He backed his way along the edge of the pit, careful not to make any threatening movements, but as he backed away, more of them followed. Hunter thought that maybe backing away had been a mistake, as his show of fear dispelled some of their uncertainty.

More squawks peppered through the ranks of creatures as they approached him. Avian heads lowered, and their steps became more calculated. It reminded Hunter of a wolf, or a leopard, getting ready to pounce.

The squawking rose to a crescendo. The flock was hyping itself up. Their indignation wasn’t just about survival, he surmised. They seemed offended.

He had invaded their territory and desecrated their sacred sewage. How could they let him get away with that? He backed away, not waiting to see if they would change their mind and welcome him like a guest.

The bird-dog-reptile closest to him let out a high-pitched squeal and charged, flapping its wings. It sped up fast, and Hunter had to roll away from it, cursing as his body screamed in pain.

He tuned out the pain out as best he could and ran. The beasts took their comrade’s charge as an unspoken queue and rushed en masse. Hunter heaved as he ran, dodging branches and bushes, feeling lost and confused in the strange landscape. Everywhere he looked there were new colours, and trees twisting around other trees in helixes.

He saw many-limbed creatures between those trees. They reminded him of giant spiders with bodies the size of his head and limbs as long as his own body was tall. They were furred and had articulated eye-stalks which tracked him as he passed. He didn’t wait to see how they’d react, but the ones ahead gave him no choice.

Some of them tracked his chasers, and it was only when they saw them that the long-limbed spider-analogs shifted their focus to a familiar prey. With disturbing speed, the long-limbed spider monsters leaped past Hunter, and he heard a pained wail behind him. More screams echoed through the forest, and Hunter kept his focus ahead of him. There was a growl to his right, far enough away that he could only take it as a sign saying that safety was in the opposite direction.

He spat and batted his way through a wall of insects. More webbing between distant trees spelled actual spiders, having evolved in this distant world. Hunter was fine with spiders, but alien spiders in a world of aggressive beasts were a different matter.

No thanks.

He ran until his heart burned in his chest, and his limbs screamed in protest, but he could still hear frenzied activity behind him. Once in a while, new animal noises would join the mix and a new battle would take place. The adversaries chasing him could have increased or dramatically decreased, and he had no way of knowing.

With his life hanging in the balance, he pushed onward, his concern a constant companion. His mind told him he could run no further, but he knew that to stop moving would mean death. He dodged more branches, sprinted straight through small clearings, hedged his bets and risked running blind through more forest than he’d like.

Then the ground shook as Hunter entered another small clearing beside a raging river. The shaking grew in intensity, and he realized what he was feeling and hearing was a creature, massive and galloping straight towards him from his left. From the forest, a large, four-legged creature emerged at a full sprint. A thick grey hide, horned brows, and pointed antlers. It was like a hippo and a bull had a child who ate its parents and grew to be twice their size combined. It was at least three times taller than him, and must have weighed a few tonnes. The sheer force produced by that beast was something Hunter didn’t want to contend with.

Fortunately for him, its eyes weren’t tracking Hunter. Instead, they focused beyond him, and he suddenly experienced the most intense gut feeling of his life. It was like his curious urges mixed with a certain knowing that his survival hinged on the next action he would take.

He didn’t avoid the charging animal. Instead, he ducked.

As soon as he lowered his head, he felt the air above him displaced as a shadow covered him. All he could see were scales, and he heard a grunt as the large, charging beast met the attack of its challenger. It was the largest snake Hunter had ever seen. Its head was wide as he was tall.

If this were a table-top game, the hippo-bull would have dumped all its free stats into its physical traits. Challenging such an enormous snake was the height of stupidity and would mean certain doom. Hunter imagined the snake could crush the bull once it wrapped itself around the bull’s thick body.

The snake bit at the bull, and Hunter heard a loud metallic clang. The snake recoiled in surprise.

Hunter scrambled out of the way — his fear fighting with his curiosity. The bull was unaffected by the snake’s charge and Hunter wanted to know why. Another stupid urge rose, and he knew following it would be fatal.

