“John, your eagle’s about to hatch.”

I blinked as Sara’s voice interrupted my dozing slumber. I rubbed sleep from my eyes and glanced to the side, where Kalpna lay, her head on my shoulder, her simple but full assets pressed up against me, and her leg draped over my thighs. She snored slightly in sleep, and as I felt her warmth against me, I smiled in remembrance. She’d apparently been extremely grateful and was enthusiastic about demonstrating that gratitude a couple times in a row. Thanks to my enhanced Vigor, that wasn’t an issue for me, just one of the benefits of having an Inquisitor’s body. The whole affair had gotten pretty loud, and I thought I heard the bed crack at least once. Part of me wanted to lay there–it was fairly comfortable, after all, and Kalpna was an attractive woman–but I definitely wanted to see what the eagle would turn into. Besides, waking up reminded me that I really, really had to pee.

I moved to slide out from under her, but the motion jostled her enough that she awoke with a small snort. Her head came up, and she looked around in confusion.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I assured her. “My eagle’s about to hatch, and I want to see it, that’s all.” I walked over to the chair she’d indicated earlier and began to dress.

She sat up, the sheet falling away from her chest once more displaying the breasts I’d so thoroughly enjoyed over the past hour. She brushed her hair from her face and swung her legs over the side of the bed. “I’ll come with you, then.”

“You don’t have to, Kalpna.”

“Course I don’t have to. I’m the sheriff of this town, though. It’s my job to keep track of things like this, ain’t it?”

“It might be,” I shrugged. “I’ve never been a sheriff, so I wouldn’t know.”

“Well, I think it should be, and since I’m the sheriff, that means it is.” She grinned at me. “Plus, I want to see what happens. I ain’t never seen a creature rank up before.”

“Bring a scarf,” I recommended.

“A scarf? It ain’t that cold.”

“It’s not for the cold. It’s for the smell. Trust me.”

We dressed quickly and stepped outside. I found myself at the top of a short flight of stairs that led down to the main room of the building in which we’d been imprisoned before. Chomai and Ramka sat in that room with two men I didn’t recognize, their faces studious as they examined the cards in their hands. As we stepped off the stairs, the sheriff spoke without looking up.

“Well, Naasi, you fully recovered?” he asked simply, his eyes twinkling as he spoke.

“He’d better be,” Chomai said wickedly. “From how it sounded, I’m not sure that room can handle him needing extra recovery time.”

“I’m great,” I replied. “Except for needing to pee, that is.”

“Outhouse is out back,” Kalpna jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “I’ll go get a pair of roadwalkers saddled.”

“Roadwalkers?” Chomai asked. “Aw, are you two going on a ride together?”

“Something like that,” I laughed. “My eagle’s about ready to hatch, and I’m going to watch it. As sheriff, Kalpna says she should come along.”

“Smart of her,” Ramka nodded. “A good sheriff knows everything that’s happening in their town. Sheriff, if you’re saddling roadwalkers, you mind doing two more? I think the girl and I would like to see this, too. I didn’t even know a terror eagle could rank up, much less what they rank up into.”

“No problem, Sheriff,” Kalpna nodded, walking out the front door.

“Go take care of yourself and meet us up there, boy,” the old man told me. “Don’t need you making a mess of your roadwalker.” He laid down his cards. “Oh, and I got a run, one to six.”

“Dammit,” Chomai swore, tossing her cards down. “Triple double. I hate this game. Next time, we play shakul.”

“That’s fine, but you ain’t beat me at that yet, either.”

“There’s a first time for everything, old man…”

I ignored the pair and hurried out the back door. After relieving myself, I walked through the building and caught up with the two as they walked toward the roadwalker pen.

“I’m surprised the roadwalkers survived the explosion,” I observed.

“They’re far enough away that it didn’t reach them,” Chomai shrugged. “Scared the hell out of them, though, and the ground shaking knocked part of their fence down. Damn things ran all over the nearby hills trying to get away. It took us three days to round most of them up.”

“You mean, it took the townsfolk three days,” Ramka chuckled. “You and your seahopper had nothing to do with that. You were too busy learning how to use the damn thing.”

By the time we reached the apparently repaired pen, Kalpna was finishing putting the saddle on the fourth beast. We mounted up and rode north, toward the field where the rune had been. We rode along the stream’s bank, and we passed townsfolk on both sides digging, watering, or walking behind a roadwalker attached to a plow.

