Blotting out the sky, the titanic fungus looked like some manner of alien space craft arriving to lay claim to the planet.

Eik and the others were still far enough away from the thing that they hadn’t noticed it until now with the cap cover. A real ‘can’t see the tree for the forest’ kind of moment. If anything was going to be the solution to the Crucible practical, it would have to be somewhere over there.

With a tangible goal ahead of them, they pushed on with renewed energy, eager to reach the site of the final test. It was difficult to remember that this practical was supposed to be customized to their power rank, not some unknown danger of unknown severity.

The threat at home from the old guard of the Forest leadership and the arrogant Fist faction, the direct attempt at their lives by Menka Tokanami back at the headquarters of the Nidafjeld Alliance, as well as the very current danger of getting murdered by a band of crazies right on their asses, made for a harrowingly frightening experience.

If only they could get out before getting caught. Hopefully Atla had managed to quench the immediate danger.

“I just don’t understand why that Menka lady is chasing us so vehemently. We didn’t even do anything wrong back then! We just did what we could!” Michael suddenly said as they trudged through the soft moss. The stream had grown so large that to cross from one edge to the other would wet their trousers up to mid shin.

“It’s simple,” Heath said with a shrug. “She’s a crazy witch.”

“That’s the explanation you’re going with?”

“I mean, it’s not completely wrong, is it?” Eik added. “She needs someone to blame for the suffering she’s going through. She craves it and neither Atla nor the Nidafjeld Alliance are entities she can target for revenge. They’re both too powerful and influential.”

“But we aren't…” Michael drawled.

“We aren't,” Eik nodded. “We were directly involved in the rescue mission, we’re weak as all hell, and our connection with the alliance is still in its early infancy. We’re the best and easiest targets for her wrath.”

“But it’s like it’s just a personal project or something! There’s no righteousness in this persecution!” Michael said, throwing his arms up in pure frustration.

“I doubt she’s looking for righteousness,” Sonja said. “All she wants is satisfaction.”

“Shit!” Michael cursed, slamming his heavy mace into the mossy ground with a dull thunk. It came away muddy. He swung it through the flowing water a handful of times to get it off before returning the instrument to his belt with a shuddering sigh. “I’m so damn tired of this crap. I just want to go home…”

The others didn’t answer but they all had similar thoughts swirling around inside their heads. The heroic life they had all fantasized about was not quite as heroic as they’d hoped when it came down to it. You couldn’t just go on a great adventure whenever you felt like it, defeat the dragon, and then go back to your warm bed and live happily ever after.

No, in real life the adventure would come find you at the most inconvenient of times, and the ‘great’ part would be replaced with pure horror and agony.

It would take six attempts to even wound the dragon and then, when it was finally dead, it would come back to life once everything was starting to return to normal.

And your warm bed would have been burned to cinders while you had been away. And the house had also been burned. And so had the town. And the country stood in ruins.

“What level is your Bind at this point, Mike?” Heath asked as he kicked the muddy crater left by Michael’s mace.

The healer fished out the wooden plaque from his coat. “It’s evolving!” he gasped. “My ability is evolving!”

“Bind is?” Eik asked. “That’s amazing! What’s it offering you?”

“Let me look for a second.” He held the flat piece of wood up for the others to see.

[Skill evolution available. Skill available for evolution: Bind]

[Choose one]

[Bind — Reach]

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[Bind — Tangle of Thorns]

[Bind — Vice Grip]

“Hmm,” Eik hmm’d with a contemplative finger on his chin, eyes narrowed as he thought. “Does Reach mean that you can apply the Bind to someone farther away, or does it mean that the summoned strings themselves become capable of growing longer?”

“No clue,” Michael shrugged. “We can’t exactly go to the library to look it up in the journals right now.”

“Tangle of Thorns is pretty obvious, right?” Heath said. “Thorns on the strings, right?”

“Probably. Doesn’t sound bad at all.”

“And Vice Grip? Just… stronger, or what?”

Suddenly Sonja stood up straight, alarm evident on her face. She looked back the way they had come, cupping her hands around her ears. Shushing Eik’s question, she stared intensely down the stream they had been following toward the fungus king. Whatever she was hearing was still obscured by the forest of mushrooms, but she clearly didn’t believe that would be the case for long.

“Guys,” she said, voice controlled. “get weapons and shields ready for an encounter. Let’s move away from the stream and further in.”

“What are you hearing?” Michael whispered. “Predator?”

“People,” she said gravely. “I can hear their voices. They’re talking.”

