Part 2

Terrors, Tests, and Traumas

1

Altogether, John spent ninety-one of his primitive genes. He had spent a few more asking Ali the specifics he lacked, like exactly how many beasts were in Thunder Fox base. Asking for each individually would have taken an astounding thirty-six advanced genes. And that was in addition to all of the lower genes up to that point.

The price was so astronomical that John had surmised that there were both plentiful and powerful foes in the base. His best alternative to specifics was an exact number. Luckily, that had only cost a couple primitive genes, apparently not that valuable to whatever price determination took place.

The results were completely astounding. The base had over twelve million occupants. The best he could tell, the absolute most Emerald Base could have held based on its size was somewhere in the vicinity of half a million. For this base to have twenty times as many occupants meant it was not only well fortified but impossibly big.

The remainder of his used genes had been spent on a few more questions. He had asked when the safest time for him to enter the base would be. The answer had cost only two genes and gained him the simple yet confusing answer of “no time is better or worse than another”.

Next, he asked if he had a better chance of reaching that base or passing back through the territory of the dinosaurs. The answer was also only cost a couple genes. The dinosaurs would undeniably kill him if he returned that way. However, he had a marginal chance of survival if he chose to take the path toward Thunder Fox shelter. That was enough for him to attempt it.

His last question had been what if anything could he do to increase his chance of survival upon entering the base. Surprisingly, the answer was both simple and not costing many genes. All he needed to do was enter the base with Jane in full view of the occupants.

According to Ali, this simple action gave the single greatest chance of survival. She did not specify how much better it would make his odds, nor did she guarantee safety if he chose to take the chance. Still, any increased chance of survival was worth taking in his book.

Now, John stood on the top step of the tower he had just exited. The sun was just about to peak over the landscape. It had not been a full day since he entered, but the supposed deity had told him dawn was approaching. She freely explained upon his confusion that every deal he had made came with an underlying time debt relative to the price in genes.

Apparently, his tally amounted to roughly a day of time. He had not been thrilled to learn that she didn’t deign to tell him the whole truth of things. It only reaffirmed his belief that whoever she was, her role wasn’t as benevolent and helpful as advertised. If he wasn’t careful, he’d find himself cheated out of more than a day.

John pushed the resurfacing concern from his mind and looked to the sun. He had already pinpointed the exact point he needed to ascend to reach Thunder Fox Base. He had waited an extra ten minutes just to be sure of his direction, but Ali had said it would take most of the day to get there, so with an anxious sigh, John descended the stairs in the direction of the sun.

He wore his armor as always, but his pack was hung loosely over a shoulder on the outside of it. He still had no idea how the armor could compress the pack so efficiently, but it did no such thing when it was on the outside of the soul apparel. The reason he traveled in such a state of awkwardness was simple.

John needed to make use of his surplus of primitive genes in order to replenish the toll his questions took from him. Unfortunately, there was no good way to carry more than a couple genes at a time without having to get back in his bag for again anyway. So, he just let it dangle awkwardly off his shoulder for easy access to the contents.

He thanked Jules silently for his role in providing so many easy replacement points. The only reason he even had the genes in his pack was also thanks to the man. He had intended to use the exchange system to buy a few mid level weapon and armor souls.

Not for him of course, especially now that he had the upgraded Chimera Soul. But if he would be taking inexperienced youths on hunts, he would make sure they had the tools to survive. That was how a customer turned into a patron. But the more he thought about it, the less certain he was that he wanted to take the job.

He had plenty of genes, even the twenty to twenty-five he would need to return his primitive total to the peak wouldn’t exhaust the number he had in reserve. He wouldn’t need to take any low-grade jobs after paying down his debt to those who had hired him in advance. And since his genes were maxed below the Advanced level, much fewer people would have anything that could cover the cost of hiring him.

John shrugged as his fourth gene sunk into his skin. He had a plan to assimilate Liz into the position of every day escort. Not only would she have ample opportunity to advance herself, word would spread around that a girl with a powerful transfiguration soul was taking defense jobs against higher and higher tiered beasts. Eventually, the requests would reach the Advanced level.

John decided then that those were the lowest tier requests he should waste the effort on. He would have to pay Liz back for any of the hypothetical jobs she took considering he was currently using the advance payments to replenish his gene tally. But he would shear that sheep if and when it was called for.

John moved away from the tower and closer to the start of the ascent he would make. As he walked, he continued looking over his shoulder at the tower. Not only that, but he also studied the many apparent slopes down to it. The tower had blocked most of his perception before, but now that he was starting up the slope, he could see the landscape for what it was.

What he had taken to be intersections between mountains creating a sort of bowl with the tower at the center was actually slightly inaccurate. The true layout of the area was something closer to a series of spines of land with shady divots between them extending so high in elevation that he couldn’t actually make out the tops past the trees that grew along the ascent. What he could see was that the tower was not sitting nestled in the heart of some large mountains. It was at the base of a massive crater.

The spines and divots all around the perimeter of the tower served not only as an easy means of access to the tower, but also as the only means of egress from the tower. The many varied terrains and inhabitants that could be found depending on which path was chosen could make the journey easier or harder. But no matter what, to leave from the divine building one would have to escape the bowl.

The thought was intriguing. John had no idea what could have created a hole in the landscape so large. He couldn’t get an accurate estimate of the diameter, but he could at least tell that it was bigger than the largest crater ever discovered on earth. Unless he was horrible at estimation, it was much, much bigger.

