Kearse drove the wagon, regretting every single one of his life’s decisions that had led him to this point. Most of them. Some of them. Alright, it was only a few. And even then it was only because of hindsight that he had found ways that he could have done things better.

Letting his cousin Chad be the first into the alley, and letting him be the one to find Indigo might have helped. Not signing up for the expedition in the first place would certainly have made a big difference. He also could have tried distancing himself from Indigo once they left the necropolis, but that option would probably have been easier said than done.

However if he had made any of those choices, Kearse wouldn’t be going on the grand pilgrimage right now. He wouldn’t have met Mayra. He wouldn’t have returned home with a box full of treasure. He’d still be thinking of Haylen as ‘Commander.’ He never would have touched his mana.

But he also wouldn’t be getting dragged along into a gods damned scar!

Maybe he had spent too much time around his cousin. Chad would have loved this. Chad wouldn’t have hesitated to sneak into his room at the manor to grab his supplies and steal their wagon. Kearse hadn’t either, and that was what worried him.

He had enjoyed it. The thrill of it all! The suspense! He was about to go on an adventure! With actual adventurers! And the son of a noble had vouched for his abilities! It was amazing!

It was also incredibly foolhardy.

He had volunteered and worked for the right to join the expedition to the necropolis. That however, had come alongside more than a month of training and preparations. He had spent more time readying himself for the brief stay in the necropolis than he had spent in the city itself. If it had been a normal expedition, Kearse was confident that he could have handled anything asked of him. That it had ended the way it did was only bad luck on everyone’s part.

Now though, he was headed down the road towards a scar. Without notice or warning, and only the scary stories of his childhood to tell him what to expect.

Hunting, they called it! Hunting! As if going into a scar was nothing more than a day’s outing to them. Scars were supposed to be some of the most dangerous locations in the world, but you wouldn’t know it if you looked at the people around him.

Jeck was riding his horse alongside Tamel, while retelling and laughing about the events of last night’s dinner. Kearse was glad to receive only a passing mention in that story. The two were both casual and relaxed, without a hint of fear or nervousness.

Valter and Mick rode in a flanking position, guarding the one wagon convoy. If they hadn’t laughed at all the right moments, Kearse would have thought they were entirely focused on watching the roads. Just like at the guild hall, they added little to the conversation beyond their willingness to hear it. They didn’t seem worried either, but at least they took things more seriously than the last two.

Indigo had declared ‘ownership privileges,’ something that Kearse translated into, “I don’t feel like it,” and refused to drive the cart. She was currently sitting in the wagon talking to Trudy. The not-quite-a-mage had apparently recognized what a homunculus was, and Indigo was visibly relieved that the woman was only mildly curious instead of too inquisitive.

The two were now engaged in a debate of the more practical uses for combat magic. Having finally touched his mana, and having been entrusted with one of Indigo’s guns, he did his best to listen in. Since neither of them were actual mages, they were keeping their talks as simplistic as possible and, for once, he could understand it.

“No. Fire is a bad idea.” Trudy said. “We’re hunters, adventurers, and mercenaries. In that order. Most of our profit comes from a bounty reward, but a large chunk of our income is made by selling the monster parts. Alchemists, blacksmiths, mages… they buy all sorts of crazy stuff. This trip right now… it’s not even a bounty. We’re here to hunt. Fire can cause a lot of damage, but it can really lower the quality of what we bring back.”

Kearse nodded in agreement to the conversation that didn’t involve him. A street sweeper though he was, he could still agree with her reasoning. It had never mattered how fast he finished his route, so long as it was clean. If he finished late, he finished late. It was the results that people payed attention to.

Trudy continued to explain her reasoning, and Kearse listened intently. She was like him. More than what he was, but something he could become. She could touch her mana, use it, shape it, bend it to her will, but she wasn’t a mage. She was an uncommon person, but still a commoner.

“Arrows of ice or stone are much better. They’re just as deadly, more so if they hit a weak point, but they cause less problems. Fire spells can hurt your friends just as easily as they hurt the enemy.”