“Isn’t it late in the year for planting?” I asked curiously.

“We ain’t planting,” Kalpna explained. “We’re just preparing the fields. All that ash is good for the soil, but it’s gotta be buried down in it before the snows come so it can turn into good soil come spring. Plus, there’s still a lot of tree roots under the surface that have to be dug up, so they don’t sprout in the spring.”

A shimmering, blue surface lay ahead of us, and as we neared, I saw that the stream now flowed out of a lake that covered almost the entire width of the valley. I stared at it in amazement; the lake had to stretch half a mile across and looked to be about that long.

“This is the crater that rune left?” I asked in an awed voice.

“Well, the crater’s at the middle of it,” Ramka chuckled. “If the blast had been that big, none of us would be here to talk about it. The hole in the ground is about a quarter as wide as the lake, but it left the ground sunken all around it, so the water just flows in.”

“We’ll have to ride around it,” Kalpna said, pointing to the left. “The cage is on the other end of it.”

“You sure that the beast is about to come out?” Ramka asked curiously.

I nodded. “Yeah. In about twenty minutes, in fact.”

“How the hell can you know that, though?”

“One of those tools I told you about. It gives me much more accurate information about my pets than the Analyze rune does, including how close they are to ranking up and how long they need to do it.”

“But how did you get the eagle to rank up just when you needed it?”

“I channeled some of my bond energy into it,” I prevaricated, not wanting to explain about XP. Besides, Sara could turn bond energy into XP and vice-versa, so it wasn’t even a lie, technically. “I can gather the energy from any pets and handlers I defeat, and I can send that into my pets to strengthen them or rank them up.”

“Damn. Any chance you could teach that? If I could get Parri up to the Epic ranks…”

“Sorry, it’s not something that can be learned,” I chuckled. “However, speaking of teaching things…” I touched my shirt and pulled out four cards, handing them over to the old man.

“What are these?” he asked, taking the cards.

“Some of the runes I created. One is the counter to the Severing rune, the one that stops it from being used, as well as one that copies the protection the marshal hats offer. There’s also the Sanctum rune, although I managed to get it up to a Greater rune, so it should affect a larger area and keep more beasts away. And the last is the rune I used to fix the severing damage on the two of you.”

“I can’t make heads or tails of these,” the old man admitted. He handed them over to Chomai. “What about you, girl?”

She took the cards and examined them. “I think I can deconstruct them,” she said after a moment. “Gonna take time, though. Two are Greater cards, but the other two are High ones, and I ain’t so good with them yet.”

“I think it’ll be worth it,” I pointed out. “The counter I put into Kamath’s rune will make it so anyone it touches can’t be severed anymore, but despite what Kamath said, I doubt it covered the entire world, or even all of Mukkal. That means that the severing rune is still dangerous, and Kamath said that some of his marshals fled from here to the Ohr to get away from what was happening here. They’ll spread knowledge of the severing rune. Spreading around the protection rune will help, but the repair rune will make it so you can’t be severed in the first place.” I grimaced. “Of course, it looks like it might also be able to make anyone able to handle, so you might want to control access to it.”

“Might be a useful thing for a town’s sheriff to have,” the old man mused. “If the sheriff can’t be severed, there’s no danger that they become beholden to someone who’s got their hands on the Severing rune.”

“Marshals, too,” Chomai added. “Hell, any officer of the law.”

“That’s up to you, but again, I’d be careful. Severing might be a decent punishment for handlers who go too far, like those mercenaries you told us about, Chomai. Take away their ability to handle, and you take away their threat. If they can get it fixed with this rune, that punishment doesn’t hold much threat anymore. You might want to just give them the protection rune, so if someone tries to sever them, they can stop it, but if you need to, you can take that rune away and still sever them.”

“It ain’t gonna matter,” the sheriff chuckled. “There ain’t no sheriffs or marshals left in the Gistal, remember?”

“For now,” I shrugged. “That’ll change. Hell, with that repair rune, you can change it yourselves. You can find the people you think would make good sheriffs and use the rune to give them the ability to handle.”

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

“It ain’t our place to decide a town’s sheriff,” Ramka said firmly. “That’s up to each town.”

“That’s how it was, Sheriff, but maybe that should change,” I suggested. “All this happened because the towns of the Gistal are too fragmented and isolated, with no one watching over the sheriffs to make sure they’re doing what they’re supposed to.”