“Was it created by the tower itself?” John wondered to himself as his legs began to burn from the climb.

He couldn’t be sure that the tower was newer or older than the crater itself, as the building had seemed timeless. A structure unmoved by the passing years. The tower had shown no wear or degradation that John had noticed. As far as he knew, it had been built the week before he got there.

Visually pristine or not, the tower was undoubtedly older than John at the very least. Abi had mentioned vast time spans without a visitor. To John that might mean weeks or months. But what would the equivalent be for an eternal being? A century? A millennium?

Of course, that was all assuming the being he had interacted with had really been what she said she was. John still wasn’t sure. For one, why would someone so powerful be bound to serve mortals in such a way?

The supposed price of service aside, what possible benefit could such a being gain from him? Surely someone calling themselves a God would have no need of a few primitive genes. There had to be something John was missing, or otherwise something that was purposefully hidden from him.

His contemplation was cut short when a sound like the whistle on a steam engine blasted out from the forested ridge to his right. The sheer force of the noise chattered his teeth and set the hair on his arms on end. John had no idea what the sound could have come from, but he did know nothing capable of making such a cacophony could be smaller than an elephant.

John quickly tied his pack closed before releasing his hold on the Chimera armor for long enough to sling the bag over both shoulders once more. When it was in place, his armor instantly recovered his frame. As before, the bag on his back seemed to be vacuum sealed of any excess air and compressed to his back efficiently.

John had his bow in hand a second later, ready for the approach of whatever had been disturbed. He continued up the slope cautiously. Jane was at his side, a low growl omnipresent in her demeanor. Neither of them could identify the threat, so they both pressed on as ready as they could be.

The ridge had grown quiet after the terrifying cry. John even began to wonder if it might have been unrelated to his presence. But before his nerves could settle into that thought, the local wildlife responded to the call, giving John an all but debilitating case of trepidation.

The first sound to answer the cry to his right was a deafening roar to his left. He couldn’t tell how far up the ridge it had come from because the sheer force of the noise made it feel less than a dozen feet away. Since he could see that far into the tree line, John knew that was impossible.

He had no time to dwell on the peculiarity because as soon as the roar cut off, a half dozen other calls, each unique and easily distinguishable rang out all along the ridges on either side of him. There was a screech, like a large bird, an odd croaking noise akin to the largest bull frog John could imagine. He also heard the cry of a large cat, probably the most aggravated of all the calls given the risen sun.

Many protestations had come from further up the slope, but at least one call had come from below. Far below, almost at the very end of the decline leading to the tower. That made John’s spine tingle with anxiety.

“Did I pass by a divine beast and not even realize it?” He wondered to himself.

John had no idea what the best thing to do was. When he had probed about the danger of this route, the answer had seemed to indicate that most of the danger would lie in the base itself. In fact, he had used a couple extra genes just to confirm that returning the same way he had come would be much more lethal than his current path.

Having serious doubts but no better option, he and Jane cautiously ventured up the bowl, ready for an attack at any moment. More angry exclamations pervaded the landscape all around him as he ascended the terrain. Just as John began to feel they would be unmolested, the attack he had been fearing came for them.

2

The incessant cries of various animals all died out in a single instant. The eerie silence was so sudden and complete that it gave John even worse goose bumps than the noises had. Then he felt a pressure on his ears. It felt like the opposite of his ears popping. Like air pressure was added to his ear drums instead of relieved from them.

It happened again. And again. It wasn’t painful, just persistent. Then John looked to the sky and saw the source of the pressure.

A massive bird, green feathers shining in the light of the rising sun were flapped by massive wings to break free from the top of a large tree. Each stroke of the wing was what caused the pressure upon John’s ears. He stopped dead in his tracks.

Whatever the jade-colored bird was, it had clearly decided John was an affront to its neighborhood. With massive beats of the wing, it rose higher and higher above the trees. Even more notable was the ever-increasing gusts of wind released in John’s direction.

He was repeatedly buffeted with blasts of air that made it difficult not to stumble. Even Jane crouched low against the gale. As he tried to make himself less of a target, the bird made an extremely odd motion with a single wing.

John surged forward as an extremely swift stream of air caught him from behind. His legs were pulled out from under him and he thought his head would crack on the ground as the gust toppled him over.

The reality was far worse. His entire body became caught up in the stream of air. Before he could do more than flail his hands wildly about, he was aloft. When his head came back around and he could see the bird again, it looked like there was a miniature tornado spiraling into the open mouth of the bird.

Only the thinnest stream of air protruded from the tornado. Oddly enough it didn’t connect to the spiral of air but rather the center of the tornado itself. And on the other end of the thin stream was the gust of air on which John currently rode.

He wanted to scream; wanted to struggle his way free from the grip of this terrifying bird. But he knew nothing he could do would save him from the gruesome fate that awaited. He clutched his bow like a man clinging to a hope he knew was already lost.

His body was already more than a dozen feet in the air by this time, and he flailed impotently as he approached the tree line. He glimpsed the bird yet again on his next spin, but something much more interesting immediately caught his eye. It took only an instant, but the event was one that John couldn’t have missed as he continued to turn through the air.

A wide and unnatural streak of lightning flashed above and behind the giant bird. John was unable to see what happened next as the lightning stream ended in the light of the sun. John squinted and closed his eyes as his upward momentum spun him away from the scene once more.

