Brand felt a spike of anxiety as he spotted Quartz Creek on the horizon. He thought it was stupid - no, knew it was stupid, but knowing that Rizzo and Harlow were around here still made him feel like he was on enemy territory. He flowed his energy into his bronze sword and could see the metal glimmer in response. It felt good. He wasn’t the same person he had been when he’d met Rizzo and Harlow last.

Besides, they had won last time. Even though that was entirely due to the strength of Marius, it still felt good to have beaten the two guards chasing them. It was a basic, instinctual thing and though Brand knew that he didn’t have the power to defeat Rizzo, he still felt a boost of confidence at the thought of having done so. Even though they’d lost the Databeast egg.

That inner turmoil was a drama that he knew would repeat itself over the next few days while he acclimated to Quartz Creek and the fact that Rizzo could be hiding around every corner and ready to jump out from every shadow from now on. It was just something that he had to get used to - he could only blame himself for not getting stronger.

It helped that he had more people on his side. Though he did occasionally wonder if Rizzo would be calling for reinforcements.

If you’d described the scenario to him before he’d left Cabletown, Brand would have laughed out loud. The whole thing would have seemed ridiculous. Yes he’d have said that Cabletown was bad, but they weren’t psychotic. They only did what they thought was best, they were just misguided. That’s what his parents had thought after all.

But they were wrong. He had been wrong. Rizzo was a deranged madman who was chasing them across field and city to lock them up for a law that hadn’t even been on the books when he’d tried to enforce it. And Harlow? What on Excoria was his problem? The mad creature had been following them around, hobbling on a broken leg. He didn’t know how long Harlow had taken up to heal, but he really doubted it was enough. Especially since he had half a powersuit strapped onto it. Brand had seen them used rarely in the mines and they were no joke.

The only explanation that Brand could think of was that Harlow was like a mad dog chomping at the bit to get revenge. Why couldn’t he have just left Brand and Tommen well alone? They never would have had to attack him if he hadn’t tried to stop them leaving Cabletown. And maybe then Harlow wouldn’t be out for blood and could just be back home, enjoying his life. The boy had even attacked Rosie in his madness. Brand couldn’t forgive that.

It was also possible that Harlow was an ideologue, hell-bent on bringing Brand and Tommen back to Cabletown, much as Rizzo was.

Brand put the thoughts of the guards behind him as he passed the gates to Quartz Creek. They entered the long way so that they could meet up with someone and finally put a quest to rest.

“Vince MacGill!” said Tommen as they stopped at a little stall full of carvings, where an older man sat with a hat over his face.

The man lifted his brim up slightly to see who it was, and his face lit up as he saw Rosie.

“Rosie, sweetheart! I’d heard you left! And these must be the adventurers that stole you away from our humble town. Why, I regret selling you those totems now! Put 'em up, scoundrels!” said Vince as he raised his hands in a boxing stance.

“Woah!” said Tommen, putting his hands up in surrender.

Rosie laughed and put her hands on Vince’s fists. “Stop this now, we’ve come to give you something.”

“Only if you’re sure you’re alright Rosie. Why, when I heard you’d been attacked I was in a right state. I was glad then that Marius was around to help you, but I’m still not sure why you have to gallivanting off like every other youth in town.” Said Vince, lowering his fists.

“Well if Marius wasn’t an adventurer he wouldn’t have been able to save me, would he? And we were attacked in the middle of town, so it's not necessarily safer inside than out.” said Rosie.

“Aye but still, there wouldn’t have been trouble if these two adventurers hadn’t come through this way anyway, so it's a moot point. Adventurers causing problems, adventurers solving problems, I don’t know. I’m just glad you’re alright.” Said Vince. “What did you come to bring me then?” he asked, sitting down placidly back down in his carving station.

Brand opened up his bag and showed the rucks of silverstars they’d picked up from the mine after defeating the flungeon. They hadn’t exactly forgotten about it, but other things had taken a massive priority over the completion of their quest to deliver the silverstars to Marius’ brother.

“What’s all this then?” Vince said, peering in. “You want to trade or something? I’d be mighty tempted, can’t lie. What do you want for them?”

“Well we promised your brother we’d deliver you ten silverstars in exchange for half off a potion. Didn’t realise the mess it would get us in though,” laughed Brand. “But here we are. You can have the extras for free. Where should I put them?”

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Vince eyed them sceptically. “Marius put you up to this? If he thinks that’s gonna solve things between us…”

“Of course he doesn’t,” said Rosie. “But he knows you’d liked carving them and you can’t get them easily anymore. He’s just being nice. Accept the gift.”

“Alright, alright. I’ll take it. My thanks to you for getting them for me. If you stick around I’ll even carve you some totems as a thank you, eh? How does that sound?” Vince asked them.

“What are these?” asked Ravena.

