The bus to deliver him back to the portal had been silent. Those who were meant to be at school had permission to arrive late, and they sat in their uniforms, some finishing last-minute homework. Everyone was subdued at Mosh having to leave. Two weeks had been enough time for them to have become reaccustomed to his presence, and his having to return to the Game a new wound. When he arrived at the Earth Mileu Headquarters, he had to break away from his mother who did not want to let go. He also noticed a heightened security presence, and four drones hovering nearby, two with open weapon ports and two which moved incessantly through the area with various devices extending and retracting. Fulan stood nearby, dressed immaculately in his earth Mileu uniform.
“It is good to see you Mosh, even if the circumstances are not the best.” Fulan gave Mosh a brief bow as Mosh approached, waving him forward with his hand.
Mosh smiled at him and waved his hand, encompassing the drones overhead. “New security measures? I don’t think I recognise those designs.”
Fulan scowled, “Two attack drones and two surveillance drones that should see through abilities below the twenty-sixth tier. Anything better would be prohibitively expensive, beyond our current means.” He paused looked at the drones and consulted a view stone. “The surveillance drones have found numerous spy devices throughout our headquarters and the city. Whether they were from the Galactic Mileu or not, all members of the Galactic Mileu are banned from our Headquarters unless they can provide a valid, legal reason to be here. We will have no more illegal attempts as scanning.” He fell silent, and when Mosh started to ask a question he shook his head. Mosh understood they had found the devices under Tier twenty-six, but those were minor devices on the larger stage, who knew what else was planted and had not been found?
The walk to the gate was short but felt long as his parents and family fell behind and out of sight. A tunnel took them directly there and Mosh settled his pack onto his back and stroked Silky who walked by his side. His pack was heavier than when he arrived, food, tonics, poultices, anti-toxins, both magical and mundane, and little keepsakes from his siblings that took up almost no space but would serve as a link to home. He breathed deeply, nodded to Fulan and the guards at the portal, and stepped through.
Crucible Day 43
It had been early morning on Earth, but back in the Crucible, the sub stood high in the sky, not far off from midday. He had arrived back in the clearing he had departed from, though no signs remained of his fight against the guardian. He extended his senses, feeling the heightened mana flow and his senses expanding as they connected to it. He breathed deeply, the air in the Crucible smelling sweeter than what he knew back home.
He moved into the forest, finding the nook he had hidden in while recovering before his battle against the Bar Nachash. He looked around, but it was just a secluded hiding spot and would not work for an extended stay. He moved on, his senses alert and Mind Alert active, checking if any creatures were near him. He sensed small vermin darting away as he approached, nothing of interest for evolutions, advancement or food and moved on.
Knowing he needed to find water, he activated his Mana Sensory control, allowing his vision to show him the world coloured by Mana, and looked for flows of water mana that could direct him to a water source. He hiked through the forest, hiding his tracks as he went, balancing expenditure and recovery. It was not until late afternoon that he found the mana traces he was looking for and changed his direction of travel, following the direction the water mana flowed from, looking for its source.
The forest thickened as he approached the water mana source, thick vines hanging down as he pushed through a layer of bushes below. He put his foot down, only to find it had nowhere to go, the drop-off hidden by the thick bushes. He started sliding down and he grabbed hold of vines to arrest his fall. He managed to do so, and started to pull himself up, and felt a burning in his and in his fingers that gripped the vines. His grabbing them had caused them to release some unknown liquid which burned his skin. He held back his scream, caught between the choice of plunging into the cleft or gripping to the vines that burned. He tried to grip, but the pain was too much, and he feared what it would do this hand if he maintained his grip. He released his grip and plummeted down.
He dropped only a metre or two before his feet met the thick foliage lignin the drop. He slid down, the foliage damp from the spray he could feel coming up from below. He slowed himself with his feet and gripped with his hands onto the foliage, but while it slowed him, he could not stop the fall as his weight stripped the leaves or pulled the branches and plants out of their loose attachment to the side. Eventually, he came to a stop, caught in a cleft in the trunk of a tree that resembled a spruce tree. He looked down, into the water that churned across rocks as it raced past, the spray shooting up and covering everything in the vicinity.
Mosh took stock, examining his hands. Angry red welts showed, but the pain they gave had made him think the damage was far worse. The first positive of his situation, he wasn’t as hurt as he had feared. The next positive was that his pack was still in place, even his spear which he had feared might be ripped free and lost was still there, though he would need to fix the straps that held it, the stitches were stretched and about to pull out where they attached to the pack. He looked down, trying to see if there was somewhere safe to go to and saw a shelf of rock that jutted from the cliff wall. It looked thin and very slippery, but he could see that it dropped down as the river below widened and slowed, a thin embankment running between the wall and the river.