The only indication he received that something was happening behind him was the sudden and deafening crack of thunder. The world was illuminated more completely than the sun had ever achieved for a split second as the roar of thunder assaulted his ears. And when John again faced the massive bird, only a collection of ashes rained down from where it had been.

The stream of air John was caught in cut off in the same moment, and he began to fall back to the ground. He only caught the slightest hint of the lightning bolt returning to the ground somewhere past the top of the bowl. John smashed messily into the top of the trees before he could so much as reach his hands out.

He fell through the branches, gaining several scrapes, pokes, and bruises on his way down. John hit the bottom like a sack of bricks. His lungs thrust any semblance of breath from him in sharp protestation of their treatment.

John just laid there for several minutes trying to regain his breathing properly. He stared up at the steady stream of ashes falling like snow between the trees. Everything had happened so suddenly that John wasn’t sure exactly what had happened.

Jane came to his side and licked his face in a very doglike manner. Despite being little more than a construct from his mind, she always had presence and personality that some humans even lacked. It was peculiar in the extreme.

He still had no idea what the true nature of the “souls” he collected had collected was. Were they truly the captured consciousnesses of the beasts he had killed? That didn’t make sense, as only Jane had a consciousness of her own.

The rest were tools for various means. They did not have thoughts. They didn’t feel pain. Did they? He couldn’t be sure. Nothing about the new reality humans found themselves in made much sense.

After he could breathe properly again, John pulled himself to his feet and brushed the small coating of ashes from his armor. The land had grown silent. The sudden and inescapable end of the giant green bird had successfully dissuaded any further dissent.

John picked his way back out of the trees and resumed his journey up the crevice. The eerie silence of the bowl continued for several minutes. John was as trepidatious as all the others, and unlike them, his destination was the exact direction the brutally efficient lightning strike had come from.

Needless to say, each step he took was that of a man who clearly wanted the journey to last as long as possible. He was slow, deliberate with each foot, like he feared he might suddenly come down with a case of the ashes. Because he absolutely did.

Whatever had killed his assailant, and he had a fairly good guess given his destination, there was no doubt in John’s mind that it could do the same to him in an instant. That was more than enough reason to walk on eggshells in his opinion.

Clearly, John had underestimated the sheer immensity of the gap in power between himself and any divine creature. Looking back, if the queen of the ants was one such beast, John was lucky to have escaped at all. Far luckier than he even realized.

He still remembered the odd illusion that had covered the area around the ant hill. It had seemed like magic. There was a tangible feeling when passing through it. More than that, he could still remember the shockwave in his chest that he had felt every time the queen had clicked her mandibles together.

Each time it had happened, he had still been on the surface. Yet the queen, that had been who could say how far underground, could snap her pincers together so hard that he felt it. John suppressed a major tremor in his legs as he thought of the queen herself taking up the charge against him.

“I never would have made it back,” he realized.

The space between a peak Wizened beast and a baseline Divine beast was a chasm he couldn’t hope to imagine. He was certain whatever the jade bird had been, it was no weaker than the queen of the ants. No beast below Divine would possibly have the ability to control wind in such a manner. At least, he hoped not, otherwise his progression was going to hit a major roadblock.

In any case, whatever had killed the bird was clearly far more than a baseline Divine creature. If nothing else in the bowl dared to speak up, obviously it was some kind of badass. And that did little to assuage his anxiety.

Still, he was committed. Even if he wanted to turn back, he feared that would be seen as an affront. Who would dare turn their back on such a devastating ability to incinerate them? Not John, that was sure. So, he trudged on like a man walking the green mile.

After another hour of anxious plodding up the bowl, the ground became so steep that John needed his hands to climb in addition to his legs. He knew that meant he was almost out of the bowl. There was no way to get out without literally climbing up the almost ninety-degree incline to reach the sharp lip of the bowl.

John had come this far, so he wasn’t about to tumble back down the hill now. Torn between trepidation and determination, John slowly but surely pulled himself free of the bowl.

It was more difficult than he expected. The trees had all conspicuously ended a dozen yards below, giving him no solid handhold to ascend. Instead, he was forced to jab his armored hands into the dirt of the hillside when he couldn’t find a suitable rock to grip. As such, there were several instances where his grip on soft dirt wasn’t enough and he pulled the whole handful out of the ground.

The repeated loss of ground and threat of injury wasn’t nearly as annoying as the continued showering of dirt into his face and mouth as his hand came free. By the time he swung a leg over the last few feet of cliff and rolled to flat ground, John was panting, sweating, and more aggravated than he had been in some time. He panted his exertions out until he could stand. When he did, he took a look back into the bowl.

He wanted to appreciate it as a whole. As he studied it, it became apparent that it really was a crater. Where he stood, as well as all of the area both all the way around the bowl and for several yards beyond the edge of it, the land was dead.

It was a dry, cracked landscape. No vegetation grew anywhere near the bowl, which was odd given how fertile the crater itself was. But the more he studied it, the more he thought he understood.

The tops of the trees in the bowl extended only to the rim of the crater but would grow no higher. Likewise, nothing grew closer than a dozen yards from the top of the bowl. And the area immediately outside the bowl was even more desolate. That could mean only one thing.

The tower itself was the cause of it all. It was a building of life and power. He couldn’t place it, but he had felt something different about the area, especially closer to the tower. Moreover, the creatures there seemed to be more plentiful and much more powerful than anywhere near Emerald Base.

