I slept fitfully that night and awoke with hazy memories of cheese graters burning off around the edges of my mind. I still felt tired and the sheets of my bed were damp with sweat; I had woken like this before, in my last life, though for less reason, looking back.

I stretched and shook myself free of the melancholy before quickly applying a cleansing pod and dressing in my practice slash fighting outfit. The weather was colder now that we were out of the desert, and besides, it made me feel more ready for a fight, even if my confidence was not that high after being casually slapped down the night before.

Swallowing a hydration pill and giving the wreckage of my former bed a final glance, I exited the room and made my way downstairs, into the common room. The innkeeper was there again, behind the bar, her eyes considering me as I descended the stairs.

“’Morning... sorry about last night. Do I owe you anything for the bed?”

“Good morning. You do not – the Legion has already taken care of it.”

I nodded and looked around for my friends, but found that I was once again the first awake, or at least the first to come down.

“Is there a place in town I can exchange a core for smaller denominations?”

“The Legions can exchange it. You will need to go to the Administration Centre.”

“Thanks - can you tell me where I can find it?” The innkeeper gave me directions and I left the barracks, asking that she inform my friends where I had gone if they showed themselves before I returned. She agreed and I left, stepping out into the cool dark of the pre-dawn morning.

Following the directions I had been given, I walked slowly and once again began to cultivate my Experiences and to refine the resultant golden energy into Praxis. I was having difficulty deciding whether the fact that I was having nightmares meant anything, in terms of my cultivation; did my dreams mean I was cultivating too much, dwelling on memories more than I should? Or did it mean I was repressing things, that I had not cultivated enough? It was nearly impossible to guess, but I opted to keep mining them for as much as I could – nightmares I could deal with if it lowered my odds of actually being tortured again. If it got too bad, well, I would burn that bridge when I’d come to it.

Even as deep in my cultivation as I was, with my attention split between the two activities, my days juggling my concentration was definitely making it easier. Compared to the first time I had tried it, years ago, or so it felt already, even if the actual period was measured in weeks. It was almost effortless now, though I did not think I could handle fighting in this state.

Walking through the streets, over perfectly square white paving stones, I noticed more guards than I had the night before, or on my previous visit to an Outpost. I wondered whether they were there due to my encounter with V the night before, and almost let myself feel guilty for causing them more work, but that was the old me – the new me knew that it was not my fault that I had met the asshole here. Or for his behaviour; assholes are responsible for their own behaviour. That thought made me stop abruptly in the street; I had been trying to break through Darina’s shell, because I had known there had to be a reason. When I found out - some of - the reasons, I had kept trying because I knew what it was like to push people away based on your own petty bullshit, but we were all ultimately responsible for our own behaviour. Lots of people went through tough or traumatic times, but not everyone took that out on others. Maybe, I thought, it was time to change tactics again with the diminutive apprentice.

Mind made up, I walked on, keeping my mental eye on the growing shard of solid Praxis in my centre, a wry smile on my face.

*

***

*

I made it back from the Admin Centre after maybe forty minutes. The exchange had been surprisingly quick and while the clerk had taken a percentage, it had been less than I anticipated, given my experience with taxes and bureaucracy from my first life. Having to work may not have been a thing back home for thirty years, but I remembered the practice well, if not with fondness. In the end, they had taken five percent, which left me with 2736 growth coins, which I would be splitting four ways, leaving me with 684 for my own share. It was not the most I had ever had in my – spatial - pocket, but it was certainly the most I had ever made on my own, on this world. It was certainly the most I had ever made by anything other than looting the dead, but then, any amount would have been at that point.

Walking back into the Civilian Barracks, I found my traveling companions sitting around a table and talking in low murmurs. As I entered, they glanced up and seeing me, waved. At least, Reff and Riffa waved; Darina just scowled at me, though she was the first to speak as I approached.

“You delay us yet again. Can we leave? I am not eager to suborn myself to a beast, but if it will get this journey over with faster, then we should not tarry.”

“Sure, let’s go.” I gave each of them their shares, which they took reluctantly as they stood to leave.

“Guys, can I have a moment with Darina? Shouldn't take long, we’ll meet you outside.” The siblings nodded and made their way outside, while Darina stood tapping one foot on the paved floor, the scowl still darkening her face.

“Darina... I’ve tried to be nice, because I understand that you’ve been through some tough times, but so have I. I may not look it, but I’m much older than you, and not much of my time alive has been great before now. But I don’t take that out on others, and it occurred to me that you doing so, isn’t my fault, and while I can understand where its coming from, friendship shouldn’t be a one-way street. You’re really a fucking asshole, almost all the time, and not just with me. I’d still like to be friends, but I’m done enabling your behaviour. When you’re ready to be an adult – to let people in - I’ll be there.” I kept my voice low and calm as I spoke, though the apprentice’s face darkened with practically every word.

