“… He feeds on it. The pain and torment. But he gets bored easily. Every time the planets align and he comes closer to the surface he finds a new way to cull the dominant species. It’s weird. He doesn’t much care about creatures like your Stella. In fact, he might actually like them.

His most successful attempt was the asteroid. That had so many unexpected consequences that followed. It would have been fun to watch if it wasn’t so sad.”

“But why? You haven’t told me why yet.”

Jitta stretched her shoulders and threw out her legs, picking at something between her teeth as she stared off into the distance. I was about to ask my question again when she finally spoke.

“Power. That’s all it is ever about you know. That’s even why you do what you do. Sure, staying alive might have something to do with it, but the more powerful you get the more you’ll want. You’ll see. You seem like someone who’ll end up like Kendrick and me. Just watching it happen over and over again but never being powerful enough to stop it.”

She sighed and finally looked at me. “You have to be ready to see your world die. Melumek is more powerful now than he has been in thousands of years. So many seals have been broken. Ever since Orion decided to play at being a bad guy Melumek’s followers have gotten one hell of a power boost. It used to take them years and years to get to this point.”

“What do you mean ‘my world’? It’s your world too, isn’t it?” I asked.

“No. This is not my world. My world died a long time ago. Now, I’m just part of what they call the Forerunners. Keep doing what you’re doing and you’ll be one too. At least having you there will make the between times more interesting.”

“Every time you speak, it’s like you're speaking another language. Can you use small words? Pretend I’m a kid or something.”

She laughed at that. “I can speak many languages. Would you prefer my native tongue? Alrea nit bevpwell tonf?”

“Huh?”

She laughed harder, taking a moment to rub her eyes before saying, “Don’t worry. If you stick around long enough I’ll teach you Alteatean. It’s a beautiful language. Much easier to follow than your English which makes zero sense. I before C except after E my ass.”

“Yeah, ah, sorry about that I guess. So, you’re an Alteatean, which is a…?”

“Hmm, I guess you would call me an alien. I don’t like that though. Call me that and I’ll make sure you don’t join me in the Forerunners.”

I just sat there, aimlessly stroking Stella’s furry head as all the words tried desperately to shove their way into my brain. The wrinkly organ was putting up a mighty fight, determined not to accept any of it as real. There was no denying it though. How could you deny something that was a part of you? It’s not like I got bit by some radioactive bug and that’s why I suddenly had all these insane powers.

I gently ran my fingers over the three lines tattooed on my wrist and the strung bow and black mask right beside them. I was careful not to jab hard enough to open up my player menu. The faded marking of the Shadow Walkers was there as well, hiding in plain sight while the others screamed their existence in ink as black as night.

What I wouldn’t give for the world to return to normal. To wake up in my lumpy cot at the Percott’s farm and start another day of wrangling cattle. Food in my belly, a roof over my head, friends to mess about with, and a job to keep me busy. What more could a man ask for?

Stella yawned wide, baring her rows of sharp teeth, and readjusted to a more comfortable position. I smiled and rubbed at that spot on her belly that got her leg kicking good and proper. She wiggled and squirmed, her tongue dropping out over her teeth as she lay belly up on my lap.

Okay, so to sum it up. Melumek was the son of the first God and had many siblings including my Goddess and the one Gabby was linked to as well. He destroyed worlds to gain more power and then used that power to destroy more worlds to get more power. That was a horrible and vicious circle. Oh, and there were aliens as well. Aliens that I was currently speaking to around a campfire in the middle of the outback. Right. It all made total sense and didn’t make me want to jump off a cliff at all.

Jitta gently shifted Sasye off her lap and jumped to her feet. “Well, I best be off. Lot’s to do to keep the guild in the top spot. It’s the only way we get the good benefits and not the trash in those brown boxes. You can stay here and freak out as much as you want. Good luck.”

“Wait!” I barked as she was crouching into her ball-like position again. “How can I contact you? You know, if I have any more questions or need some help. That kind of thing.”

She smiled at me but it was the kind that didn’t reach your eyes and just made everyone feel that little bit worse. “You don’t. We might cross paths again but it won’t be something either of us can control. Hell, the Guardians might even pull a few tricks to keep me far away from you now that I’ve run my mouth and all that.”

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“But…”

“There is no ‘but’, Joe. That’s just how it is. Next time you see Kendrick, tell him Jitta hasn’t forgotten the boot incident. Bye!”

One moment she was a human and the next she was a willie wagtail, soaring up and disappearing into the darkness of the night. Sasye watched her go before turning her sharp little eyes on me.

“Can I help you with something?” I asked, trying not to let the fear let my voice tremble. I mostly succeeded so that was good I guess.

Sasye tilted her head like Stella so often did, her large ears flopping along with it. That feeling of intense strength was beginning to creep up on me again. Like a flood sweeping up my body just inches from swallowing me whole.