“They also draw attention,” Indigo added in agreement.

“How so?”

“Fire is bright, and usually loud. It’s great for hitting a lot of targets at once, but from my experience it tends to be too noticeable. I’m used to fighting the cursed, and one of the main things you don’t want to do with them is pull in more. Even if it’s not a spell, using fire against them generally means you end up having to kill twice as many as what you started with. You might as well hold up a sign that says ‘Come and eat me!’ It’s good for crowd control and area denial, but one mistake can end up hurting you more than it helps.”

Kearse nodded again. Indigo might be crazy, but she was still an expert when it came to killing the cursed. She could write an entire book on the topic. She probably should.

“So how is this scar different from a necropolis?” Kearse asked over his shoulder. “I can fight with a team, and Indigo does well on her own, but what should we expect to see here? This place will have monsters, right? Not cursed? What should we be ready for?”

He had to wait a bit before he was given an answer.

“It’s the terrain that makes this scar difficult,” Trudy told him. “It’s pure jungle. The hills are steep, the ground is muddy, the bugs are a constant distraction, and the trees and shrubs are so thick that it’s hard to see anything beyond a dozen paces.”

“And monsters? What do you expect to find? Are you looking for anything specific?”

Trudy smiled grimly, and Kearse was glad that his questions were being taken seriously. He didn’t want to come off as unworldly, but she was an adventurer, and any good adventurer knew that it was better to ask a stupid question than to stay silent and let your ignorance put others in danger.

They weren’t at the scar yet. They were still an hour away from the village where they would leave the wagon and animals behind. Regardless, Trudy waved her hand at the woods around them as if they were already in the thick of things.

“Scars have their favored monsters, their own style or patterns. But that doesn’t mean the occasional oddity doesn’t pop up. It happens more often when the mist comes through. After the last fog, one of the other groups downed a freak of a beast. It looked like a hairless bear, but its head was like a lamprey, and its mouth was full of rings of teeth like sunflower seeds. I’ve never seen anything like it! But hey, that’s monsters for you.”

Trudy was lost in thought for a moment before she remembered that she was in the middle of telling a story.

“Yeah, let’s hope we don’t have to fight something like that. They lost more than they made from that run. The thing killed one of their horses, and when they finally brought it back, nobody wanted to buy the corpse. It was a mess, so make a crown and pray to the first that we don’t run into something like that.”

Kearse did as he was told, and placed four fingers over his heart. He never thought that the gods payed any more attention to him than they did anyone else, but it didn’t hurt to offer them a prayer now and again. He remembered Father Gregor’s blessing, and hoped that it would make his pleas a little more noticeable to whatever divine ears might be listening.

“And the things we expect to see?” Indigo asked, still focused on the main topic.

“Oh, there’s plenty of freaky shit in there. Skin burglars, for one. They’re nasty. They look like a mass of vines and twigs in the shape of a person. They flay their victims and steal their skin and clothes. I think they’re a kind of fae, because they never steal anything made of iron. I fucking hate the things. Luckily, they’re not too hard to kill. Ignore the head. They’ve got a heart-root just below the neck. They bleed out slow, but they die like anything else if you stab them enough times.”

She emphasized the point by making a few jabs with her chunky spear. For a magic user, she was still a fairly martial woman.

After that, most of the dangers she described seemed fairly mundane in comparison. There were flowers the size of a man that smelled like rotting meat. They were harmless on their own, but they often had massive colonies of ants living around their base. Then there were tigers with green fur, monkeys that liked to throw rocks at people, and frogs the size of dogs.

Mostly, the scar was inhabited by animals with monstrous features rather than the chaotic beasts that inhabited the miasma.

“I think it’s a sign that the world is healing,” Trudy said when Kearse mentioned the pattern. “Scars are the just that. Scars. I mean, isn’t that why we call them that? They’re something that’s trying to fix itself, but doesn’t know exactly how. I’ve traveled a bit and seen scars that I’d happily wager as being just as bad as a necropolis, but this one gives me a bit of hope. The animals inside are… animals, and every day brings them slowly more in line with the natural order of the world. I think that if the scar ever fully heals, the true monsters will disappear with it, but most of what’s inside will remain.”

