Errod swung at what appeared to be empty space, and bushes shook as the invisible creature jumped out of the way. I hurled a throwing knife to his left and heard a yowl like an angry housecat, then only had a moment to register that the handle of the knife - impossibly floating in the air - was charging straight for me. I slashed wildly and connected, but something sliced across my shoulder at the same time. The moskar were going wild as they grew increasingly panicked at their inability to locate the danger they could sense nearby; one almost hit Katrin with its head which forced her to jump aside, interrupting her spell.

Errod swung at the one I was fighting and actually hit it for once, catching it in the back as far as I could tell. They seemed to be the size of cheetahs, and there were somewhere between two and four of them - the invisibility made it tricky to count, especially when they refused to stay still. An arc of electricity shot out from Katrin's hand and hit another of the beasts, causing it to very briefly become visible - it had pitch black fur, and for some reason two tails - but then the thing flickered out of sight again. The one in front of me circled the wagons to get away from us, but then I saw that knife handle barreling towards Katrin.

"Kat, shield!" I yelled, and there were two thuds as the beasts both slammed into her magical barrier at the same time. It was one of the spells she had been able to do when we first met, but since she'd gotten her Dumine she could - thankfully - cast it much faster. Katrin was progressing rapidly for the spells she could actually practice, and I was starting to wonder just how terrifying the more advanced spells in that book were. If these fuckers weren't invisible they would have already been fried to a crisp, but instead I was just worried she'd run out of mana from missing so many times.

Errod swung wildly and clipped one of them - I was almost certain there was just the two, now - but the hit seemed like it was barely more than a scratch since only the very tip of his blade appeared to snag on the air. I repositioned to throw another knife so I wouldn't hit Katrin, but missed entirely. Forget concerns for Katrin's mana, I'd already lost several knives to the underbrush and didn't really want to try headbutting these things. I also wasn't looking forward to searching for my knives once this was over.

"What's going on? Can I come out?" Elba called from inside the wagon. All three of us yelled "NO!" simultaneously.

I pulled another throwing knife - still the nice ones Sige had found after the fight at Zistarne - but the cats had retreated and started their stupid routine again. They would circle around something and approach once we'd lost track of where they were, over and over and over. I'd always been told that wild animals would back off quickly if they thought they were going to get hurt, but the half-dozen nicks and cuts hadn't managed to convince them we weren't worth it and I was worried that their confidence was well earned; a few really good hits from them could for sure kill us, for all that we were hanging in there so far.

Katrin gestured and a little flame leapt up thirty feet away, bringing a teeny yelp from one of the things - it clearly wasn't enough to really hurt it but it confirmed our suspicions of where it was and I threw another knife instantly. I hit, and it attempted to run away but slammed into a tree instead in its panic - giving Errod a chance to leap through the air and land with his sword point down. It looked cool, which wasn't something I could say about Errod often, but he somehow missed the creature even as his body slammed into it. This time the fumble wasn't really his fault; I could only assume the sword had gone between the monster's legs.

Errod twisted and screamed as he clutched at something, and I realized it was biting into his shoulder - I sprinted to him as he held the beast's jaws against himself so it couldn't escape. Getting into melee just like I'd been thinking I didn't want to, I slammed a knife sideways into its neck. Almost immediately it was visible and motionless apart from some twitching, and Errod pulled the fangs out of his shoulder.

"You okay?"

"Help me up," he said, which I took as a no. "Where's the other?"

I hauled him to his feet and scanned around. Katrin was searching too, but spared a second to look at me and shrug. No sign of it. Errod tried to move his right arm and winced - he passed the sword to his other hand and began walking towards the wagons cautiously. Katrin caused another tiny flame to flare up but missed this time, and a moment later I threw one of my knives at a leaf that I thought I saw moving - accomplishing nothing apart from losing another knife.

"The other might have left," I said, "especially if it doesn't want to risk hunting alone."

"Were there just the two?" Katrin asked, walking closer to us cautiously.

"I wasn't sure at first, but it seems like only two ever attacked at once. I think it just seemed like more because of the hit and run tactics. Errod, is that arm okay? It bit into your shoulder pretty deep."

I heard a door creak at the back of the wagon. "Now can I come out?" Elba asked, and we all heard the rustle in the underbrush - coming from behind the wagons, far closer to Elba than we were. Time seemed to slow as we all scrambled to get around the wagon. I could see, vaguely, where the cat thing was coming from as it ran - and I wasn't going to make it in time. I threw a knife, but could tell instantly that it was far too high to hit. Errod was ahead, just slightly, but with his dominant arm injured and his unquestionable lack of skill that didn't seem to offer any hope; instead I turned to Katrin, but as I watched in horror she was tail-whipped by Shitheel the moskar and sprawled forward into the dirt.

I spun back the other way, knowing I was about to see Elba snatched from the back of the wagon and dragged into the woods, but instead Errod's sword flew through the air more swiftly and unerringly than my specially-made throwing knives ever had, despite it not being remotely balanced for that kind of stunt. It impacted the creature and knocked it into the visible spectrum as the beast was bowled over, and as Errod arrived he tackled another one that I hadn't even realized was there.

