The beastmaster packed for the long journey – provisions for both human and akergryph, the various weapons, sheaths, and belts that made them feel like they were in a weird RPG, healing potions that would never be forgotten again, the guild request to guide the way to the pick-up point.

Ah, and a waterskin. The suffering that led to Hallvar meticulously checking the waterskin was slightly less traumatizing than spilling their guts, but dehydration was no joke.

Hallvar was grateful that although heated water was still a public utility only, there was still running water in the house for easy access. They cleaned off and filled up their waterskin, resolving to do some leather care for their belongings when they returned from the trip.

On the windowsill behind the sink, the gastropod shell sat in the sun. A trinket on display instead of locked away like a precious jewel.

Hallvar smiled.

They were up earlier than Stella, closer to the sunrise than normal as the adventurer wanted to have plenty of time to travel.

The pick-up was with a parcel company, ye olde mail carrier; Hallvar trusted that it would be open exceptionally early.

Maybe it was an irrational sentiment from their home world but any planar, intergalactic, cross-timeline mail carrier felt like it was obligated to have regular, early hours and consistency. That was the name of the game.

The pick-up took a little longer than Hallvar thought was necessary, as the parcel was a very important heirloom whose ownership was transferring from in-capital nobility to nobility who retired to a beautiful mansion in the foothills, blah blah blah.

Hallvar didn’t know exactly what was contained in the small parcel – fully wrapped in several layers, with at least one wax seal that the hero could feel – but it was emphasized and re-emphasized that it should not be let out of their sight as it was precious.

They waited until they were out of the capital and into the forest before adjusting the parcel, ensuring that the leather straps were affixed and flightworthy.

Stella was right; it was an easy request for the beastshaper to fulfill.

After a whirlwind of crumbling bones and painfully quilled skin, they took to the skies with Pipkin. The akergryph maintained speed with the fish hawk, but Hallvar didn’t think it necessary to push the little beast hard and fast, not when they could easily stop for meals on the way.

The landscape of Amnasín faded over great distances from speckled deciduous hardwoods into coniferous pines into the winter-hardy evergreens.

Whereas the capital had a little bit of everything in the surrounding wilderness due to travel, commerce, and human-mediated dispersal of seeds, the wilds as viewed from above seemed to be more monotypically inhabited.

The canopies of specific tree varieties fought for dominance in the emergent layers, whereas the treefall gaps between forests became border wars. A blue-tinged evergreen with broad branches and very circular spread competed with a dark green variety of evergreen, taller but with a smaller diameter.

With vague interest, Hallvar watched the patches of blue and green spread over the landscape, color shifting in the intermediary zones where neither had claimed full dominance.

It was pretty, like the green-blue water of a tropical ocean; the colors didn’t shift as the water flowed, but instead as the ground rolled beneath the forest.

As the pair flew farther north, patches of grey interrupted the forests. Craggy rocks heralded the Staargraven, always visible from the air but now clearly delineated against the greying skies.

It would rain soon. Although they stopped along the way, Hallvar hoped they made good time, fast enough to dodge the storm.

They were certain that they could fly in the rain as a fish hawk – their birdy instincts said it was easy given how they dove into the water for food – but Hallvar doubted that the squirrel-kestrel hybrid was meant for harsh weather flight.

Their destination was in sight, marked on their internal map by the system since Hallvar was given the precise location by the requester. They could make out the break in the forests for a road, a town, and a large building.

The structures were far away, barely on the edge of Hallvar’s impressive fish hawk sight, but the intense observation brought something new to the adventurer’s attention.

To the left, the west, there was a shimmering in the atmosphere. Something between a video-game fog and a fantastically impossible, giant bubble with an iridescent shine.

Huh.

The bird brain that overshadowed Hallvar’s mind did not find this sight distressing. Sometimes the world had shiny, non-existent colors in it, like the Guildmaster displayed when the fish-hawk beastmaster caught him hiding.

The amorphous shimmer didn’t move, didn’t seem to be doing much of anything. Hallvar kept their course, intending to deliver the parcel before making any rash decisions, like diving beak-first into a magical mist.

Oh, but it weighed heavily on their mind.

They asked the butler who answered the mansion’s door if there was a curious magical aura to the southwest. The man furrowed his brow as if Hallvar asked about the opinions of flowers on wedding cake flavors.

The parcel was delivered; Hallvar was given their payment and a receipt with a wax seal and shown the door. Well, they were already outside, so the butler simply gestured back down the lane.

The butler wasn’t paid enough to question why there wasn’t a horse or mode of transportation for the adventurer, to wonder if Hallvar simply walked from the capital to this estate or if Hallvar intentionally left their horse a mile away for the fun of the hike.