I glanced at Chomai. “Same goes for the marshals. Each marshal is basically a law unto themselves, able to act as they see fit, and Na Jhauta’s too far away to do anything about someone like Kamath who goes rogue–or a corrupt marshal like Ishar. If someone had been able to gather the marshals who were just doing their job, they might have been able to stop Kamath before all this really got started.”

“I ain’t saying I disagree,” the woman replied with a snort, “but there ain’t no way the Service is gonna make that happen.”

“Then you make it happen,” I shrugged.

“Me?” she laughed. “I ain’t nobody!”

“You’re the ranking marshal in the entire Gistal,” I reminded her. “You can do whatever you want.”

“That won’t last, though. The Service will send in new people and put them over me.”

“Don’t let them. Become strong enough and skilled enough that the people they send have no choice but to listen.” I glanced at Ramka. “I assume you’ll help her with that?”

“Already been teaching her,” he shrugged. “The girl’s talented. She’ll make a powerful handler someday–once she stops making stupid mistakes.”

“Right now, the two of you are probably the two most powerful people in the whole Gistal. If you work together, there’s not a lot people can do but argue with you. You can install sheriffs that will take care of their towns and work with one another. You can find marshals like Ishar that are just lining their pockets and make sure they can’t do it anymore. The Gistal might not ever be Na Jhauta, but it can be a place where people feel safe, at the very least.”

“Boy’s got a good idea,” Ramka sighed. “And he’s right. The Gistal can’t stay all fragmented the way it is, or something like this could happen again.” He glanced at Chomai and chuckled. “Of course, that assumes the girl’s amenable to working together as partners.”

“You mean, being your deputy?” she asked dangerously.

“No, I mean partners. You, representing the marshals and guarding the roads between the towns, and me, watching over the sheriffs and making sure they’re caring for their towns. You up for that?”

She frowned. “On two conditions,” she said after a moment’s thought. “First, we gotta agree on jurisdictions. If a bandit flees a marshal into a town, or a robber runs out of town into the wild, who’s responsible for him?”

“That seems reasonable,” he nodded. “And second?”

“Second, if I’m gonna be your partner, you gotta stop calling me ‘girl’. I ain’t no girl. I’m a woman.” She pulled her roadwalker closer to his and grabbed his shirt, hauling him toward her and planting a kiss on his surprised face. He froze for a moment, then his arm snaked around the back of her neck and pulled her to him. I grinned as they stayed like that for several seconds before she pulled back and pushed him away.

“Damn, I been wanting to do that for a long time,” she sighed.

“You could’ve said something,” he chuckled.

“A woman don’t like having to say something, old man. She likes being understood.” She grinned at him. “I just got tired of waiting for your ass to understand, is all.”

“Well, maybe you can explain it to me in detail later on,” he suggested slyly. “I might need to hear it a few times before I really catch on.”

“Now, that’s a damn fine idea,” she smiled back at him. “A damn fine one, indeed.”

I smiled at the pair as they rode along beside one another; Chomai’s story about Ishar clued me in that she might prefer older, more experienced men, and I was glad to see that I was right. Getting the two of them together was one of the possibilities I considered for completing my mission – getting them both on board with the idea of working together to protect the Gistal was the other – but when no mission completion notice popped up, I realized there was more to be done.

The cage still stood at the far side of the lake, although it wasn’t in great shape. The bars were warped and twisted, leaving only the sturdier door standing more or less erect, and the roof had been peeled back, leaving it open to the sky.

“The blast did this?” I asked.

“Yep,” Kalpna nodded. “The blast and the ground shaking did it together. Did it to all the cages, in fact.”

“What happened to the other cages? I don’t remember seeing them.”

“We took them apart for the metal. There’s ore in the hills, but mining ain’t fun, and it’s easier to smelt down steel that’s been forged already than to make it new.”

We dismounted and stepped inside the cell, where the only occupant was the now crimson chrysalis surrounding the massive bird. Kalpna moved forward, but I grabbed her arm and held her back.

“You don’t want to get too close,” I told her. “It’s a disgusting process, and the smell is awful. Back here is plenty close enough.”

“You know, I always heard that a terror eagle can’t rank up no more,” Ramka noted as he joined us in the cell. “This’ll be interesting. You might have something totally new here, boy.”

