“Africa, as in, the continent Africa?”

“Devil’s handkerchief, tell me The Vein was not touched!” Vienna exclaimed, her lips not quite matching what she was saying. It took E4 a moment to realize she had switched to kobold. “Tell me my homeland was spared.”

“She means the Nile.” Imnad explained. “Kobolds call it The Vein for it was the lifeblood of their civilization for a good long while. In their religion God granted one of his prophets the ability to turn it to blood for a short time, which only reinforced the name.”

“So there was a kobold Moses, that’s interesting.” R4 replied, burning off her gloves with a burst of bio-lightning. “It never got to Egypt, thankfully. According to the rumors, for the Internet was shattered and unreliable by that time,” She noticed Vienna and Imnad giving her a confused look, “it started in an emerald mine.”

“Ok, so how did you stop it?”

“We didn’t.” E4 replied. “The Purifiers bathed a swath along the equator 5 kilometers wide with napalm and set it alight. The smoke nearly blacked out the sky, but by the end the disease was contained. Probably the only time I can wholeheartedly approve of their use of flames as a cure all. It didn’t solve everything, but it solved enough.” R4 cast her eyes back upon the city. “I don’t know if that’s an option here though.”

“So it’s a fungus that reanimates bodies, that’s just fantastic.” Imnad replied. “How’s it spread, and how do we know if we’re infected?”

“The Wu-cog fungi is spread by insects, food, and the dead. Humans and mammals are highly resistant to it because of our high temperature, but it does like to leave spores in humans. You can be a carrier for weeks, and within an hour of dying your body gets right back up and starts looking for food. Without access to the internet,” Imnad and Vienna gave her the same look as before, “A worldwide database and library,” Imnad smiled warmly at the thought, “I think it can’t last more than a month. Immunocompromised humans can hold it longer, but it’s mostly spread by bugs.”

“Bugs?” Imnad spoke up. “Did you say it’s spread by bugs, what kind of bugs? Are we talking worms, beetles, bees, something like that?”

“I mean, without the internet or a copy of Mundo’s Field Guide to Hostile Pathogens I can’t say for sure.”

“We need to get that book.” With that Imnad turned and began running towards the city.

“Hey, where’s he going?”

“Ah my bookish husband, he must always have the latest text, and he does so hate bugs. This one believes he is ashamed of his childhood, always fighting against the pests. Come, let us seek the source of this corruption.” She splayed her fan over her face. “Let us follow the path back towards the source, perhaps we shall find some noteworthy clue or treasure that shall assist us in our endeavor.”

The wagon had not been subtle in its path, nor had it been charting a new route. Ruts twelve centimeters deep traveled along the path, and save a short yet hardy grass no plant dared grow where it would be trampled. Vienna took the front line, with Marcus and E4 behind her and Marissa in the rear. For a short time the swamp was silent, yet within a few minutes the croaking of frogs and singing of unknown birds began to echo through the swampland. E4 had to correct her assumption as a flying lizard flew down from the trees and snapped up a dragonfly right before her eyes.

“Vienna, are you familiar with this area?” E4 asked.

“Not really, Marcus, your family seems to know this area, any tales passed down?”

“The Stone-Weaver family was still very small when the Eagle-Wood family was at its peak, as far as I know. It is known for its stonework and I’m pretty sure our freezer was made here, or at least the stone for it was carved here and the Myst Shaping work done here. From what the papers say he supplies 25% of all stone and has some of the best masons to carve it. We, meaning Marcus and Mason our great uncle and grandfather, did help him bring down a group of stone golems and an earth elemental to help get him off the ground. This led to Mason getting a black mark on his name since he had no skill at actually carving stone. That was before The Herald of Woe.”

“The what?” E4 asked.

“We do not speak of it.” Vienna replied, snapping her fan shut. “To speak of it is bad luck, and will encourage it to return.” She eyed a tree that seemed to be getting ready to die, and with a gesture pulled down a branch. “Tell me Marcus, what type of wood is this?”

Marcus approached, eyeing the branch she had plucked. “I believe it is black ash… yet is that an apple?” He took it and eyed it. “Something is wrong about it.”

“Fungal apple.” E4 corrected, pulling it from his grip with a bit of telekinesis. From her bag she removed an alcohol mixture. “Here, wash up. This should burn off the spores without doing too much damage to your hands.” Marcus covered his hands in the mixture, which burst into aetheric fire for just a moment before leaving them clean and unmarred. E4 extended her claws and gently sliced into the apple. Within, rather than an apple’s fruit, strange blue and gray threads lay tangled within. “You can eat it, and it has certain beneficial properties, but it’ll turn your stomach sour. Long ago it was a popular health trend to take pills made from this stuff.”

“That can’t be safe.”

“Who would be that dumb?” Marcus asked, echoing his sister.

“In my era I faced many who thought it wise to sample our honored dead, fools they were, they thought the herbs once used to preserve bodies made a fine drug to sample, that they might attain the knowledge of ancient pharaohs. It did not, though within The Myst it sometimes works.”

“As it turns out, this stuff is actually an excellent beta lactam, cuts through most antibiotic-resistant methods. It is also a pain reliever, though in high doses it can cause euphoria and hallucinations. Think a mix of oxycodone and LSD, though milder on the LSD. That’s where the problems began. You can make it non-addictive, but it’s more profitable to leave it as is. You can bake it to kill off the fungus like yeast, but you get a bigger high if you leave it alive. Your body can't hold down food, but so long as you keep dosing you don't feel the cramps. Somebody figured that out, and soon emeralds were the second most profitable export from a little mine no one’s ever heard of.” E4 eyed the tree. “On Earth such a tree would be grown in an isolated area, and carefully watched. That or burned immediately.”

