“Plant’s are —— —— Labyrinth of — ——. I —— that you…” Gero spoke to me as we traveled.

His hands moved with his words to better help me understand what he was saying. It was him telling me about how there were an uncountable number of different plants within the Labyrinth and despite me not aiming to be a herbalist it was still important for me to have a good understanding of them. Many of them were poisons or had healing properties.

I knew that he was right, but still my arms twitched with every creak and chirp I heard. A few weeks in the city had made the Labyrinth seem like a unwise place to ever go.

Gero on the other hand walked through the rough terrain like he was walking down the street. His steps sure, from sandy dunes, forested underbrush or rocky hills.

“My Card Path—— — good,” he explained unhelpfully.

I held out a hand to stop Gero, and he complied. We were in a rocky area with a bit of sand and many holes in the sides of the Labyrinth walls. I pointed a few feet away towards the ground.

“Foots,” I said, I didn’t know the word for animal tracks.

He nodded in understanding and hefted his pack, letting me take the lead. I examined the footprints, whatever had walked through had placed one of its feet onto the sandy part which made a good imprint.

Instead of fruitlessly trying to say what I found in words I just signed in Toke to Gero.

‘A large reptile that drags its feet, do you know what it is?’

“Hmm,” Gero said, taking out a map from his pack.

I knew that he was from the city and it was normal to make noises for no reason, but it was starting to irk me. What if that reptile heard it and was actually extremely dangerous?

He showed me the map where a few words were written. I could read well enough to understand what my Cards said, but that didn’t mean I could read any language, the Cards automatically translated to whatever language the carrier understood.

The look I gave Gero seemed to convey that, because he rubbed the back of his head.

“Sorry.”

‘Quiet,’ I sort of politely signed.

‘Sorry.’

I knew Jaharv was powerful enough to protect the both of them when they went out, but why did Gero seem so… at ease?

‘Based on the map the tracks should belong to a chameleon that has a venomous bite that can melt through leather.’

A fucking chameleon? That had acidic bites? No thank you. Not only was I not a fan of things with scales in general, something that was at least as long as I was tall based on the tracks and could camouflage themselves on top of it?

I’d rather face a pack of lions.

‘We should go.’

‘What? No, this should be great training for you.’ Gero signed back, confusion on his face.

‘There are not even any plants here for you.’ I said, trying to convince him.

‘Actually there is a really rare flower here that’s petals can actually let you see in the dark.’

‘Gero please, its a giant invisible lizard.’

‘Camouflaged, not invisible.’

‘If its right in front of me and I cant see it then its invisible.’

‘Lux I promise that I can protect you from this chameleon, they travel either alone or in pairs and I can deal with even a half dozen of them.’

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I raised my eyebrow at that.

‘You’re strong?’

‘You think Jaharv would let you go with dead weight?’

‘He ate my knife the first time I met him.’

‘True enough.’

‘Fine, let's go hunt this lizard and look for your stupid flower.’

Gero sent me a very serious glare. ‘It is not a stupid flower, there is no such thing as a stupid flower.’

I stepped back in surprise at how serious Gero was about his flowers.

‘My bad my bad.’

He nodded and dropped the glare.

‘Follow me.’ He signed.

I wanted to say that it would probably be better if he was the one to follow me, seeing as I was the one who had found the tracks in the first place, but surprisingly he was able to quickly follow the small telltale signs of the chameleon passing by.

If he could follow the trail so well then how come he hadn’t spotted the tracks to begin with? Had he been testing me or was he just daydreaming and didn’t notice?

We went over a ridge showing a similar rocky landscape below with a large pond close to the Labyrinth walls.

At the bottom of the gully was the chameleon. It was dipping its head into the water for whatever reason, then its scales turned a dusky brown and I had to refocus to make out where it was. From where I was it was hard to tell, but I estimated it was about as long as Gero was tall, not including the tail. Gero instantly raised a hand, not to signal me to stop but it looked as though he was about to use some ability to attack the lizard.

I yanked on his collar and he stumbled back.

‘Wait.’ I signed quickly.

He did so and looked at me oddly.

‘We should check for any more. You said they can travel in pairs and also this pond can be a gathering place for them.’

Gero just shrugged then nodded.

This boy was no different than the old man! Fucking city people.

A slight distortion in my peripheral vision caught my eye. I looked to the left and focused on that area. It took me a moment, but I saw that there seemed to be a haze surrounding a patch of rocks nearby. I wasn’t stupid, Gero had told me that the chameleons could be “camouflaged.”

Two bright red eyes appeared in the spot that I assumed the chameleons head was. By the time it opened it’s eyes I already had a hand the size of my entire body grasp the chameleon by what I hoped was the throat and squeezed. The chameleon screeched and the one down below looked up with narrowed red eyes.

I lifted the lizard up with my giant green hand and slammed it down the gully straight on top of the second lizard. With a bit of concentration the giant hand shrunk slightly and two more hands, these ones slightly larger than my own hands, wrapped over the lizards noses and mouth and started to pump smoke into their slit like nostrils.

The bottom one wriggled out from underneath the top one and clawed the ethereal hand to shreds. It coughed and spat, but then set it’s eyes on the large green hand and jumped towards it, trying to free it’s brethren.

I pulled back the hand, raising both it and the first chameleon, then slammed it back down on top of the first. Deciding that I didn’t want to waste too much time preserving the bodies I repeatedly slammed the lizard down onto the ground until it stopped struggling.

The other lizard had decided that it wasn’t going to be able to save its other one and instead began to climb the wall towards them. Gero put out his hand once again, but I waved him off and he stopped. We had agreed that I would be the one fighting for most of our journey. Now that I knew he was apparently strong I had to make sure I didn’t use his power as a crutch.

I dismissed the extra hand that had been on the first lizard and summoned a new one that was around the size of my head. The lizard tried to bite it as the hand approached but I made the hand sink underneath the bite and grab the chameleon around the throat. This hand obviously lacked the power of my other larger hand, but with how the lizards body was scaling a vertical wall I easily pushed it off. The lizard fell off and slammed into the ground below.

Where the larger hand that had just finished off the first chameleon was waiting. The second lizard died in a fashion similarly to the first.

I slapped my hands together as if wiping off blood that wasn’t there with a satisfied smirk on my face. Gero looked at me with an eyebrow raised.

“You —— the monsters —— —— —— be as good — right?”

‘You know the monsters body parts wont be as good now right?’

‘I don’t like scaley creatures anyways… I miss Beavs.’

He looked at me oddly.

‘What is a Beavs?’

I ignored the question.

‘How far away are we to the tribe?’

The path we were going on was to a tribe that hadn’t been displaced due to the Shuffling and was friendly with the city. Jaharv and Gero had been through there before and wanted to get updated maps of the area. I was actually quite excited to see a different tribe, I felt as though I would be much more comftorable there than I had been in the city.

‘Another two days, after that we will do some exploring based on the maps they give us.’

I nodded.

—

Inside the tribe of the SunReapers the four Elders looked at the mangled headless corpse of one of their hunting party leaders Rusk.

“What happened?” asked Vulok, the strongest of the Elders.

The young woman no older than fifteen gulped, most of the hunting party were having their wounds taken care of, the ones that were still alive that was.

“It was a Headhunter.”