Keke was unsure what to say. Matron [Sniper] Wren was decrepit. Gray hair framed a face of pale skin, wrinkled and pocked with spots. One of her eyes had gone bad and had turned nearly completely white. A stark contrast to the one brilliant blue eye she still possessed. She was dressed in loose-fitting fabrics with long tassels and intricately woven threads. Her skin was thin and bore the appearance of a thin mucus. Bones protruded in sharp peaks and valleys, and Keke struggled to tuck away the thought that they could poke through her flesh at any moment.

Sylva and Lily stood close by, Lily on the opposite side of her bed with her mother’s hand in her own.

“So, you are to be our new sister,” Wren said with short breaths.

“Yes.” Keke nodded, unsure how to pay her proper respect. Should she bow? Show reverence in some way? Sylva had said nothing, so she waited for a clue.

“Yes, Mother,” Lily said, rubbing the top of the weathered woman’s hand. “Her name is Keke.”

“Keke?” Wren carefully adjusted her posture, and Lily assisted her. Several pillows and furs cushioned her against the headboard of her bed. The hearth behind Keke crackled. “I have heard that name before.” She sniffed the air. “Yes, that smell is…familiar. Nostalgic. Was your mother a [Hunter]?”

“A [Sniper],” Keke corrected.

“Elona’s offspring, then.”

Keke slowly nodded, impressed with Wren’s memory. She knew her mother had come to Khasstead to become a [Hunter] long ago, but that was before she had been born. Hearing her mother’s name on a stranger’s lips made her chest and throat tighten.

Wren cackled. “Now there’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time.” She gestured for Keke’s hand. Keke approached, and the matron intertwined her fingers with hers. It was like grabbing a skeleton. “One of the finest creatures nature created. How is she?”

She doesn’t know…

“She passed away years ago,” Keke said after a pause. After what had happened between her, Aurora, and Granny Nauka, she had to imagine it was the truth. There was little chance her mother would reappear as if she’d never left.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Wren said, tightening her grip. “Spirits cradle you both.”

Keke shook her head. “It’s okay. I’ve come to terms with it.”

“I’m glad to hear that. She was one of the finest [Sniper]s of our generation, you know.” Wren smiled, then looked at each face in the room. “We will all return to the soil one day. We should not fear this. We should welcome it. It is nature’s way.”

“Nature’s way,” Sylva muttered.

Lily parroted her, and Keke nodded.

“You have her eyes, child,” Wren remarked.

Keke flushed. “Thank you.”

“I know that you will make a fine [Hunter],” Wren continued. Despite the woman’s obvious signs of poor health, she was as warm as the hearth beside her. The genteel nature of her voice, the way she smiled, the very air around her, all of it brought about a sense of comfort Keke felt in few other places. “I don’t wish to take any more of your time. Sylva?”

“Yes, Matron,” Sylva said with a bow at the neck.

“See to it that Keke is brought before the first trial.” She smiled at Keke. “I get the sense that our new sister is eager to learn.”

Keke returned the smile. “Yes. Very much.”

“Then may the spirits guide you.” Wren released Keke’s hand.

“Thank you, Matron.” Keke settled on the title Sylva had addressed her by with a small bow.

“This way, Keke.” Sylva gestured as she pushed the cabin door open.

Keke followed, noting that Lily hadn’t moved from her mother’s bedside. They continued their conversation in whispers, and Keke sympathized with Lily’s position. She felt a brief pang of longing for her own mother. Before Sylva could call for her again, Keke followed her outside and quietly shut the door behind her.

The sun had barely risen. A gentle rain pattered the trees and rooftops nearby, accompanying the chirps and clicks of unseen Encroachers.

Keke’s ears flicked up, eager to listen in, to see which sounds she could differentiate from one another. Many of them were so foreign, and the excitement she felt when she’d become a [Scout] returned. “Khasstead is so beautiful.”

“This is just the beginning. This way.” Sylva grinned as she descended the cabin’s steps onto the paved dirt road.

Sylva led them around the town’s center and toward a collection of hills. Keke brushed the medallion pinned to the sleeve of her [Combat Mode] attire. She’d thought to ask what each task would be, but a large part of her wished to know them as they came. As ridiculous as she felt to admit it, the kitten in her wanted to be surprised.

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At last, Sylva stopped at the mouth of a cave carved into one of the hills. “Here we are.” She retrieved an unlit torch from the sconce beside the entrance, then procured a small red stone from a small pouch around her belt and held it close to the bottom. Moments later, the pitch on the torch caught fire, and she returned the stone to its pouch. She held the torch up, then carefully handed it to Keke. “You must go alone.”

Keke tilted her head curiously. “What do I need to do?”

“Allow your instincts to guide you. Cast away your reason and enter the cave without judgment or assumption.” She shook her head. “I can say no more.”

“Okay.” Keke accepted the torch. She passed into the darkness and felt an unusual pull. Wait, where was the sun? She turned around and gasped, alarmed to see that the cave’s entrance had disappeared. “What the…?”

I’m trapped! What happened?