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Mosh carefully lowered himself, sighing in relief as his feet touched the rock. He moved along and felt something squirming beneath his hand, he lifted it and watched a lizard scuttle into the foliage, he thought nothing of it until it darted out and sunk teeth into him. He yelped, pulling his hand back and managing to control his instinctual response to step back which would have sent him into the rapid below. He growled, extending the claws from his fingers and slashing forward, catching the lizard and slicing it into three pieces.
Letaah Lakir killed. Body enhancement points earned: 1. Body enhancement points needed to next Tier 56/2100. Evolutionary essence gained: 1, Evolutionary Essence to next Tier 6/3750. Evolutionary Potential points gained 1, Evolutionary Potential Points to next tier 1819/6600. Evolutions offered: Chameleon.
Mosh was quite surprised, the lizard had been a Tier 1 creature. Not that it offered much, but it had dropped his health by a couple of points. He moved on, keeping a closer look out for anything that might be hiding in the foliage.
It may only have been a couple of hundred meetings, but with the care to check the foliage and maintain his footing, it took close to half an hour to reach the embankment, and he felt worn out after he did so. The footing was still slippery, especially in areas where moss and algae covered the rocks. He made his way carefully to the river, and knelt, peering into the water with all his senses and mind detect active, and hit a solid wall. The water blocked him, no matter how hard he pushed, he could not peer within. He stepped back concerned about not just what was within that he could not detect but what the water itself may contain. He found some small pools away from the main river, and these he could see through with both his normal, enhanced, senses and mana senses. He even activated True Sight and used it to examine the puddles, but aside from a high mana content, they seemed safe. The main river, however, just looked like a solid black wall to his True Sight, impenetrable, and this scared him, even the aether within his True Sight could not penetrate it.
He sighed, continuing along the riverbank, looking for somewhere he could shelter for the night. Midkar remained silent, though Mosh intended to make him talk soon. He had not forgotten the promise of Midkar to explain Shaping to him when they entered the First Ring! He looked around and felt Silky making an appearance next to him. He had been keeping out of sight and Mosh wondered how he had made his way down, though Silky had always been a better climber, and perhaps with his better climbing and lower weight, as well as all his feline characteristics, he had just walked down and watched him struggle.
The river remained within its banks, which slowly widened, slowing its flow. The riverbank also widened and Mosh could see the algae that coated the rocks, evidently, it was common for the river to overflow its banks. He looked up to the darkening sky, happy to see it clear without any clouds, he would hate to be caught in a flash flood. He was still walking as night fell, darkness descending, but helpful moonlight filtering down the chasm to where he walked. With his enhanced senses and the moonlight, he could see well and continued his search for a safe place to sleep.
Towards what must have been close to midnight by his reckoning from the moon, he spotted some mangrove trees growing near the cliff, its many trunks forming a hollow within, its wide roots spread out, reaching the river and sinking within. He clambered through the trunks and found they formed a central vault. The trunks were close together and he had to force his way through, the branches overhead thick enough to form a roof. He settled in, and sank his mana into the walls, pulling trunks closer, and warping branches to close gaps. It was not the strongest wall, but it would deter anything not actively hunting him. Silky lay down next to him, purring as she faced towards the walls. Mosh closed his eyes, though only after asking Silky to keep watch as he slept. As always, he did not know if she understood, but it had become part of his nightly ritual, and it felt right to do.
***
The Kobold village was crude. In the first ring, these Kobolds were barely sentient, but they had developed enough that they built houses and wielded weapons. The weapons were crude clubs or sharpened bones, but they were better than their diminutive claws or their fists driven by their meagre strength.
Sri was their scout. He was smaller than the warrior kobolds, barely larger than the breeding mothers, the guardian females made him look puny, but he was quick and stealthy, His colouring was perfect for the swampy area near the river, he blended in and was seldom seen.
Chief Broli was listening to him, their primitive language was not given to high philosophical discussion, but it served well for conveying this kind of message. Two strangers, one who walked on two legs and carried a weapon, one an animal that disappeared from his sight and then reappeared. He could not convey much else other than that the stranger was big, even bigger the Chief Broli. The Chief took that with some scepticism, everyone looked giant to the pipsqueak reporting to him.
The Chief grunted, indicating for the scout to leave. The Chief would consult with the Shaman and his warriors in the morning. For now, the night eye was in the sky, and he hungered. After he satisfied his hunger for food, he would satisfy his hunger for his third wife, who had declared that her batch of eggs required his attention. He would do his duty and help sire the next generation of the tribe.