Kearse decided that he liked that philosophy. The world was changing. It had always been changing. Someday, the monsters that he feared and fought would be nothing more than legend. Someday, even the miasma might fully fade away.

“What will the empire be like in a hundred years? In a thousand? What will the world be like when towns no longer needed walls?”

Indigo however, found such thoughts amusing.

“You sound like a druid,” she said with a laugh. “How long do you think it’ll be before you start running naked through the jungle, and hugging all the trees?”

To Kearse, the comment seemed incredibly rude, but Trudy seemed to find it humorous.

“I’ll do that when the beasties stop trying to eat me. Until the animals start talking, I think I’d prefer to keep them at spear’s length.”

“You still haven’t told us what we’re hunting, or even if we are going after anything in particular,” Indigo reminded her with a smirk.

“Ah, right, right. Sorry. We’re looking for scale kings today.”

Kearse hadn’t heard of a scale king before.

“Are those anything like a rat king?” he asked.

Trudy nodded.

“Yup. Very much so. That’s where they get the name. A rat king is a bunch of rats that are all connected at the tail, and a scale king is the same thing, except it’s made of snakes. They look like starfish, but with teeth.”

“Starfish with teeth? That doesn’t sound too bad.”

“They are, actually. They can be very bad. Each snake ‘arm’ can be two to three meters long. They’re big. And since they have so many heads, they can be hard to kill.”

“So how do we kill them then? Surround them?”

Trudy immediately shook her head at the idea.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“No. Definitely no. Scale kings can fight in every direction at once, but the heads have trouble with facing the same direction. It’s better to have a couple people start with one head, and then do the rest in order.”

Kearse deferred to her experience, and was grateful for the explanation. Group tactics were something he could understand, but he also knew that it only took one person doing the wrong thing to put everyone else at risk.

“My magic helps,” Trudy said with obvious pride. “Scale kings, or really anything that hops or slithers… they hate the cold. They can’t handle it. Any time I put a bit of frost on them, they slow down enough to make slugs look fast. Then Mick and Valter go in with their axes while Tamel keeps the other heads distracted with his spear. You and Jeck will be doing that too.”

Kearse nodded. That seemed doable. He didn’t need to kill it himself. He only needed to prevent the heads on the side from going after Mick and Valter. As long as he could keep himself at the right distance, the strategy was sound.

“Once it’s dead, we bleed it, gut it, and load it up. Their leather sells for a decent amount. You can’t make armor out of it, but it looks nice, so people buy it.”

To emphasize her point, she pulled back one of her sleeves to show off a snakeskin bracelet.

“The meat is good too. It tastes like a mix between chicken and frog. Personally, I like it in a stew, but it sells better when it’s been pickled in alcohol.”

She pointed her thumb to the back of the wagon, and Kearse leaned over to get a better look at the pair of pack mules that were loosely tied there. Each one was equipped with saddlebags, already bulging from the large glass jars they carried. The jars themselves were half full with a honey colored liquid that sloshed around inside.

“We might head home early if we bag something big, but right now our goal is to fill those jars up with snake meat.”

Kearse drove on while Indigo and Trudy compared notes and opinions on monster hunting.

Still keeping an eye on the road, he felt at the gun still strapped to his waist and hoped he wouldn’t need to use it. He thought he had done fairly well during his target practice that morning, hitting the targets far more often than he missed, but they were only empty cans and bottles. They didn’t move or fight back, and there hadn’t been anything in the way.

“Spear first, gun second.”

He had seen the hole caused by his unlucky misfire. The bolt had punched right through Indigo’s boot, even going so far as to leave a small crater in the ground below. The boot itself had two perfect circles of missing leather and sole. And Indigo? Where three of her toes had once been, there had only been empty space. The wound didn’t even bleed properly, and as it turned out, that wasn’t because the homunculus could heal quickly. The compressed energy that the gun dispensed was so hot that it had cauterized her flesh instantly.

