minute before my mana runs out,” Barry explained.

“That’s fine, take this to restore your mana afterwards,” she said, as she grasped at her neck, pulling free a hidden necklace.

As she touched it a blue vial magically appeared in her hand, and she tossed it to Barry. She did all of this without ever taking her eyes off the approaching group hidden in the mist. Barry caught the vial, a mana potion, and nodded back at Tuti with thanks. In response, he pulled out some items from his own spatial storage as he tossed her a mushroom, some moss and grass, which she happily ate, before he consumed one of each himself. With that, Barry stepped a few metres to the side, momentarily hiding himself behind the closest tree as he immediately summoned his clone. He sent the clone out in front of him, giving the impression that he had just kept walking forward to the other side of the large tree trunk. His real body stayed put, hidden behind the tree with eyes closed, as he focussed on his clone’s vision.

Barry sent the clone forward to meet the group. As it got closer to the figures, he saw that the mist around them was in fact a ten-metre-wide spherical bubble of swirling, foggy air that surrounded them as they walked. Despite never seeing anything like it before, Barry was able to instantly recognise that the fog was a skill of some sort. Even though he was moving with the body of his clone, he still gulped as he stepped forward into the bubble of swirling air. The moment his head entered the bubble his vision became clear, and he saw that there were four figures inside. They were all tall, mustard coloured, scaly reptilian humanoids.

“They are some sort of lizard people,” Barry thought anxiously before quickly regaining his focus.

The four lizard men were quite frightening to behold. They were tall, varying between seven and nine feet in height. They had wide snouts, sharp teeth, clawed hands and a spiked tail protruding from their behind.

Barry stared at the four intimidating lizard men who looked back at him quizzingly. He instantly attempted to inspect the reptilians the moment they came clearly into view, and he was pleasantly surprised to see that the ability worked even through the eyes of his clone. It seemed his illusion affinity and abilities were more versatile than he had first realised. On inspection he saw that the lizard men varied greatly in terms of power level and preferred stats.

Inspection:

Race: Lizard man

Level: 3

Stat: Perception

Inspection:

Race: Lizard man

Level: 6

Stat: Dexterity

Inspection:

Race: Lizard man

Level: 3

Stat: Mana

Inspection:

Race: Lizard man

Level: 7

Stat: Strength

“What a confident man,” hissed the largest lizard man who stood at the front of the group.

This lizard person was the highest level of the group, being level seven, the same as both Tuti and Barry. His voice was sharp, and he had an air of superiority about him. The man had triangular scales, a long, red moustache that flowed down half a metre from either side of his snout. He held a large, spiked black mace in one hand and his free hand was stroking his rough chin casually.

“Either confident, or stupid,” the tall lizard man continued.

Behind him the other three lizard men sniggered in response to the comment. Barry frowned, but the moustached lizard turned and glared at the sniggering men behind him, silencing them with his look.

“Please forgive me and my immature colleagues, we meant no offence. It just seems highly risky to walk into a camouflage shroud like this, alone and unarmed. Who knows who you might run into,” the large lizard man said.

His words provided Barry little comfort, and the situation remained highly tense.

Barry thought he caught a glimpse of a sinister smile from the smallest lizard man who stood behind the left shoulder of the leader, but the man quickly snapped his mouth shut. Although he was the smallest, he still towered over Barry at around seven foot tall. Despite his smaller size in relation to his comrades, Barry noted that this man was level six, making him the second highest level of the group. His scales were the same mustard colour but were more rounded in shape. He wore a hooded jumper thing with the hood over his head and his hands resting in the central pocket, likely hiding his soul item. It looked particularly strange to Barry as the man had no pants on, just the jumper. Weirdly the fact that the other three were completely naked was not as odd to Barry as this half-dressed lizard.

“Does he no speak?” asked the second tallest lizard man on the right of the moustached man.

This man’s tongue permanently rested outside of his mouth, giving him an unfortunate, dopey resting expression. His mustard scales were large and variable in shape, giving them an almost unkempt appearance. The dopey lizard man held a long wooden spear with a metal tip, but he held it upside down with the metal end pressed into the dirt.

“Quiet!” snapped the lead lizard man, before meeting Barry’s eyes once more.

“Where are my manners, my name is Salzahar and this is my crew. It is a pleasure to meet you. May I ask what your name is?”

“I’m Barry,” Barry replied warily.

“Barry you are a human correct?” Salzahar asked.

“Yes, I’m a human, have you come across my kind before?” Barry smiled.

“You could say that,” sneered Salzahar, whilst the other lizard people started to snigger again.

“And what race are you guys?” Barry asked.

“Lizard men of course,” Salzahar explained.