“They’re totems. Little carvings of Databeasts.” answered Vince. “The old story goes that if you have a Databeast carved of the right material on you when you hatch a Databeast egg within yourself then you’re more likely to get that Databeast. Or one of a similar type.”

“How old is this story?” Ravena’s interest had been piqued.

Vince shrugged. “My grandma told me about it. Seemed to be common knowledge around Quartz Creek. Or it was just a good excuse to sell totems to adventurers willing to do anything to give themself an edge.”

“Mum told me the story too.” said Rosie. “As a kid. I don’t know how true it is. I never got one myself, thought mum would be mad about it.”

“And she had every right to be, young lady. But since you’re going out there and facing the world anyway it’d be better if you did it with a strong Databeast by your side. I’ll make you the strongest one there is as a totem.” Vince proclaimed.

“Ahah that’s okay. I’m not sure that’s even something that I’d want. Honestly, I thought a Pebblegob would be kinda cool, but I don’t think they’re the strongest by any means…” said Rosie.

“A Pebblegob? Are you mad?” Tommen exclaimed.

“I think it would be useful. It could help lock down Databeasts while I hit them with my axe.” She pouted.

“That’s fair, I guess…” Tommen conceded quickly.

“And if the material really matters, perhaps a totem carved of silverstars is more likely to get you a Pebblegob than it would, say, an Authorn.” Ravena mused.

“Ooh! I didn’t think about it before, but an Authorn would be cool too!” Rosie said with eyes bright.

“Not exactly what I had in mind when I talked about a strong Databeast protecting you…” Vince protested. He and Rosie quickly fell into an argument that Tommen contributed to.

“You’re really taken with this story, huh?” Brand asked Ravena, who was lost in a reverie of thought.

“I am,” she confirmed, “and I want to know more about it. Where did it come from and why? QBEA has enough weird things going on. As far as I’m concerned it’s another possible piece of the puzzle.”

“You think this story relates to QBEA? How?” asked Brand, though he was already piecing things together in his head, he wanted to hear Ravena’s opinions before he solidified any errant suspicions he had.

“QBEA appears to be dedicated to studying Databeasts and the way they evolve from one form to another. Flungeons having a combined Juvenile and Emergent stage suggests they were in some way successful at actually applying this. If this old story comes from genuine scientific practice that was present in QBEA, now preserved through a sort of folk transmission from parent to child, then it’s important to try and reconstruct the observations that past scientists made that led to this.

“If it's true that one of these totems really helps with the formation of a certain type of Databeast, then what does that mean for the hatching of Databeasts? Is it that the person is more capable of visualising that Databeast, so the Databeast is more likely to assume that form? Or is the Databeast literally reading the world around them for information that it then uses to create the Databeast’s form? In that case, literally pulling information from the totem to help inform it. Of course it would be pulling from other places too… We really don’t know how a Databeast egg determines the form precisely, only that it’s definitely affected by the Element Stone and likely affected by the person, environment the egg was taken from, and myriad other minor factors. Weather conditions? Temperature? Seems to be, but not strongly. If the totems do have an effect in the hatching of the Databeast, that would be a massive breakthrough in understanding the process as a whole.” said Ravena.

“But we don’t know that the totems really do help, right?” asked Brand.

“We don’t,” said Ravena. “But it’s definitely one of those things to file away for later. It could be the key that unlocks everything, or it could just be an odd practice created to scam would-be Tamers.”

“Got it. I’ll keep it in mind then,” said Brand.

“Okay, I will make you both a Pebblegob and an Authorn totem,” sighed Vince to Rosie, who celebrated.

“Brand, Ravena, which totems do you want?” asked Rosie.

“You must get strong ones. To protect Rosie, since she does not want to protect herself,” said Vince.

Brand laughed. “I already have one though. I wouldn’t know what else to get.”

“You can have two.” said Tommen.

Ravena took a more analytical approach. “Some of these totems are levels higher than Juvenile. Since multiple Juvenile Databeasts can transform into the same Vanquisher stage, how does that work for hatching? Does it make your hatched Databeasts more likely to turn into a Juvenile stage that can reach that Vanquisher stage, or does it make it more likely for a Juvenile stage to evolve into a specific Vanquisher?”

“Both. So the story goes. That’s why higher levels cost more,” said Vince with a sly grin. “After material and carving costs are taken into account, anyway. That salamandrake totem I sold this young man.” He said, pointing to Brand. “Is high level, but fairly cheap because it was made with local wood and was very easy to carve.”

“I guess it’s worth getting higher level ones then.” Said Tommen.

“Well hold on,” said Ravena. “It’s hard to test this with higher level Databeasts. Maybe we should commission some higher level ones for when we’re out of here. And get some Juvenile ones for right now so that we can properly test this. We’re going to get you guys some Databeast eggs after all, right?”

“You’re really going all in on this then?” laughed Brand.

“You bet,” Ravena confirmed. “Theo and Elaine are going to love this.”

“What are we going for then?” asked Brand.