“Indigo will probably make me use the damn thing anyway. I really should have ‘forgotten’ it back at the manor.”

* * *

The trip to the scar was just long enough for Kearse to work himself into nervous wreck.

When they arrived at the village that lay closest to its boundaries, the wagon, along with most of the horses and mules, were left with a man that Jeck referred to as a “scar keeper.” Kearse had heard of scar keepers before, but in the stories they were usually grizzled warriors or hunters so skilled that even the adventurers envied them.

This man had been neither of those things. Instead, he was a farmer. Just an average farmer, too busy wrestling an escaped goat back into its pen to pay attention to the arrival of the motley crew in his fields. The man did have a large stable though, and the wooden palisade around his farm also had what could generously be called a watch tower. Whatever his actual duties and responsibilities as a scar keeper were, he at least seemed to take them seriously.

For a moment, Kearse was worried than Indigo would start a fuss and complain about having to walk the rest of the way to the scar. What actually happened was the exact opposite, and she seemed more concerned with the pair of pack mules that would be coming with them. It wasn’t until Trudy reassured her that the two animals would be well protected that the girl finally relented.

“If only she showed that same level of empathy for me.”

The road into the scar was little more than a dirt path, packed down more by the boots of adventurers, hunters, and fortune seekers than by any real purpose. Taking the wagon along it would have been impossible. The constant potholes, streams, rocks, and puddles made the going slow, even for the surefooted mules.

It was spring, the rainy season, but Kearse was glad for how little rain they had actually received that year. The people in the desert region to the north might be cursing the weather, but he could only be glad that he didn’t have to worry about sinking up to his ankles in mud.

Next to him, Indigo was looking around, listening to bird-song, rushing to inspect different flowers that bloomed beside the path, and acting as if she weren’t walking head first into danger. Everyone else, at least, had their heads on a swivel. Kearse took comfort in that. Jeck and his adventurer friends were beginning to act in much the same way his squad had while in Peninsula.

“Actually… the scar isn’t that different. Instead of tall buildings and mist blocking our view, there are trees. Danger could come from any direction, but we’re alert, and we know how to respond to it. It’s almost like going on patrol.”

It didn’t lower his wariness, but it did calm him down a little. This was a scar, not a necropolis. It may be mysterious, but it was a known quantity. This place had likely been explored from end to end. It may have its surprises, but he was with professionals who knew how to handle them.

Then Indigo opened her mouth, and he realized how inexperienced he actually was.

“We’re almost there.”

Trudy nodded in agreement, but Tamel seemed surprised.

“You can tell?”

“I can feel it. Like an extra sense. Don’t ask me how. I just can. It feels… weird. Wrong. Not evil, but… argh, I’m sorry. I just don’t know how to describe it.”

Trudy gave Indigo a pat on the shoulders.

“Don’t worry. We know what you mean. We can feel it too.”

“You can?” Indigo asked in a tone of surprise that mirrored Kearse’s own thoughts.

Mick spoke up, and though he was still looking at the trail ahead, engaged in conversation for the first time.

“It’s a learned thing, but also instinct, I think. Trudy can feel it best, since she can use magic, but we all feel it. ‘Cept for Jeck maybe. Spend enough time in there, and you can’t not start to recognize the aura of the place. At first you don’t notice it. Then one day, you’re walking into the scar, and it doesn’t matter if you’re on the trail or not. You just know that you’re close. For me, it feels like a broken bone that hasn’t been set back in place yet. I heard you talking with Trudy, and I agree with what she said. The scars can heal, but no one knows how to mend the wound.”

Silence followed. Even the other Bows were caught off guard by the quiet man’s considered opinion.

“For me,” Valter said, not wanting to let his brother bear the burden of so many stares, “it feels like a pebble in my boot. You hate it, but you can’t blame the pebble for getting stuck in there.”

More silence, and then the rest gave their interpretations.

