It was a hot, muggy, and all-around miserable day to be marching through the Faewood in plate armor. Alistair found himself again grateful for the blood-red headband he always had tied around his forehead. It did wonders for soaking up the gallons of sweat that poured from his brow. He had briefly considered shaving bald to help with the particularly brutal heat of this year's summer… but Alistair simply couldn’t bring himself to cut off his ear-length blonde locks. Besides, if he really did shave it off, by the time winter came, his scalp would surely freeze. Who knew? Maybe hair would never grow there again if he allowed that to happen.

No, Alistair would rather keep his scalp the way the Pillar-Gods intended. Nice and warm beneath a head of glorious golden hair.

He then gave a small curse as he stumbled over a twig, nearly falling face-first into a clump of brambles. There weren’t any real trails through the Faewood unfortunately, meaning that this journey had been a truly rough one. It didn’t help that their donkey had been killed by fiends, leaving them to carry everything on their backs.

“Look,” Elum began with a sigh “All I’m saying is that we have to hurry through here, we don’t have the time to go sightseeing in these damn wilds.”

Alistair sighed and nodded in agreement with Elum.

“You think I don’t know that?” Alistair asked “We’ve been keeping on the ‘path’ this whole journey. Saying ‘sightseeing’ makes it sound like a grand old time, but trust me, I’m not liking this either.”

Knowing that a fiend could be lurking around every tree or bush didn’t make the journey any more tolerable. The Fiendwall truly must have fallen for so many of the creatures to be prowling about these woods. Thankfully the fiends had thinned out after the first couple days of this trek, but up until this point the fighting had been constant, as if the forest itself had sent all its fallen creatures to bring down any intruders that dare tread upon this faekin-cursed soil. Alistair might have put more stock in that theory had there not been evidence of watchers fighting these beasts as well.

Watchers were the keepers of the Faewood after all, if they had intended to use fiends to ward off visitors, the watchers wouldn’t be killing them off. Mysterious as the watchers were though, Alistair truly doubted that they’d allow fiends of all things to simply prowl about unopposed.

“‘Sight-seeing’” Alistair mocked in a high pitch, making a rude gesture to Elum as he did so.

“Well I know one of us is.” Elum said with yet another sigh, giving a lazy wave toward Twindil.

The half-elf woman was further ahead on the path than the majority of the party, walking through the woods with such a look of wonder on her face that it made Alistair struggle to find her sudden occasional stops aggravating. It wasn’t even as if she took several minutes per stop, all she did was stop to lean over a flower or to place a hand atop a tree trunk. She looked almost… at home.

Swap the gleaming plate armor and oversized greatsword that Twindil wore with a watchers cloak and some daggers, and she might have looked perfectly at home. Well… maybe not even then. She was a large woman, only shorter than Alistair by a finger and maybe just as strong as he. Her hair was spun gold, almost gleaming in the sunlight seeping down from between the broad leaves overhead. Her human parent must’ve been a massive man… or woman? Twindil did not seem to know herself, but Alistair didn’t want to press the matter. He really wasn’t all too curious about her lineage and he wasn’t sure if it was a sensitive topic for her. Alistair would rather avoid making anyone cry, tears made him uncomfortable.

“She would sniff every flower in the Faewood and hug every Draoi-cursed tree if we had the time.” Elum muttered under his breath, shaking his head as Twindil spotted a particularly large tree, quickly moving up to inspect it for a second before again moving on.

The crimson-skinned Ifrit likely would have insisted on traipsing about the Faewood just as Twindil did, had there not been urgent matters pressing them forward. Tuji was right on their tail, that freak was only a few days behind them at most. Not only that… but there was also the matter of the score they all had to settle with Kazon in the cursed Fiendwood. Kazon, more so than Tuji, was what forced them into passing through this forest. One couldn’t hope to get to the Fiendwood without first passing through the Faewood… Unless they wanted to make a round-the-world journey across every Greatbridge to take a route through the Blastlands. That would be about two-hundred times more foolish, and Tuji would certainly catch them long before they reached their destination.

Alistair’s brows knit together in frustration at their pursuit. It wasn’t as if they wouldn’t be able to defeat Tuji if they all worked together… The problem was that a few of them would certainly die in the resulting battle before Tuji could be brought down. Others had tried to take down the madman in the past, their efforts in vain as they lacked the… special talents that Alistair and his friends had. He couldn’t even imagine attempting to battle Tuji without the aid of Foundation… an ability that most people lacked.

He doubted that these watchers could draw on the raw Golden Flame, or at least none of them could do it to Alistair’s level. He dearly hoped that none of these elves would try and attack Tuji, or else they would surely be killed. What if that mad bastard tried to challenge the watchers? The main reason that he and the party fled from the mad half-orc rather than outright deny the challenge was that there would be no way for any of them to turn it down once it was issued… Not easily, anyhow.

It was simply a part of their nature, something that couldn’t be simply ignored. These watchers though, they wouldn’t be prone to such a thing… not unless there was one among these sneaky elves that were like Alistair and his friends. He doubted that any normal watcher would outright accept a challenge from the man either, but who was to say?

After all, Alistair did not know how these watchers did things. Not many people did. He knew that they at least wouldn’t attack on sight… One would have to harm the forest in some way to provoke that kind of response. Poaching was a big one, though Alistair had heard that if someone appeared to be on the brink of starvation, the watchers may let the poaching slide. Wasn’t fair to let someone die of starvation when there were plenty of bunnies hopping about. Yet, maybe that potential rule only applied during the winter months, when the forest could not yield any sort of fruits or berries to pick.

The watchers wouldn’t let anyone get away with cutting down the trees though, everyone at least knew that much.

That old elf Theopalu dragging his feet up ahead of Twindil would know better than anyone of course, as he used to be a watcher himself years back. At least that was what the geezer had claimed before they had hired him. Alistair had never before met an elf that had borne wrinkles before having met Theopalu at that tavern in Grayshane. Despite the deeply furrowed wrinkles, however, the old elf bore no silver hairs in his long black locks. Alistair was only in his twenty-fourth year, but already he had some silver strands.

That was normal though, as Alistair himself was a human, yet Theopalu had to be thousands of years- no, maybe even older than that to be an elf and have wrinkles. Alistair, and indeed his other companions had been wondering themselves as to just how old Theopalu must have been… Not that the old codger would spill the beans on anything pertaining to his past, of course. He wouldn’t tell them anything about the watchers either, not their rules or how they acted upon finding outsiders. It was positively infuriating how much Theopalu held back, what if Alistair stepped on a branch and got an arrow in the throat for snapping a piece of a tree? It would be nice to know at least what not to do, but Theopalu refused to say a word about anything that didn’t relate to what they had hired him for. It was either that or Theopalu couldn’t, or more likely wouldn’t, tell them anything that might tread upon watcher secrets.

All the old elf wanted to do was guide Alistair and his friends through the Faewood… then finally, into the Fiendwood. The demanded price for such a dangerous undertaking? To head into a land where no man has ever returned? Kazon’s lair and the origin of Spiralling Death?

Food. That was it.

No coins or jewels, nor favors or potential deals with Alistair’s people, just food. Alistair narrowed his eyes at the old elf; there was something more to the strange faekin than just being old, he just knew it. The sheer confidence that Theopalu placed in himself to be able to pass through the Fiendwood unscathed was what got him hired in the first place… that and his apparent age. Who was to say? Theopalu could possibly be even older than the Fiendwood itself.

“You alright Alistair?” Kid’ka asked, appearing like a pale phantom at Alistair’s side “You look uh… not alright?” He finished in an unsure tone.

About a head shorter than Alistair and as pale as spirit, Kid’ka looked to be the type to stay inside all day. Yet that pale almost silvery skin was the result of exclusively hunting during the nighttime. The dark-haired Kid’ka looked to be suffering worse than even Alistair was, based on the deep red tinge of sunsear on his cheeks. Thankfully, Alistair had become used to Kid’ka’s sudden appearances long ago, else Alistair might have tried to bring his war hammer down upon the smaller man's head.

“I’m alright, it's just… how can we really trust Theopalu? We know nothing about him or why he agreed to do any of this. It's suspicious…” Alistair said honestly, making sure to lower his tone so Theopalu didn’t hear “Supposedly all he wants is food, but I don’t believe that for a damn second.”

Kid’ka adjusted the red cloak he wore as his dark eyes found the elder elf “He’s alright, he just eats a lot.”

Indeed, Theopalu had proven capable of devouring with ease plates an orc warlord would have had trouble downing. Yet there were plenty of other ways for a former watcher to get food… So why take such a dangerous job in the Fiendwood? He focused his attention on the old elf ahead once more, seeing the elf stop a moment to pick up a particularly large spider. Its leg span was nearly the size of the elf’s head…

Alistair felt a cold shudder of revulsion as he watched Theopalu’s jaw unhinge to swallow the poor arachnid whole, the old elf barely stopping to chew his unfortunate morsel as he continued to move along.

“He uh…” Kid’ka began nervously as he too looked away from the elf’s back “He eats a whole lot. It’s just how he is.”

