Even at rest Oresus looked tired. The strain of the journey was starting to get to him for sure. So maybe this was a good idea after all. Still, Gloe had his doubts. “You sure about this?”

Startled, Oresus shook himself slightly. He must have been dozing lightly. “W-what?” He shook himself some more. “N-no. But Emokha wants to t-try.”

“Alright” Gloe said resignedly. “If we all die horrible deaths don’t come crying to me though, alright?”

“Y-yeah.” Already Oresus seemed to be nodding off again.

Looking around Gloe decided to let him rest. The coast seemed clear for now. Ducking a bit deeper into the bush he turned his consideration to the axe in his hand. He’d been experimenting and this tool was the result. He’d learned a lot, but it was essentially a failure.

Once he’d realized his understanding of magic was badly flawed he’d tried to pay closer attention whenever it was in action. Analyzing his squirrel boots had yielded some progress, especially when he’d made a pair for Emokha. From what he could tell the footwear’s magic had two separate methods of operation.

The first was the impartation of information. In order to facilitate nimbleness the boots somehow tapped into critical information regarding balance, load-bearing, friction and other physics-based elements. It then took that information, reformatted it into a useful package and sent it directly to the wearer’s subconscious. This allowed them to instinctively run along narrow branches or on unstable surfaces as if they had trained extensively. The augmentation was, as far as he could tell, wholly benign. It didn’t create any urges or affect free will at all, just improved natural aptitude once the wearer attempted a related task. It was like it transplanted the instinctive skill of the squirrel lizards and zip squirrels directly over. Or, more likely, drew on some over-arching magical concept of ‘nimbleness’ that both creatures served as examples of.

Testing this part of the boots on Emokha had been necessary because both Oresus and himself had learned the associated skill long ago. Since Emokha used her wings for balance and catching herself she didn’t need to be as sure-footed even when running along branches. The boots had made using her wings unnecessary, and he’d watched her place her feet just right, albeit not where he would have. Since she was taller and made of different material mixes than him her center of gravity was different. She’d said placing her feet in certain spots had just made sense, but had been unable to explain why. It was fascinating.

The second method of operation was just as interesting. The boots seemed to supply counter-force energy, but only when the wearer was focused on climbing or nimble movement. Not strictly anti-gravity either- when the wearer tried to run up a tree trunk the force came in at an angle that both supported the upward motion and helped keep their feet in contact with the bark. It wasn’t a lot of force most of the time, but it seemed to vary depending on the situation. So either some sort of intelligence was constantly monitoring and regulating the power flow or…perhaps the squirrels’ abilities were reflections of some sort of higher reality and the enchantment just linked the boots to that truth.

What if magic itself consisted of myriad such connections, linking mundane objects and circumstances to…for lack of better terminology, a plane of higher reality. If the material were a reflection or derivation of some sort of uber-truth then a power flow from specific aspects of that reality could enhance performance. Magical skill would then consist of creating more direct links in order to reap the most relevant benefits and opening portals that would allow the most power to flow forth as efficiently as possible.

It was a wild theory, but it would explain why so much magic seemed intuitive, instinctive, almost self-casting. If it was true magic was natural, at least in this world. Actually, it was almost hyper-natural. Preternatural? Probably not supernatural, as such. After all…

He shook himself minutely. He could get sidetracked on that issue for hours if he let himself. The point was the axe. For now, at least.

Perhaps when he had first made an axe from stabosaurus bits he had focused too much on the force the creature wielded. Certainly somehow he had ended up making a far more complex enchantment than he had intended. For this iteration he had deliberately gone simpler. He knew that enchantments could access additional energy from…somewhere. So this axe did that and only that (aside from a necessary minimum of durability enhancement.) Effectively it made the wielder stronger, but only as it applied to the individual swings of that weapon.

Which was all well and good, but it also turned out to be more or less pointless, at least for him. A bit of experimentation had demonstrated that he was already as strong as his body could handle. The axe could add to his striking power, but it ultimately was detrimental. He’d broken his arm three times in the last week.

Frustrating. Probably he should have been focusing on sharpness all along. That would allow him to get more penetration with the same amount of strength. But it wasn’t as if there were monsters roaming around with sharpness runes engraved on their hides. True some creatures did have sharp teeth and claws, but it was usually only one small element of their overall threat package. He got a tiny bit of insight into sharpness when he killed one, and that insight did seem to converge with what he had gained from destroying the executioner’s sword, but advancement was glacial. The starting point hadn’t been amazing either. There had only been the one blade after all, even if it had contained multiple runes.