“Then we burn it. Marissa, do you have any alchemist’s fire?”

“Better,” Marissa drew a flask from her bag. E4 expected it to be a glass flask, but it was actually a dark metal flask. “Liquid thermite. It doesn’t explode on contact with air, but all it needs is a spark to burn hot enough to melt several metals. She twisted the cap and threw the vial, which sprayed a fine mist over the tree. “Better get back.” E4 quickly took cover behind another tree, Marcus doing the same. Marissa took several steps back before covering herself with some sort of net that seemed to immediately blend in with the leaf litter, while Vienna simply pointed at the tree and flicked forth two fingers.

That is where things went wrong. The tree went up in a brilliant flash, and the buzzing began. For as hot as the tree burned, whatever burst forth was faster. E4 felt the first one hit her like a bullet, and then it began to burrow. Dozens more struck, and then the legs began to dig.

“Burrowers, Scatter!” E4 heard Marcus yell. Immediately she flooded her body with bio-lightning to fry the bugs as she ran. Yet as she ran The Hymn slammed into her ears like a dictum from God himself. Perfect position screamed at her that she was in the wrong place, even as her head spun with vertigo as if she had found herself in the spin cycle of a washing machine.

“Red! What’s going on?” E4 chittered, even as she turned on her heels and ran. As if a switch had been flipped the vertigo was gone. She exerted ATP, and to her surprise she began running even faster. Somewhere between instinct and telekinetic insight she reached out and grabbed Marissa even as she blind fired into the swarm while running. In one hand she held her rifle, in the other a zap pistol, and with every pull of the trigger dozens of the strange beetles fried, but there were so many it mattered not. She pulled something from her coat and pulled the pin, just a moment before E4 hit her with enough force that the object was thrown from her grip.

Prize in hand E4 kept running, yet she felt her speed drop. “Come on Red, a little more!” She chittered as she ran. Trees and bushes zipped past and less than a second later they were clear from the swam. Two seconds after that E4 heard a sound like thunder as the swarm and everthing around it was engulfed in lightning and force. The shock wave threw her and Marissa to the ground, and the slope combined with their forward momentum sent them rolling head over teakettle.

Marissa stopped first, hitting a tree, an instant before E4 slammed into her stomach, eliciting a groan.

“Mistress, hold still,” E4 tried to stand, but found her leg was currently sporting an extra knee. “Oh, that’s not good.” She looked from herself and to Marissa. “There are no emergencies in a pandemic.” She winced, and gingerly bent her leg back into position. Ravager toxin or no she let out a cry as her leg seemed to burst into flames. For a few minutes she just lay there, waiting for the pain to subside. In that time Marissa let out a low moan. “Mistress, hold still, I haven’t had a chance to examine you yet, I don’t know what damage you may have undergone.”

“Ow, did anyone get the number off that bus?” She opened her eyes. “E4, did it work? Are the bugs dead?”

“They aren’t following us, and right now that’s about the best we can hope for. Hold still, I need to,” E4 gasped as her leg again burst into flames. A few moments later the pain eased from burning to a far less painful pins and needles. “Excuse me, I must attend to my own wound. This will just take a moment.” Examining her leg a thought crossed E4’s mind. With a gesture she flayed her leg open, and felt no pain. Through what appeared to be a haze of Myst she could see her tibia and fibia were both broken. “Well that’s not ideal.” She heard Marissa gasp at the sight. “Um… don’t mind me, I’ll be fine in a bit.”

[[A reminder, we do not have confirmation on how surgical precision works. On that note Mara is very interested in this procedure, do continue.-Red Queen]]. As if called by her name, an ominous presence immediately fell upon the wood. E4’s eyes looked this way and that, as if seeking some lurking threat. Immediately the entirety of the swamp went silent. That her conscious mind knew it was Mara interested in her work was of no comfort, within her isopod began twitching, causing her vision to distort and a scratching sound to echo in her ears as its legs scratched against her skull.

Resetting the bone was easy enough now that she could see it. Flesh fabrication, while normally used on external projects, worked just fine to put two bones back together, especially with regeneration helping it along. E4 checked, then double checked, then closed her leg back up. There was a flicker of pain as her nerves reset, but it was more of a pinprick sensation than the agony she had a moment ago. She put a bit of weight on it, and winced. She shot a burst of ATP through it with healing hands, or tried to as the skill again failed to activate. Her leg did let out a bit of Myst, which evaporated off with a sensation like a breeze against wet skin. She quickly splinted and wrapped it with implements from her medical bag, feeling a cost in ATP with every item she withdrew. As she finished with the splint she felt the pain recede, and within she felt the wound seem to redouble its healing rate. Given her regenerative abilities, that was a truly frightening speed.

“Sorry about that, now let’s take,” Marissa’s eyes were locked on E4, a look between fear and concern on her face. “Mistress, please, I must ensure you are not injured.”

“E4, you just cut your leg open.”

“Yes, and it was far easier than when I had to do so on Earth.” She gestured to Marissa. “Now, let’s see what’s going on with you, I seem to remember both of us going over that hill.” She shot a glance back to the slope they had just fallen from. It was strewn with rocks, and she noted the trees above had been reduced to tall spires free of branches and deeply blackened. “Now lie down,”

“Are you going to cut me open…” She froze, “Are those claws?”

