"Thank you for the help," Lyssa says as I place another loaf of bread into the basket.

"You're welcome," I tell her, then pick up another loaf and fit it into the basket. "I'll be back."

I place the cover on the basket, then lift it up and carry it outside to the wagon. The monster attack is expected tomorrow, though we've only told the townsfolk that it's a big storm, as discussed. We really want to keep panic down. Everyone will be divided into four of the shelters, with a different Hunter in each, the Elder Hunter included. All five will be stocked, just in case, but we can fit everyone into four. We could actually fit everyone into just one or two, but we want to spread them out.

Right now, I'm helping move bread into the shelters. Fire isn't something that will be used, as everyone would need to live with the smoke until they're released, which is not a good idea at all.

Because of that, stuff is being prepared in advance. Bread and rolls that will last a little while are being made now and moved into the shelters, and no-bake breads will be made once these run out or low. Fruits and vegetables are being moved in as well, as much as we can manage with our current harvests. So are potions, balms, and salves, since anything requiring flames won't be made in the shelters unless it's an emergency, and many of those require heat.

There are also 'ponds' in the shelters, meant for storing fish in. Once I finish helping Lyssa pack up the bread she's baked in this batch, I'm going outside of town to check the baskets I set out to catch fish. More are being caught at the river through town and the lake, but those do have a limited supply as well. Since fish can be consumed raw, they'll help supplement us with meat past the jerky made from stuff Cam, Liam, and I caught. Mostly hares, but a couple of deer as well. Anything they could turn into jerky in under two days.

After setting the basket of bread in the wagon, I return inside the bakery and help pack up the last basket, then move it to the wagon as well.

"Thank you, Rex," Lyssa says.

"You're welcome," I tell her. "You can handle the rest, right?"

"Yes," she answers. "The extra pair of hands to pack things up was appreciated."

"You're welcome," I say. "I need to head out now, so I can check my traps."

"Good luck," she tells me.

"Thank you," I say.

I grab the wagon, then start pulling it to the shelter the bread was prepared for, which is outside of the actual settlement, near an apple orchard. The entrance is a pair of thick stone doors set into the ground at an angle. Once they're sealed, an illusion of light will make them look like part of the surroundings.

Not even the Builders, who make the shelters, know how that happens. Much like the power of the Gates and the walls, it's beyond our knowledge. They construct the shelters, then the spells form to protect them.

The doors are open at the moment, each one three feet thick. There's a dip in each side by the inner edge to allow us to grab onto it and pull it open or closed, though it's usually someone strong opening them, due to their weight.

Grabbing a basket, I make my way downstairs, handing the basket off to one of the townsfolk inside. They pass it off to someone else as I head back outside to grab more baskets. Once the wagon is empty, I ask if there's anything else they need. There are already beds down here, each shelter has two hundred sets of bunk beds filling half of the space, packed tightly enough together that there's barely any room to walk.

This first area, however, contains the storage, food prep and dining area, and the fish ponds. It doesn't matter to spread them out through the shelter, as if it's breached, everyone inside is lost. Our hope is that we can last long enough that the Soul Strikers arrive and deal with the monster before it destroys a shelter's entrance and makes it inside.

Not that we're telling the townsfolk. I can tell that a few of them know what's going on, or at least, that they have guessed it. Even if the sky is growing dark with clouds, they've picked up on the worry Cam and I have.

Mostly on the subtle clues Liam has. We've made sure he knows not to tell his friends, but that doesn't mean he can hide the worry and fear on his face.

Judging by his expression, the man I was handing stuff off to is one of the ones who's figured out what's going on.

"No," he answers. "We should be fine with what's coming in from others, and once we have the last bit of stuff we need for our fish ponds here, as well as a few more fish."

"Okay," I say. "I'll see you later, then. I'm assigned to this shelter."

"Okay," he says. "Are you leaving the wagon?"

"I am," I tell him. "You could probably use it, and I'm done with it."

"Thank you," he says. "Good luck with the catches."

"Thank you," I say. "I'll see you when I return."

I turn and leave, making my way back across town and to the Gate. As I draw near, I find the Elder Hunter standing with them.

"Would you kindly come and speak with me?" She asks me. "In the shop?"

"Yes, ma'am," I answer, then follow her inside the shop, Cam and Liam staying outside. "You want to discuss something private?"

The Elder Hunter turns to face me, looking me up and down with an appraising eye that makes me a little uncomfortable.

"A little," she answers. "Rex, have you heard the voice again?"

"No," I answer. "Just the two times. I can drop myself back down to a low enough sacred power to hear his voice again, though. Why?"