Her heart pounded against her chest, and she nearly dropped the torch in a panic. Eyes wide, she brushed the fingers of her free hand across the rigid stones barring her, then pushed. It was no good. They didn’t so much as budge. All that remained was for her to explore the cave’s depths, and hope that she would be okay.

They wouldn’t do this if it put me in harm’s way, right? she reasoned.

She shook her head, angry that she couldn’t follow simple instructions.

Cast away your reason.

Drawing a deep breath, she marched forward, torch extended. It proved to do little more than help her see a few footsteps in front of her. Periodically, a drop of water would hit the torch, and the thought of it being snuffed out was enough to awaken her anxiety and cause her breath to hitch.

The walls of the cave were pointed and angular. Small spires of see-through rocks—which she had no name for—jutted out of pockets filled with similarly colored stones. They bore no light or myana within them, unlike most rare stones. For some reason, she felt drawn to them, and so she kneeled before one and held the torch closer.

The stones caught the torchlight, casting a gentle array of prismatic luminescence across the walls. She marveled at the beauty.

“Incredible,” she whispered as she looked around her. The thought of taking one of the stones occurred to her. As she leaned forward to tear it from its socket, she paused. A sense of wrongness swept over her, causing the hairs on her skin to rise. It was a feeling that what she was about to do wasn’t so simple as stealing. No, it went beyond that. Her action would be akin to ripping a kitten from its mother’s arms.

She had no explanation for why she felt that way. She had taken the lives of countless Encroachers without a single thought, mined precious ore, and commissioned clothes from the skins of tigers. Paying respect to them was something she liked to do when she was alone, oftentimes with a short prayer to Saoirse as a way of thanks. It was the way of nature, the way of the land, as her mother had taught her.

So, why did this particular thing feel so wrong to do?

She shook her head and stood up. If it felt wrong, then it was wrong. Sylva had said to trust her instincts, and instinct dictated that her desire for the stone was out of greed, not necessity.

The itch to take the stone came and passed, and she continued her trek deeper.

As her journey took her farther down, she came to a fork in the road. One path led to a more narrow passageway filled with jagged rocks and more of the prism stones. A glint caught her eye, and as she focused using her [Low-Light Vision], she saw Bells trailing the path.

To her right, however, was a passageway devoid of complex rock formations. The walls were smoother, wet with the rain from above that had traveled down cracks and into the soil beneath her feet. She sniffed the air, then furrowed her brow.

Guide me, she thought as she closed her eyes. The muscles in her shoulders relaxed, and the warmth of the torch heated her face. Her ears perked, and the sound of the rain outside grew louder. The storm wasn’t worsening. No, it was her senses. Something had changed. Rather than question it, she continued to keep her eyes shut and listened intently.

The path to her left was laden with coins and stones and treasure that would sustain her. Plenty to keep her alive for months. The stones would fetch a high price at any jeweler, and Bells were always a boon. But they were not hers to take. The ores held within, the treasure made, the stones grown, all were products of nature. Wild, just as the Encroachers who inhabited Nyarlea were.

Just as she was.

Keke opened her eyes, walking the path on her right. Her pace quickened, her footsteps guided by a force equal parts foreign and familiar. She smiled wide. The tunnel gave way to twists and turns. She approached a large hole, stepping over it without ever looking down, barely aware of its presence. She was attuned to something much greater than herself. Much greater than any catgirl. A voice was carrying her down the cave, carefully guiding her every movement. The voice of the forest.

The voice of nature.

A light at the end of the cave captured her attention. The happy buzzing of insects followed, its volume intensifying with each step she took closer. As she rounded the corner, she came upon a clearing. Thick blades of grass sprouted around an idol of stone shaped like a large egg. Stripes of white and green colored its make, the visage of a wolf painted in faded red. Water droplets fell atop the idol, its majesty caught by the sunlight through a hole in the ceiling.

Keke’s eyes wandered upward. How was it that the sunlight was so bright here? There wasn’t a speck of sky to be seen before she entered. How did—

No. It wasn’t important. She was trying to reason it out; explain it logically.

Leveling her gaze with the idol, she felt apprehension from it. It was as unsure of her as she was of it. Despite it being clearly made of stone and inanimate, there was something alive about it. Inside was a soul, a consciousness.

Keke doused the torch in a puddle beside her. She leaned the wood against the wall, then clasped her hands to her chest. “I don’t mean you any harm. I want to understand you. Be a part of you.” She paused, took a step forward, then stopped short of touching the grass. “Please. Tell me what I must do.”

She flinched when she felt something prod the inside of her skull. It came to her not like a voice, but a thought that put itself there. As if someone had placed a bookmark between the folds of her mind.

“The furlocke,” she whispered. She’d never heard of such an Encroacher, but the beast’s appearance and size came to her as naturally as breathing. The image of a ferocious creature covered in brown fur and a large snout with thick black claws painted her vision. They bore long, slender bodies and were a sworn enemy of the wolf. “I will hunt one in your name and earn your aid.”

Gratitude exuded from the idol. A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth as a faint light caught her attention. When she looked down at the medallion, she noticed one of the threads glowed with a dull green. Looking up, the transparent image of a wolf outlined in blue light bowed on its forelegs.

My first task.

image [https://i.imgur.com/N6GiWp1.png]