E4 eyed her claws, and with a gesture dismissed them. “In my study of the ravagers on Earth, The Myst may have given me skills that reflect them. I would not be surprised if Kindred’s lack of knowledge made him mistake me for a feral” She shot a glance left and right, making sure nothing was creeping up on them. “Are you sore anywhere?”

“My stomach.” E4 touched a hand to her mistress’s stomach, and quickly moved her top so she could see beneath. Already a deep bruise was forming. “Hold on, this might feel a little weird.”

“Are you going to cut me?” Marissa asked.

“No, well, not yet.” E4 took her medical bag and set it next to Marissa. “Here, see, no scalpel in my hand.”

Marissa lay down, and E4 quickly got to work. She placed her hands on her mistress’s stomach and closed her eyes. Her horns buzzed as she felt beneath. She had used telekinesis to fix breaks and diagnose problems on Earth, but the difference was night and day. “By the blood,”

“Is it that bad?”

“No, I have used telekinesis on Earth to diagnose breaks, but the skills granted by The Myst make quite the difference. It is akin to going from an old X ray machine in the field to a modern MRI in a cutting edge lab.” She traced a few of the organs beneath, yet some things were off. “The kidneys and intestines seem, atrophied? No, simplified. When the text books mentioned that an Aether Blessed’s digestive organs were less than that of a human on Earth they were not kidding. I see broken blood vessels, and would very much like my healing hands back. If you don’t mind me asking, what is your tenacity?”

“8, maybe 9 now.” E4 continued her examination, checking Marissa’s arms and legs. “You know, this would be a lot nicer if we were in bed, and not wearing our gear.”

“Is this is how you distract yourself from trauma Mistress?” E4 asked. “Or do you really have such a one track mind? Heaven preserve us should we ever meed a feminine vampire or succubus.”

“Vampires are only fun until you see them go berserk. After that, it’s like knowing what goes into a hotdog.”

“That… I’ll keep that in mind.” E4 finished checking Marissa, then checked again. It was mostly bruises and a bit of vertigo from bumping her head. Yet as she watched the damaged flesh seemed to be pulled inwards, breaking apart and being replaced. It was slow, on a cellular basis, but it was still far faster than any healing on Earth save a ravager’s regeneation. She pulled Marissa’s blouse aside to see that yes, there was a bruise that had shrunk in size as she was working on her. It wasn’t much, maybe a few centimeters smaller. A thought occurred to her, and she cast a quick glance around to make sure nothing was creeping up on them and to what she could sense nothing was. She pressed her hand over the wound, giving her Healing Hands ability one more shot, before slowly moving her hand up under Marissa’s shirt. “And what would we be wearing Mistress, if not our gear? Those strange leotards from the night we encountered The Hat Man?”

“Yes.” She grinned mischievously. “You know, Marcus also had an outfit from that little adventure, you’ll have to ask him to show you.”

“Really?” E4 withdrew her hand to allow her mistress to get back up before making a gesture and calling two fallen branches to her hand. With a flash of her claws she had a walking stick for each of them. “Just more reason to get through this mess,” She let out a breath as she pushed herself to her feet and extended the other to Marissa who was tucking her blouse back in

[[Note: your leg while sore will hold up. Repairs will conclude in approximately 3 minutes, possibly less if you consume more Aetheric elixir- Red Queen.]]

“Mistress, shall we continue, or shall we return? We have been separated, and my leg may slow me a bit.” E4 wiped her brow, while allowing her finger to slip near her eye and catch an isopod. Careful to shield it from Marissa’s eye she slipped it into a hollow spot in her walking stick, where it easily crawled to the base and awaited a better moment.

“Follow me, keep quiet, and keep low.” E4 did, and shortly realized Marissa was leading her away from the blast site, but not towards the city.

“Mistress?” She whispered with apprehension. As she crept behind she noticed a tree that caught her eye due to its oddly colored leaves. With a little telekinetic push the isopod shot forth down the hollow section of her walking stick and landed on the tree. It dug its way in with single minded ferocity before extending a frond which quickly took the appearance of the tree’s leaves.

[[Seems harvest-men is working again, so Wild harvest should work too- Red Queen.]] E4 nodded at the pop up, and froze when Marissa held up a hand. Before them a large creature rustled through the undergrowth. Initially E4 thought it was a pig or wild boar, until it lifted its head and she saw the strange mantis like eyes. Worse, while its shell was mostly green, blue hyphae granted it a coat that covered it from the back of its neck to the first joints of its legs. Despite having the head of a mantis, the creature was covered in thorny growths and had long whip scorpion like arms. The creature seemed to be consuming some sort of mushroom, which it immediately spit back up and moved on from.

“What is that?” E4 asked.

“Whip brier scorpion, I think. You said the fungus liked to grow on bugs?” Marissa drew her zap pistol, leaving her rifle on her back. She leaned upon the walking stick for balance, still a little unsteady from her fall even if she was healing at an inhumanly fast rate. E4 noticed Myst seeming to settle upon her ourstretched arm, only to vanish into crackling Aether as she fired a shot that went right through the brier scorpion’s head and scorched the tree behind it. The creature’s body ran forwards a few steps before it it a tree and began slashing at it with its claws. Marissa fired three more shots into the thing before it finally fell and evaporated into Aether. All that remained was a bit of its claws, now purged of its fungal infection.