Unless he was way off, the tower had been driven into the ground like a gigantic railroad spike. The resulting destruction had killed the land for miles around. But the existence of the tower had served as a sort of exponential growth for the area in the crater. The effects weren’t powerful enough to heal the entire land, however.

That was why John now sat on dry and hard packed ground. Looking out across the bowl, he could see all the way to the far side of the crater. He was surprised to see something familiar to him in the distance. Almost directly across from him was the unmistakeable visage of a base.

It was hard to tell from the distance, but it looked at least as big as Emerald base. Looking around the gigantic bowl, he was further surprised to see four other bases. All were of differing sizes, with one looking like little more than a village in the distance.

He studied the bowl leading to each base. It was interesting. Some of the bases sat at the top of fairly easy looking paths. Some were waiting at the end of more difficult paths. Some paths didn’t lead to a base at all, but rather ended in wide open plains or forested land further from the crater.

What was odd was that the smaller and ostensibly safer bases seemed to have a more difficult route to them. While the more extravagant bases seemed to be little more than a stroll up the hill. It was almost like a balance between the journey and the destination.

Indeed, his own path seemed to be one of the very easiest to reach the top of, despite the struggle he had had gaining the last few feet. That was the thought that made him finally turn around and look at his own destination. When he saw it, his chin nearly fell from his face.

3

Extravagant. Magnificent. Monstrosity. These were the first words John could find upon seeing the gargantuan structure in the distance. It was back from the crater about a mile. In fact, it couldn’t have fit any closer to the bowl, given how absolutely immense the place was.

Looking back and forth between the two, John thought the entirety of the bowl could be covered by the base if a giant hand placed it over the crater. It was miles wide, spanning much further than John could see.

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It looked like the horizon was simply swallowed by the never ending line of buildings that poked up from the black stone wall encompassing the base. Emerald base spanned at least a mile, but looking at Thunder Fox base, he would have been surprised if a hundred Emerald bases wouldn’t fit within the walls.

He had been using the population as a way to gauge the size of the base before seeing it. Now he realized the error of his reasoning. Even if every person and creature in the base needed their own house, the number of empty buildings would still be in the millions.

Despite this, the entire base seemed alive with activity, even from his distance. Winged creatures spanned the skies like seagulls over a bay. Flashes of bright light pulsed in various places within the walls at random intervals. Given the full daylight of mid morning, John knew whatever made each light was powerful in the extreme.

Beast coming and going from the base kicked up such a dust plume that he never caught sight of any grounded inhabitants. None approached the lip of the bowl, so they all lost him within seconds of leaving the base. The capability of even the lowest creature in the base was sure to rival that of his greatest adversaries so far.

John had so many reservations about approaching the base. But if the Thunder Fox had been aware enough to kill a bird in the crater from miles away, it surely already knew John was coming. Turning away now would be not only suicidal but also a gigantic waste of both effort and gene progression.

Jane nudged his hand with her head. She’d been waiting patiently for him to come to this conclusion, and now that he had, it seemed she was trying to encourage him. Keeping the supposed benefit of her presence in mind, John slowly started forward.

If the climb up the bowl was a slow walk, John’s progress now was more of a crawl. His heart pounded in his chest like a hammer trying to break his ribs. His tongue was swollen and dry from the anticipation. And like an unenthusiastic zombie, he took one slow step after another.

An hour later, the single mile that had separated him from the base was all but gone. A few more steps and he would enter the dust cloud that exploded from the ground at the entrance to the base. Before he could take them though, the cacophony of the traffic exiting the gates silenced like someone slammed a door between it and John.

John watched the massive plume of dust slowly settle as the wind took what didn’t quickly fall back to the ground. His heart beat at an all time high as he stood waiting for something, anything to happen. After a moment, something did, although not what John was expecting.

“You have been challenged by the leader of Thunder Fox Sanctuary.” The voice of The Garden spoke, breaking the silence.

John got the idea that everyone around had heard the words, not just him. He was surprised to get a formal notification from the fox. He had expected to either be eaten or ignored entirely. To be addressed by The Garden itself was not something he had planned for.

“What… are the terms?” John asked hesitantly.

“Prove yourself in combat against five worthy foes to gain entry to Thunder Fox Sanctuary.”

“I am not able to contend with Divine beasts. If that is the challenge, I will decline now rather than agree to my own death.”

John didn’t know why he said that. He felt sure the price of not accepting the trial would also be death. Oddly enough though, his response garnered him some information.

“Your gene progression has been classified as “early Advanced tier”. As such, you will be required to defeat three beasts of Advanced tier and two of Wizened tier in single combat to gain entrance to Thunder Fox Sanctuary. Only the worthy may call Thunder Fox Sanctuary their home. Do you accept these terms?”

John felt immense relief. Knowing he wouldn’t have to kill something beyond his ability was a giant weight off his shoulders. It seemed there was a system for lower tiered inhabitants to prove themselves.

“I accept,” John said as he returned Jane to her place on his Soul Wall.

The words had barely left his mouth when a lion leapt from the open gates. The dust still obscured the entrance enough that John had had no warning before it was lunging at him. John fell backward into a roll as he attempted to grip the forepaws of the beast.