"It is curious," she says. "How little they speak. What is the voice? Is it truly something not of your soul? Why do they only ever greet? Why do they speak so rarely? If it truly is some other force, perhaps we could ask it for advice in what to do?"

I find myself frowning as she asks those questions. She knows why, I've told her all of this. In fact, I just mentioned a moment ago about the sacred power thing. Why would she act like she didn't know?

Unless she doesn't.

"They can only be heard," I say. "When sacred power is extremely low, though I'm not sure why manifesting before Level 20 has to do with it. If you want, I can burn through my sacred power to bring me low enough to hear the voice. Did you want me to ask that?"

"Yes," she says. "If you happen to hear it again before the attack, could you ask it for advice? See if it knows something we do not?"

She's acting as if she didn't hear what I said. At all. That is extremely strange, but then, so is me hearing a voice from my soul that is not my soul. Is there something that prevents people from hearing much about the voice?

"Ma'am," I ask, curious. "What all I have told you about the voice?"

"Let's see," she says. "That you've heard it exactly twice. The first time you heard it, it asked if you could hear it. Then, that time and the next, it simply greeted you. That is all it said. Despite the voice coming from within your own soul, you are adamant is it not your soul, but something else. That's all you've said. Was there more?"

"Yes," I say. "I've told you plenty more than that, including what allows me to hear the voice."

"You are most correct," she tells me. "It would be nice if we knew what caused the voice to be heard."

So I'm right. Something is preventing her from registering what I'm saying, making her hear something a little different to what I said. Now I know why, from all of the supposed records of the voice, nothing is known about it other than that those who manifest their sacred weapons before they reach Level 20 can hear it, it's heard from their soul but isn't their soul, and only greets, saying little else.

Why? What purpose does the truth being concealed serve? How much was learned by others like me?

There's no use wondering about things I'll likely not receive the answers to right now. I also probably won't receive an answer from the voice about how to handle things. While I haven't tried, my gut tells me so, and I always trust my gut. It's even possible it's an effect of the voice, too, me knowing it won't give me answers to things like this.

"I'll tell you if I find an answer," I tell the Elder Hunter. "Until then, I need to finish preparing for the attack."

"Thank you," she smiles.

I step back outside the shop and approach Cam and Liam.

"So?" Liam asks. "What did she want? Or is it some super secret thing?"

"Nothing super secret," I say. "Just not something she wanted to discuss where others might here it. It has to do with the storm."

"She wanted us to stay outside," Cam tells me. "Does it have to do with you-know-what?"

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I can tell he's asking about the voice, even without him saying it.

"Yes," I nod. "She wanted to know something."

Instead of her receiving her answer, I learned something about the voice.

"Come on," I say. "Let's head out and check the nets and baskets."

We step up to the Gate.

"A storm is coming," the Gate tells us.

"We know," I tell him. "We're preparing for it. We're going out to bring in the fish our traps caught."

"Make haste," he says. "Before the storm arrives."

"We'll be back before then," I say as I pull down the front of my shirt, Cam and Liam pulling down the fronts of theirs to reveal their brands as well.

"Make haste," the Gate tells us. "A storm is coming."

The Gate opens, then the three of us leave, making our way through the fields and hills to the river. By the time we reach it, the sky has darkened heavily, not a trace of clear skies visible in any direction as thick storm clouds have taken over.

"Think it'll get delayed by the storm?" Cam asks.

"It might," I answer.

"What if it made the storm?" Liam asks, his voice shaking a little.

"That would be quite strange," I tell him. "For it to be the one to make a storm this vast, it would need to be at least a Triple-Star monster. Since it's only a Single-Star, that means the storm isn't its creation."

"Are you sure it's only Single-Star?" Liam asks.

"Yes," I answer. "We'd have known sooner if it were a Triple-Star. That's too powerful to have gotten away without being noticed in some form. And remember, the Gate warned us before it turned into a Single-Star, which wasn't all that long ago. The monster won't have been able to bump itself up to Triple-Star yet. It's fine, Liam. All we have to do is wait down in the shelters."

"Are you sure?" He asks.

"Yes," I answer. "It will take two and a half weeks for a team of Soul Strikers to arrive here."

Though they aren't being sent by the Guild. The Guild responded to the Elder Hunter with a message saying that there was no proof or evidence of a Star-Level monster in the area, and that lack of being sensed and a gut feeling didn't count. They could not and would not waste a precious team of Soul Strikers checking out something that wasn't confirmed.