“Yes, roaches and little spiders, not… that thing.” E4 paused, “Do you think that is what Imnad was concerned about?”

“I’m certainly concerned about it now. That first shot should have evaporated it. What did you say that fungus does?”

“To humans, it eases pain, kills bacterial infections, and causes hallucinations in high doses. It kills a lot of microbes, which is why they don’t die the first time they get a cut and keep walking. In bugs it does similar.” She paused. “And it messes up their stomach so they throw up whatever they eat, spreading the fungus. That was a major challenge we faced, Africa had problems feeding its people already, so rather than throwing out infected food the population would throw out the infected section and eat the rest, like cutting the moldy section off bread and eating the rest. The fungus would give them diarrhea and without proper care they would die, and rise up again when traces of the fungus grew within their bodies.”

“So it’s not spread by bite?”

“It is, and it can give you a nasty infection, but even on Earth it wasn’t a death sentence. A bad infection can cause vomiting, diarrhea, hallucinations numbness which is a problem because an infection can go unnoticed in the early stages. A good antifungal will clear it up, and that’s without inhuman levels of tenacity.” She flexed her fingers. “My bag provided me a mixture of powdered silver and garlic, I would call that a folk remedy if it didn’t work so well. Once I get healing hands up and running again hopefully I can treat it regardless. I can practically feel the skill, but it’s just out of my reach.”

“I’m sure you’ll get it.” Marissa replied, marking off the location on a sheet of paper. E4 looked over to see that the paper was a map, partially filled in. “Self drawing map, got it while you were with Patterson. It fills in general details, but specific details must be put in by hand. Marcus and I were planning on using it to scout out the area where the fungus was present.” Before their eyes a small x was drawn and the words “Several Mantids, possible nest?” were written. “Looks like he’s ok if he’s still taking notes.” As she spoke an arrow was drawn in a wide loop that led back to the city.

As Marissa and Marcus got to work planning their exploration E4 heard a sound. Quiet as a church mouse she crept up to a tree, and with a single leap was in the branches. Looking out she saw a forest of green as the leaves of the trees and the green muck of the swamp blended together into a complex tapestry. Here and there she saw alternative colors, and she felt her Wild Harvest skill mark them for study. Several cinnamon trees and a few willow trees that she vaguely remembered she could harvest salicylate from to create aspirin lit up, and a few other trees she didn’t recognize. A few puffs and a few harvest-men now had a new tree to snack on. As her eyes sought more trees they fell upon a pool that glowed with blue light, and was surrounded by trees stripped of bark.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“Red, that can’t be… can it?” Even without a reply E4 knew the truth. “Marissa, I need to go check something out.”

“What do you see?” Marissa called back up.

E4 thought about how to phrase things. “Something that definitely shouldn’t be there. A ravager pool. Looks like it’s inhabited, might be the source of the ravager we encountered earlier.” She continued to peer out. “There’s some stripped trees, some stripped of leaves others of bark, one of both,” She saw a flurry of movement as something darted out of a bush and snatched a bug that had been camouflaged against the tree from the air. In a flash it downed the insect in a movement that made her throat hurt just watching it.

An endless pit of hunger opened up within E4’s gut, a maw that could never be filled. Endless needle teeth extended from it, each one a barb against her esophagus, more than happy to devour it should she not give it something else. She shook the memory away. She had just eaten, and if she was truly hungry she could eat the bark off a tree, a ravager’s stomach could take it. She paused, “Wait, a ravager can turn Myst into Aether and get ATP out of the deal, shouldn’t I be able to eat wood too? And if they’re that hungry,” She hopped down cushioning her fall with a bit of telekinesis. “Mistress, do you mind if I check it out?”

“I’m going with you, and if we see one we run.” Marissa replied.

“Alternatively, I can match a tier one ravager in close combat while you shoot it.” E4 replied. The moved quickly but quietly as she continued, her voice lowered. “Go for the spine, while the tail is heavily armored the connections to the rest of the body are fragile and hard to reconnect. Feral ravagers are weakest where their isopod connects to their flesh. If the isopod ejects target it. A feral isopod may try to take over a new body.”

“Can they do that?”

“Hello?” E4 made a gesture to be quiet. Quick as a wink Marissa was in the trees, and quiet as a wraith. A moment later E4 was on the ground. Quietly she crept towards the pool. Once she was far enough from where Marissa had perched she spoke.

“Hello?” E4 called out.

“Hellooooo?” Immediately the tone of the voice had E4’s claws out. “Little peeeeeeet? Where did you gooooooo?” her skin crawled as a cold sensation spilled from behind one of the trees. There was a loud SCRAPE and a long length of bark fell before a figure stepped out, the bark in its mouth. The creature was dressed as a woodsman, but the illusion was a thin mask indeed. Perhaps once it had brown hair, but now two horns jutted from its rapidly balding head, a rash of eczema turning the flesh red where the isopod had not quite subjugated the immune system. Its skeletal arms ended in hands swollen and red with arthritis, a sixth finger made from bone jutting out uselessly from one end of the hand. The feral ravager was hunched slightly from its swollen spine and a vestigal tail swayed to the right in such a way that made E4’s tail wince. She could see claw marks on the withered limb where the ravager had tried to claw at it. Her eyes quickly found their way to its eyes, where its right eye was swollen and sore yet the isopod was still clearly visible and in contrast to its brown bloodshot left eye. Finally her eyes drifted a bit higher, where a single point curved off the left horn. “Little peeeet.”