“Ah, nuts,” Eik groaned as they moved inland, putting several copses of large mushrooms between them and the stream where the team of assassins would likely soon appear. They wanted to be able to keep an eye on their pursuers so they made sure to stay close enough to be able to see the group when they passed.

“They’re getting closer,” Sonja muttered as the four of them settled in behind a large fungal trunk, much like they had the night before.

“How the hell do they keep being right on our asses?” Heath wondered. “We even carried those striders away from the stream.”

“Quiet now!” Sonja said.

About a minute later, even Eik could hear the sound of feet sloshing along the edge of the stream, kicking up water. Within seconds the first of their pursuers came into clear view, the day light laid bare all that had been obscured the night before.

The first was a young man. His golden hair was densely braided and fell down to his hips. A sword hung at his waist, the ornamental carvings on the sheath attesting to a wealthy owner. This image was only reinforced by his skyward nose and excessively stiff posture.

Second was a woman carrying a long staff slung haphazardly over her shoulder. Her face and hair was obscured by a deep hood which extended into a robe covering her whole body. The robe was dissimilar to the ceremonial robe Atla had shown up in a couple of times, but was as intricately decorated with sweeping patterns flowing from hood to hem.

She was followed immediately by a giant. There was no better way to describe him. He towered above the others, standing at least three meters tall with arms, legs, and torso bulging with tense muscle. He was the one kicking water as he dragged a fearsome, unbelievably large doubled-edged war axe through the moss.

The moment Eik laid eyes on the enormous man, his stomach tied a knot on itself. He narrowed his eyes to get a better look at the bastard, particularly the face he wanted to confirm. The man’s head was long to put it mildly. Closer to oblong than oval. Eik could only see one side of his face properly, but on that side the man had three eyes.

“How in the world did we not notice that size yesterday?” Michael wondered out loud.

Eik mumbled something to himself, eyes glued to the sight of the giant.

“What?” Heath whispered.

“The Gohkamorians… That huge guy… I think he’s a Gohkamorian. He looks exactly like what Mikla told me about.”

“A Gohkamorian? What’s a Gohkamorian?”

“They’re…” — Eik felt his cheeks flush as anger welled up in him — “They’re the civilization that has been sending monsters to us through the fractures. They are the ones responsible for all monster-related deaths until now. They sent everything, just to weaken us. They’re responsible for my brother’s death. For Olivia’s coma. They’re responsible for the deaths of your parents,” he said to Heath and Sonja.

Their faces grew dark, as if they’d put on masks made of hatred. Sonja had to put a hand on Heath’s arm to stop him from getting up.

But they couldn’t move against the assassins. Not yet, at least. They didn’t know what they were capable of. They couldn’t just rush in, no matter how badly they wanted to.

The two last members of the assassination squad walked side by side, a man and a woman of similar heights with the same black hair, absorbed in conversation. The man had a short bow strapped to his belt, unstrung as far as Eik could tell, with a pair of twin swords at sheathed at his waist as well. A long sword was secured to the woman’s back at an angle, seemingly so she could draw it without too much twisting and turning.

The one to suddenly stop in his tracks, the two bringing up the rear bumping into his massive back, was the Gohkamorian. He had been drawing in the mud with the tip of the blade of his war axe, but now he had stopped to look at something on the ground.

Once they noticed, the others doubled back to see what he had found while the two that looked like they might be siblings scolded the disinterested Gohkamorian for stopping so abruptly.

“What are those assholes looking at over there?” Heath hissed from their spot behind the mushroom.

The man with the golden hair knelt down in the moss and touched the ground with his plate-covered glove — something Eik would not have expected from a person who appeared to be so… haughty.

A sharp inhalation caused Eik to shift his gaze to Michael next to him.

“What?”

“That’s… where I slammed my mace into the ground earlier,” the healer breathed, his face turning pale as a sheet of paper.

“We have to get away!" Eik hissed, but it was already too late.

The golden boy had stood back up and the entire team was scanning their surroundings. Before the four friends could duck away, the assassins had already spotted them. The enemy broke into a chase while Eik and the others legged it further in among the clusters.

“Stop! Stop right there!” one of the strangers shouted, probably the golden boy, judging by the tone of voice. “We mean you absolutely no harm! We simply wish to talk with you, peacefully! Nothing else, I swear!” At least Eik now knew that the translation ability was still active.

“Do you think he means it?” Michael asked as they ran.

“Of course not!” Eik snorted and ran even faster.

Some manner of fiery projectile raced past their heads, the hair on Eik’s scalp remaining intact only by the breadth of a single finger. If nothing else, that put to rest the question of the strangers’ peaceful intentions.