“It's ridiculous is what it is.” Alistair replied, unable to keep some bafflement from his tone “It. Is. Not. Natural.” He continued, pausing for emphasis.

“Some of the things we can do aren’t exactly natural either, my friend.” Elum told him with a small laugh “I feel it might be a bit much to say that our old feeble elf’s appetite is strange when we can do things only talked about in stories.”

Alistair turned his head to lock eyes with Elum, his icy blues meeting Elum’s fiery reds.

“We can’t let that slip!” Alistair whispered sharply “You know what could happen to us if we’re found out. It's best to avoid speaking of it entirely.” Alistair finished, taking a deep breath and looking to see if the trees had ears.

In this forest, who was to say that they didn’t?

Elum then looked to the branches overhead, straining his eyes likely in an attempt to discern any watchers tailing them. Kid’ka cleared his throat and promptly wrapped his arms around both Alistair and Elum’s necks. Before either could react, Kid’ka quickly began whispering, making sure to keep his eyes planted firmly ahead.

“Three of them overhead, five behind. Don’t look!” Kid’ka rushed out in a hushed tone as he pulled Alistair and Elum’s heads back down.

Alistair hadn’t been able to discern anything amongst the trees when he made that glance… Besides Nolvi dragging her feet behind the rest of them. Not too far to be at risk of being snatched away by watchers or forest creatures. The woman thankfully hadn’t noticed the interaction ahead of her, but then again, that girl wouldn’t have noticed if a flaming frog had jumped up her skirt.

Thanks to his foolish reaction to Kid’ka’s words, the watchers surely knew that the party was aware of their presence. Hopefully, that would not provoke them in any way, Alistair would hate to have to summon Baomiel just to fight watchers. They did not deserve to feel the angels' teeth grinding them to paste.

“Yeah I love you both like brothers!” Kid’ka yelled in the most forced tone Alistair had ever heard in his life “I just like hugging you, is all, you can… uh, now you can go off of my arms…?”

The poor guy wasn’t exactly the best with words, but Alistair decided to play along “Yeah, of course. Love you too.” Alistair said casually as he quickly shrugged out of Kid’ka’s grasp.

Elum however, was not as… gentle.

“Do not touch me, you reek of pig guts and sour fruit!” Elum shouted, poking Kid’ka in the chest and forcing the other man back a few steps.

Kid’ka, for his part, looked innocently confused a moment before he finally replied with “But you smell like sulfur. Like… it's bad, like really bad.”

“Yeah, you do smell like butt-rock.” Alistair laughed forcefully, roughly patting Elum’s shoulder “Now let's keep going please!” He whispered harshly through clenched teeth as he not-so-gently pushed Elum along.

Twindil had turned to look at them, a blonde brow raised before all three simply smiled and waved. The last thing they all wanted to do was get a talking to about ‘Afina’s Tranquility’ and how peace must be upheld at any cost. Sometimes that peace had to come about through a thorough beating, thankfully none of them had pushed Twindil to that point yet, but he could tell her deep well of patience was being strained.

Not that Alistair would just allow Twindil to bend him over her knee and paddle him of course. It was just a confrontation he’d rather avoid. He looked past her to see a break in the trees… a field? Theopalu paused a long while before passing into that breach in the trees, for what reason, Alistair didn’t know. The old elf had only stopped in his tracks when it was time to let them sleep, and there was still a decent amount of daylight left…

It was when he drew closer that he saw it. A giant steel… egg? Had smashed through the grassy field, splitting the soil beneath it in half. No, this wasn’t an egg… could this have been one of the falling stars? Had one landed in the Faewood? Curiosity drew him forth, and Alistair soon found himself standing only a few paces away from the metal mass. It had shot through a few trees when it crashed, based on the fact that the trail continued on past where the star now sat.

Something had dragged it out of the woods and back into the middle of this field… but what could have been strong enough to do that? Maybe the watchers had all worked together to haul it out? Perhaps they had used one of their moving trees? Yes, that had to be it. But then… Why was it still sitting here? Wouldn’t they have taken it somewhere more secure to study it?

“A strange omen.” Twindil muttered “I hope it means we’re on the right path, Afina willing.” She continued as Elum rounded the star.

Alistair was still staring at the front of the thing… Why did the ‘star’ have what almost looked to be a door? There was a strange device next to the sealed entrance, embedded into the wall, bearing nine letters atop what appeared to be miniature pressure plates. No, not letters, those were Saiharan numerical digits! All the way from one to nine. Was it some kind of security against intruders? His brain continued to work as he stared at the thing, the gears in his head whirring at full speed. Perhaps it was similar to that of a combination lock?

Yes, that had to be it. One likely had to push the pressure plates in the correct order to get the egg to open. If that were the case, what was the combination? More importantly… where was the creature that knew the pattern necessary to open what seemed to be its lair? Alistair’s eyes found Kid’ka, the man standing next to a trail of heavy bootprints set deep into the torn soil. Heavy boots certainly to leave that kind of impression, and what a boot size! The footprints were larger than even Alistair’s torso, and he was not a slight man.

This was clearly no star… it was something else. Something had fallen with this steel egg-shaped contraption, and it didn’t seem to be home.

“If this thing is made out of this kind of metal…” Kid’ka muttered, knocking on the pod “Then it isn’t natural, whatever it is.” Echoing Alistair’s thoughts.

“There’s a window on this side!” Elum shouted “I cannot see through the black glass, but I believe that is because it is one-sided!”

“What do you think, Baomiel?” Alistair thought to his eidolon.

“It is certainly not a star. The stars are not so simple as dots in the sky Alistair, though you know that by now.” The angel's voices replied, two bestial and angelic tones layering over one another as it spoke.

“Do you think you would be able to break inside?” Alistair thought to Baomiel.

“Perhaps… but do you really have the time for fooling about with this… thing? Tuji closes on you even as we speak, but if you insist, then we can try.”

“I’m going to summon Baomiel.” Alistair said aloud to Twindil, who licked the small scar at her lip.

He knew her long enough to know that meant she was nervous “I have the sanctioning papers but… but if they look too closely…” She whispered “Then we’ll have no choice about what comes next. Perhaps it would simply be best to leave it be, Alistair.”

“Calm down now,” Elum began, rounding the steel egg to come standing right next to the door “Maybe we can figure out a way inside without summoning your… friend.” The ifrit finished after a short pause.

“I do not think you would know the combination to that pad, and breaking the glass at the front of the thing would likely prove to be futile, lest I summon Baomiel.” Alistair said, drawing closer to the otherworldly thing.

“Why do you think that?” Nolvi asked silently, her eyes not moving a hair from the ground at her feet.

“This contraption, whatever it is, fell from the skies with nary a dent.” Alistair explained “Elum also says that the glass at the front is not broken… who knows? Perhaps it can't be broken by natural means.” Alistair replied, rubbing his chin.

“Why waste your time with this thing? Leave now before the Pillar-Born comes to find you deliberating.” Baomiel told him, its tone bordering on commanding.

“It fell from the very stars themselves… what lay within could help us defeat Tuji, or even Kazon” Alistair thought back “Who knows what could lay within… can you really tell me that this contraption would hold nothing of use?”

“You would be thieving from whatever creature lives there. Who knows? Perhaps it is within, pondering the best way in which to slay us all should we breach its lair.” Baomiel replied, his tones warning.

Twindil then shook her head “It would be best to move on, we’ve dallied enough as it is.”

“Twindil, please at least let me attempt.” Alistair nearly pleaded, stepping closer to Twindil till they were only a pace apart, his voice turning to a whisper as he continued “The papers you carry could convince a Contextualizer.” He continued, putting a hand on her shoulder before leaning closer “It fell from the stars, it could be of the very Pillars themselves, who knows, maybe there is something within that can…” Alistair hesitated, sparing a quick glance at the trees before looking back into Twindil’s eyes “Something to halt the madness. I know it’s not likely, but I have to at least look, please.”

Elum and Kid’ka stared at the two of them, inching closer, likely in an attempt to hear the words that were being exchanged. Nolvi and Theopalu though? Theopalu squatted toward the edge of the clearing, having found another large insect to devour. It was a fist-sized beetle this time, and the ever-hungry elven geezer wasted no time cramming it down his gullet. It didn’t even look like Theopalu had made an effort to chew…

And Nolvi? Completely unresponsive to her surroundings as ever. It was hard to believe that such a petite woman could potentially kill with a look.

Twindil licked her scar again, shrugging off his hand and looking toward the steel egg for a long while before finally saying “Announce your intentions. Let the watchers know what you’re going to do, and make sure they won’t take offense. They are here, I am sure of it, waiting to see what we’ll do.” She finished with a worried sigh.

Alistair smiled and gave a small nod, stepping back and raising his hands high in the air, readying to proclaim his intentions.

“Watchers!” He shouted, his voice echoing through the trees “Hear me, for I know you are there. I am from the Atheyare caravans. Like the rest of my people, I have an eidolon. I know not what you may have heard about us, but I am sanctioned! I do not wish to offend, but I desire to know what is inside this thing!” He continued, gesturing toward the steel egg “If you have any objections, speak them now to avoid conflict with us! If you say nothing, I will take that as consent to my actions.”