As if its call was a starter pistol the ravager lunged for E4, and immediately it received a bolt of bio-lightning to the face. E4’s bolt was immediately outdone by the blinding flash of Marissa’s zap rifle. With a scream of surprise the feral ravager turned tail and bolted back towards the pool, its withered legs and swollen joints giving it a strange loping lunge that seemed to throw it over the twisting roots of the trees and sending it sprawling in equal measures.

“After it!” E4 exclaimed, “Before it heals!” E4 charged forwards, exerting ATP to throw herself forwards on telekinetic claws to bypass the uneven ground. Ahead she saw the ravager running for all it was worth, yet it had to contend with the tangle of undergrowth and the twisting roots of the trees. She did not.

“Go on ahead, I’ll try to hamstring it.” Immediately E4 felt a rush of endorphans from Perfect Position and blasted past the ravager. With a twitch of her legs she stopped, a burst of telekinesis neutralizing her momentum and shaking the branches of dozens of trees behind her. The ravager before her froze, its eyes twisted in confusion. Here before it was a delicate and delicious morsel, so succulant her flesh would practically fall off the bone, so why would its legs not stop shaking? In the brief moment before confrontation she had a chance to get a second look at the threat.

The feral ravager was bone thin, lacking even the muscles usually spared by the ferals’ out of control metabolism. His single point indicated he had only consumed a single human. E4 quickly noticed his eyes were not shadowed, nor did they shine with Aether, yet they also lacked the characteristic fog of a Cursed. They resembled the eyes she would see on Earth, right down to the bloodshot left eye indicating the isopod’s immune system was tearing the human eye apart. Now that she had a moment to observe she could see his clothes were covered with blood long dried. Despite this, she could not smell the scent of gore nor even body odor on the feral. His shoes had at some point been lost and replaced with clawed feet that looked mangled and bloody from ill care. The handle of an axe stuck out above him like an antenna, as if he had tripped and someone tried to bring the axe down on his spine but missed.

“Little peeet, so hungryyyyyy. Let me eeeeeeat.”

Once again the feral ravager’s words were a starting pistol, though this time not for itself. E4 noticed a suble blue line pointing form the trees, and lock on his leg. There was a crack of thunder as a bolt from the zap rifle struck him right in the hamstring. The result was immediate and devistating as the feral ravager dropped to its knee. E4 threw herself forwards, cutting into the creature’s neck. Her claws went right through its flesh, stopping only as she hit the isopod’s tail where it had replaced the ravager’s spine.

Immediately the fight was on. For every blow E4 made the feral replied in kind, or tried. The creature fought with a berserk ferocity, hunger driving it to kill its prey with little regard for injuries. It knew that once it fed it would heal, no matter how grievous the injury. Ever cut, no matter how small, would inject more toxin. Even if it suffered a dozen grievous wounds all it needed was one serious blow to hamper its foe, and even if it never got such a blow even a handful of scratches would allow the toxin to do its work. Had its mind not been so flooded with Ghrellin and its stomach so empty it might have realized that none of the wounds it had received hurt at all. Finally it managed to drive her back before gathering its full strength for a lunge, landing on top of E4 and feasting on her flesh before going for its next meal.

Or, that’s the fantasy its mind told it in its final moments. E4 matched it blow for blow with just as much ferocity but with a decade of skill. Even as she ducked and danced around his blows she watched its movements. While the feral ravager kept his claws together, trying to land a heavy strike to her chest or head, E4’s hands twitched and danced to The Hymn of The Myst. The feral’s heavy and untrained strikes seemed to follow a tempo she could almost hear in The Hymn, and it was to that beat she added her own melody of notes. All seven fingers lashed out, cutting patterns whenever the feral let down its guard, even if it meant she got a scrape. On Earth minor cuts and scrapes would heal in minutes, but even in the midst of combat she could feel her wounds not just healing but evaporating beneath her regeneration.

Normally her and its ravager toxin would be fighting, their resonance battling within as each tried to neutralize the other. It was not uncommon on Earth for two ravagers to rip one another to shreds before either noticed, and even sane ravagers had to watch their wounds lest they accidentally turn a small cut into a horrific tear. However E4 was charged with Aether, and the feral was not. Within her flesh the toxin was quickly burned away into aether, while her toxin burned away at the feral ravager from the inside, numbing nerves and soothing the mind even as flesh was burned and the nerves silenced forever. Worse, beneath the gaze of R4’s Surgical Precision the feral’s muscle groups were practically illuminated and her claws were drawn to them as if by a magnet before tearing their way back before the feral could retaliate. A quick stab to the ravager’s deltoid muscles left an opening for a quick spin that brought her tail into play and left her target’s legs wrapped tight. She ducked under an overhead and lunged back into a handstand and back to her feet, the maneuver ripping her tail free and taking both of the feral’s hamstrings with it. The feral ravager, unable to feel any of this and completely unaware that its legs were hanging open by flaps lunged, and with a sickening SNAP fell right on its face.

E4 stood over it, scanning it with her Wise Mind bracelet, before stabbing through its skull with her claws, and twisting. She withdrew a circular section of feral isopod chitin, and with a flash of bio-lightning reduced it to Aether.

[[Data recorded. Sending to primary Wise Mind. Cost: 2 ATP and 5 minutes, 1 ATP and 1 hour, 0 ATP and 4 hours]] E4 felt a wave of exhaustion as the rush of the fight combined with the cost of ATP left her.