His reflexes proved up to the task as he planted his feet on the belly of the lion while he fell. When he hit the ground, he continued his momentum backward to throw the lion over him. It flipped over in midair with the canny ability all cats had to always land on their feet.

That put John in an arguably worse position. The lion was on him again in an instant, attempting to bite down on the back of his head with its massive jaws. Luckily, John had rolled all the way over, ending up on his stomach. He quickly put both arms over the back of his neck, so instead of his head, the beast bit down on his arms. Still, the violent jerk of its head threw John’s entire body to the side.

He was flipped over onto his back, and the lion was quick to rake it’s sharp claws over him. Without his armor, he would have been gutted. The lion seemed to realize that it’s claws were doing nothing, and it instead pinned him down with them.

He was free to move his arms, but they would do little to either move or hinder the lion. So he laid still, hoping to trick the beast into thinking he had perhaps lost consciousness. The giant feline made no indication that it noticed the difference as it slowly lowered its head to gnaw at the helmet of his chimera armor. John’s eyes widened at the casual display of playfulness while it tried to kill him.

They widened further when he felt and heard the helmet begin to cave in on itself. He was shocked. The bite of the lion was strong enough to compromise a Wizened helmet with sheer force alone.

Without a moment to spare, his arrow was in his hand. He plunged it into the neck of the lion, as he couldn’t accurately find anything more vital from his position inside its mouth. Nevertheless, his attack had the desired effect.

The beast flinched back at the pinch of the dart in its flesh. It roared angrily at his weak rebellion. But John sat up and drove the arrow into the lion’s eye and twisted before it could redouble its efforts to kill him. It roared again, this time in pain John thought.

He rolled away from the cat as it drunkenly stumbled closer. The effects of the poison and the sedative were profound on the lion. It took two more uneasy steps toward him, but it fell to the ground before taking a third. In a few more minutes, he heard the voice.

“Advanced Rage Lion killed. Genes available for harvest.”

John turned away from it and summoned his bow. He couldn’t afford to let whatever came next get him in a position like the lion had. He didn’t know how much his helmet could take, but it now sat uncomfortably on his head. He would need to let it take time to mend itself before summoning it again. Hopefully, he could get through the rest of the fights without putting his head in something’s mouth.

His nocked arrow was drawn and released in a second as a large ball of scales rolled at him from the gates. It skipped off the shell of the charging armadillo like a rock on the water. John dove to the side as the huge ball nearly bowled him over.

It adjusted its direction without even stopping, turning back to roll at John once more. He again dove out of the way, this time trying to jab the ball with his bow as it passed. The bone of the bow simply rebounded. It did little more than change the direction of the beast by a few degrees.

But as ineffective as it was, John got an idea. John moved off to the side of the gate. It was a massive structure, and the pillars that supported it on each side were equally enormous. So, John positioned himself just to the left of the base of one such pillar.

When the armadillo approached, he jumped to the left and jabbed his bow into the beast. His attack once again barely affected the momentum of the ball. But it was enough.

The armadillo collided diagonally with the square pillar much harder than anything John could hit it with. The result was enough to stop the momentum of the beast. It crashed against the pillar and rebounded, landing halfway unfurled a few steps from John.

He raised his redrawn arrow and loosed it into the soft underside of the armadillo while it was still trying to reorient itself. A sharp shriek of pain was all it took to signify the defeat of his second foe. It tried to roll into a ball again, but the effects of the sedative arrow were too great.

It got a smaller dose, as John had already used the arrow on the lion, but even that was enough to quickly subdue it. He remembered how the sedative was like a recharging battery, and after used it would need to spend time replenishing. Only his first couple shots had been effective at sedating the ants during his last excursion. After that it was the poison and bleeding the arrow caused that had done the job.

“Advanced Steel shell Armadillo killed. Genes available for harvest.”

John knew he wouldn’t be able to kill all five beasts before the drowsiness on the arrow was spent. After this one, it would have to be enough to poison them. He returned the arrow to his bow as he waited for the next challenge. It came as suddenly as the others, but from an entirely different direction.

Behind him, John heard the cry of a large bird descending on him. He tucked into a sideways roll, hoping to escape the grasping talons of whatever was falling on him. He felt the pressure close on his armor, but the claws found no purchase and quickly closed on nothing instead. John rolled to his feet to shoot at the bird, but it was already swiftly climbing air currents along the wall of the base.

John cursed as he sighted in on tue bird. Twice in one day a bird had tried to take him off the ground. The last time he had needed an assist. But this one was all him.

The bird turned sharply to swoop down in him again. It was a brown feathered bird, like a hawk. It also had an intimidating beak like a hawk would. But this one was something more akin to the head of a pterodactyl. John had no more time to study his foe as it extended giant talons to grab him once again.

His counter was a very fluid one. The arrow sunk into the chest of the bird like stick stabbed into loose mud. The point blank range gave the bird no chance of escaping the attack. John however, did escape as he dove forward as soon as he looked the arrow.

He tumbled to the ground just beneath the reaching feet of the bird as it crashed ruinously to the ground behind him. Its attack was utterly ineffective as it shrieked in pain from his devastating bolt. The following several seconds reminded John of being a kid.

He had been given a BB gun for his eighth birthday. He had been so excited to go out and look for things to practice his aim on. After only a few hours he had found a bird. He could still remember aiming down the sight and pulling the trigger.