“How d-I will... you...!”

“Yeah, I’m not interested.”

With that I turned on my heel and walked out of the common room without another word and joined the giants outside in the first light of dawn.

“I think that went well!”

The two blinked at me; Riffa wore a mildly puzzled expression, though Reff seemed to have something of an idea of what my delay had been about, if his slight smile was anything to go by.

A moment later, Darina emerged from the door behind me and marched off away from us without comment. In the wrong direction.

“In hurried correction, Darina, you are going in the wrong direction. We must go this way.” Reff called out, and the apprentice came to a stop before turning to see where he was pointing. Still without a word, she marched back towards and past us.

“With hesitant curiosity, are you sure things went well, Hunter? Darina does not seem... pleased.”

“Yeah, sorry about that, Riffa. I told her I wasn’t going to deal with her attitude any more. I may have called her an asshole.”

“With careful consideration, while it is true that she could be abrasive, this does not seem to be particularly... diplomatic.”

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Well, I never claimed to be a diplomat – that's you two. I tried being nice about it, I’m sure you noticed, but it wasn’t working. I thought I was making headway, sometimes, but she always reverted. We’ll see how this works out. So far there’s less insults, so I’m already getting better results.”

It did not take long for us to find the area for hiring Plainsrunners – the massive road down the centre of the Outpost was a dead giveaway, as was the hill the giant animals lived in.

Darina was still keeping her silence as we approached the first set of stairs, and with a glance at the apprentice’s face, Riffa stepped forward to negotiate our ride. It ended up costing us a hundred each, but it was a small price to pay for both the possibility of avoiding further ambushes and for saving time. The original estimate for how long it would take to reach our destination had not taken my own relative speed into account, even though I was not quite down to the wire, I had been getting a little nervous.

A glance at the quest timer shows me with just over forty-nine days left, meaning that I had already consumed almost half of the allotted time, without even having located the phoenix Elder. It was apparently known that the Elder lived in the Sha Forest, but I did not think their exact location was known, and if it was anything like the other locations I had visited, it would not be a small place. Hopefully, Darina knew but was just keeping it to herself, because if she did not, I could see things getting bad. With a nervous chuckle as we climbed the stone steps to climb aboard, I mentally poked at my Lucky ability, hoping it was paying attention.

I was up last, and the last to sit down; both of the siblings looked fine, even a little excited at the wild ride I knew was ahead of us, but Darina had her arms crossed in the back seat and a look of distaste screwing up her face. She had left a gap between herself and the others, perhaps wanting the space, but given that I knew you could hear very little over the wind once the beast was moving, I did not think it would matter to much, so I sat in the seat and strapped in.

Once we were all ready, the Plainsrunner began to amble down the road and out of the Outpost, with the same shouts of all clear sounding out around us before once again I was grinning at the pace the animal set. At the apex of one leap, I thought I even heard a giggle from behind me, though it was quickly snatched away by the wind; it could have been my imagination, but it pleased me to think that even somebody as angry as the apprentice could find joy in something so wondrous.

*

***

*

We had been moving for a couple of hours when we came to a sudden stop, our momentum dragging us across the grass a short distance. The sharp break in speed was disorienting, and very unexpected given my previous experience. I leaned to the left to glance around the chair ahead of me and saw a man surrounded by a sickly green energy in the shape of a large, humanoid cat. He stood on the head of the catgeroo, walking down its neck even as it twisted to dislodge him. It occurred to me as I looked at him, that while we had determined the Plainsrunner might be able to outrun him, we had failed to account for the fact that he could simply wait for us, given his head start.

I reached down to unbuckle the straps holding me in the seat, but the drive – rider? Whatever, the man at the reins suddenly distorted as the air around him shifted and in a moment the two of them were fighting, though it was clear that V held the upper hand almost from the start. After a few exchanges, the driver was knocked clear off the beast’s back, and I felt the animal begin to roll. Scrambling, I unstrapped myself, and along with my companions, managed to jump clear before being crushed beneath the vast, muscled and fluffy back of the Plainsrunner.

I rolled to my feet and glanced around – our ride was crouched low over the prone form of its handler, a bone-deep growl rolling out of it. Reff was already coated in magma and Riffa stood bracketed by her sand sculptures. Darina, whose abilities were not quite so visible, was making up for that fact by running at the cat-clad torturer, who had joined us on the ground.

With a curse and wondering if there was any chance to survive the encounter, I Focused and ran in to join the fight beside my impulsive companion.