The shapechanging did make Hallvar hungry, reminding them of werewolf stories and their ravenous desire for flesh. It made much more sense now that it ever did as an otherworld human.

With Pipkin resting on their pauldron after the flight, Hallvar set out for the hike toward the town.

It was a delightful walk after the hours of flying. The hero wouldn’t complain about the speed at which flying allowed them to travel, but the beauty of rolling forests and the occasional dots of towns became normalized after a while.

The town was actually a town, and not a village, thankfully. Or was it the other way around? Regardless, this human settlement had an inn-tavern combination for convenient food and board to wait out the storm.

The rain started as Hallvar set their things in their room, tapping on the windowpanes. The fast-darkening sky suggested this might be a thunderstorm.

Well, if there was a reason to get real friendly with the clientele in the tavern, this was it.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

The afternoon and evening were spent drinking in the tavern, watching Pipkin flirt with a few gentlefolk traveling from a city closer to the Staargraven-Qhai Republic border.

Amidst a smattering of conversation, Hallvar drew more in their sketchbook, looking up only to keep Pipkin from wandering into the proprietor’s way in their work station.

In the morning, Hallvar had a decision to make. They knew that they wanted to do some exploring before going back home, investigating a few neat things along the flight path and swinging over eastward to the [ territory ] closest to the capital.

They hardly intended to walk into the [ territory ] alone, but a flight around the outskirts – or even overhead – might prove interesting and educational.

Then there was the shimmering fog.

Hallvar began their trek out of town, discussing the options with their akergryph, who didn’t vocalize much outside of distress sounds but definitely made her curiosity and attention known physically.

“If it’s a [ territory ] the system will alert us,” the hero rationalized, leaning heavily on their own ignorance of the world to justify what was objectively a dumb decision.

“And there’s no dragons in Amnasín, so it can’t be one of those.”

Assuredly there were no more magical beasts that could cause the shimmer, nor were there mages or other combatants that might be able to stake out a claim magically on the world, with a shimmering land boundary.

“I can fly near it, maybe we can land just inside the boundary and take a peek, right?”

Pipkin took flight, rapidly diving into a nearby bush to capture her breakfast. She caught up a few minutes later; Hallvar could hear the quiet crunch of insect carapace too close to their ear.

That settled it. The akergryph wasn’t in disagreement, so Hallvar could at minimum poke around at the phenomenon.

A while later, the rust-colored fish hawk and the akergryph circled on the currents rising off the forest, eyeing the edge of the shimmer. They committed to their decision, gliding in with their gaze on a convenient branch to land on.

The world shifted as soon as their wings penetrated the aura. What once was an evergreen forest was now… something different. Old trees with drooping branches, beautiful sparkling leaves that simply couldn’t be coniferous like the surrounding area.

Hallvar couldn’t afford to look around much. Pipkin had an easier time finding a new perch after her planned landing was altered. The beastmaster had a wingspan just under six feet; they weren’t made for navigating tightly packed limbs and tree trunks.

Once their talons secured their foothold, Hallvar was able to look up and around. They were immediately shocked by the sight of a herd underneath them, with a variety of—

The world shifted again.

The bird brain went a little fuzzy, staring awkwardly at a herd of deer nearby under the canopy of blue-green trees, their evergreen branches heavy with last night’s rain.

A stag stared back at the fish hawk. Pipkin’s alarmed call faded as she realized the beasts were simply normal deer-things.

They were those elk-deer, Hallvar surmised. Not quite one or the other, with enough variations of appearance that the beastmaster wasn’t sure how to taxonomize them.

Their human brain was only slightly protected from the world-shift, the second world-shift in a short time span. Hallvar couldn’t pin down the thought, but they knew something was different. Like the colors changed or the lighting was altered.

The question of the deer, peacefully laying or grazing under in the shade, only crossed their mind once. It immediately dissipated, something far beyond Hallvar’s ken preventing the human adventurer from thinking too hard about the herd.

Bored and forgetful, the fish hawk took flight, continuing their path back to the capital.

They didn’t look back at the shimmer, still visible in the air. Must be a magical phenomenon, like mirages in a desert.

The stag snorted and sighed; the human was none the wiser.

➳ ➳ ➳

As intended, Hallvar swung by the closest [ territory ] to the capital, Claylake Post, where they remained in fish hawk form to scout.

Aside from the system notice, the [ territory ] itself didn’t look that much different than the surrounding forests and fields. Perhaps more populated, as the hero could spot several groups of beasts from above, but not fundamentally different.