“Like you’ve had too much liquor,” said Tamel. “Not so much that you need to vomit. You know that if you willingly throw up, you could drink some more and be fine. But you still don’t want to do it.”

“Like an itch you can’t scratch,” Trudy added. “You know it will go away, but the more you think about it, the worse it gets.”

“I’ll have you all know that I can sense the scar,” Jeck said. “It reminds me of being constipated.”

He then looked around defensively when everyone’s eyes started to point towards him.

“What? It does! Just because I’m a noble I can’t make a poop joke? And it wasn’t a joke! That’s what the feeling of the scar reminds me of. Fuck you Tamel, you’re the one who was talking about getting drunk!”

Maybe it was the sight of a noble putting his friend in a headlock, or maybe it was the reminder that even Indigo could take things seriously, but Kearse felt a little better. He couldn’t feel the scar, which was a disappointment, but knowing that he wasn’t the only one thinking about the risks involved in their venture was reassuring.

They started walking again, and it was a good fifteen minutes before they reached the scar itself. When they did, though he still couldn’t feel it, Kearse knew they had arrived.

Behind them was jungle. A dense forest, ruled more by nature more than any local lord. In front of them was jungle. Nature on a rampage. The path continued forwards, but it looked more like a tunnel into a mountain of green. So dense was the plant life that it practically formed a wall.

“Welcome to the Star Valleys Scar!” Tamel announced. “A hell of the earth, and a hunter’s paradise.”

Kearse gripped his spear a little bit tighter, ignoring the gun at his hip. Beside him, Indigo was grinning, and practically bouncing in place as she resisted the urge to run right into the thick of it.

“I hate you sometimes,” he told her, in all seriousness.

Indigo winced at his remark, but held her smile.

“So you say, and yet here you are. You could have said, ‘no.’ You could have lied, and told them I’d be a liability. You could have told Mayra or Haylen where we were going. But you didn’t. So don’t blame me for you being here.”

She put a hand to his chest, doing nothing to stop him, but still holding him in place.

“Thank you for coming though,” she told him. “I think I kinda needed this, and I’m glad you came with me.”

Kearse closed his eyes, groaned, and gave her an apologetic pat on the shoulder.

She was right. As much as his internal monologue complained, he had allowed events to unfold as they had. There had been multiple times where he could have brought all of this to a close, and yet he hadn’t. He had known, from the beginning, exactly where he was being led, and he had done nothing to prevent it.

Was it from too much time spent around Indigo or Chadvid? Because he was an idiot? Had he not fulfilled his sense of adventure during his stay in the necropolis? Or was it because a street sweeper could to dream of more than dusty roads? Kearse didn’t know, and he didn’t have time to find the answer. They were already at the scar, and the only way through was forward.

Jeck and the Bows were wary because they knew what lay inside, and Indigo was on guard because she didn’t. The place could be called exact opposite of a necropolis. Peninsula had been dead, or undead, but this jungle was life. Everything around him seemed to be bursting with energy, and anything that wasn’t growing was quickly rotting, being consumed to fuel the scar’s boundless hunger. That was the essence of this scar. It was nature magnified. It was the circle of life and death, with each side in a race with the other.

“Alright!” Tamel shouted for attention, waving Kearse and Indigo to join him. “Jeck vouches for your skills, and I trusted him enough to let him bring the two of you along. I don’t want to disrespect either of you, but I want to make this clear right now. I. Am. In. Charge.”

Kearse stood at attention and treated the man as if he were a sergeant in the militia. He knew the purpose of this speech, and entirely agreed with the adventurer’s sentiment. Even Indigo stood a little straighter, listening carefully.

“You will do what I say, when I say it,” Tamel continued. “If I tell you to jump, I don’t care if you want to ask, ‘how high?’ but you better be in the air before the first word leaves your mouth. If I tell you to duck, I want to see mud on your faces before you stand back up. Again, I don’t care if you question my orders, but you will ask after you have followed them. Do I make myself clear?”