It scrambled out from under him, briefly flickering into sight, and turned to run back away from the wagons. I don't know if it was retreating or just trying to make us lose track of it so it could attack again, but it wouldn't get the chance. Katrin, still on the ground, let loose another bolt of lightning that stunned it just as I arrived and began stabbing. I was in full fight or flight mode and my brain had bet everything on 'fight', so I found myself still panic-swinging for a moment after it had dropped the invisibility and ceased moving. Everyone was still and staring, and for a few heartbeats it was silent - then Elba began to cry.

I stood, shaky from the adrenaline, and my first impulse was to storm off away from the crying so I could get myself together. I needed her to shut up. I glanced to Katrin, hoping she would deal with it, but she was frantically flipping through her spellbook. Right. The healing spell. Shit. I went to Elba and tried to channel Bill, since he was one of the only adults that had done jack shit to comfort me. I didn't do a great job, but it seemed like mainly she just needed someone to sit next to her.

While I was doing that Katrin found the right page, and looked back and forth between Errod and I - she probably hadn't gotten a good look at who got more hurt in all the confusion. "If you don't have enough mana, I can wait. It did a lot more to my clothes than to me, as long as I clean it out and bandage it nicely I think it's okay. Errod needs it for sure, though."

He didn't argue which meant it was pretty serious, and Katrin got to work. He winced but kept from crying out, which I knew from my one time being healed with that spell after a cooking accident was no small feat. After a moment he flexed his arm and nodded. "It feels stiff, but I think it's okay. At some point we may need to have a full healer deal with all the scar tissue and whatever other lingering damage that spell can't fix."

"Yeah, when it's a joint like that." The spell was clearly for emergency battlefield medic shit - painful, and it left scars, but great at making sure you wouldn't bleed to death. "But hey, nice work there killer! I can't believe you threw your sword and actually hit, especially with your off hand!"

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"Neither can I. I just... well. I got lucky."

"Call it what you want, you saved Elba for sure. And you hit a few other times, too. I think all that training is finally sinking in, right?"

He smiled, but something about him looked unhappy, or like he felt sick. "Yes. I suppose it's about time." Probably he was just still being overly critical of himself. He began dragging the three bodies off to where they wouldn't spook the moskar while I patched myself up. Katrin came over to sit by me and watch me clean the wound.

"You don't need to try and stitch it or anything, I'll have enough mana to heal it in a little bit."

"Yeah, thanks. I just don't want it to get infected in the meantime, or have you heal a scrap of my shirt into me."

Elba's home town was still a week away at a minimum given the pace we were setting, longer if we ended up staying a few days in Sentortzi which was - to hear Katrin tell it - the best city in the world. She'd never actually been there, but they had a university for sure and almost certainly multiple magic item shops so staying there a while was for sure on the table. Errod had suggested skipping it for now and swinging past later once Elba was home, but he got outvoted. The only other concern was that despite being part of the Free States the city was very important politically and so it was always possible that Hammersmith or someone would teleport in and snatch us up. I wasn't too worried - the anti-divination measures we'd taken were simple blanket wards and yet we'd been left unmolested so far. They couldn't be trying too hard to find us, for whatever reason.

"Have you been able to level up mana more? If we buy a bunch of magic items we could use someone that can charge them easily."

Katrin rolled her eyes. She was used to the 'leveling up' talk by now, and even some of the more obscure video game references I'd started making. "What about you, how long do you think until you can check on your memories?"

"If I do it in the same way as my little mind palace, lucid dream, secret fort... thing.... it shouldn't be too expensive." I had other upgrades I was already thinking about for that, like bringing other people in to have private conversations or share memories - and of course some level of mental defenses like maybe forcing anyone that tried to get into my head to land in a pre-made jail cell or something instead. The down side was that it wasn't flashy or exciting, and it didn't help me fight monsters.

"I can see you thinking. You're not going to do it, are you?"

"Well, I can't do anything significant right now anyway. But... I don't know, yes my memories are important but I could be fucking with gravity and flying! I could be learning to step into other planes, so people can't find us!"

"I just worry about you, and I know you're probably scared but..."

"Shouldn't I be?" I said, a little more aggressively than I intended. "Sorry. But... my options are that I'm crazy, or someone has been fucking with my mind. I don't like either of those, and right now I..." I could pretend it was fine. I could just not open Pandora's Box. If I was like mom, worse than mom, I could just not find out until I went so crazy I convinced myself that I was sane.

I checked on Elba again and, seeing that she was mildly traumatized but physically unharmed, tasked her with finding all my lost knives so she would have something to keep her brain occupied. I also made sure the moskar weren't still panicking - only Sneezy was still acting paranoid, and I'd already found that he had a spot on the side of his neck that he always wanted scratched so I dedicated a few minutes to that activity until he seemed calm.