In most video games that Hallvar – Abby – could remember, the monster-spawning dungeon was usually separate from the main resting area. You had to like change zones in order to get there.

Except in those really hard, grim games, where the monsters could come out of fucking nowhere to attack you.

Regardless, Hallvar supposed that even though they were painfully aware of this world’s realism and separate existence from video games and fantasy stories, there was still a small part of them that thought that maybe… just maybe, Aestrux still kind of had video game logic.

They were grateful that wasn’t the case honestly. The skyward intrusion into the [ territory ] would have warranted an immediate fight sequence if this was a true dungeon-analog.

Instead, the fish hawk and the akergryph passively observed the lay of the land.

There was the namesake lake, which Hallvar found curious as it was a water source geologically-carved into a massive sedimentary deposit rather than a gently slowing bowl that accumulated water. The lake was surrounded by a raised ridge or lip, the ground devoid of foilage growth as it curved inward.

Hallvar spotted a few beasts on the periphery, large ones. They didn’t know what to call them, but in their old world, Hallvar would have guessed dinosaur faster than rhinoceros. Big, bulky things with tough, textured skin.

Even with the fish hawk’s keen vision, Hallvar couldn’t see enough to discern what these beasts were.

But, they could identify another pair of beasts quickly.

The kjerrborn, the large mama bear-thing and her smaller cub. She was laying by the water as the cub played, chasing minnows in the shallows like Pipkin did.

Hallvar decided to risk it.

They conveyed their intention to the akergryph before circling the lake, eyeing the water. A flash of color drew their attention, and they dove, juggling a fish in their claws before its life ended by a talon through the eye.

Their powerful wings flapped and brought them to an unoccupied edge of the clay-lake, able to watch the kjerrborn at a distance.

Hallvar felt relatively safe with those beasts, as in multiple encounters, the kjerrborn showed no real aggression or interest in engaging with strangers. As a beastmaster, their threat was low; as an osprey, a fish hawk, their threat was nonexistent.

Pipkin stole a few tiny bites of their fresh meal, opting instead to chase the minnows and insects nearby. It was better for her, really. She needed the enrichment; her home was a house with Hallvar and Stella and it was hardly zoo-board approved.

Were beasts – specifically companion beasts – given a modicum of human-intelligence by the system? Were they aware of their… their employment as a companion and what their duties entailed? How their environmental preferences and needs were required, of course, but may be limited by their beastmaster’s capability?

Were non-beastmaster beasts kept as pets prone to the same thoughts, if that understanding even existed?

These were excellent questions, ones that Hallvar couldn’t answer. Stella might know. If she didn’t, Rubert seemed to be a good source of information.

If Pipkin was employed, her job was certainly to be an akergryph. As Hallvar devoured the fish, bones and all – excluding the gill plate, as it was indigestible – the akergryph wore herself out, switching from splashing to chasing bugs into their clay homes.

It was a partially cloudy day, so Hallvar enjoyed the sun in small bursts, letting the rays warm their dark-feathered back. Maybe the [ territory ] was scary for humans, but it seemed like a nice place for beasts, as long as you weren’t in sight of a predator.

Oh, or a human, Hallvar supposed.

Being human but also beast drew up complicated emotions for Hallvar, who was grateful that the bird brain was incapable of caring much about nuances of being human-predator and beast-prey all at once.

The rhino things were still too far away to discern much of, but the kjerrborn family was close by, uninterested in birds being birds.

Hallvar was able to watch the mother encourage the cub to fish, to wade into deeper waters and wait for fish to wander close, tempted by the swaying of the kjerrborn fur as faux algae and insects.

It would normally be incredibly difficult to fish out of a clay deposit like this, as it had no source to refill both water and fish, but in this [ territory ], the system refreshed or reloaded the [ territory ] every so often.

Missing fish and evaporated water were replaced. Beasts chased out or killed by predators might be respawned, or another beast could be substituted entirely. It was all up to the system, which acted on unknown calculations rather than the whims of evolution and scarcity.

Hallvar wondered if the soil itself was replenished, if microscopic organisms were reset to a previous time. What happened over decades as the land changed around the [ territory ]? Did it stay the same, or adjust to the new world?

They shook off, preening a few feathers that felt out of place before rousing Pipkin, who was curled up a few inches away to bask as well. She perked up after a big stretch, following her beastmaster out of the [ territory ].

It was so peaceful in that moment, which was why Hallvar had to leave.

They weren’t a beast, nor were they immune to attacks. They were a human with low threat due to a skill. Taking a nap in the midst of beasts was a suicidal action, and Hallvar was done being that kind of reckless.