Kearse answered with a, “Yes sir!” and Indigo gave a nod once she realized that the man hadn’t been asking a rhetorical.

“Good,” said Tamel with a smile, returning to a more casual tone. “And thank you. I’m sure you’re both capable, but since it’s your first time in a scar, I can’t afford to take any chances. I know Trudy told you a bit about what to expect, but I’ve a few things to add in myself.”

“First, stay on the trail. Never wander off alone. If we leave the path, we do it as a group, and you need to make sure that you always keep at least two other people in your line of sight. The scar might not spirit you away like the mist does, but it can get you lost twice as fast.”

“Second, don’t eat anything. Even if you see a fruit that looks familiar, I can assure you it’s not. Something that’s safe to eat one day could very well be deadly on the next. On that note, don’t drink the water either. It might look clean and clear, but it’s full of nasty stuff that would take an entire distillery to make potable.”

“Third, if you hear something, tell someone. If you only think you heard something, tell someone anyway. The things in here are damn sneaky at times. Don’t be embarrassed if it turns out to just be a mouse or something. I’d rather spend fifteen minutes making sure that it is only a mouse than let something dangerous get the drop on us.”

“For now, Kearse, I want you to stay behind Mick and Valter. Use your spear’s reach to hit from the side. Indigo, you’ll be with Trudy and…”

Tamel finally slowed down in his speech, suddenly unsure.

“What can you do, actually? What’s your specialty? You magic types are so diverse, it’s hard to think of the best way to use you.”

Unlike the previous night, Indigo had come into this knowing that she’d be letting other people see what she could do. She was ready to show off, and reached into her storage space to pull out a barrel that Kearse unfortunately recognized. It hovered in the air next to her, and she looked at everyone with that mischievous grin that had gotten him into so many absurd situations.

“Give me a target.”

Tamel cocked an eyebrow, unsure of what to expect, but he smiled in anticipation and pointed towards one of the larger trees growing nearby.

“How about tha-”

He was cut off midsentence by the sound of the barrel’s lid bursting open, and a swarm of small metal spheres flew out towards the tree at high velocity. Some struck branches, blasting through even the thickest sections and pulling wooden shrapnel out with them when they exited the other side. Most though, surrounded the tree, hugging its base. These then began to spin, and sawdust was thrown in all directions as the balls began to work like a file or saw, quickly chewing through the wood.

After only a few seconds, there was a large cracking sound as the tree snapped under its own weight. It started to fall in their direction, but Indigo stepped forward and shoved her hand into the air. The tree cracked again, reversed course, and tore a hole in the canopy as it collapsed onto the greenery around it.

Their task complete, the orichalcum marbles returned back to their place of rest in the barrel. They still moved quickly, but it seemed almost leisurely when compared to the speeds which they had previously been moving at.

Jeck started clapping slowly, Mick and Valter went to inspect the damage, and Tamel and Trudy were both talking over each other as they tried to ask Indigo questions.

Kearse didn’t listen. They didn’t get it. Not like he did. They were impressed, but they should have been shocked, startled, or even afraid. He knew why Indigo liked to pick and choose when to show off things like this. He had seen her use that same type of attack to kill thousands of cursed, and he was under no illusion that it wouldn’t work just as well against people. She was dangerous, and her ability to cause destruction scared her just as much as it scared him.

“Or maybe more. This isn’t even one of the Ancestor’s secrets. If she doesn’t think this should be kept a secret, how dangerous are the things she’s actually afraid of?”

He looked at the stump, and the smooth ring that surrounded the jagged center. The destructive display did serve to make him feel a little safer in the moment though. As long as nothing managed to sneak up on them.

When he heard a gasp from behind him, he turned back to see a faceless Indigo. She had moved her egg shaped mask to cover her face and it had expanded itself to cover her entire head like a helmet. He had only seen her wear it briefly before. Usually, she left it on top of her head like a silly hat, but he could guess what it meant for her to use it properly.

The homunculus was on the warpath, and nothing in the scar would live long in her presence.