The sorts of monsters he could kill tended to increase his understanding or relatively simple concepts: strength, speed, agility, toughness. Foundational stuff. Useful, just not really for him. As best he could tell his body was basically synced up- any significant increase in output put too much strain on it and led to damage. What he needed was something like weight reduction or sharpness. Anything that would improve results without requiring more from his various parts.

Ironically he seemed to, in one sense, be worse at magic now that he sort of understood it. When he’d made the squirrel boots or the stabosaurus axe he’d been too harried to try to really understand what he was doing. He’d just tried, and since magic seemed to be natural the results had just flowed forth.

Now he was somewhat constrained by what he did know, feeling forced to clearly articulate his end goal before beginning rather than just winging it. His brain functioned so much better now that he’d leveled up- he could overthink something thoroughly in seconds. Everything was considered now, because he had the time. Acting on impulse was a thing of the past.

In the long term it was probably for the best. Several times being able to think things through was the only factor that had kept him alive. Besides, he was making progress. As long as he continued to experiment and work things out he was confident magic would eventually make sense to him. If and when that did happen his enchantments would probably be stronger for it. And even if they weren’t it would give him an edge in analyzing opponents.

In the meantime though his most advanced enchantments were also the least useful for him, and his most useful were so underpowered that they couldn’t accomplish much. At least in terms of making weapons. He was going to have to start looking into armor instead. He couldn’t do anything flashy but lots of monsters had tough hides. He could probably push a fair bit of durability and damage resistance into defensive gear.

That would require tanning hides, sewing, etc. They were moving too fast for most of that right now. He was going to have to shelve it for now. Frustrating.

Oh well. It was time to stop musing anyway. He cocked his head as emotions came into range. “Here they come. You ready?”

“N-no.” Oresus yawned. “L-let’s do it.”

“That’s the spirit. Next couple minutes I figure. Maybe less. They’re both moving.”

“Y-yeah, I can hear.” They both listened to the enraged trumpeting. The source was obviously moving right towards them, and quickly. “W-what do you think she did to make it so angry?”

“It doesn’t take much in my experience.”

“Your experience d-doesn’t count. You m-make almost everyone angry.”

A toppling tree drowned out Gloe’s retort. Emokha popped into view right in front of it, running as fast as she could. A ripperphant was in hot pursuit. It was…unhappy. Undergrowth was trampled and ripped free as it charged forward, leaving a broad path of destruction in its wake. When a small tree got in its path it reached out with one of its hooked sawblade claws and chopped it off at ground level.

“Well that’s mildly terrifying. Here we go.”

As Emokha continued to flee the ground suddenly ended. She’d reached the cliffside. Given it was the whole reason they’d set up here she was not caught off guard. Seamlessly she transitioned from feet to flight, continuing to move forward.

The rogue bull’s momentum was incredible, but despite its almost frenzied rage it had not lost all self-preservation instincts. As the edge drew near it slammed its claws deep into the ground, crashing to a bone-rattling halt that hurt just to watch. The ground shook under the force.

Well, part of it anyway. Gloe and Oresus had spent hours undermining the cliff edge. Now they cut the vines and suspended rocks swung free from nearby trees, one after another. Three of them missed but five impacted on the target. None of them managed to dislodge the ripperphant’s claws, but their force translated through those limbs down into the ground.

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Meanwhile Emokha had smashed the supports. The resulting strain was too much, and the undermined section slowly collapsed. Its claws still dug deep, the bull couldn’t extricate itself and backpedal in time. It went over the cliff as well. It was a long way down.

Running down the cliff Gloe and Oresus quickly realized that although the tactic had worked it hadn’t fully succeeded. The impact with the ground must have been devastating, but it still hadn’t been enough. The ripperphant was still alive.

Two of its claw arms and at least three of its legs appeared to be broken, but it was still very much a threat. Already Emokha was flitting in and out, slashing at its eyes. It was bugling its rage and swiping at her with its remaining arms. Even with severely reduced mobility and dexterity it was incredibly dangerous. Her shroud might protect her from a direct hit, but not two. And even if it did the force involved was amazing. She’d go flying.

“Looks fun. Which side do you want?” Oresus shook his head, wordlessly gesturing to the left. Gloe shrugged and charged in on the right, drawing his pickaxe. Zig-zagging in he swung the point in with all his strength. The creature was mostly out of shroud but its hide was still spectacularly tough. He only got about four inches of penetration.

Screaming, it whipped around. Gloe barely ducked a sharp hook the size of his head. As he rolled backwards the bull wailed again, continuing its spin. Oresus must have landed a blow on its exposed flank. Gloe planted his feet, reversing his retreat and charging back in for another attack. To his right he could see Emokha nipping in, chopping at four capillaries at once. A few seconds later the monster was flipping back around and it was his turn to fall back again.