The result had not been what he wanted. He had hit the bird alright. But a tiny BB was less than sufficient to kill it. Instead he had watched it flap around in terror on the ground as it slowly died, unable to breathe properly, unable to fly away. The sight had haunted John, and until his first venture into The Garden, he had never even thought about killing anything else again.

The memory returned to him now as he watched a much bigger and much more dangerous bird flop around in a similar manner. Despite himself, John felt a horrible twist in his gut at the familiarity of the scene. He turned away as the bile began to rise in him.

To hasten the end, he returned his arrow to his Soul Wall. Like the tide had been let loose, the terrifying bird flipped around even more frantically while blood poured from the hole in it. John tried to block the sounds out. It was still several long seconds before the voice came.

“Advanced Spearhead Sparrow killed. Genes available for harvest.”

John couldn’t afford the time to feel relief that the horrible memory was over, as the second he got the message, another threat was on him. The roar from above was beyond his expectation. He looked to the sky and had to bemoan the universe.

“Fucking seriously? A goddamn flying lion?”

A griffon, they were called, massive, beautiful, and terrifying dropped from the sky like a ballistae bolt. It came down like a meteor, slamming into the ground where John had just been like an anchor from a ship. Had he not scrambled to jump free, John would have been pinned under a gargantuan paw.

As it was, he was little better off. The shock of the impact would have driven him from his feet even if he wasn’t already on the ground from his dive. If a regular old lion had almost crushed his head in its jaws before he could retaliate, he couldn’t imagine the one mixed with a bird would be any less capable.

Sure enough, the beast was on him before he could even sit up. Its giant paw pinned him to the ground, almost bigger than his entire torso. The head giving it the orders was something like five times the size of a normal lion. It could crunch down on his whole body like he was no bigger than a rabbit.

John froze, utterly beaten as the massive head of the lion lowered to meet his eye. He saw the look in its eye, the look of a predator upon prey. John struggled anew beneath the immense weight of the paw that held him in place. He was beaten, he knew that.

But he wouldn’t give up. He knew this was the only way to get where he was going. This was the only chance he had at finding his father again. He wouldn’t just lie here and die. He would do everything he could to get back to his family. If he didn’t, John refused to let himself consider the possibility. He would survive.

Unable to free an arm, John did the only thing he could do. He summoned the Drowsy Muckray arrow into his hand. The barbed tip immediately poked the bottom of the griffon’s paw. The sudden roar of pain and anger was enough to let John know it had worked.

As soon as the beast flinched away from him in reflex, he rolled to his side and scrambled for his feet. The Wizened beast was not so easily dissuaded though, and by the time he had one leg under him, another massive paw swatted him from the opposite side.

John was sent tumbling across the ground as the griffon batted him. Nevertheless, he scrambled to his feet from where he landed and whirled on the giant terror. To his surprise, it wasn’t right on top of him like he thought it would be.

Instead, it looked like a scene from a damn kids fable as the bird-lion limped forward. It held its paw aloft, and for an absurd moment John started to look for the mouse that it would need to remove the thorn. His arrow still stuck painfully into the bottom of the paw, and by the looks of it, the beast was unable to put weight on it.

That was good, because any amount of the monster’s weight would easily snap the arrow. But it seemed to know that breaking the arrow would mean that the barb would be stuck there forever. That was why it currently looked so pitiful to John as it whined in pain.

Despite his animal loving instincts, he knew he couldn’t afford to remove the arrow. Unlike the chest of the bird, John knew the paw of a beast so large would be no danger to it if the arrow was removed. That meant the opposite would have to work.

If he couldn’t bleed the beast to death, he would have to settle for poisoning. That required the arrow to stay in the flesh longer. So, John just stood there watching the beast worry over how to get an arrow out without breaking it.

They both found out at roughly the same time that such an extraction was simply impossible. The giant teeth of the beast were insufficient to grasp the tiny stick in its paw. So, understanding that it could do nothing to help its own situation; it went for the next best option: fucking him up.

The griffon roared and leapt at John like a savage beast, and indeed it was. In less than a second, John was back on the ground. This time he was pinned to his stomach, and his good arm was trapped beneath him.

He screamed as he felt the immense jaws of the beast clamp down on his right leg as the giant paw held him in place. With excruciating pressure, it started to pull. John’s pain broke the scales as he realized that the beast was attempting to rip him limb from limb.

He felt hot blood cascade down his leg inside the armor. It wouldn’t last more than a few more seconds before tendons and ligaments started snapping. With blind precision, that is to say, none at all, John recalled the arrow to his free hand and swung it around wildly behind him the best he could.

The pain was nothing he had ever experienced before. He felt something give in his leg, and he almost lost consciousness as his entire femur was dislocated. At the same time, he felt his arm collide with something solid and the arrow sunk into flesh.

The pain didn’t diminish, but the pressure on his back was suddenly gone. He heard the beast crash to the ground a second later as well as the massive breath escape it’s lungs. John couldn’t even think about what was happening through all of the pain he felt. He did manage to make sense of the voice that entered his head a moment later.

“Wizened Sentry Griffon killed. Soul Weapon gained. Wizened genes available for harvest.”

John couldn’t even muster the relief to smile at the news. His body was a mess. His leg was a mystery of pain and lack of response. All he could do was wail at the continued agony he was in. And he knew it would not be over any time soon.

The fifth and final test had come. John heard the swift padding footsteps of something light, but something far larger than he had expected emerged from the gates. He had to blink his eyes a few times to make sure of what he was seeing.