Alistair waited for a reply, the others in his group, save Theopalu and Nolvi of course, began pensively scanning the trees. After a few moments of pure silence passed, Alistair took a deep breath and began the summoning. His forehead burned, the budding horn beneath the headband seeming to strain against the cloth as he willed Baomiel to come forth. If the watchers attacked them, Alistair would feel no guilt in retaliating. They had plenty of time to voice any complaints and hadn’t, that was on them, not Alistair.

Perhaps they wanted them to crack this thing open? Did the watchers not have the means to open the egg themselves? What if they were simply waiting for the contents to be revealed before trying to seize the goods for themselves? Alistair shook his head, he would deal with it if that came to pass… now, time to bust this thing open before whatever lived here returned.

…

…

…

Lance drove her blade deep within the skull of the large canine fiend that had lunged for her, the dagger puncturing the brain with a burst of rotting pink mist. As that happened, Hoplite fired his Fortis magnum three times in rapid succession, each bullet finding a home in the centers of three small rotting apes swinging high above in the trees. They were a long-armed species with shaggy matted fur, their frenzied calls echoing through the forest. They had proven to be far more dangerous to the watchers than any of the more ground-based mutants.

Hoplite had seen an elf have his face torn off by a pair of them before he could even attempt to defend himself, falling from the tree he had been perched in as the mutants tore his flesh asunder. Hoplite had put the apes down, but it had been too late. All that had been left of the unlucky watcher had been a mangled bunch of black cloth and sundered flesh.

These dogs however didn’t prove nearly as dangerous, though they were still capable of ripping up flesh in seconds with their tainted maws. Yet all the rotting hounds hadn’t been a problem for Lance and her blades thus far.

Lance twisted with the momentum of the falling canine, her blade sliding out of the skull with the firm shlick of metal on bone. The creature’s rotting brain matter spilled out onto the grass with a wet plop as the head collided with the ground, that now familiar pink miasma seeping from seemingly every wound the dog had. Sunlight lit the forest floor a shade of pink as its rays passed through an overhanging death-mist as Hoplite and Lance continued fighting. Never before had Hoplite fought within a fog this garish, he was used to gray ash falls and the thick mists of boiled oceans, not… pink.

The grass he and Lance danced through was spattered with the blood of dozens of the creatures now, painting the earth with sickly spatters of red that contrasted the bright miasma surrounding them. They had come across a large pack of these ‘lesser-fiends’, animals that had been infected with this ‘Death-Spiral’ disease. Apparently, the more dangerous variety of fiend were strictly humanoid, but they hadn’t encountered any in the three days they had been fighting through the Faewood.

Lesser fiends had a harder time spreading the disease than the humanoid ones, based on what Lance had told him. Hoplite didn’t understand just how Lance could consider a diseased human to be more of a danger than, say, an infected grizzly bear. As Hoplite thought that, an infected bear rounded a far-off tree. It then charged, quickly drawing closer to reveal the putrid maggots dripping from a half torn off maw of rotting teeth.

Lance rolled as the beast swiped its massive paws for her skull, quickly sheathing her blades and scaling a tree up and away from the creature with a loud curse. Hoplite took advantage of the creature's distraction, and charged, ramming his shoulder into its ribs and sending it flying into another nearby tree. The animal's spine shattered as the bear was horse-shoed around the trunk of the thick tree, sliding to the ground in a poof of pink mist that swirled into the ever-growing fog. Its eyeballs had popped out of their sockets from the whiplash, the colony of maggots living in its rotting skull now pouring from the empty eye holes like a squirming white waterfall.

From his camera he could see another ape dropping down from a high branch, hands swiping for Lance’s head. Before Hoplite could speak, her eyes widened and she whirled, drawing her dagger and splitting the chittering thing’s head in half at the jaw. Pink mist and rotten dark blood spattered her face and she gagged as the thing's shaggy corpse fell to the earth with a heavy thud, the upper half of its head coming to lay only a few paces away from its body.

Hoplite dispatched the other two diseased apes that his motion trackers had picked up on, the red blips showing them scaling the tree next to where Lance was perched. As soon as they appeared, Hoplite popped them with the Fortis, that pink mist bursting as the bodies of the apes fell to the grass. How many had the two of them killed since this campaign began three days ago? Two-hundred? Surely that, if not more.

His motion tracker and cameras didn’t pick up any more movement, and after a few moments of silence, he holstered his magnum, cocking his helmet up to Lance.

“Any injuries?” He asked, knowing that there would likely be none inflicted on her by the fiends.

He had meant any muscle or joint injuries from the constant rolling and climbing.

“No, I am alright thank you.” Lance said, dropping from the tree to land gracefully “Still can’t stand the smell, hate getting close to these things but I’m better with these daggers than I ever was with a bow.” She said with a grin, wiping her blades off on the fur of a dead ape.

“Why haven’t we encountered any human fiends?” Hoplite asked, crushing the skull of the grizzly bear he had tackled with a firm boot.

It would be best to ensure it was dead, Hoplite had seen them rise on occasion after receiving a mortal injury, though not after the pink mist left them.

Still, it was best to be safe.

As Hoplite scraped the putrid brains now staining his boot on the grass, Lance took a deep breath and said “Normal fiends retain a level of sapience, from what I hear anyway.” She explained, adjusting the hem of her black cloak “See, those ones cannot die, and it is theorized that they fear to attempt crossing the Shot separating the Fiendwood and the Faewood as a result.” She then pursed her lips and shook her head “Could you imagine drowning forever at the bottom of a Shot? I would not make the attempt either were I taken by the curse.”

A Shot was one of the many massive rivers separating the continents that Hoplite had seen from space when he first awoke onboard the Sparrow… he had learned that through the several questions he’d been able to ask Lance. Now he burned with another question, as always nowadays it seemed. What was this about humanoid fiends not being able to die? That was preposterous, even considering the odd nature of this supposedly lesser variant. Surely a diseased human wouldn’t take more effort to kill than these lesser-fiends. The standard fiend might be difficult to kill, but it simply could not be possible that they were immortal.

“Maybe they’re resilient” Hoplite began “But it's illogical to think that these human fiends cannot die.”

“Perhaps, yet who is to say?” Lance asked him “Would you say that these lesser-fiends should simply die based on the way that their bodies are actively rotting? That seems logical to me, yet they move and fight with the frenzy of a living rabid animal.”

Hoplite found it hard to argue that point… however: “They still die. I shoot them, stab them, stomp them. They die.” He said flatly.

It really was as simple as that.

“I suppose I can’t argue with that,” Lance began after a long pause “But we’ll have ample opportunity to test your theory should we run into any normal fiends.”

It was like Commander always said, anything that you put enough bullets into died eventually. It had to be the same with fiends. No ‘immortal’ fiend could be an exception to this golden rule. Hoplite drew his Visus rifle, holding it at the ready as he began to move west, keeping an eye on his motion tracker as Lance began to follow after him, those green all-seeing eyes watching the branches above keenly. It wasn’t long before another question burned within him like a hot coal, and despite his sore throat and disdain for conversation, he found himself voicing it.

“If a Shot blocks off the fiends,” Hoplite began “What is the Fiendwall for?”

Was it a shore-spanning construct to keep out any fiends that somehow managed to cross the Shot? A long time to build something that length, especially since they likely only had access to primitive tools, but the determination of humanity was more than capable of accomplishing such a task.

“Across each Shot is a Great Bridge that connects the continents.” Lance explained as she continued to monitor the branches above “The Fiendwall encircles the lands at the mouth of that bridge on this side of the Shot.”

Hoplite furrowed his brow “Why not demolish the bridge? It seems like an unnecessary risk to keep it intact. Quarantine protocol dictates that it should be demolished.”

“There have been attempts, but the Great Bridges are made of what is known as setstone. That type of stone is unchanging and cannot be destroyed.” Lance told him.

It was more likely that they didn’t have the means to demolish it. Perhaps the bridges were made of a durable stone that would require high-grade explosives to destroy, but they couldn’t be indestructible. Hoplite would try to procure the proper charges for demolition once he linked backup with command… If he linked back up with command… Hoplite hadn’t heard any signals over the radio during the entire time he’d been stranded here.

He pushed that thought down. Hoplite could not afford to think so despairingly. He needed to focus on the mission, eliminate the fiends, and gather more intel on Ahkoolis. A few hours passed of pleasant silence between him and Lance, his desire for questions finally dimming from a burning coal to a cooling ember. Soon the sun began to set over the Faewood, the dim orange light slipping between the broad leaves overhead. After three days of fighting in this forest, he noticed something: Almost every species of tree he knew about was within these woods. Everything from willows and pines to cherry blossoms and maples. The result was a garish mixture of colors that was ever-present. It was a sight that wasn’t… displeasing to him.

It was the same with all the other plant life in these woods, radiant with colorful flowers and bursting with bright ripe berries and fruits. The exposure to all these colors was strange to him. Hoplite was used to gunmetal gray and the different splashes of blood in war, with some brown wastelands here and there for when he was deployed planetside.

“So…” Lance said, following close behind him “Can I see what’s in the star- er, pod next time we go back?”