Crawling, rolling, and then running, he made his way to the edge of the clearing. There came a roar, and Hunter saw his shadow projected in front of him as a bright flash lit him from behind. More displaced air buffeted him, causing him to stumble as the snake passed overhead and crashed through the forest, knocking down trees for a couple dozen meters. Its long body, which must have measured over a hundred yards long, trailed behind it before it stopped. The heat scorched a significant portion of its head and body. Smoke rose from the burned scales, blood oozing from between them, which boiled and hardened from the heat radiating from the beast.

The sight stupefied Hunter.

Had the bull exploded? He turned back. A mirage of heated air covered the bull. Its eyes glowed a deep red with orange highlights. The scorched ground burned.

Paralyzed by fear, Hunter remained still. He felt a curious sensation coming from the beast as it stalked forward, its head lowered, ready to charge. Some unbothered part of his mind considered that sensation. Then he understood what was really behind the urge he had been feeling.

What he was feeling was etherium. Charged to an incredible intensity, as if it were flowing through a powerful construct. But it wasn’t like any construct he’d ever felt before. It felt like it was morphing, moving, and alive.

And it felt powerful. More powerful than anything he’d ever felt before, save the Merciful Cloud. It felt profound — it was like a feeling he’d dreamt of long ago, but had forgotten over the years. It was like the piece of a puzzle he’d been trying to find, but didn’t even know where to look.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

The beast let out a low, bassy growl, which rippled through the mirage of distorted air around it. Hunter moved out of the way, not willing to get too close to the immense heat the beast was offputting.

The snake lay motionless. After waiting for a moment, the Bull huffed and the scorching heat dissipated. The surrounding air was no longer roiling in heated waves. He breathed a sigh of relief, but decided not to stick around.

So far, it was like the strange etheric monsters didn’t even notice his presence. He assumed the snake also received some etheric enhancement. Otherwise, what the hell had it been thinking?

Was the bull an anomaly? Did all members of its species as big? Would they all be able to manifest such intense etheric phenomena? Maybe it was more like an etheric mutation.

A mutation like that would mean that the beast’s AR—if such a term was even relevant in this case — would be higher than even his fathers was. He found it challenging to envision the capabilities of his father.

He needed a new way to measure inherent etheric capacity and output. Once he survived this, he could consider what that new way might be.

He capitalized on his insignificance in the eyes of the bull and ran as fast as he could. The clash between monsters must have scared away his chasers, as well as the rest of the surrounding birds and animals. Except for a few swarms of benign insects and slow-moving mollusks, he was alone.

Hunter followed the river, heading in the direction he thought the Merciful Cloud was most likely to have fallen towards. He did not know how close or far it might be, and he did his best to distract himself from feeling dread slowly encroaching on his psyche.

The sun would have to set sometime, and he would need to find some sort of shelter. His best bet was to stay focused on the river. As long as he knew where it was, he’d have a stable source of water and some food if he could get a fire started. Skyhold’s water sources were just as safe or unsafe as they were on sanctuary. Hunter felt it was typically a bad idea to drink from a river or lake if he ended up coming across one, but he had little alternative right now. Maybe it was an artifact of the Asutnahem, who had had existed across a mind-blowingly vast volume of inter-realm space, which was to blame for the similarities between the two distant worlds. The thought was exciting and provided a buffer against the dread.

Could they find Asutnahem relics all the way out here? They’d found the portal in space, so why not? It only stood to reason. Such a resource rich world was bound to have some trace of the Asutnahem’s presence.

Already, his mind was trying to dissect what he’d seen so far.

Skyhold was terrifying.

But Skyhold has once seemed terrifying to his ancient ancestors. Yet they had found a way to not only survive, but to thrive.

Oberon Enterprises was more than willing to exploit the advantage that a millennium of knowledge brought to bear in these circumstances. They wielded that expertise with an ambition that set his blood to boil.

It was like his own personal dream slotted perfectly into that of Trey and Aera’s ambition for their family and its legacy. Three words echoed through his mind whenever he considered his place with the Oberon’s, and what it meant for the future. Thrive, innovate, and expand. Out here, their only competition was the world itself. Their academy would be the universe, and they would realize their dreams upon its canvas, far from the Council Corporations. By the time the Council made it all the way out here, Oberon Enterprise will be a force to rival their combined might.

Whatever was going on at Skyhold right now could only ever be a speed bump. There was too much riding on this for Oberon to spare any expense for its future success.

The cost might be high, but it would be paid.