“How long we got?” Chomai asked.

“About two minutes. Not long.”

“Damn. I was hoping to need a way to pass the time.” She flashed a grin at Ramka that the sheriff returned.

“It would be nice to have a way to pass the time,” Kalpna agreed with a sigh. “Ain’t no time for that, now, though.” She gave me a smoldering look. “Maybe later.”

I chose not to answer, and the minutes passed in silence before the chrysalis finally began to quiver and shake. The top of it bulged outward as something sharp pushed against it, and a moment later, it tore open, revealing a blood-red beak with glowing, blue lines sweeping down the sides. The beak continued tearing through the membrane, stretching out until it jutted as far as the length of my forearm. Thick, slimy liquid sprayed out, reeking like an entire ocean of dead fish mingled with vomit and ammonia. It was an unbelievable stench, far more powerful than the one that the bonesnapper’s chrysalis had released, so long ago in Murkburg, and my eyes teared up instantly as my gorge threatened to rise in my throat.

“Ugh,” Kalpna said, clasping her hand over her nose as the stench washed over us. “You weren’t kidding. That’s foul!”

“It’s gonna get worse,” Ramka chuckled, the sound muffled as he pressed his own hand over his face.

“It can’t possibly,” Chomai gagged.

“Trust me, girl…” She glared at him, and he quickly amended his statement. “I mean, woman. It can.”

The beak twisted, ripping the chrysalis further. The sides bulged outward, and the tear ran down the center of the cocoon, allowing more of the foul-smelling slime to spray out. The miasma thickened until I felt like I could see the stink floating in the air, and I simply held my breath, counting on my bonds to keep me conscious. The discomfort growing in my chest was a lot easier to deal with than the overwhelming reek.

The chrysalis shuddered and seemed to tense, then exploded open, spraying liquid in all directions as a figure burst from within it. Slimy fluid and chunks of chrysalis flew out, spattering the cage and ground–and the four people standing twenty feet away from it. I grimaced as globs of slime struck my arms and chest, ducking away before it could hit my face. Unfortunately, we weren’t all so lucky.

“Dammit all to hell!” Chomai said, spitting and retching. “It got in my fucking mouth!”

Ramka chuckled but said nothing as he handed her a waterskin, and a moment later, I heard her spitting water onto the ground. I didn’t pay much attention to her; my focus was riveted on the creature before me.

“Holy shit,” Kalpna breathed, clutching my arm with both her hands and pulling herself close to me. “What the hell is that?”

“I ain’t never seen anything like that before,” Ramka agreed in a reverent tone. “What is it, boy?”

The creature before us filled the cage, its partially folded wings stretching forty feet across. It snapped them open, and the sound of bending metal filled the air as it shoved the steel bars to each side out of its way. Its bottom plumage was the deep blue of a cloudless sky and glowed visibly even in the sunlight. It folded its wings back in to reveal jet black outer feathers with blue highlights. Sparks writhed and rolled across its feathers and danced in its blood-red eyes, which looked down at us from a height of nearly twenty feet, its head pushing aside the damaged roof of the cage. It opened its wings again, ruffling its feathers to dry them, then began preening them with its sharp beak. I quickly analyzed the creature and gasped at what I saw.

Storm Terror (Paragon)

Type: Skykiller

Bond: 45,583

Attack: 3,577 Defense: 1,061 Damage: 2,810

Speed: 4,152 Dodge: 1,634 Heal: 1,061

Special: Special Damage +81%, +70% Bond Drain

Special Attacks: Deathdive (2,496), Tempest Strike (2,113), Thunderblast (2,285), Wing Cyclone (2,342)

Special Defenses: Storm Flash (1,588), Storm Shield (1,312)

Weaknesses: Metal, Earth

“It’s called a storm terror,” I said in an awed voice. “It’s a skykiller type.”

“Air, lightning, and predator,” Ramka explained. “Hold on, I found an Analyze card in Kamath’s backup deck. Still haven’t found mine yet, and I have a feeling I won’t. That damn marshal probably had it on him when he died.” He held up the card, and the same information I’d just seen flared in everyone’s vision.

“Well, holy hell,” Chomai said, still spitting and making a disgusted face. “That thing’s a monster!”

“It’s damn amazing, is what it is,” Kalpna breathed.