He had been making routine stops at the pod during the fighting to restock on ammunition, keeping Lance and every other curious watcher well away from its contents.

“No.” He replied simply.

She grumbled but didn’t argue the point. As they pressed deeper into the forest, Hoplite began to notice other watchers hopping around in the trees above them from time to time, all wearing a color-blending variant of Lance’s garb. There were many of them, most going about the same task: hunting for trespassers. Or more likely with the recent development of the Fiendwall's collapse, hunting for fiends to put down. Hoplite had learned that day-watchers were given those garments to blend in better with the surrounding forest, while night-watchers such as Lance were given light-drinking black garb to better blend in with the darkness.

He didn’t quite understand why they simply didn’t give night-watchers the same color-blending garb as day-watchers, but he supposed that the color-blending version could be a fair bit harder to make than simple pitch-black clothing. The explanation for why day-watchers' clothing could color shift had been, of course: magic. Hoplite had nearly given up asking why certain things were the way they were on this planet. Three days of constantly being told ‘magic this’ or ‘the Pillar-Gods that’ was really beginning to frustrate him. There wasn’t a shred of common sense among these elves, that was all there was to it.

“When do you have to…” Lance started before trailing off, her eyes darting to the ground as she drew her lips to a line.

“When do I what?” Hoplite asked, his brow furrowing beneath his helmet.

Why did she look embarrassed? Hoplite had no idea why she would be, he may have lacked the social skills of most people, but to his eyes Lance had said nothing that would seem humiliating. Maybe it was what she was about to say?

“When do you… I mean to say, when do you have to… pee?” She asked, rubbing a hand through her long black hair and seeming to look anywhere but at Hoplite.

This was hardly the first time he’d been asked this question, but he was far more used to hearing it from marines under his command. He never understood this obsession with urine, it was a simple bodily function. Hoplite supposed it was because those troops had understood that the Phalanx suit had no waste disposal built-in… how they would know that, Hoplite had no idea.

And in truth, he simply didn’t care enough to find out.

“I don’t have to yet.” He replied after a second.

“It’s been three days Hoplite, you haven’t even slept!” She yelled, bafflement plain on her face.

“I don’t need to yet.” He said matter of factly.

Hoplite would like to keep it that way for as long as he could. Thankfully he hadn’t consumed anything prior to suiting up, the result however was that he was severely dehydrated and practically starving. It was not dangerous for him… not yet. Hoplite knew his own limits when it came to that regard, but he could not function at peak efficiency without normal sustenance. If he stopped to remove his helmet to eat and drink, however, he would have another problem on his hands later…

He could go far longer without food or water than a normal human, but that didn’t mean that it was healthy for him to go without it for this long. At this rate, he’d be dead within the next few days. Twelve at most, but he should take care of his needs before that point. He couldn’t protect anybody if he was recovering from severe dehydration alongside starvation. Hoplite found himself again wishing that the Phalanx suit had come with a built-in waste disposal, but there was no use in lamenting the fact that it wasn’t there.

There was also the very real danger of allowing his hunger to grow… If Hoplite went Wendigo… He shook his head at the thought.

He dreaded it, but it would be time to remove the suit when he returned to the pod this next visit, or at least just the helmet so he could eat and drink. The inevitability of removing the Phalanx suit was what he dreaded, for the process of reattaching the individual pieces of his armor on his own would be hours long. Even with the tools Hoplite had procured from engineering before launching his shuttle. He glanced at Lance, seeing that despite all the time she had spent awake with him out in these woods, she had no dark circles beneath those green eyes.

“I haven’t seen you sleep Lance.” Hoplite told her.

He hadn’t either of course, not since they had both set out patrolling through the Faewood. She had to take breaks here and there to eat and drink, but she had not slept a wink. Yet Lance didn’t even seem the least bit tired.

“Elves don’t sleep nearly as much as you lazy humans do.” She said with a small laugh “Besides, I got a full two hours of rest before I found you, I’m good for the rest of the week.”

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“I don’t need that much sleep either.” Hoplite replied “Don’t concern yourself.”

“Look,” Lance started, fists on hips as she walked “You need to take care of yourself before you fall over dead, simple as that.” She sniffed, shaking her head “I can forage up some berries and bag some bunnies for you if you don’t know how, and it's no bother if you want to drink from my canteen.”

“I can’t put the suit back on easily once I take it off.” Hoplite said “I want to keep it on as long as I can, it will take hours to put it back together.”

“Well, that’s just silly. Who makes armor that hard to put on?” She said with a shake of her head “Honestly seems stupid to me, and here I thought simple human plate armor was enough of a bother to deal with.”

Hoplite couldn’t exactly say she was wrong, but with how complex the Phalanx suit was, it was simply impossible to put it back on quickly without an engineer or an assembler to speed the process. On the flip side though, it was surprisingly easy to take off… all it took was a certain combination of bumps with his chin and several sections of the armor would open. After a few minutes, he could be out of the suit in its entirety. The helmet he could take off and put back on whenever he wished, but he’d rather keep wearing it until he was back inside the pod.

“Just let me know when you're ready to come out of that armor, I can bag a bunny for you in no time.” She told him “You can cook it yourself though, unless you don’t know how to do that either?” Lance finished wryly.

He didn’t say anything in response.

Hoplite noticed that the Magnus, Visus, and Fortis felt… light. It was time to go back to the pod and re-stock. He still had an adequate amount of ammo to spare on his person, but he wanted to stay as flush with bullets as possible. Almost right after he thought of returning to the pod, his stomach growled.

He hadn’t even eaten before entering cryo…

Again he tried to ignore the thought... and failed. It was simply time to eat and drink. There were canteens and calorie-dense ration bars stored beneath the seats of the pod, as it was for all escape shuttles. His throat felt like burnt paper and his limbs felt leaden. His eyes were growing heavier and heavier by the day. Hoplite needed to take care of himself before his body took matters into its own hands. He promptly turned and scooped up Lance without a word, bracing his legs as he prepared to launch into a run. She only gave a small gasp as he began sprinting headlong toward the pod. She was well used to this by now, but he saw that the other watchers in the trees overhead flinched at his sudden takeoff.

Their surprise at his speed could only be matched by their terror of his weapons. The other watchers genuinely seemed to be scared witless of them, but Lance had grown used to his ‘thunderstaves’ by now. Seeing the power that Hoplite’s guns were capable of outputting may have helped keep the watchers from attempting to bring Hoplite ‘to justice’ for the damage he had done to a few of their trees.

Hoplite was still unsure as to how the Harkhall had voted in regard to his crash-landing, but it was safe to assume at this point that he was in the clear.

Lance, like the Harkmother, had told him to be careful about the trees… Initially, Hoplite hadn’t cared if the foliage was damaged, but recently, Hoplite kept finding himself trying to avoid shooting the trees. Lance had told him that the fae inhabiting the trees would appreciate his efforts. They certainly weren’t real, but Hoplite didn’t feel like arguing with her over their supposed existence.

When they had both first set out, Lance had told Hoplite that she was, in a way, responsible for any of the damage that Hoplite might inflict upon the woods. As long as he didn’t bring any down, however, she was not at risk of punishment… At least not severe punishment. Lance had said that the chunks blasted out of the trees would at least get her a stern talking to from her commander.

And apparently Hoplite himself would get his own tongue-lashing eventually, at least according to Lance. Hoplite doubted it. The Faewood was a warzone and any kind of battleground would suffer wear and tear, the Harkmother and Lance’s commander would simply have to accept that fact and move on.

Still, Hoplite had kept it in mind to avoid damaging the trees. There was no need to get Lance punished by her superiors on his behalf, and in truth, it wasn’t the most difficult thing to avoid damaging the woods. Yet… why did he try so hard to avoid injuring them? They were just trees, nothing more. It wasn’t like he feared punishment from the elven authorities…He supposed a part of the reason, one that he could identify, was that he simply found them to be appealing to the eye. Hoplite simply did not want to rupture the natural patterns of the tree’s bark, for that would mar their natural beauty.

Hoplite immediately turned his thoughts away from such an obscene thought. Nature was merely another potential battleground, nothing more. He was a tool, a thing meant for killing, not a human being. It was best to keep it that way, lest his thoughts eventually come to more… treacherous places. He kept his attention firmly on the traveling, the speed he ran, his motion sensor- anything but the Faewood’s lush colors and its near-overwhelming sense of life.

It only took an hour to reach the crash site at his top speed, and when he put Lance down, he saw that her hair had been completely blasted back by the wind. She finally opened her eyes again, placing a hand to her lips before leaning heavily against the thick trunk of a nearby tree. Her face had turned a sickly shade of pale, and for a moment Hoplite believed that she would paint the bark with her bile.

“You have to give me more warning than that you metal ape…” She muttered under her breath “My guts are soup…” Lance groaned, placing a hand to her stomach.

“It is unnecessary.” Hoplite replied “It is more time optimal this way. If I were to tell you every time we were about to be en route to the pod, it would take up to a minimum of fifteen seconds; It would be a massive waste of time.” Hoplite explained to her.