A familiar squawk interrupted his thoughts. Hunter paled, slowing his pace and finding a thick tree to cover his silhouette. He was too late. The first reptile-bird-dog checked behind the tree and screeched when it saw him. He kicked it as hard as he could and it squeed as it flew.

Its comrade’s enraged callings echoed through the distance. Hunter had no choice but to consider the river, as he couldn’t risk running through the forest anymore.

He knew it was risky, and that as soon as he entered the river, the clock would tick. But necessity wasn’t just the mother of invention, it was the mother of action. He ran and leapt, finding the raging river to be deeper than he’d assumed. It was a struggle for him to stay upright as the water carried him along its twisting path.

Hunter hadn’t expected the rocks. The river bed might be deep, but rocks still knocked at his feet, and at his side when he found himself pulled under the surface. He thanked etherium for whatever quality caused his body to become stronger, and boosted his endurance, because if it weren’t for his high AR and torturous sessions with Aera every day, he wouldn’t have as much control over his movement. What little control he had allowed him to avoid some of the worst obstacles at a considerable cost of energy and sanity.

The river pulled him further and further away, and there were always new and frightening sounds motivating him to keep his body submerged.

Any fish he encountered were quick to scatter from him, with a few curious critters following behind. There were other strange creatures in the river, some similar to the strange giant spider mammals he saw stretched between the trees earlier. They didn’t seem to have any interest in him as he passed them.

Hunter felt some panic as the walls of the riverbed rose, soon stretching above him in sheer rock walls. He thought he saw a head over one wall; then it vanished, and he heard a yell, confirming his suspicion.

“Hey! Help!” he yelled, doing his best to swim against the river’s current. It did very little to slow his movement, and he found himself tire at a rapid pace.

“…down the river!” he heard someone yell, “We’ll catch you!”

Hunter felt as though luck itself had blessed him. Maybe his suffering in Seckina was enough to inspire some ancient God’s pity.

He changed course and started swimming with the current. He doubted it would get him to the waiting help any faster than it would otherwise. But he had to do something with the anxious, excited energy coursing through him like a second wind.

Soon, the rock wall fell back to a flatbed, and it was there that he felt himself caught up in thick netting. He flailed in panic, not expecting the sudden trap.

“Relax!” he heard a man yell, “We’ll pull you out!”

Hunter held his breath and did his best to keep his head above water. He saw men and women gathering, all wearing Guard uniforms in various states of disrepair and undress.

What were they doing out here, so far from the outpost? Why did they seem so haggard?

They were quick to pull him ashore, and Hunter panted through the sudden exhaustion he felt. His clothes weighed him down, even with his enhanced strength. He found himself surrounded by the Guards.

“It’s not safe out here,” a young woman said. “Let’s get you back to camp. We have some food we can spare for you.”

“His outfit is from the Merciful Cloud. Look at the insignia.”

“The Cloud,” Hunter said as his breathing evened out, “where is it?”

“We don’t know, let’s get you warm and dry,” a man said, the same voice which had answered his own when he’d first saw the head poking over the edge of the river wall. Hunter glanced at him. Among the handful of Guards, his uniform was the most intact — but that wasn’t saying much. A few tears in his uniform exposed patches of scraped or shallow-cut skin.

“Where am I?” Hunter asked.

“Not too bright, is he?” someone scoffed. An average sized man with a medium build. He had his jacket tied around his waist. Sweat, dirt, and a little blood stained his white undershirt.

“We don’t know what he’s been through, Jeren. He might be in shock or something,” said a balding man, further away.

“Doc will know,” the young woman said. She was tall and older than Hunter, and had short-cut brown hair, “which is why we need to get him back to camp. The faster we report in, the better.”

“Jeren, Bella, you’re in charge of keeping our guest safe and making sure he keeps up. Joe, you take point. I’ll radio ahead and tell them to get ready to receive a visitor,” the first man said.

He turned to Hunter and held out a hand. Hunter took his hand, and he pulled Hunter to his feet.

“Lieutenant Richard Pellar, at your service. Who might you be?”

“Koar,” Hunter said, “Hunter Oberon Koar.”

He heard a slight gasp from Bella. Lieutenant Richard and Jeren both saluted, Bella followed their lead.

Hunter winced.

He wasn’t on the ship anymore. Which meant that until they established contact with the Merciful Cloud, he was technically in command.