A bead of sweat rolled down my face, getting caught up in the growing strands of my developing beard. “What… What’s wrong? What do you want?”

Sasye sneezed and climbed to her feet, her tail swishing from side to side as she wandered away, slipping into the tent that Miranda had appeared from. I stood there for a moment just staring after her. It didn’t take long for her to stick her head back out and glare at me.

“Alright, I get it. I’m coming,” I said.

Stella woke from her doze in an instant, chasing after me as I made my way toward the tent. I stopped along the way, taking every spare moment to pick the pockets of the dozing cultists. I got a disturbing amount of poison ingredients and the odd small and easily hidden weaponry. Anything else they might have carried was long gone in Jitta’s pockets.

By the time I reached the tent, Sasye was snarling with her hair raised around her neck like some kind of terrifying scarf.

“What?” I said with a shrug. “You, Jitta, Kendrick, and maybe even Captain Fluffers would think less of me if I didn’t loot everything here.”

The fox was unamused. She turned away from me, disappearing further into the darkened innards of the tent. I glanced at Stella but no ideas were swimming in her brown eyes that might save me from this. With nothing else to do, I pushed the heavy canvas sheet aside and stepped into the darkness. My Blindsense showed me no danger waited for me within but it seemed unsure what to think of Sasye. The fox flickered between green and red, sometimes even a strange shade of brown. I couldn’t blame it. I didn’t even know if Kendrick was a friend half the time let alone his… Not pet. I couldn’t call her a pet. She was… Something else.

“Alright, what was so important that you needed me to see it?” I demanded into the dark.

Shockingly, the fox didn’t answer me. In fact, not a single sound did. The breeze outside had been strong enough to ruffle the canvas of the tent but for whatever reason, I couldn’t hear it. Even Stella’s panting was muted.

“What is this? A dampening spell? Is that even a thing?”

Once again, no one answered me. I was already starting to miss Jitta. That’s probably not a good thing.

“Stella, help me out, would you?”

Stella’s bark was barely a tickle deep inside my ears followed by the humm of her building power. Golden light crept up her paws, stopping halfway up her legs. The light was as good as a handful of candles, lighting up the small space with ease. It was probably a horrible waste of whatever resource she used to power it but so long as the cultists stayed snoozing out on the hard-packed ground it shouldn’t matter too much.

It took a bit to surprise me these days but the singular object in the tent managed to do it. Give the throne a prize!

And by ‘throne’, of course, I mean the porcelain kind.

Now if someone could provide me with a logical answer that a modern-day toilet was somehow plumbed into who knows what in the middle of the outback, I’m all ears. I sure as hell couldn’t figure it out. Sasye was sitting atop the cistern looking like the most regal of beings with her bushy tail wrapped tightly around her. Her disturbingly intelligent eyes were focused hard on me. If it wasn’t for the puffing and deflating of her furry chest I would have thought her some glamorous statue.

I stepped forward, sweeping the empty tent with every sense and skill I possessed before wrapping my arms around the glossy white bowl and attempting to shift it. It didn’t move. Yeah, I wasn’t joking when I said the thing was properly plumbed in. My fingers itched to hit the flush button just to see if the water would really run but Sasye was covering it and I was in no mood to piss off the powerful little creature.

“Is this all you wanted to show me?” I asked the fox.

The toilet gurgled and my hand shot up as I stumbled backward, snatching my sword from its sheath and holding it out in front of me. I was not in the mood for slicing up a Toilet Croc right now either. Especially if it was one of the more powerful ones.

Nothing clambered from the bowl though and the rippling water within slowly settled. In the depths of the pool was a chunk of something brown. It stood out starkly against the white. I swallowed past the sour taste in my mouth and eyed the fox. I found it hard to believe the beast had brought me here to look at someone's shit.

“Yeah. Very impressive. If it’s all the same to you, Stella and I are heading for Stanthorpe now.”

I turned around and froze with my hand halfway to returning my blade to its leather home. Sasye was now sitting in front of me. Power blazed in her eyes and pulsed all around her, making her fur stand on end as if electrified. Gingerly I glanced over my shoulder, making sure it was in fact Sasye and not her friend. There was no fox statuette atop the cistern anymore.

I swung back around, trying to breathe naturally so Sasye didn’t know I was about ready to wet my dacks. “What do you want from me?”

She yipped in a way that made even Stella tremble and trotted past us both, placing her delicate paws atop the seat and poking her nose into the bowl. I pulled a face at that one, suddenly really glad I didn’t have the finely tuned senses of my mouse form active right now.

The fox glared at me again and yipped before dunking her nose back into the bowl. I didn’t want to say that I understood what she wanted, but alas I did.

I was going to have to stick my hand into another toilet and pull out… Oh dear Goddess, where was a Toilet Croc when you needed one?