Yet instead of nodding in agreement to his flawless logic, Lance shook her head, glaring up at him “Well you’re going to tell me from now on instead.” Lance told him “I will not be hauled about like a stone.”

Hoplite’s back stiffened in irritation. How dare she try to order him around?

“You are not in command of this operation. Do not attempt to give me any kind of orders.” Hoplite bit back, the heat in his voice only barely contained by ice cold discipline.

“In case you forgot,” Lance said after a second, standing straight to look up into his helmet “You aren’t my commanding officer Hoplite. Do not order me around. I may defer to you now and again in combat, but I am a watcher, not your soldier.”

Her face was actually beginning to turn from a shade of pale to a more crimson hue. Lance was growing angry with him? Why? All he did was assert his role as a commanding officer, as he had done all his life to those lower ranking than himself-

But Lance was not a part of the Eighth Arm of Terna, she was not in the command structure whatsoever. Therefore, while she held no rank in the military, this also meant that Hoplite did not outrank her. This puzzled him for a millisecond of thought before he realized how he should proceed. Lance should be regarded as a civilian combatant. Since she was not a part of the structure of command, that gave her more free reign than a standard soldier, as their behavior was typically unpredictable, as was whatever gear they may be in possession of.

That didn’t mean that civilian combatants shouldn’t follow orders, but their wild variation made it difficult to utilize them to their full capabilities. Technically, Lance was a part of the Ternan civilization, from a lost colony… but she was not part of any of the Eight Arms. Until proper reintegration, she was not truly Ternan… Perhaps she was right to be irritated with Hoplite for giving her orders outside of combat?

No, Hoplite was right. He had to always be certain. If a Hoplite didn’t have certainties, their thoughts would always lead to treachery… he could not, would not be re-indoctrinated. If only he had more experience dealing with civilians…

Turning his thoughts back to Lance in that same instant of thought, he came to a conclusion. To avoid having this cooperation turn abrasive, Hoplite would concede to this small matter. Perhaps it would be more optimal if Lance was made aware before take-off. Perhaps preparing herself mentally could keep her from lagging around in her sickness. Her recovery had also been taking up too much time for his liking.

“From this point going forward, I will notify you approximately one second before take-off.” Hoplite replied in his usual monotone.

That should be enough to be satisfactory to her. This concession was already more than what Hoplite was used to providing.

“You don’t pick me up until I tell you it's alright,” She snapped angrily, her eyes narrowing into a glare that matched Hoplite’s own “You tell me when then I’ll tell you if it’s alright. I have to mentally prepare.” Lance told him, her face growing a deeper shade of red.

“Affirmative.” Hoplite nearly snapped, fully turning and walking away to avoid wasting any more time on this ridiculous conversation.

From his rear camera he could see her give a small but curt nod, her previous sickness all but evaporated in the heat of her anger. Hoplite’s own face felt red-hot with rage. How dare she ask for more from Hoplite after he gave her more than he would have given anyone else? As soon as these savages were reintegrated, they’d need to be taught proper procedure.

They walked in icy-cold silence for a few minutes before finally reaching the crash site. As he had every time before, he activated one of the camera’s in his finger, and edged the tip just around the tree trunk to scan the area around his shuttle. Before he even saw what was on the camera, his motion tracker had picked up on seven blips surrounding his pod… Were they nosy watchers or something else?

If they had been fiends, they wouldn't have been stationary. Fiends always moved erratically on his motion tracker, they never held still. These were almost completely immobile even, at least in relation to fiends. When Hoplite finally saw what his finger camera’s feed picked up on, his mouth almost fell open in shock.

Six people and some horrific kind of mutant were all staring at his shuttle. The mutant had drawn his attention first due to just how severe the changes were. The top half was a handsome long black-haired muscular humanoid, crossing its arms and looking down upon Hoplite’s pod with a curious glint in its black eyes. The lower half in contrast, was a horrific monstrosity. The upper half’s waist, instead of ending in a pair of legs, lead into another, larger body. A massive face with a gaping maw and three tongues sticking out of its mouth made up the center of this second torso, one of the tongues reaching up occasionally to lick one of the creature's two big black eyes. Its bold nose hung slightly over the gaping three-tongued maw, which masticated the back of the three lolling tongues. Another set of inhumanly large shoulders stuck out from above this second horrific face, each with a long ape-like arm that ended in two broad furled fingers that each ended in a sharp point. The thing held itself aloft with two thick squat legs, using its two lower arms for better balance.

Hoplite had never seen such a massive mutation in his life. If Darkwatch were to see such a mutant on this world, they’d surely designate Ahkoolis for liquidization with barely a second thought.

Not that this strange creature was the only mutant in this strange gathering. There was also a lean crimson-skinned man that stood near to the mouth of Hoplite’s pod. Long black horns like that of a goat jutted out from his temples above a head of unkempt long white hair that fell all the way down his shirtless back. A patch of gray flesh was spread across his right arm, the contrast of the strange mark against the mutant’s red-flesh made it nigh impossible to miss. A birthmark, or some kind of skin-disease? The other five people seemed normal at a glance, yet he could see that one, a blonde woman wearing plate-mail, possessed ears with a slight point to them.

Another elf perhaps? Maybe a subspecies?

Before he could make out more details, he had to pull his finger back.

A pale square-faced man of middling height and wearing a red cape and leather armor had seemingly caught sight of Hoplite, his eyes coming to rest exactly on Hoplite’s tree. It was likely that Hoplite had pulled his finger back before it could be seen… yet that man seemed to have keen eyes. Keener than most to catch sight of Hoplite’s fingertip. Did that man have bionic eyes? No normal human should have been able to spot something as small as a fingertip so quickly and accurately… Perhaps the man had seen an insect instead? Or maybe he mistook Hoplite’s finger for a bird?

If the stranger had indeed spotted Hoplite in that brief instant, then his position was compromised.

“Uh, did you guys see that?” One of them, likely the square-faced man asked.

“See what?” A woman’s voice replied.

“Potential hostiles.” Hoplite told Lance as drew the Magnus from his back.

Lance brow furrowed in confusion for a brief instant before she heard the drifting conversation between the strangers, then she drew her daggers.

“You saw them on your… you called it a motion tracker, yes?” Lance asked in a whisper.

“Yes. Be ready to attack or retreat if they become aggressive. Flank them if you can.” Hoplite told her, rounding the trunk of the tree to greet surprised eyes.

The strangers had all turned to stare goggle-eyed at Hoplite, who stood tall and ready to start blasting hot lead. He stared right back at the strangers, his shotgun not yet aimed but ready to be if the need arose. Hoplite would react appropriately based on how these people behaved… Suddenly, the square-faced man walked toward Hoplite, his face set with curious determination. Hoplite then promptly aimed his shotgun toward the pale man and the stranger stopped dead in his tracks. Even if he didn’t understand what a gun was, he clearly understood that whatever Hoplite was holding was a weapon.

“Identify.” Hoplite ordered.

The strangers all looked at each other, the two-faced mutant staring at him with those unsettling pitch-black eyes. That one he could put down with a blast of the Magnus without having to get close, but Hoplite supposed the same could be said of all of these people. None of them wore armor that could possibly stop these shells.

“I uh, I’m the warrior known as Kid’ka.” The man stuttered “Sorry I just wanted a closer look at what you were… Didn’t mean offense, mister golem.”

The elf-woman in full-plate then stepped forward, placing a fist to her chest-plate as the pale man took a few steps back.

“I am Twindil, a Paladin of Afina, the Pillar-God of tranquility.” She said soothingly, as if she had heard heat in his monotone.

He searched those green eyes of hers but there wasn’t anything but confidence in those eyes. A Paladin? She certainly didn’t look like one. The generation of super soldiers before Hoplite had been called Paladins, but they weren’t all that common nowadays. Most had met their end serving in the war, and few new Paladins had been made after project CHIMERA’s resounding success. Hoplite had met and even fought side-by-side with a few in his younger days, and they all shared Hoplite's disposition. After all, Paladins went through the exact same training as a Hoplite, just without the mutations that were involved with project CHIMERA.

This woman did not have those same cold empty eyes, they seemed to be filled to the brim with life. She actually smiled at him when she saw his head cock toward her, the small scar on her lip only pulling it down slightly. No, this girl could not be Ternan personnel, not with those ears and that gear.

Hoplite then cocked his helmet in Kid’ka’s direction again, simply to let the man know that Hoplite still had him well within his sight. Kid’ka then coughed forcefully before he began rubbing the back of his head, looking away from Hoplite as he spoke.

“I uh… am a Tongue of Zodd.” He said, seemingly straining to speak the words.

Whoever this man was, Hoplite could tell that he didn’t speak very often based on the croak in his deep voice, either that or he smoked an unhealthy amount of tobacco, much like how many sergeants in the marines did. Kid’ka then lifted up the back of his hand, displaying it to show that it had been branded with the image of a furled tongue. He had heard mention of the Tongues of Zodd before in the Harkhall. There had been mention of calling for their aid in dealing with the encroaching fiends… Were these strangers all Tongues of Zodd? Likely not, Twindil likely would have introduced herself just as Kid’ka had if that were so.