It looked like the little orange salamanders that lived near small streams and sources of water. The only difference was that this one was the size of a horse with a tail almost three times the length of its body. John felt like the universe just couldn’t traumatize him enough as he looked into the cold eyes of the giant salamander before him.

Despite his utter lack of ability to stop it, the salamander did not come to kill him. It made no move at all. It just sat there staring at him. If he hadn’t felt the mist settle over him, John might not have known anything at all was happening. But it was cold and wet against his skin, like walking through a field of dew. And when the passive excretions of the salamander met his bare skin, the effect was instantaneous.

Colors sprang up in his vision, which rapidly became cloudy. He shook his head to rid himself of the stupefying effect. For an instant, his vision cleared before immediately clouding over again. Then he understood.

Hallucinations. He was being poisoned just as his arrow poisoned those he was able to stab with it. This toxin was much more profound and swift than anything that came from his arrow though. He rolled onto his side, screaming in pain as his mangled leg protested the effort.

Then he did the only thing he could do. He closed his eyes. When he did so, it was like a shining beacon in his mind was screaming for his attention. The source of light that signified his newest soul shone through the haze of his mind, begging him to take notice.

Without even having conscious control of his actions, John summoned his newest weapon to his hand. He rolled fully onto his back as the barbed javelin appeared in his hand. It was a deadly weapon, having come from a Wizened Griffon, but he wondered if he could even expend the effort to throw it past the pain and hallucination he felt.

Wether he could or not, he would try. The smug lizard was just sitting there, staring at him. It knew he was tripping balls. It knew he was in more pain than any sane creature could function through. So it sat there, watching.

Well fuck that. John was determined to prove it wrong. He might not be able to stand. He might not be able to see straight. But he would be dammed if he didn’t throw this sharpened stick straight at that smug little lizard face.

So, with vision completely obscured by hallucination, John awkwardly drew back his throwing arm. He blinked as hard and repeatedly as he could to clear his sight. Despite his effort, he was only able to catch the slightest glimpse of the salamander before its drug settled back over his vision. But that was enough.

He put all of his effort into the attempt. He knew that he would be dead long before he got the chance to try again. So he gave it his all. With a scream of defiance, he let the javelin fly.

John knew his own strength. He knew in the best of circumstances how hard he could have thrown his weapon. And he knew this was absolutely not that circumstance.

That’s why he was so unprepared for the sharp clang of the spear impaling itself into the wall of the base. John had no time to contemplate how the point could possibly have stuck into solid stone. He knew that with his missed attempt, he would have no hope of survival.

He wasn’t stupid. He knew very well that his time had come. So, he closed his eyes against the hallucinations once more, knowing he would never open them again.

“Wizened Glamor Salamander killed. Wizened genes available for harvest.”

John’s eyes shot back open in an instant at the words in his head. He still couldn’t see anything, but his mind had not been affected by the mist. He had killed it. But how? He was sure his javelin had hit nothing but stone.

It was several maddening seconds before the effects of the toxin began to diminish. Even when it did, he thought he was hallucinating. Slowly but surely his vision cleared to show what had truly become of the Glamor Salamander.

There, imbedded several inches into the wall of Thunder Fox Sanctuary was his thrown javelin. And hanging from that wall was the impaled bulk of the giant salamander he had just skewered. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

There was absolutely no way his awkward throw could have accomplished all of this. He knew that the weapon itself had done all of the work. Somehow, it had increased its own momentum in the short distance between his hand and the lizard. It was hard to fathom, but it seemed like the javelin had a mind of its own and wouldn’t even let a stone wall stop it without some damage.

John just stared in shock as the salamander twitched on the spike. His own agony came back to him with the stillness of the end of the battle. He had no more escape. He closed his eyes and screamed. He didn’t even know how he would make it to his room supposing something else didn’t come out to have a bite.

But John felt an unprecedented silence settle over the area as he lay there in the throes of agony. It was so profound a silence, that it actually silenced him as well. He didn’t know how, but the scream he was letting loose, died in his mouth as the hush settled over Thunder Fox Sanctuary.

John opened his eyes once more and if he had been able, he would have jumped out of his skin. There, not five feet from him was the shining visage of a silver fox.

4

The beast was a beauty to behold. Icy blue eyes held his gaze unblinkingly. It was bigger than normal foxes, but not drastically so like some of the oversized beasts that had tried to kill him before. He would have placed it around a Doberman in size, but lower to the ground and with shaggy hair that gleamed like mercury.

It sat calmly, just looking at him for several seconds. But it didn’t look at him like a predator. It didn’t even look at him like an animal. It seemed to widen a single eye questioningly at him like a beautiful woman would while watching a man make a fool of himself.

John knew in an instant what he was looking at. This was the queen herself. This was the bitch for which Thunder Fox Sanctuary was named. And she was staring at him not like a fox stared at, well anything really. But rather like a collector would stare at the one empty spot on the shelf. John was the prize this fox had been seeking for longer than he had even been alive. And now, he was hers.

“Is there something else you want?” John asked.

He tried to keep the bitterness out of his tone. He wasn’t sure he succeeded, but the brilliant silver fox didn’t seem to take offense. It did have a reaction to his words though.

It cocked its head to the side, as if asking him a question. John couldn’t be certain but he thought it wanted him to do something. Considering he couldn’t stand and his head was still swimming from the trippy lizard he had just killed, he couldn’t imagine what that could be.