“E4, are you alright?” Marissa asked, hopping down from a tree. She saw the dozens of scratches and E4’s absolutely wrecked dress. “My word E4, we have to get you back to the city! That much blood, the venom, how are you even standing?”

E4 could have come clean, she could have brushed it off. She could have been a good ravager and kept her cover intact by playing off the injuries.

“What are you talking about Mistress, I’m fine.” E4 replied with an easy smile, before her eyes happened to fall upon her injuries. “Oh my, this is a lot of blood. I’ll be up all night washing this out.” She lifted a section of her sleeve, and the entire sleeve seemed to unravel and fall to the ground where it immediately evaporated. “My dress isn’t going to return to Myst is it?”

“E4 lie down, or at least sit down before you pass out.” Marissa ordered. E4 gave her a confused look but sat down. She quickly took out her kit and began to work on her wounds, more for Marissa’s state of mind than her own. A quick dusting of an antibiotic powder, followed by a bit more of the silver and garlic powder for the fungus. Marissa quickly found her Aetheric elixir and practically shoved the canteen into E4’s hands. “Drink.” E4 did, and immediately the wounds on her flesh began to evaporate. “That should help, but we need to get you some help. Can you use your Healing Hands skill?”

“I lost it, it feels like I can use it but I’m just missing one detail that holds the whole thing together. I actually have a su-secondary skill that comes from it.” E4 barely caught herself from saying subversion. “I should probably use that pool I saw earlier to wash off.”

“That’s probably a good idea, but we should boil it first. There’s no telling what could be inside it.”

Actually finding the pool was simplicity itself, within ten steps E4 could sense the resonance coming from it. Tilting her head as if she was listening to The Hymn, which was rather faint this far from town, she corrected her steps. “Marissa, does The Hymn sound more faint the farther you get from town? It’s much fainter out here, I can kind of tell it’s coming from that direction but not how far” E4 gestured.

“You would have to ask E1 or the new E2, we can’t hear The Hymn.”

“Right, I wanted to ask,” While E4 spoke she turned her head to her mistress, and pomptly missed the sudden slope of the ground. She fell forwards, waving her hands to balance, and saw what she had almost fallen into. With a wiry grin Marissa couldn’t see she “accidentally” dove into the water and with a single kick sent herself right into the center.

The pool itself was about 5 meters in diameter, with a sloped bottom that made it relatively easy to climb out of. All along the bottom of the pool a strange seaweed grew despite the fact the water itself was fresh and clean. Immediately E4 was bombarded by resonance, but it was not proper resonance. It sang a discordant note, not enough to harm her, but while within a normal pool she would receive a small but steady flow of ATP via the resonance within this pool she only received a trickle, maybe 1 per hour. She eyed the plants, kneeling to touch one. The Sargasso, once again unhelpfully named to mess with the Purifiers, grew in long leaves along a slender stalk. It was a handy plant that could turn sunlight into ATP, though in a very limited way. E4 immediately snatched a strand and shoved it into her mouth before Marissa could notice. Several isopods chittered at her in surprise before latching onto her tongue, their foreign ravager toxin making her mouth go numb.

“Out.” She whispered. The isopods obediently let go as E4 spit them out, before immediately latching onto her arm. Dozens more darted out from their hiding place, finding a hold on her legs and arms. E4 sighed, but did not deny them their meal.

[[You have acquired 64 harvest-men. Caution, you are above your signal maximum. Also your signal maximum is 64, good to know. That’s a bit higher than it was on Earth, Mara will be pleased. Also it seems this pool isn’t liking up properly. Maybe take a look at that.]] Immediately E4 felt Mara’s gaze fall upon her, a pressing weight of expectation.

“E4, hold on, I’ve got some rope, just have to find it.” Marissa immediately began searching through her bag, tossing tools this way and that. E4 recognized some of them, a compass, a grappling hook sans rope, some manner of chart, a weapon repair kit that looked like it could barely fit through the mouth of the bag, and several other items she didn’t notice. Finally she found the rope and threw it. “Grab on.”

“Coming.” E4 made a gesture with her Wise Mind bracelet and dropped a dozen ATP into it. She felt herself sag from the exertion, and fell back beneath the water.

[[E4, your ATP levels are drastically low. Since we know you just spent 12 ATP, I calculate you have somewhere between 15 and 30 ATP max. My diagnosis is you need rest and you need food. That Aetheric Elixir you drank helped, but you need true rest. Also it seems you have a new skill]] E4 felt a slight change, less like something had changed and more like something had gone back to how it should have been. She took a deep breath, and smiled as a flood of serotonin and endorphins welcomed her home.

“You know Red Queen, for a place called the distant shores there aren’t a lot of breaches. For all the time we spend working, it’s easy to forget that ravagers are actually amphibious.” At that moment a shadow appeared above her, a humanoid shadow. “She didn’t.”

E4 felt Marissa grab her by the arm and heft her out of the water. Immediately dozens of tiny forms darted out of the sargasso, immediately latching onto Marissa’s legs. E4 tried to stand, but between her sudden expenditure of ATP and the flood of endorphins her legs decided they didn’t want to work right.

“Come on, almost there.” Marissa spoke quietly as she pulled E4 out. She quickly flipped her on her back and knelt down next to E4’s head. “Ok, still breathing, now just,” She noticed the isopods, which all looked back at her. For a moment they just stared, before one waved. She drew her zap pistol, only then noticing a dozen isopods crawling on her as well. Immediately she dropped her firearm and began trying to rip them off.