It was still uncertain as to if these strangers were hostiles, but so far Hoplite did not think that they presented any immediate threat. They had tried opening talks, albeit… strangely with Kid’ka’s behavior. Perhaps the man was simply socially inept? Yes… he didn’t seem the type to speak much to others, based on that croak to his throat and the silvery paleness of his flesh. Hoplite was all too familiar with that sensation; of speaking far too often. Other than Kid’ka’s strangeness, however, these people didn’t seem to be hostile-

The red-skinned mutant standing further back in the group then began inching toward the door to the pod, and Hoplite’s body kicked into motion, raising his shotgun and aiming it directly at the mutant.

“Step away from the pod now!” Hoplite shouted, his booming voice causing all to flinch, save for the huge mutant, that one held its composure “Failure to comply with these orders will result in your immediate execution.” He ordered harshly, stomping forward a few steps while keeping an eye on everyone surrounding him.

“Woah! Okay okay… was just curious was all.” The mutant said.

His voice was filled with undercurrents of mischievousness, like those hordes of lower-ranking marines that preferred to goof off rather than be productive. From his rear camera, Hoplite could see Lance quickly pass from tree to tree, going almost completely unnoticed. Despite her adept maneuvering through the woods, however, it still seemed that Kid’ka had seen her, his face growing pale as he mouthed the words ‘watcher’ silently. Lance’s position was compromised to Kid’ka, but the man didn’t seem interested in outing her hiding place for some reason… maybe he had already been seeing watchers darting about and had simply chosen to ignore them up until now?

“Names Elum,” The red skinned mutant said, drawing Hoplite’s attention “And anyway it's not like it’s yours. We were here first, I claim this star for us!” Elum declared, gesturing to his companions who all stared daggers at him in response, save for one, a girl with her eyes firmly set on the ground.

Elum seemed to be waiting for his companions to back him up, and when they didn’t, he pursed his lips in irritation. He scratched at one of his black horns as he backed away from the pod, compressing his lips to a fine line and staring longingly at the crashed shuttle.

“That is Ternan property.” Hoplite said, seeing Lance emerge from behind a completely different tree than the one he had seen her dart behind.

She sheathed her daggers, and began almost casually approaching Kid’ka… why was she compromising the flank? Was there something she knew about these strangers that he didn’t? She gestured for the man to approach her, and Kid’ka flinched, seizing up for a brief instant before finally he started to slowly inch toward her.

No one besides Hoplite seemed to have noticed this.

“There are no ‘claims’, stay away from that pod.” Hoplite ordered in a low menacing tone “You won’t be warned again.”

Elum then lifted his chin "What about the international 'claims' law?” He asked in a confident tone “It dictates that…” He paused, his confident tone waning as he went on “It says that… uh, if I find a thing and make a claim upon it, that it's mine."

Twindil then shot a withering glare at Elum "There is no such law!" She shouted with exasperation.

Elum then began grumbling something under his breath, looking away from the elf in armor to instead seemingly admire a fallen branch. Twindil maintained the accusing glare for a full few seconds before turning back to Hoplite with a sigh, her brows creased apologetically.

Hoplite had overheard an almost similar conversation, much like the interaction between he and Elum just had. It had been between a couple of exo-troops concerning a cup of ice cream. The two had almost come to blows. The soldiers had been strangely irritated about it… Whatever ice cream tasted like, it still shouldn’t have been good enough for someone to fight over it.

Indeed Elum looked as irritated as those soldiers had, knowing that he could not claim Hoplite's pod for himself. Of course, this was a serious situation, not something as petty as ice cream. Yet Hoplite found himself recalling that interaction for hints on how to proceed here. It was an irritating thought, there was no need to defuse the situation with Elum, it was enough that Hoplite had ordered the mutant to step away from the shuttle.

Nothing more was needed.

Hoplite then noticed the other watchers in the trees above them… It seemed there were about five there, all staring silently at him and the strangers. Were they here before, or had they been following these people? Lance had told him that one of the many duties of a watcher was to observe trespassers until they left the forest, and that meant following them until they were gone. If they were causing harm to the forest, either by logging or poaching, they’d be dealt with swiftly and violently.

What had they been doing here? Had they truly been here this whole time or did they just arrive? If it was the former… then could they have been scheming a way to break into his shuttle? It was certainly possible, but thankfully the durable tungsteel alloy making up the pod would ensure that nothing these elves had could bust through. Still, Hoplite wouldn’t allow himself to be lax about a potential break-in… he’d need to make sure none of them managed to see the access code for the pod, else Hoplite may return to find his shuttle completely ransacked.

Perhaps that was why Lance had broken cover? Confidence in her comrades to swoop in if things went south? Perhaps, but it was still a foolish thing to do… There were far too many unknowns here to assume safety.

He then turned his attention back to Elum, who stared back seemingly unconcerned. The red mutant then crossed his arms, fully turning away from Hoplite with an irritated huff.

“Never heard of Terbutt or whatever the hells you called it. Keep it then. Fine. I suppose I will allow you to retain possession of the discovered goods. No use in us killing each other over it.” Elum said, as if it were his to give away in the first place.

Hoplite then looked to the blonde man wearing the red headband then, seeing that he too wore plate armor similar to Twindil’s, though his was painted a shade of gold, rather than silvery gray. The man stood next to the two-faced mutant, a hand wrapped around the shaft of a large war hammer with its square head planted firmly in the soil. It was an intricate piece of work, the large square metal head made of shining steel. Its wooden shaft was engraved with images of monstrous creatures, one of which looked to resemble the two-faced mutant. The man then leaned his weight into the hammer and began shaking his head.

“I’m Alistair.” The blonde man said, looking again toward Hoplite “This here is the angel and my eidolon Baomiel.” He finished, gesturing with a nod to the two-faced mutant “I am sanctioned, do not worry about me being Pillar-Born.”

Hoplite was of a height with the creature that Alistair had named Baomiel. The so-called ‘angel’ glared at him, its upper human arms crossed over its broad chest.

“That,” Hoplite started in a deadpan “Is a mutant.”

Alistair stared confusion at Hoplite, and Baomiel’s upper half frowned at Hoplite as the lower half continued to lick its own eyeballs.

“No,” Alistair said with a shake of his head “He is an angel from the astral plane. I can summon him and dismiss him at will. I am Atheyare, golem. Surely you know what that entails?” He said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Hoplite did not argue the point, nor did he explain that he was really a human, not a golem. He instead turned his attention to the woman that had been staring at the ground. She had an… eerily symmetrical face, bordering on unnatural. Her blue and green eyes lifted from the ground finally, and Hoplite felt a strange… tugging in his gut. Almost like a primal… fear? No, it could not be fear, he had felt true fear onboard the Sparrow when he had been certain he’d been about to die. This was just a strange… uneasiness, as if the woman’s very existence were unnatural. Uncanny indeed, there was some kind of mutation besides the heterochromia there, though he could not place it purely based on her appearance.

“I,” She began after a brief second “Am Nolvi.”

With that, Nolvi began staring at the forest floor, seemingly zoning off the very instant those eyes found the ground. She wore a heavy cloak that was made of stout brown leather, concealing much of her body and some of the thin staff she held gently in both hands. A leather cloak in this heat? Hoplite’s body and armor had been outfitted with flexible Kelvinite piping, keeping his body temperature at a constant and normal (for a Hoplite) hundred and five degrees. It was likely that Nolvi had no such piping implanted beneath her skin, why would she be wearing such a heavy-duty cloak? She must have been concealing weapons beneath it, he’d need to keep a keen eye on her hands in case she tried to pull one out.

Alistair shook his head with a sigh before hefting the war hammer over his shoulder, the wooden shaft colliding with the plate armor with a gentle clank.

“She is… er, a bit… vacuous, do not mind her.” He said in a suffering tone.

Nolvi’s eyes flashed up at Alistair for a brief instant before looking back down to the ground, and for some reason, Alistair let out a yelp, cradling his rear-end a moment before muttering something under his breath. It was as if he had just been struck, though by what Hoplite didn’t know. There was nothing that Hoplite could see that could have hit the man.

Lance and Kid’ka were speaking more animatedly now, though they maintained a quiet whisper. The man was looking more drained talking to her than he had speaking with Hoplite. These people did not seem hostile but that didn’t mean that Lance should have emerged yet. After all the situation was still unresolved, he needed to question everyone and then clear these people out of here. They must have found his pod by chance, so what was their original objective before stumbling across it?

Perhaps they were heading for the Fiendwall?

Before he could pursue that train of thought further, the sixth stranger, an old looking elf wearing a black watchers outfit approached Lance, big dark bags under aged green eyes. Was this man retired from working the Faewood? He had to be, else why would he be here with these strangers and not darting through the trees above? Furrows carved their way through his skin and he held himself in a slight hunch, bushy dark eyebrows drooping down nearly to brush his cheekbones. His long dark hair was held back in a single ponytail, not a single gray among that head of black despite the wrinkles on his face. An old elf? Seemed this mutation had a lifespan after all. That begged the question, how long had this elf been alive? Lance claimed that elves were biologically immortal unless taken by disease or wounds… but this wrinkled bony man certainly looked anything but unaging.