Wearing it down would work, as long as none of them took a hit. Even injured it had the reach to cover two hundred degrees or so around it. Maybe two hundred fifty if it stretched. Two people would be hard-pressed to keep hitting unguarded areas.

The other question was if they could finish before the scavengers swarmed. At the moment the prey’s rage seemed to be keeping them at bay but all three could detect watchers lurking at a distance, ready to eat the fight’s loser(s,) whoever that might be. Although, if the ripperphant won it probably would grind their corpses into paste. They tended to be vindictive and this specimen was furious.

Despite that it retained its intelligence. After several minutes it began dragging itself backwards, each spin carrying it farther in that direction. Eventually it had backed itself up to the cliff, giving it cover for its vulnerable flanks. They were going to have to change tactics.

“I’ll take the high road if you take the low road.” Gloe’s shout pierced even the victorious trumpets of the beast. “Bet I get to shot land before you!”

“That is not an akkhurate recitation!” Emokha yelled in reply, but he was already running up the cliff. Sighing she returned to harassing their prey, this time exercising much more caution. She was primarily trying to bait and distract the monster, not slash it up. Oresus joined her and they quickly fell into a coordinated rhythm. Whichever was being focused on would feint while the other dashed in for a quick attack. When the monster began to read the pattern they would both feint until it lost focus.

Not making a lot of progress, but keeping the monster occupied and, more importantly, in one place. One problem with using a cliff to guard its back was that the cliff itself loomed over it. It wasn’t too worried because it had just been up there and it knew there were no prepared booby traps. Someone falling from above would only gain a momentary advantage, and there was a decent chance its reflexes would still let the monster chop such an attacker in half.

“Diggin’, diggin’, diggin’, like a frantic mole who lost his hole” Gloe sang softly to himself. His pickaxe was a blur as it hacked and bashed at the stone beneath him. He was making quite a racket, but the constant bugling of the ripperphant conveniently drowned his efforts out. It didn’t take him too long to finish. Digging was one of his specialties after all. One last blow and a section of the slid free and plummeted down.

It wasn’t huge. Gloe wasn’t that good at digging, and they couldn’t count on the ripperphant staying oblivious indefinitely. Especially with random debris falling down. Still it was respectable, around the size of a car. “American or European?” he muttered quietly to himself. “Either way, it’s looking sharp” he snapped back triumphantly.

That certainly was accurate. In order to excavate rapidly Gloe liked to imbue part of the rock and/or soil and dig around it, exploiting the way the force of his blows diverged around the break the imbue created. It was a technique he’d been using for a long time, but he’d been making progress, most significantly in imbue precision. Imbuing only part of something was hard. The shroud tended to flow until it reached a natural boundary, but that obviously wasn’t practical when imbuing the ground.

When he was merely trying to disperse force through the ground that didn’t matter. Imprecise rough edges at the end of his imbue were fine as long as he got sufficient area and a generally balanced shape. Digging was different. For one thing he needed to know exactly where his imbue ended, and for another certain shapes were easier to excavate and extract. So he’d been working on exact imbue control.

He still wasn’t there, but he was improving. The artificial rock that detached itself from the cliff face was a beauty. It was shaped like a pear combined with the front of an arrow, bottom-heavy while still being fairly aerodynamic. That meant it retained its orientation (more or less) as it slid free and fell. In turn this meant that the point at the tip remained directed down for its entire trip, which was short. The stone picked up speed and retained imbue during its journey until it reached its destination- center mass.

Not even a ripperphant could simply shrug off a hit like that. Bellowing and gasping it twisted under the blow, half from the impact and half from rolling one eye up in an attempt to figure out what had just hit it. Pouncing, Emokha capitalized on the monster’s momentary distraction. Getting dangerously close she lashed out with all four arms and took its left eye. Oresus wasn’t quite as daring but he wasn’t sitting the moment out either. Skimming the edge of the creature’s right arm his seemingly empty hands flashed. One movement for each of the three open wounds there. Satisfied he dropped back and picked his spear back up.

Now the ripperphant’s earlier rage seemed like a mere temper tantrum. The cold breath of its own mortality was breathing down its neck and it reacted by going into an unreasoning frenzy. The trumpeting and bugling turned into a keening, wailing dirge. It was no longer concerned with self-preservation, and in fact its furious movements were inflicting additional harm to its damaged legs. All it cared about was smashing the attackers into puddles.

Unfortunately they were still faster than it, and unthinking rage wasn’t going to change that. Its legs weren’t working well, its vision was reduced and it was down to only a few claw arms. Scratch that, two. As Gloe fought he noticed that one of the remaining arms was weak and drooping, barely moving and beginning to drag on the ground. It looked oddly thin and emaciated. Someone with enhanced vision, like himself, could make out patches of wood sprouting from the open wounds. That was what Oresus had been up to.