So she sent a message to Kain and his team. That message told them about the warning from the Gate, its sudden inability to sense the monster, yet knew of a dangerous storm that required us to be in the shelters to survive. She mentioned my gut said it was a Star-Level monster, and that there were at least eight recorded occurrences where a Gate couldn't sense a Star-Level. She also told them that the Guild followed its protocol, but she would prefer a faster response, even if it was only a day sooner than it would be if she sent them when we ran to the shelters.

After she sent those, she told me that she wished she had simply sent the emergency messages prepared. There's a group of pre-made messages stating the town is under attack by a Star-Level monster, but they're only allowed by the rules to be sent when the rush to the shelters is done. That was why she wrote up individual ones to send off.

Using the pre-made ones without the proper reason would result in her being punished, but the Elder Hunter says she would rather be punished than lose the town because it took an extra day for a team of Soul Strikers to arrive.

Since the Guild had refused to send a group out, as per protocol for an unverified situation with no real evidence to support it, she did the next-best thing, she messaged my brother. He and his team will come out here.

Even if they're disobeying orders by leaving their current mission, they value protecting a town from a Star-Level monster over whatever it is they're doing. Thankfully, this is only a Single-Star monster, or they wouldn't be able to handle it.

"I promise, everything will be fine," I tell Liam.

"Okay," he takes a deep breath. "Let's get these fish!"

We check the first set of traps, a few baskets we'd placed in the river. They all have a few fish in them of varying sizes, so I pull them out and move the fish into Cam's basket. Cam and Liam both have baskets right now, while I don't, mostly because I'd forgotten mine. I'll have to run home and grab it before we do our second round of checks.

Most of the nets and basket traps we check have fish in them, and we manage to fill the two baskets as full of fish and water as we can manage and not kill the fish with temporarily storing them like that.

"Come on," I say once they're full. "Let's return to town."

We walk back to town, entering and making our way to the nearest shelter. This is the one the Elder Hunter will be staying in, to provide fire magic in the event of an emergency need of it.

More food is being moved into it at the moment, along with medicinal things which have been made up. Feeding more than one hundred people for up to four weeks isn't easy, and it takes a lot of food.

It's bad that no one's ever kept the stores in the shelters maintained. Really, really bad. After this ends, we'll have to try to remember to keep them at least partially-stocked. As it is, food will probably have to be rationed a little to prevent us from running out before we're let out.

In this first shelter, we empty out Liam's basket into the fish pond, then move some of the fish from Cam's basket into it as well. They swim off in various directions, mingling with the fish from the town's river and lake or hiding in the various rocks and small logs placed in the bottom.

"Come on," I say. "Next shelter."

The three of us move on to the second shelter, which Liam is assigned to. There, we pour the water and fish from Cam's basket into the pond. Nick is in charge of this shelter, and he flags us over after we finish.

"Thank the powers that be," he tells me. "That we always have ale storage. Did you know, though, that these shelters have clean water?"

Clean water? That's rare, we never know if water is safe to drink or not, especially in a town. It's all too easy for something to be contaminated. That's why we drink light ale, even if we could just boil water to make it drinkable. It's much less time-consuming to just buy ale then try boiling water, only to boil it wrong and not kill the contaminants. Or for the boiling to not kill them even when done right.

It's said that, in the era before magic, we could purify water with ease. There were entire facilities dedicated to cleaning water for society, making it safe to consume. But then magic came, and as with many luxuries, such things went away.

"We do?" I ask.

"Yes," he answers. "We were moving some stuff in a storage room and found it. Huge stone-lined pits of clear water, sealed up tight and labeled as clean water."

"It would probably be best if we held off on drinking that unless necessary," I say. "It might not taste well, and it's always possible it wasn't boiled right."

"Indeed," he says. "But it means we can worry less about drawing up water and storing it for emergencies."

"Okay," I say. "We need to go get more fish, I want to finish this by sundown."

"Good luck," he says. "And thank you for the help."

"You're welcome," I say, then we leave.

"Rex," Cam says. "I'm worried about some of our townsfolk. Elderly, weak, pregnant – I think we should move them into the shelters now."

"Now?" I ask.

"Yes," he nods. "Just a feeling I have. It's probably just me being paranoid because of my ma being pregnant, but I'd feel better if we did that."

"No, it's a smart move," I say. "They'll have an easier time entering when they aren't rushing. Let's get that started. We can tell the Elder Hunter after we grab my basket."

"Okay," he nods.

We hurry to my house to grab my basket, then return to the Elder Hunter's shop, where we tell her what we want.