Instead of saying anything, the elder elf simply sat on the ground, staring uncaringly at Hoplite for a moment before looking at Alistair.

“Got any food?” The wrinkly elf asked, his gravelly tones marred and scratchy from countless years of use.

Alistair then compressed his lips in a tight line “No! You eat enough already, Theopalu! We do not have enough rations to make this trip if you keep eating the way you have been-”

“Yeah I got some.” Kid’ka said quickly, seemingly grateful for the opportunity to leave Lance’s company as he lightly jogged over to where the old elf sat.

Lance shook her head and gave a small laugh “Old Theopalu, you truly haven’t changed at all.”

“Woah!” Alistair shouted, hand tightening on the shaft of his warhammer as he took a quick step backward “Where the hells did she come from!?”

Nolvi glanced up at him, a quirk to her brow “You didn’t hear her and Kid’ka talking?” She asked dully “Your ears are broken.” Nolvi stated flatly before continuing to stare holes into the dirt.

“I had not heard her either…” Twindil whispered, a hint of embarrassment in her tone as she tucked a long lock of blonde hair behind one ear.

“Personally, nothing gets past me. Except this once.” Elum said after a moment “Damn quiet they are… but at least they aren’t hiding anymore?” Elum asked, sounding uncertain as to if that were a good thing.

Was that why Lance had come out? Because she had recognized Theopalu? Even so, she should have maintained the flank in case Theopalu had turned traitor to the watchers. The old elf had brought strangers into the Faewood, he should have been regarded with at least a smidgen of suspicion. And if she had indeed recognized Theopalu… then why did she approach Kid’ka first? Why had the man looked so nervous talking with her?

Hoplite stared as Kid’ka pulled out a large piece of hardtack, handing it to the old elf while Alistair glared daggers at Kid’ka. The old elf - Theopalu, wasted no time in consuming the fist-sized morsel. Hoplite stared in near-bafflement as he saw the elf swallow the hardtack without chewing it. It was as if Theopalu’s throat had expanded to allow it to fall straight into his stomach.

Perhaps elves were more mutated than he thought? But then why was Lance staring in near-horrified shock at Theopalu? If all elves could eat like that then she would not be staring at Theopalu in such a way.

“You really haven’t changed at all, have you?” Lance asked Theopalu, the latter merely shrugging in response “How's the outside world been treating you?”

Theopalu shrugged again before replying curtly with “It is fine.”

“Well that’s good Theopalu… but you haven’t been teaching our ways to outsiders, have you?” Lance asked him, her eyes turning to daggers as she approached the still-sitting elf “After all, this lad is young enough to have been raised by you on your time off, it's been what, twenty years? You didn’t take a human apprentice in that time, right?” Lance asked him “You know what would have to be done.” She finished in a tone as deadly serious as Hoplite had ever heard.

Theopalu then shook his head “No, just met him a few days ago. The boy just got a great eye, should have been born an elf.”

“I see…” Lance said after a moment, turning her head back to Kid’ka.

The man seemed to seize up the moment Lance’s eyes found his, and he forced out another awkward cough before the blonde elf girl, Twindil, approached Lance. Hoplite kept a firm eye on the blonde elf, reading her body language for any signs of aggression. If Twindil became hostile, Hoplite would blow her away in an instant. However, Hoplite saw no signs of hostility in Twindil’s body language. The paladin only seemed curious about Lance, Twindil’s face in wonder as she gently reached out a hand, giving a small smile.

“He just does that. I’ve never really had a chance to… uh, talk to one of you before.” Twindil said with brief hesitation “Well, besides Theopalu anyway,” She said quickly “But he doesn’t like to talk. See, I’m actually half-elf and I was wanting to ask if-”

“That’s enough.” Hoplite cut in “What are you all doing here?” He asked, checking the tree’s above to see the current positions of the watchers overhead.

They had become suddenly very still on his tracker, disappearing in their stillness. Yet… when Hoplite checked the camera… he could see none of them. They had seemingly all left while he was preoccupied with dealing with these strangers. Why would they do that? The situation hadn’t been resolved. Perhaps they thought their time could be better spent on neutralizing the dozens of fiends still wandering the Faewood. If that was what they had left for, then Hoplite could hardly bring himself to blame them.

Twindil jumped at hearing his voice, her plate armor clinking together as she stared at Hoplite with wide eyes “We are making our way toward the Fiendwall.” She told him, taking a breath to calm herself before continuing. “We hired Theopalu to guide us through the Faewood to reach it.” She smiled again “After all, Afina wouldn’t approve of such chaos spreading through the land, I will purge it. Yet in truth, that is not the only reason we are heading for the Fiendwall, this tragedy just happened to occur on our journey.”

“We came upon this… did you call it a pod?” Alistair asked before continuing “On the way there. And, I’m going to be completely honest with you here, we were going to try and loot it.” Alistair said honestly, shrugging broad shoulders “We didn’t know it was yours okay? No harm, no foul. Gotta ask though,” He said, lifting an eyebrow at Hoplite “Is this one of the falling stars? Pretty much everyone saw at least a few of them during the Starfall. Can’t help but notice that this place looks like it got split down the middle, like it crashed here.”

“They weren’t stars. They were escape pods.” Hoplite told him “Have you found any others? Were there any humans in them?”

The party of mutated misfits all began staring at one another, all save for Nolvi before they began shaking their heads. It was as Hoplite had previously thought… If these people had been arriving from the west, it was unlikely that any pods had crashed on that side of the planet during the initial and only ejections. This wasn’t the first time Hoplite had heard the mass evacuation referred to as the ‘Starfall’. Apparently, it was becoming more commonly known as such.

This at least confirmed that there were likely no shuttles that had landed in the west. If Hoplite wanted to link back up with Ternan personnel, he’d need to head to the east as he had planned.

He opened his mouth to begin speaking, but began shouting instead when his motion tracker began picking up on several frenetic blips, all converging on their location. These past few days of combating fiends had taught him how they’d appear on his motion tracker. The blips were jagged and wild in their approach, drawing through the round tracker on his hud from all directions.

“Hostiles inbound!” Hoplite shouted “Fiends incoming from all directions! Get ready!”

With that, the roaring of beasts half-dead could be heard. Growling maws that desired not else but to tear all those unafflicted with their mutation to pieces. Thankfully, the strangers did not question this, indeed it seemed as if they had grown used to being attacked by fiends during their journey through the woods. A good thing, for they reacted swiftly… all save for Theopalu, who opted to remain sitting.

Nolvi quickly stepped behind Twindil, who drew a massive greatsword, holding it at the ready. Alistair quickly ran over, taking up a position next to Twindil. Kid’ka moved to stand closer to Elum as the red mutant held his hands outward to the surrounding forest. Hoplite didn’t know what Elum planned to do with just his hands, the thin man was not built for wrestling…

Then they were upon them, all chittering beasts and critters of all shapes and sizes. Apes and dogs, boars and weasels, and a couple of bears to boot. Hoplite was not sure that he could save everyone from the encroaching fiends, but he would try. He aimed the Magnus at the first bear, the beast roaring as it charged directly for him.

The blast tore through the creature’s skull with ease, spattering rotted brain matter across the trees while stray pellets tore into other beasts. While that happened, Elum’s hands began glowing a shade of green…? Hoplite, almost completely dumbfounded, watched as the red mutant began lobbing balls of green liquid at the approaching fiends.

They had simply… appeared out of thin air above his hands, how, Hoplite did not know. The balls of liquid impacted with the second bear that had been approaching, the matted fur melting away in an instant with a sizzle. The acid ate through the bear’s skull and left only a stump of bone where the broad head had been, the body sliding to a stop right before Elum, who backed away with a curse as the miasma seeped out of the headless corpse.

Before Hoplite could process what had just happened, he saw Alistair’s own hand suddenly catch flame. A brilliant golden fire enveloped his entire palm, and the man slapped it atop his war hammer, the metal seeming to take the entire flame in that instant and leaving Alistair’s hand bare of any burns.

Some kind of bionic had to be at work there! Flame and acid did not just come out of peoples hands! Alistair then reared the hammer back, and swung it into the skull of a dog, knocking it far back into the growing crowd of fiends with an explosion of gore. This golden flame spread from the hammer on impact, launching several bits of flaming skull toward the fiends.

Each piece that landed on top of a fiend caught that one on fire in turn, and soon there were dozens of fiends blazing with the golden fire, all seizing up and just… they were just gone. For the briefest of milliseconds, before the flame completely took them, the skeletons of the diseased animals were visible, as if Hoplite were seeing an x-ray through their putrid flesh. The golden flame seemed to consume them in their entirety, and not even the pink mist emerged once they were gone. There was not even ash where they had fallen, they were just… gone.

Hoplite kept firing the Magnus, forcing himself to stay focused on the combat at hand. There would be time to rationalize how this was all possible after the fact. Shells tore through dozens per shot, and unfortunately, Hoplite could not avoid hitting the trees with his rounds. There were simply too many fiends to afford caution. They seemed to pour out from all directions like a rotting flood of gnashing teeth. The strangers all flinched at the cacophonous roar of his shotgun, but showing extraordinary discipline they stayed completely focused on the killing.