The apprentice reached him before I did, and began her assault with her signature headbutt to the gut, but V simply slipped around iit and struck down with the blade of his hand, fingers splayed out of line. With a crack, he struck the base of her skull and Darina collapsed to the ground. With a growl of my own, I reached the fight, and the heat I felt to my right told me so had Reff. So far, our attacker seemed focused on using his hands, though my sample size was a little low. It was, however, all I had to go on. Rushing in, I stepped forward and twisted my body down to drive the weight of my body and charge into the top of his foot. As I was dropping, Instinctive Precognition screamed and I twisted to the side, narrowly avoid a casual kick that sounded like a helicopter blade passing me.

It seemed that he was not messing around this time – the other two times I had seen him fight, he had seemed to mostly come down to his opponent's level, allowing for an actual back-and-forth, but this time, as I pushed myself back to my feet, I saw my giant friend knocked back like a thrown doll, glowing green claw marks scoring his otherwise orange chest.

I knew in that moment that we were all done for – Reff was by far the strongest of us, and if he could be handled with such ease, the rest of us stood little chance. As I ran back in, I dismissed the thought; if I died, it would not be the first time, and at least this time I knew there was something waiting for me.

I dragged energy through my Focus, knowing that saving it would be pointless if I was dead, and light ripped its way out of me in ropes thicker than my legs. I felt the power starting to slip free of my control for the first time in weeks and I gritted my teeth, even as the world around me slowed to a crawl, slower than I had ever experienced it. I crashed into the beast cultivator fist-first with time compressed around me, I could see the slight surprise forming on his face as my closed hand smacked into it, or at least in to the face of the green lion. The energy around him seemed to block my lightning, at least partially, but it did seem to be getting through in part, so I continued my attack and lashed out with my other hand. I sensed an incoming strike and flowed under it, and again from the other side. I was just barely avoiding them and I thought I saw surprise turning to irritation on V’s usually smug face. I stepped onto and over his leg as he kicked out at me, and dropped an elbow into the energy over his chest as I dropped, but I was off balance and out of position, so he managed to hook me with his arm and I was smashed down into the ground as a result, inches from Darina. The blow knocked the air from my lungs and I lost my Focus as the world rushed back into motion. Blearily, I looked up to see two of Riffa’s puppets finally reaching the fight, and for a moment I was shocked; I must have really been moving fast if she was only just getting into the fight.

Riffa seemed to be doing better than either myself or her brother – the man in green would smash a hand into the sandy mannequins, blasting sand out of them in huge clouds, but it would simply flow back into the body it had come from, and in this way they managed to occupy him for the second it took for Reff to re-join the fight. The green was gone from his armour as he came at V from behind, apparently having circled around. I heard a creepy, wet clicking sound coming from where Darina lay and I looked over in time to see her push herself up, rubbing at the back of her neck. Our eyes met for a moment, and I could see the knowledge of our deaths reflected back at me. It did not stop her, however, as it had not stopped me. She climbed to her feet and I joined her before we both rushed back in, side by side.

Time slowed once more as we sought to exploit the gaps between the Stonebinders – people always say fighting many-on-one is easy, but it actually takes quite a lot of training and coordination, unless they’re just lying on the floor. Especially with our abilities in the mix, a misstep could hurt ourselves or our allies just as much as our enemy.

We seemed to be doing well, now that we were all involved, and I let a little hope shine inside me, even if none of our blows seemed to be doing much. Knowing that my companions were largely immune to my own Focus, I kept the power flowing and used the languid passage of time to choose my moments, coming in to strike in gaps that should have been too small before retreating back. It all came apart, of course, when Darina was kicked back into Riffa’s unmoving form like a falling boulder, leaving just Reff and myself in the fight momentarily. While my lightning was somewhat ineffective against the molten stone of Reff’s armour, the opposite was not true, which our opponent took advantage of in that lull. Grabbing me suddenly, moving much faster than before, he twisted and slammed me bodily into my Risi friend. I was not prepared for the attack, and received no warning from Instinctive Precognition, which meant there was no way to avoid it, if I recalled the description. As a result, I came into direct contact with the searing heat of the magma, even as Reff was knocked away and to the ground.

I hung suspended in V’s grip, my eyes open wide as I tried to ignore the burning pain coming from most of my back, but knowing it was futile. I knew that he could simply leave now he had me, and take the egg with little difficulty.

With a heavy breath, I gathered myself to try try to punch him in the face, unwilling to give up, even facing certain defeat. Submission was no longer a concept I was willing to entertain.

My fist cracked into the energy surrounding his face once, twice as he looked at me, his face smug once more as he ignored my attacks.

“No, shall we start off where – oh, bother. That is inconvenient.” His tone was not as relaxed as I was used to, instead I thought I could hear real anger and frustration in there.

“Suspect Eight-Four-Four-Seven-Nine-Two, you are under arrest for assault, destruction of property and the interception of an official Plainsrunner. Put the boy down.”