"I can arrange that," she nods. "I was just thinking that myself. It would be smart to move them in early. That way, they have an easier time getting to their beds before the younger, healthier crowd moves in."

"Thank you," Cam says.

"You boys hurry," the Elder Hunter tells us. "I don't like the look of those clouds. We might have a nasty storm to deal with tonight."

"We'll hurry," I tell her.

The three of us leave and return to checking the traps we set up in the river, spending two more hours doing that and filling our baskets. We return to town and deliver the fish to the last two shelters. We reach the one Cam is assigned to last, and find around thirty people already at the bunks. Most of our elderly, the four pregnant women, and a few crippled people.

"Ma," Cam approaches his ma, giving her a hug. "I'll be down here tomorrow, when we're moving everyone into them."

Our estimate is sometime in the afternoon or evening tomorrow for the monster's arrival, since the Gate gave the three-day notice late at night. We're basing this on records of when the monsters arrive after a time is given by the Gates, since they tend to arrive in the rough time frame given. If it were around noon or in the morning, the Gate would have told us 'in two and a half days' rather than 'in three days'.

So we are finishing up preparations today with the final things tomorrow morning. During the final prep tomorrow morning, we'll be moving everyone not participating in that down into the shelters. By noon, all of them will be closed and sealed.

"I'll be fine, Cam," she hugs him back. "You boys are helping everyone prepare. That's more important."

Cam nods, then we exit the shelter.

"I want to check the traps one last time," I say. "It should be faster since not many will have anything."

"I agree," Cam says. "We can add a few more fish to the supplies with just another two hours of checking."

"Let's go, then," Liam nods.

We make our way back to the Gate and show it our brands.

"Make haste," the Gate tells us. "The storm shall arrive soon."

"We know," I tell him. "We just want to do one last check of the traps."

The Gate opens, letting in a strong gust of wind from outside. I pull off my basket and set it beside the Elder Hunter's Shop. Liam gives me a confused look as we leave, and as the Gate closes behind us, I crouch and tell him to climb onto my back.

"It's been a long time since you've given me a back ride," Liam says. "I can walk."

"Walk, yes, fly, no," I say. "With a storm like this coming, there's not much danger in the sky. That makes it safe for us to fly, so we're going to. With the lids for the baskets, we can fly without fear of losing any fish or soaking ourselves with the water from them."

"Oh," he says, then climbs onto my back.

After making sure he's holding on tight, I being to fly with my wind magic, and Cam joins us a moment later. We soar to the river, cutting out a decent part of the time it will take to check the traps. Once we land, we begin checking the traps, filling Cam's basket with fish and water first.

His basket is half-full with water and fish when we hear a strange, loud rumbling.

"I've never heard thunder like that before," Liam comments, looking at the sky. "Did you see lightning?"

"No," I answer as Cam shakes his head.

A few seconds later, we hear the rumble again, but see no lightning. It occurs a few more times, and I find myself frowning at it.

"What is that?" Liam asks.

"Sh," I shush him, closing my eyes.

"Why?"

"Just sh," I say. "Let me listen."

He remains silent after that, and I listen again, trying to pinpoint the actual sound itself as the strange rumbling occurs a few more times. It's coming from the town. After the fourth attempt at figuring out what the sound is, I manage to make it out.

"REEEEEEEEEEEEX!" A deep voice echoes through the air.

"It's the Gate," I open my eyes. "Liam, on my back. We're returning."

"The Gate?" He asks. "Is it under attack?"

"No," I answer. "It's calling my name."

"I didn't know it could shout this far," Cam comments.

"Nor did I," I say. "But it's best to go find out what he wants. Probably to say the storm's about to hit us and we need to get inside and take cover."

Liam hurries onto my back, then Cam and I take off into the sky and fly back. The rumbling stops once we're within line-of-sight of the Gate, and we land in front of it.

"Were you calling my name?" I ask as Liam hops off my bac.

"Yes," the Gate answers. "It appears I miscalculated, Rex. The storm is not arriving tomorrow."

"Yes, it's arriving tonight," I say. "It'll hit us soon. You've been warning us all day."

"Correct," he tells me. "It is best if everyone moves into the shelters now."

I'm about to open my mouth to respond when I remember that he warned us of a different storm, too. At the same time, a feeling runs down my spine.

"Get everyone in the shelters, now!" I order Cam.

"Why?" He asks.

"Now!" I summon my sacred weapon and activate my lightning body spell.

I twist, lunging slightly north of here and jabbing forward with my spear. My attack is stopped by a dark blue hand.

"Because it's here!"