Twindil swung her greatsword, the thick blade cleaving through three apes that had been jumping for her, the blade passing through the legs of the first one, then a torso, and finally a head. She wretched on the pink miasma even as she stomped the now legless apes skull, already swinging again into another pack of fiends.

The ‘angel’ Baomiel swung its massive lower fists wildly, fighting like a savage gorilla as it snapped spines and crushed skulls beneath its mighty blows. The upper half of Baomiel had intercepted an ape that had leaped from a high branch, catching both an ankle and a wrist before the mutant lifted the monkey high above its head, ripping the creature in half. Baomiel did it with the ease of tearing paper, uncaring for both the pink miasma and the gore now coating its upper body.

Lance slashed and dodged through the fiends in an intricate and bloody dance, working her two long daggers with a surgeon's precision. Limbs and heads flew off with every step she took, the diseased animals unable to even scratch her before she was already out of harm's way. Kid’ka fought with the same efficiency, ducking and weaving with careful counterattacks with his longsword that split limbs and bodies, his sword painting the air a deeper shade of pink as the miasma continued to flow and mix into the growing mist surrounding the clearing.

Nolvi… Nolvi just stared at the fiends. Yet when she did so… strange things would happen to the creature she sighted in on. They would stumble and trip over nothing, or a bone would shatter seemingly on its own… surely it was just due to how rotted and decayed fiends were… she could not be injuring them by simply staring.

Then suddenly, a wolf-fiend's head simply exploded, and the veins on Nolvi’s temples had bulged, her face going red with unseen effort. Again Hoplite turned his attention away from thinking about the impossible, simply focusing on firing his shotgun until all the hostiles were eliminated.

Theopalu did nothing. The old man simply sat where he was and let the fiends pass over him offering no resistance to the stampede… but what was strange was the fact that the fiends… they avoided him. Why would they avoid Theopalu? He wasn’t infected-

Focus.

More balls of acid were flung, limbs severed, fiends blasted apart for a long while before finally the last of the creatures was dispatched with a firm stomp from Hoplite. He had used up all the shells left in the Magnus and had to engage in close quarters. Those were shells that had been well spent, however, for Hoplite had killed at least fifty fiends in that short span of time with those remaining rounds. Why had so many appeared here like this? Hoplite had never had to fight off a wave this size, there had to be around two hundred that had charged them all at once…

Which was why it was strange that they had suffered no casualties.

Lance and the strangers were all perfectly fine, save for Kid’ka, who nursed a bleeding calf. It seemed as if one of the hounds had gotten its teeth into his leg, and unlike Twindil and Alistair, he wore no armor that could have stopped it. Was he infected now? If he was, then Kid’ka would have to be put down before he could pose a threat. Yet, if he could be treated in time, he could likely be saved. Apparently, lesser-fiends had a more difficult time spreading the disease, but still, the wound could not be left to fester. Hoplite would retrieve some antibacterial gel from his pod and then-

Twindil then approached Kid’ka, leaning down quickly and grabbing the wound. Was she a trained medical professional? The way she held it was certainly not how a gaping bite wound should be treated-

“Afina, seal this injury, so that he may be tranquil in life.” Twindil whispered, clutching something at her neck.

A golden glow then grew from her enclosed fist, and it traveled up and down her arms and onto Kid’ka’s wound. Hoplite approached to get a closer look, and saw that the wound was- It was closing!? Yes, the injury was closing up on its own, the blood seeming to pull back into Kid’ka’s body as the bite mark fully sealed, leaving not even a scar. Only nanomachines could heal so efficiently…

Ah, that was it, it was nanomachines. True, nanomachines did not glow… or were even visible in any way, but there were no other explanations Hoplite could think of for how that wound had sealed so quickly. Yet there was a flaw with this idea, as nanomachines could not transfer from person to person. Each fleet of nanobots was 'tailored' for lack of better words, to the person hosting them. This was so the user's body wouldn't identify the microscopic machines as a virus. Transferring nanomachines in such a way always resulted in intense fevers and bacterial infections, leading to death. It simply had to be something else that Twindil did to heal Kid'ka, but that begged the question.

What had it been?

Lance cleared her throat nervously, her face red beneath a head of sweat-matted hair “So…” She breathed heavily. “Some of you can do magic…” She continued, clearly uncomfortable “I assume that- well you have to be sanctioned yes? You are not... Pillar-Born?” She asked, suddenly serious.

Glances passed between the strangers, save for Theopalu, who stared at a beetle crawling on a stump before grabbing it up and promptly eating it whole. It was a stag beetle.

“...Yes.” Twindil said after a moment's hesitation “I have my papers on me now if you must look over them.”

“And I’m Atheyare.” Alistair huffed “Do you know of my people and our bond to the angels?”

Lance paused before nodding, staring wide-eyed at Baomiel “I knew what you were as soon as I laid eyes on your eidolon.”

“Then you know that I didn’t need Foundation to bring him here. If it will make you more comfortable, I’ll dismiss him now.” Alistair said, snapping his fingers.

Hoplite goggled as Baomiel completely vanished. He bumped his thermals to see if the mutant had gone invisible, but it was simply… gone. The creature didn’t even appear on his motion tracker, it was just gone. Lance eased up only slightly, approaching Twindil with a small shake to her step. Twindil gingerly handed Lance the papers, lips pursed as the watcher read over the laminated sheet.

Lance gave a deep sigh of relief once she finished going over these ‘sanctioning’ papers that Twindil provided. Hoplite himself saw the words ‘By the Head of the Cathedral of Tranquil Afina, Twindil Mermu is sanctioned as a mortal’. What did all of that mean? His eyes felt heavier than ever now as he gazed longingly at the pod. All he had to do was step inside and seal it shut, then he could take care of himself and be done with all this nonsense. He’d be able to make better sense of all this once he was well and truly rested.

No more fiends were inbound on his motion tracker, the field was completely still with the corpses of the fiends, not a single one moved an inch from where it sat. The pink miasma still hung heavy in the air, making it apparently difficult for everyone else to breathe, all save for Theopalu, who merely yawned as if he were about to take a nap, still laying among the corpses of the fiends. If the combat was over… then it was time for Hoplite to take care of himself.

“Give them directions.” Hoplite ordered Lance.

Lance then turned to him, her brow knit together above glaring eyes. What had he done to receive such a look?

“We do want to get to the Fiendwall, miss Lance.” Twindil huffed with another small smile “Please, we can help push back the fiends when we get there, we don’t mean any harm to these woods, truly. Afina’s word on it.”

Lance turned from Hoplite to smile back at Twindil.

“You are three days south,” Lance huffed, wiping sweat from her brow “But old Theopalu there knows the way well enough. He used to be a watcher after all.” Lance told her, sparing a brief glance at the older elf “Can’t believe he’d come back to the Faewood this soon after being sent on leave… even if it didn’t involve work.”

Hadn’t Lance said it’d been around twenty years? That was hardly ‘so soon’ in Hoplite’s opinion…

More words passed between Lance and the strangers, but Hoplite heard none of it. His eyes were heavy and his limbs were lead pillars… It was time to rest and he wasn’t going to wait any longer.

“Lance, do you have control of this situation?” Hoplite asked as he turned toward the pod, approaching it with heavy footsteps.

“Uh… yes?” She told him with an eyebrow cocked.

“Retreat if they turn hostile. I’ll be in the pod.” Hoplite told her “Do not attempt to follow me in. I will open fire.” He warned the group.

Strangely, Elum smiled, taking a step toward Hoplite “You’re magic too? You sanctioned? I can open fire too-”

Hoplite raised a single broad finger toward the horned mutant as he approached Hoplite.

“Back.” Hoplite ordered.

The mutant’s acid would not be able to eat through Hoplite’s armor, if Elum became aggressive now, then Hoplite would simply snap his neck.

Elum shook his head, sighing as he looked at the glaring Alistair with a grimace “I was just curious.”

Their words became nigh-inaudible as Hoplite sealed the pod doors behind him. They continued speaking for a long while based on how long they hung around on his motion tracker. Hoplite clutched the Visus, straining his bionic ears to their limit to pick up on any hostile tones. When the voices finally faded away without the sounds of conflict, Hoplite set about removing his armor, trying not to think about the things he had seen the strangers do.

He may as well take care of his every need, he would eat, drink, and sleep. Four hours should be enough assuming that nothing attacked the pod or Lance. If there was a body of water nearby, he may take the time to wash as well. That would mean potential exposure to toxins in the environment, not to mention the potential for wounds to be sustained in a sudden combat situation, but he was fairly confident that he could rinse and be back to the pod before any incident occurred. If other ‘normal’ humans could survive exposure on this planet, then surely Hoplite could as well. His immune system was incredibly deadly to all forms of contagions.

When he was finally free of his armor, he ravenously tore into rations and full canteens of water, guzzling them down as if he were drowning before slumping over on a row of the seats, sleep ready to claim him.

As his eyes finally shut, his thoughts drifted back to just what he had seen today.

His dreams were of magic, monsters, and elves. Like the book he read as a child over two centuries ago.