Meanwhile the trio had switched back to their original playbook. Spread out, retreat when attacked, advance when unwatched. As the monster weakened and slowed they were able to take a bit more time with each strike, inflicting more grievous and debilitating wounds. It was a downward spiral, and before too long it reached its final destination.

With one last piercing shriek the ripperphant slumped down. Crippled and maimed, battered and exhausted, bleeding from dozens if not hundreds of places. It had nothing left. Emokha didn’t leave it to suffer. She nipped in from its blind side and opened its throat. Blood and ichor poured forth and it died.

“Exhcellent workh.” She took a moment to breathe, then cleaned her blades on the corpse’s hide before sheathing them. “We had better workh quickhly. The skhavengers will arrive in short order.” She picked up an axe and began working on detaching a claw. Gloe and Oresus began ripping the hide free to get at the meat inside.

A single trumpeting sound came from far to the west. It was warbling, oddly interrogatory. All three looked up in surprise, then rapidly got back to work. The sound repeated itself, twice more. When it came back the fourth time it was no longer questioning but a roaring call to arms. As the trio looked uneasily at each other the sound was answered.

From the north. The east. The south. East again. North again. Then silence.

“That makes me n-nervous.”

“I khonkhur. Takhe only what we need and let us leave.”

As they rushed to finish the sound of snapping trees came from the west. Emokha zipped upwards, then immediately dropped back down. Half a tree sailed through the space she had just vacated.

“Run” she suggested conversationally. Her comrades hadn’t survived with her in demon country for so long by wasting time asking stupid questions. A quick exchange of glances and they all burst into a run to the north, skirting the cliff. The sound of arboreal shattering that came from behind them couldn’t induce an increase of speed because they were already moving at maximum speed. The sounds got louder. Closer. From behind. From above, on the cliff top.

Trumpeting echoed all around them. In front too. “Up the khliff!”

“They’re up there t-too!”

“Halfway!” Gloe snatched Oresus up, threw him on his back and ran up the cliff. Emokha buzzed in pursuit. “Hold on!” As Oresus grabbed hold Gloe turned at a right angle. Stooping over so that both hands and feet were touching the wall he began awkwardly skittering forward, running sideways along the cliff halfway up it. The extra points of contact helped a lot. After all he was wearing squirrel boots, not spider boots. They were never intended to let him run upside down or defy gravity indefinitely. Momentum was important to their function, and that worked best going up or down.

“H-how long can you keep this up?” Oresus asked concernedly.

“Not long” Gloe said calmly. “This is a completely improvised technique. Unrefined. It’s draining my energy at an alarming rate, faster than I can restore it. I won’t pass out of course, but we’ll fall in a few minutes.”

“Emokha! We n-need to go over!” Oresus gestured. After a moment she nodded and flitted closer. The forest ahead exploded and a vengeance-driven herd of ripperphants erupted into view. “J-jump!”

Skidding along the cliff for a moment Gloe re-centered, then pushed off with all the force his legs could manage. As he and Oresus flew through the air Emokha came buzzing in from behind. Oresus gripped Gloe firmly with his legs and extended his arms upward. Emokha grabbed hold and blasted onwards, turning the leap into a streaking glide focused on forward movement but rapidly angling down.

They whipped over the emergent herd, a meteoric trajectory that took them crashing into the forest beyond them. Twisting Gloe signaled Emokha and she released and began to brake. Gloe grinned up at Oresus as he wiggled free. “Brace yourself!”

“N-no!” It was too late. Gloe kicked him free. Hard. It was enough to do some damage, but it also killed a lot of his momentum. Emokha swooped back in from behind, snagging Oresus and slowing him. They were able to safely decelerate.

Two out of three wasn’t bad. The kick that had slowed Oresus down had sped Gloe up. He crashed into the forest floor. There was an audible crack as he smashed and tumbled forward, finally rolling to a halt. Grimacing he stumbled to his feet, painfully stretching his neck. “One day I’ll learn how to do that without getting whiplash and TBI” he muttered to himself.

The others fluttered to a landing next to him. “Are y-you okay?”

“Broke my arm again. No biggie.” He gestured to the bloody mess hanging loosely and unnaturally from one side. “At least I had time to imbue all my gear so nothing was flung clear. Would hate to lose all that meat we worked so hard to procure.”

“Before anyone says anything I will admit this plan has not turned out as I hoped. I will not apologize for takhing chances, but I regret the negative khonseqhuences we are suffering.”

“N-not your fault.”

“At least we learned something. Rogue bull or not, ripperphants really don’t like it when you kill one of their own. Speaking of which…”

“Thankh you, but yes, we should run.” The trumpeting drew near. “Now.”