“Oh, makes sense,” Barry said awkwardly. He could feel his mana depleting and realised he didn’t have much time left to determine the intentions of this group. “So why have you made your way towards my group?” he asked.

“We merely seek to recruit as many as we can to maximise our chances of survival. It’s only logical wouldn’t you agree?” smiled Salzahar, showing off his razor-sharp teeth in the process.

“That’s very kind and considerate, but I’m quite happy with my current group. So, if you don’t mind, I’ll be heading off now, but it’s been great to meet you,” Barry asserted.

Salzahar narrowed his eyes and nodded, “Very well, goodbye Barry.”

Barry turned and started to step towards the edge of the swirling bubble. Just as he was about to exit, he heard a swish of air, as glowing purple dagger emerged in front of his chest, held by the hooded lizard man.

“This guy just stabbed me in the back!” thought Barry, as he turned away from the confused lizard man to face the Salzahar.

“That wasn’t very friendly,” he smirked.

Salzahar appeared briefly surprised but quickly gathered himself as he shrugged and walked forward, straight through Barry’s clone.

Barry immediately dispelled his clone and refocussed on his real body as he spun to face Tuti.

“They’re definitely not friendly. There’s four of them, they’re all these lizard men things, two are level three that specialise in either mana or perception, there’s a hooded one who tried to stab me with a dagger that is level six and specialises in dexterity, and finally the leader, the big one with the moustache is level seven and specialises in strength,” he explained.

“This is not good, we might be slightly stronger than them individually, but they double us in numbers. We’re going to have to play this smart,” Tuti cautioned.

“They don’t quite double our numbers, there is three of us after all,” Barry declared.

“Not exactly, when I utilise my beast mana, I transfer all my stats to Swirly, making me basically useless. So, it’s really you and Swirly going up against them,” she corrected.

“Oh yeah, you did tell me that already didn’t you,” Barry said with embarrassment.

“Focus Barry, they’re closing in,” Tuti said sharply.

Barry saw the bubble of foggy air closing in, now only twenty metres or so away from them. Barry could see the figures moving about within the bubble, but again it was hard to pinpoint where exactly they were within the shape.

Without any more time to waste Barry slammed down the mana potion, restoring his stat, as Tuti empowered Swirly, who transformed into his massive battle form.

“Go Swirly, throw!” Tuti shouted as she stood behind the big ape.

Swirly roared and grasped out for a nearby branch, snapping the five-foot chunk of wood off, and hurling it forward into the bubble with tremendous speed. A loud thud could be heard as the branch presumably crashed into one or more of the enemy lizard men. However, to the surprise of all three of them, the branch re-emerged from the bubble, flying back towards Swirly. The branch smashed into Swirly’s shoulder before the ape could react, sending splinters and wood chunks flying into the air as Swirly was forced back, grimacing in pain.

“No, Swirly!” Tuti screamed.

Swirly stumbled back before catching himself, and letting out another furious roar. Swirly dusted the splinters off his shoulder and grasped at the nearby tree, snapping off multiple large branches and tossing them in rapid succession at the group. Barry watched as the branches disappeared into the mist. His eyes widened however as he saw a few of the branches launched upwards out of the mist before a couple more came flying back in Swirly’s direction. Once again, the ape was struck by the dry wood as it shattered onto his skin and scattered pieces of bark and branch all around. Swirly yelped and dropped down to one knee as Tuti ran over to him fearfully.

“Swirly, stop, we need to try something different,” she said, helping to pick the bits of wood out of the beast.

Tuti helped the injured Swirly to his feet and turned her head in Barry’s direction.

“I think we might need to go in there headfirst,” she stated with watery, determined eyes.

“No, it’s too risky, you’d be walking right into a trap,” Barry retorted, “We need to get vision of them first. I could send in my clone again, but it will drain my mana. We need a better strategy.”

“Well, what then?” Tuti questioned sharply.

“I’ve got an idea,” Barry said as he reached down into his spatial sack and pulled out a small yellow stone.

“What’s that?” Tuti said.

“Something that might be exactly what we need,” Barry smiled, “Are you ready Swirly?”

The ape thumped his chest determinedly in response to Barry’s comments.

“I’ll take that as a yes, let’s go!”

With that he pushed some of his mana into small stone and it began to illuminate intensely. Barry launched it forward into the mist as the bright glowing light emitted from the stone continued to grow. The moment the stone left his hand both Barry and Swirly ran after it towards the mist bubble that was now less than ten metres away. The moment the stone entered the mist Barry’s vision became a little clearer, and he could see the outlines of the four figures within standing in the centre of the bubble, each with their forearms over their eyes to block out the blinding glow of white light. Within a few seconds one of the men had managed to kick the stone back out of the mist bubble but by then both Barry and Swirly were standing on the inside of the bubble, staring at the lizard men with disdain.