“What can I do?” John asked cautiously.

The fox didn’t answer, but she stood and disappeared in a flash of lightning. John only had time to blink his eyes in confusion before a second streak of lightning heralded the return of the beast.

She appeared in the same place but with a notable difference. In her mouth was a baseball sized white orb. The Fox dropped the orb to the ground and it rolled across half the distance between them before stopping.

John’s eyes widened when the orb sprouted legs and stood. His head jolted back in alarm when the ball split open like the death of Pac-Man. Before he could wonder what the thing in front of him was, a pulse emanated from it.

It felt like little more than a tremor in the ground to John. It passed through him without a trace. At least that’s what he thought. But a moment later the same pulse traveled back through him and returned to the ball.

It felt like walking out of a warm house on a winter’s day and taking a deep breath. It took something from John that he couldn’t place. As he tried to understand the situation, the ball reformed itself and sealed shut. Then a soft glow started to emanate from it.

“What the hell is going on?” John asked, more to himself than his company.

But to his shock, his words caused a vibration in the steady glow of the orb. They rippled across its surface before disappearing on the other side of it. The scene added even more confusion to John’s mind, and the area grew quiet once more.

A few seconds later, another ripple passed over it, this time starting from the side the fox sat on. It came as a perfect wave, and when the ripples met at the point closest to John, they seemed to project a peculiar sound at him. It was the sound of a woman’s voice, and it spoke his language.

“I greet you, human,” it said.

John’s head flinched away in surprise. Had the ball just become a translator for the fox? What was the little creature anyway? John decided the answer wasn’t nearly as important as responding to the fox across from him.

“Hello, beautiful fox,” he said cautiously to the ball.

A ripple later and John had another response.

“You have potential. Few who take the test succeed.”

John took the compliment with a grain of salt given his agonized body. His leg still sat at a horribly unnatural angle. He could feel the blood that had pooled in his armor. And his head was aching from the tightness of his helmet after the lion had crushed it.

“Thank you. Nothing else is going to try to kill me, right?” He asked.

“You are safe,” was the calm and sure response.

John gasped in half relief and half agony as his head and leg were both freed from their prison as well as the rest of him. His armor had done him legendary service, but if the fox said he was safe, he wasn’t going to keep it on any longer. Besides, armor or not, if the beast wanted him dead, he would be. Of that he was sure.

The open air was a blessing and a curse for his mangled leg. The cool air felt good on it, but the structure of the armor had been doing more than he realized to keep his pain in check. Without it, he cried out in pain once more.

Before he could blink, the fox was at his side. She put her head down to his injuries and gently licked them. John gasped anew as the burning sensation was quickly replaced by a cooling one. He could feel the thick saliva of the fox seep into his wounds. And as he watched, the open wounds all closed.

John looked at the fox in awe. He had never felt such relief as the abatement of his mangled leg. But that didn’t fix the dislocation it suffered from. Before he could even come to that conclusion, the orb a few feet away rippled once more.

“This will hurt for an instant.”

“Wha-” John never got to finish.

A blinding flash of silver light enveloped him before he got the word out. It surged into every cell of his being and super charged them. It traveled through his body with a destination in mind. And when it reached that destination, an impossibly brief flash of pain rocked his whole body.

His dislocated leg twisted and popped back into place with a sickening grinding of bones. He tried to scream once again but before he had let it out, the pain was gone. All of it. Not even his headache remained.

“You can heal! That is so amazing! Thank you for helping me. I don’t know what I would have had to do to fix myself without your aide.”

The returning ripple took some time, but when it came, John was once again astounded by it. Free from the pain, he was more free to marvel at it.

“You are most welcome. I would like to speak at length with you soon, but for now, I can tell you are weary from your travels. Please, enter my home, and be assured that none will cross you while you are within.”

Then she was gone. Without so much as a goodbye. John blinked and realized that the orb had been taken as well. Just how fast was this fox?

John stood to his feet, baffled at his newfound ability to do so. He took a step towards the gates but stopped as he remembered something. Looking over at the javelin in the wall, John returned it to his wall of souls. The limp corpse of the giant salamander fell to the ground.

John stepped through the gates and had no time to bask in the beauty and grandeur of the place before the voice of The Garden spoke to him.

“You have gained access to Thunder Fox Sanctuary. Would you like to complete your shuffle?”

“Yes,” John said in an exhausted voice.

“Congratulations! Your shuffle is complete! Your room is now linked to Thunder Fox Sanctuary! Select the location for your room and enter to collect your rewards.”

John smiled as wide as his face would let him. He had done it. He made it through. And he did it like an absolute master. And all the times he nearly died to get there, those were irrelevant.

All that mattered to him in that moment was the truth. And the truth was that nothing would stop him now. He looked around, impatient to find an empty building to claim.

He found one without much difficulty, as he was on the very edge of the gigantic base. The building was small by local standards, but John had never needed much to be happy. Besides, he didn’t think picking a bigger building would get him a bigger room, it was simply the clothing his same small room would wear.

So, John walked straight up to the building and put his hand on the handleless door. The voice of The Garden asked him if he was sure of his selection and he answered in the affirmative. Then the door clicked and slid open.

John’s familiar but plain room was waiting for him on the other side. John looked around him in astounded disbelief. With a chuckle and a shake of his head, he walked through the doorway.