“Mistress, hold still.” E4 reached out and grabbed Marissa’s walking stick. With a gesture she did some quick carving before placing a few drops of blood down the staff, then doing the same to her own. “Off.” E4 spoke first, then chittered. The isopods both on her and Marissa froze, looking at her with pleading eyes. She pointed the walking sticks at Marissa, before dropping it to the ground. “DROP.” Immediately each of the isopods dropped from both her and Marissa, before making a Bee line for their respective walking sticks. The last isopod stayed in the back, becoming a part of the walking stick.

“E4… what did you do?”

“Well,” At that moment E4’s stomach seemed to drop as an overwhelming pressure overtook her. She felt her mind begin to race as an unknowable presence closer than her skin seemed to flood her senses. At the same time a presence old as stone and even more unyielding clashed against Mara’s presence. A third presence, Singular but many, alien yet ever present, appeared as if trying to suppress the other two. From the shocked look in Marissa’s eyes she felt it too, such that she immediately fell to the ground. Immediately the Myst surrounding them seemed to part, and above the gloomy overcast seemed to recede as lightning shot across the sky, followed immediately by booming thunder. The earth began to shake, roots from the trees seeming to rip from the ground. Rocks and pillars shot up through the soil, regardless of the trees, throwing bones and chitin this way and that as if trying to purge Mara from her new dwelling. The ravager pool was spared, a pillar of bone thrust upwards from the center and crackling with bio-lightning. Immediately lightning fell from the sky to strike it, only for the bolt to be redirected into a nearby tree and reduce it to an Aetheric haze.

“E4, catch!” E4 looked up just in time to get hit in the face with a bundle of cloth. She looked up at Marissa to see her already putting on a similar garment which was revealed to be a cowl. The material was dark cotton, with copper and silver threads running through it in a pattern around the ears as well as several lines that ran up the back of the head before splitting around the front to encompass the face. E4 quickly threw hers on, finding it went down to about her armpit and flared out to cover her shoulder. Immediately the pressure receded from an overwhelming panic attack to mild anxiety. Her brain chemistry, which her isopod should have been handling, quickly stabilized.

[[Error: Connection to Mara has been greatly weakened. Max signal has been reduced, connection to several of the harvest-men has been lost, rerouting through staff. Switching to local copy- Red Queen]]. E4 tried to observe the hood, but was rebuked. [[Object has no resonance. Diagnosis inconclusive. Perhaps a skill would help? Identify is the common term in games. Also make sure to bandage your head as soon as possible, your isopod panicked.]]

“E4 come on!” Marissa was already running, and E4 bounded after her. Contrary to my expectations, perfect position worked without any expenditure of Aether, letting E4 easily catch up before it cut off. It seemed that her orders would increase E4’s speed whenever she was 4 meters or more away, and cut off once she was within one meter, giving E4 a sort of rubber banding pattern.

[[Update: Perfect position can work without aether, giving you a boost of speed. Mara wants to,]] Before I could even finish my thought E4 poured ATP into her legs and pushed even harder, though she immediately began breathing hard from the exertion. Immediately she reached out and grabbed Marissa, her speed falling but still moving at inhuman rates.

“Mistress, give me an order.” E4 called, trying to speak over the rush of wind. Above the skies turned dark and lightning crackled through the air. A bolt of lightning brought down a tree, which immediately exploded in spores and slime. As if set off by the attack dozens more trees began to weep the strange slime, followed by countless bugs that followed. The wind began to whip even as strange roots that resembled bone spines began to rip themselves from the ground. Great spires of stone and ore shot forth in response, as if trying to push back the bone. Even beneath the cowl E4 could feel the pressure building on her mind. Mara’s presence the weakest but the most familiar, with the presence she had felt during the Screaming Dread hunt and the new presence both pushing against one another. Heavier and heavier, it felt as if she was descending deeper and deeper under water, as if her skull might crack under the pressure. “Marissa!”

“Run, run until we’re at the city!” Immediately E4 felt herself accelerate. The trees whipped by, and the bugs were left behind. Within a single minute the swamp had thinned and the walls were in sight. Above the storm still raged, rain falling from the sky as lightning still crackled above.

“Marissa!” E4 glanced to the side to see Marcus, currently being carried by Vienna as she leapt from tree top to tree top.

“We have to get inside, The Heavens themselves are opening up to deliver divine judgment upon one of the great beings.”

[[Mara, Be careful. Great powers dwell here and we are yet visitors.]] E4 chittered. Immediately she winced as Mara’s attention flickered to her, and she saw when Marissa and Vienna twitched. Either Marcus was made of sterner stuff, or lacked the ability to sense her presence. E4 quickly crossed herself and said a quick prayer, for herself and her patron. Almost immediately Mara’s presence faded, leaving a silent anxiety in its wake. She wasn’t gone, E4 knew that, but she was lurking in wait.

“Did it stop?” Marissa asked, eyeing the swamp lands, before a wretched buzzing echoed from the woods. Indistinct shapes, too numerous to count obscured as they were within the mist. Lightning crackled and thunder boomed as the skies made known their disapproval. One of the shadows hopped forth, and the sight filled E4 with dread. A grasshopper the size of a large dog, its carapace ruptured with fungal bodies and fuzzy with a layer of blue mycelium. E4 wasn’t sure what was worse, the fact it was covered with fungus, or the fact it had a scorpion tail that seemed to be thrashing around like a whip.