Elba found all but one knife, which was honestly better than I expected. We got back on the road, and I had Errod keep my wagon moving while I ducked into my dream space. After a lot of work over the past couple nights I'd managed to expand it somewhat, though I hadn't been able to just freeform mold it into a palace made of diamonds or whatever. Instead I'd tacked on room 217 from the Long Haul Hotel - after all the mental strain trying to do other things I was caught off guard by how easily that one clicked into place, so I tried following it up with my childhood bedroom which likewise popped into existence with minimal effort.

Since both had been places I considered to be mine, I suspected I could add Universal Servicing Systems - but that was a much larger space, and my initial attempt had failed. Room 217 was pretty sparse, as it had been in the real world - standard hotel room bed, a little kitchenette, generic art on the walls. I'd nuked the bathroom, because I needed a door to use to add the entry to my old bedroom and anyway it's not like I could actually relieve myself in my mind - trying might even cause an accident in the real world.

The bedroom from my mom's house was a trip. It brought up a lot of feelings but I couldn't even say which ones - my chest felt tight, and I got all antsy and nervous, and suddenly felt like I needed a nap. But I powered through and looked around, finding that while most of the drawers were empty a couple of trinkets from my childhood remained. A headless Barbie doll, the collar from the dog I kidnapped - Bullfrog was the name I called him but the collar had a tag that said "Sparkles" - and a stuffed unicorn I'd stolen from some kid at the park. Some dim memory nagged at me and I squeezed the unicorn, feeling something hard inside. That would be the steak knife I had kept with me when I was little, just in case something needed stabbing. Other than those items the room itself was a strong memory - the furniture, the filthy bedsheets, the scribbled-on walls, the corner where I'd peeled up the carpet in the hopes of burrowing a secret basement.

Attaching these two additional rooms had taken a few days of getting the feel for this place, though it hadn't required me to invest additional potential into my Dumine. Creating items had been harder, and so far I'd only succeeded when I was grabbing something from outside the rooms while I was dreaming. The downside to this was that my dreams were hard to fully control without further investment and if I leaned too far out I'd fall into them, losing all lucidity. I wasn't in there to experiment with making items this time anyway - since it had been almost a week, it was time to check on an ongoing experiment. "Errod?"

"I'm here," he said, sounding like he was a mile away.

"Okay, can you tell Katrin to get out her notes? I'm going to read off the numbers she gave me."

I went back into that first room, the one that didn't seem to correspond to anywhere I'd actually lived, and opened the top drawer of the desk to reveal a carefully folded piece of paper. I hadn't looked at it in five days, and had no conscious idea what was on it other than remembering that it was a big long string of numbers.

"She's ready when you are," Errod said, and I started to list them off. When I was done I popped back out into the real world, and saw Katrin grinning.

"It was all correct. Every last number."

"Fuck yeah. Okay. Next we need to find a way to... I don't know, automatically copy things. Like, imagine if I could look at a book and turn the pages and have it duplicate into a book in my head? I could have a whole reference library!"

"Well we don't know the limits. Presumably - especially since it was such a simple ability to unlock - it can't just endlessly store information." She was trying to keep me from getting too excited, but it was undermined by how clearly excited she was.

"That's fair. Fine. But if I can copy books that might be worth spending extra potential on, especially if we could use Nusos to find an Earth library."

Errod looked skeptical. "Remember that a lot of things were... well, they were skewed somehow. I saw a sign from what looked like a butcher shop and it had the first three letters for the word 'meat' repeated over and over. The sign was like three feet long, it never finished the word. So even if it's possible to find a library you might not end up with readable books."

I went back to practicing as we traveled, popping in and out of my mind palace and toggling my view of those threads on and off. We reached a town in the late afternoon, a cozy little place with thatch rooftops and a surprisingly large building off at one end. The palisade walls had a gate, but no guards - after a moment of hesitation we just opened it ourselves and closed it again behind us. There was a small crowd of people on a sort of outside patio, relaxing and drinking out of huge wooden mugs. A few had glanced over as we came in, but didn't seem bothered by it.

"That large building is a meat farm," Errod said, "from the size they probably have a dozen in there."

I had forgotten that much of the meat the average person ate was cut from magically engineered brainless meat-mounds. I was curious about how they were kept - were there vats of liquid? Did they just lay on the ground? Hang from the ceiling? I was about to ask Errod when I realized he was already heading over to the people at the bar. I decided I'd rather he do the social stuff, so I sat back on the edge of the wagon's bench.

He came back with a wry grin, shaking his head. "Turn the wagons around, we have to go back."

"What's wrong? They hate strangers or something?"

He sighed, but was still smiling. "Quite the opposite, they greeted me warmly and they all told me how lucky we are to have not stopped on the road. Seems there's a pack of three jezerlae - invisible cats - that have been attacking people. There's a very generous bounty on them if we can kill them and bring back the heads."

I laughed, and started coaxing the moskar to turn around. "You uh... you remember where you dumped the bodies, right?"