“It could give old Parri a run for her money,” the sheriff chuckled. “It’s big enough to ride on, too. You should get a saddle made for it. It’s fast enough that it could carry you across the Gistal in a few days.”

The bird fanned its wings once more, spread them wide, and swept them downward, launching itself into the air. The blast of wind that whipped past us nearly hurled us all from our feet, and once again, the sound of scraping metal rang out as the bird ripped the roof the rest of the way clear to allow its exit. I watched as it pumped its pinions, rapidly ascending into the sky. As it soared, clouds and flashes of lightning seemed to gather around it, wreathing it in a haze that looked like a small storm cloud. With its wings spread and blue underbelly, it blended into the sky behind it, and if I weren’t looking for it, I might not have seen it.

“That is a damn fine thing,” Ramka said. “I’m glad I got to see it. I ain’t never even heard of a storm terror.”

“Well, then, you learned something today,” Chomai said. “Come on, let’s get back so I can clean up a bit. I’m covered with whatever that shit was.”

“Wait,” Kalpna said as we turned to walk away. “What’s its name?”

“Name?” I asked. “It doesn’t have one. I just call my pets by what they are.”

“It needs to have a name,” she insisted. “The sheriff says that naming your pet makes you closer to it and strengthens the bond.”

I glanced at the old man. “He never told me that.”

“Well, I ain’t sure about the bond strengthening part,” he admitted. “I’ve found that handlers that name their pets, though, tend to be closer to them and train them better. It gets to be a personal thing. You just never seemed to need it.” He shrugged. “Of course, it can’t hurt.”

“Fine,” I sighed, then looked up at the bird with a grin. “I’ll name it, ‘Mighty Eagle’.”

“Mighty Eagle?” Chomai echoed. “That ain’t a name, that’s a description.”

“And a damn appropriate one,” I laughed. “Plus, now I can say, ‘Come to me, Mighty Eagle!’” I lifted my hands dramatically into the sky.

“You’re a damn fool,” the marshal snorted, rolling her eyes.

“I like it,” Kalpna said, staring at the bird. “You can call it ‘My’ for short.”

“Deal.” I followed Chomai and Ramka out the cell, but as I did, a notification flashed in my vision.

Full Adaptation!

You have fully adapted to the Doorworld of Puraschim.

Bonuses: None. It was only 1%, after all.

Final Objective Completed! Doorverse Portals Unlocked!

I stumbled as the ground beneath my feet turned soft and powdery, and strength seemed to drain from my body. My thoughts dulled and turned hazy, and my limbs refused to respond cleanly to my commands. My feet felt trapped, and I fell forward, barely turning the fall into a roll that carried me through a thick, powdery substance that clung to my body. The cold hit me a moment later, a bitter chill that gnawed at my skin and tried to sink into my bones. I blinked in surprise as I pushed myself to my knees and looked around in confusion.

White. The entire world was white. Snow covered the ground beneath me, high enough to reach my knees. More snow swirled around, carried on the wind and driven against mounds taller than me that I guessed were rocks or small trees. The wind whipped at my arms and legs, and I looked down to see myself encased in furs that seemed to give me decent protection from the cold. I rubbed the furs, trying to adjust them, then winced as pulling on them tugged on my skin. I lifted my arm and stared at it in amazement.

I wasn’t wearing furs; I was covered with fur, like some kind of beast!

I scrambled to my feet and examined myself. Fur covered my entire body, from my head to the thick pads on the bottom of my feet. A rough outfit of poorly stitched leather hides lay over my chest like a smock, belted around my waist and hanging to mid-thigh. A long stick lay jutting from the snow beside me, stuck in the frozen ground, and I pulled it free to find myself holding a well-made spear with a wide blade carved from some sort of crystal or gemstone.

A roar shattered the air, and I spun to face the sound, finding myself standing in front of a large cave. Another roar echoed from the cave entrance, and I took several steps back as something appeared in the darkness. A huge shape lumbered forward, resembling a snow-white bear that walked on two legs, hunched over at the shoulders so its longer front legs hung close to the ground. The creature stood at least five feet taller than me, and its huge muzzle looked easily large enough to rip a limb or two from my body.

I backed up again and lowered the spear, gripping it inexpertly in two hands as the creature took a lumbering step toward me.

“Son of a bitch,” I mumbled as the beast reared high above me, my words muffled and awkward by the fur covering my lips and face.

God, I hated being an Inquisitor sometimes.