There was a CRACK as Marissa unloaded an overpowered blast from her pistol that reduced the thing’s head into a ruin. “Nope! E4, to the walls!”

Thrown from her daze E4 ran as fast as she could towards the walls. Marissa quickly reloaded, firing pot shots at anything that tried to catch up with them. With casual ease Vienna lifted Marcus, who E4 thought she could hear yelp, and seemed to gracefully bound after her. Even as she ran she called down walls of lightning to reduce the pursuing bugs to aether.

“Halt!” A guard announced, leveling a flamethrower at E4. Two other guards, these ones dressed in stone armor rather than the riot suit like purifier armor, both gave the purifier guard a look. E4 quickly eyed the man up. He was wearing usual purifier armor, which consisted of heavy kevlar coated riot gear and backed by a more fragile but non-pourous material to keep out any form of infection. His copper mask betrayed no expression though it did show his low rank. It bore only a single filter, marking him as expendable. In terms of weapons E4 saw he carried the flamethrower that marked him as a purifier, a four barreled shotgun, and a blade that resembled a machete. In contrast the other two guards had heavy stone hands which held an over sized spear and a long sword at their hip, both with stone for the blade. Both wore a cloth mask, purple with the sign of the Purifiers. “Who are you and where do you come from?”

E4 immediately released Marissa and moved her hands so he could see she was unarmed. “Presenting Lady,” Immediately the shotgun was aimed directly in her face, “Hey, ease up. We’re Regulators.”

“You DARE?” Vienna shouted, dropping Marcus off. E4 saw the tic she knew all too well, panic blooming in her chest. “Do you not see the horde coming this way? You address a Senior Regulator, Mistress Vienna Marked, First Daughter of,” The purifier didn’t wait to hear the rest before he pulled the trigger and a shower of magnesium sparks burst forth from his shotgun. E4 knew it was magnesium, as had it been a forge breath round it would have hurt far more.

“E4!” Immediately Marissa was at E4’s side trying to extinguish her with a blanket and reach for her elixir at the same time, causing both to fall to the ground, while Marcus had his blunderbuss leveled at the guards. The city guards were looking at the purifier as if he had grown a second head, their blades out but they were uncertain where to point it. Unbothered by his fellows’ stares he calmly racked another round and pointed his firearm back at Marcus.

“Brother, what do you think you’re doing?” One of the guards asked. “Can you not see they are regulators.”

“These refugees are nothing but trouble. They may look fine, but they’re trouble one and all.” The purifier’s voice boomed with a brass inflection, likely the closest The Myst had to the robotic voice modulators from Earth. “Look behind them, clearly they did something and are trying to hide within our walls. That’s not to mention the plague of undead. We must assume they are infected,” he moved his shotgun from Marcus and towards Vienna who looked as if she might strike him down at any moment, “and purify them.”

“I invoke the Right of Sanctuary.” For a moment it seemed as if the world stilled. The guards both turned in unison to Marcus, who held one hand over his heart and his blunderbuss pointed to the floor. “I swear upon The Myst that we shall cause no harm to the Cursed Lord nor his people so long as we are shown the same courtesy.”

For all this time Marissa paid no mind to the drama, trying to help E4 with the burns. The purifier had tried to shoot Vienna, yet E4 had managed grab the barrel. She had exerted what little ATP she had to activate perfect position, not realizing it would activate on its own. While she had intended to knock the shotgun away with her right arm, she had overshot and ended up grabbing it with her left, leading to the shot striking her right in the chest. “You’re going to be alright, just open your mouth.”

“Ma,” As soon as her mouth was open wide Marissa dumped the entire canteen into her mouth, cutting off E4’s words. She drank greedily, and the Aether poured out of her chest. Muscle and flesh knit back together, but it was slow going. The burns didn’t want to heal, not like mere pulverized flesh. Yet at the same time the magnesium rounds didn’t burrow as deep.

[[Try not to move. Your chest is badly burned, but nothing penetrated deeply. There is good reason the purifiers used fire]]

“You monster, I should sever your spine for this.”

“Don’t, that would violate the sanctuary.” Marcus spoke up. “Marissa, how is she?”

“Marcus, how can you be so calm at a time like this?” Marissa snapped. “We’ve got some kind of disaster in the woods, and now the guards are shooting at us.”

“Let go!” The purifier cried out as one of the other guards ripped the shotgun from his hands. “They’re infected!”

“They’ve invoked the Right,” The Stone-Weaver guard spoke calmly as he easily overpowered the purifier.

Marcus locked eyes with the purifier, before calling the shotgun to his hand. “Rogue guard or not, they wouldn’t break sanctuary, that’s a death sentence. It’s an uncharged weapon, damage is probably minimal right E4?”

E4 took a breath, then another, “Ow, it still hurts.” She wrapped the blanket tightly around her. “Hurts to breathe, probably have a cracked rib. Really missing healing hands about now.”

“Right, we need to get you to the guild hall.” Marcus spoke quickly and professionally, though with an edge of swiftly hidden concern beneath his voice. “Per the guild code a medical professional must be there or available at all times. A Myst Folk doctor will not be as good as a Blessed one, but it’s better than nothing.”

“Don’t let Kindred touch me.” E4 gasped out. Marcus shot her a look as Marissa picked up E4, trying not to hurt her but lacking a better way. “Trust nothing colored purple.”

“No, she must be cleansed.” E4 had just enough time to see that the purifier had broken free before everything was bright.