“Humans are often seen as the dominant force in the realm as they have a higher population than any other race, but that wouldn't be correct. The Elves have a much richer connection to mana, and even with their slow growth, they remain a powerful race. The Dwarfs in their mountain fortresses create artifacts and constructs that can render battlefields devoid of life. With all of that said, the most dangerous races are the ones not mentioned in the history books but in passing stories: the Eldrik, the Selmith, the Beast Kin, the Kaldth, and so many more. Oftentimes, when called upon, the smaller races prove to be vital in major battles with their unique abilities.” - Walde Hot

Ava

Looking down at the token, I felt my hands shake slightly, and my tail quivered in excitement and no small amount of fear. I had been blessed by a god for a realm event, if one could call it a blessing. The token had appeared in my pocket as a reward for the dungeon I'd been taken through by the tribe's warriors to level.

I knew it was a mistake that it should have been one of the warriors who got it, but Elder Tanch seemed to think otherwise. I couldn't understand how he thought a grade two beast tamer would be suited for a realm event, but any attempt to pass the token to someone else had failed. I sighed, putting the token away and petting the side of the horse's flank as I looked over the cluster of tents.

The Outterland tribe was small and mostly full of Catkin like me. Well, the size was normal for my kind. Beastkin was a declining race and had been apparently since the war long ago, where they had chosen the side of their gods, who had lost. With only a little over a thousand strong and most cities considering my kind less than others, the only option was to roam the wild.

My ears twitched as I thought of the token again. It had caused no small amount of excitement in the tribe. It was a chance for anything to happen, and some thought it was a chance to bring Catkin back from the brink. Besides the Wolfkin, who were apparently all but extinct, if they had ever existed in the first place because I had never seen one, Catkin was the worst off in all of the Bestkin subspecies.

“Ava!” I jumped slightly, turning away from the horse I was meant to be looking after to raise my handling skills.

Looking over to the shout, I smiled as I saw Reddal sprinting up the hill to the temporary stables. He looked, judging by the way his tail was flicking from side to side, excited. Funnily, Reddal was out of breath as he arrived, something rare with him and his higher-than-average endurance. Bending over, he gasped for breath as he tried to talk but couldn't form a word. I couldn't stop the snort of laughter that came out.

He rolled his eyes, but his smile remained, and he stood. “You'll never guess why I'm here.”

I tapped my chin with a finger as I hummed. “Oh, I don't know. Maybe someone needs a horse, and they sent you, but seeing as you came from the inner tents, I'm assuming it's not a horse that was requested.”

Reddal waved a hand. “Yeah, but you'll never guess why Elder Madri requested you.”

“Elder Madri requested me?” I perked up and started moving before Reddal could continue. If an elder requested me, then I'd best be as quick as I could. The elders were the heart of our tribe, and disrespecting one, even on accident, could result in the worst punishment ever, taking care of them.

Behind me, I heard Reddal say something, but he was still catching his breath. Taking long strides, I made my way from the stables, one of the furthest buildings in the camp, towards the inner camp. As I passed through the cooks part of the camp, my mouth watered at the scent of fresh fish and eel from the nearby river and rabbit from the plains. Dinner would be good tonight.

I was near the elder's tent when I heard a strangled gasp from behind, and I turned to see Reddal a dozen feet away. I tilted my head as he stumbled to a stop and fell on his knees, holding out a hand. Tapping a foot, I looked down at him with a frown. Why had he followed me? Was he been asked to come as well?

“Other keetdin,” He gasped out

“Keetdin?” I echoed, confused.

He paused, taking in a huge breath before I could understand him. “There are other Bestkin in there. Elder Madri asked me to summon you and let you know that there are other kin inside.”

“Oh, what kin are here?” I asked. It had been a while since we'd visited another tribe, and it had been a great time. They had been a mix of deerkin and rabbitkin, and they had Settled down for a while to grow crops. The food had been amazing.

Slowly, Reddal stood up, and half shrugged a shoulder. “No clue, but she wanted you to be aware.”

I nodded and gave him a wave as he sat back down, wiping sweat from his brow.

I was more cautious this time as I made my way to the elder's tent, stopping outside it for a moment. There was, of course, a guard outside who gave me a nod. There was no use trying to listen in as spells and runes etched in the leather hid any noise that would come from inside. Parting the entrance flap, I went to step in and opened my mouth to announce my arrival, only to run face-first into a stone wall. I sputtered slightly as I rubbed my nose. I looked up as the wall rumbled and was met with the face of a dark-skinned man.

“It would seem that our last guest has arrived. Please come in, Ava.” The voice of Elder Madri sounded from behind the wall of a man, and as he shuffled over, making the tent look small in the process, I saw three other people. I bowed slightly towards the elder before I looked around. There was a girl and two men if the wall I had hit could be considered one. Thankfully, it had sat down, giving everyone else some space.

“Please sit, Ava, and let me introduce our guest.” Elder Madri said, gesturing to a padded cushion, and I took a seat as we all formed a rough circle. “As agreed upon with the others, I, Elder Madri, will be the elder for this discussion as it is of high importance. We have Salla, a Foxkin,” she gestured to the girl who gave a polite wave. Salla's orange hair and long ears, as well as shorter tail I could just see, let me know from the history I'd been told she was on the purer side of her species. She was also wearing the usual weird robes of a Foxkin.

“We have Ovim a Deerkin.” I looked at Ovim and blinked at him, wrinkling my brows. He was average for his species, besides being taller than most. He had brown hair, and the inner fur of his ears was an average white, but something about him felt off. I didn't have any more time to think about it as Elder Madri continued gesturing to the mountain in human skin. “This Is Bolder, a Bearkin.”

I almost lost it at his name; my laugh only held back because of what it would result in. His name was Bolder. The round ears on the top of his head were the only sign of his species. His rumble of getting almost sent me over the edge. I was so stuck trying to keep a straight face that I almost missed my introduction.

“Then we have Ava, a Catkin.”

I bowed my head again in greeting to the rest.

“As all but one of you know, we're here to discuss the upcoming event. All of you have tokens gathered in various ways.”

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My eyes widened as I looked over all of them again. I had been told by Elder Drass that they were working on a way for me to enter the event safely, but I thought that he was referring to the training provided by the tribe guards.

“With the chances the event offers, all nearby tribes have agreed to send in a group together. Sadly, the tribes have yet to gather more than the tokens you possess, and as they can not be freely transferred, we will be relying on you.” Elder Madri said.

The unsaid part of the dangers the event undoubtedly held remained unsaid. There was the option we all had of just not going into the event, but that was an option no person would ever consider.

“With only a little under two months until it starts, time is short, but the Elders are hoping that group training will prove fruitful in speaking up group cohesion.” She made a gesture, and a set of four rings appeared on the ground in front of her. Out of habit, I identified them even if it was a bit rude; no one would know.

[Spatial Ring - Uncommon - This Spatial Ring holds a two-by-two meter storage and allows for storing objects when bound.]

“Our tribes have pulled our resources in the hopes that what waits inside the realm proves helpful in these hard times.” My tail twitched at her words, a spark of anger rising with how easily she referred to the slavery and decline of our race.

“We will return with what we can, Elder. There are no histories of Void, so we all must be ready for anything in the realm. These signs will prove to me more than useful inside,” Ovim spoke for the first time, sounding grateful.

As if the dams had broken, Salla spoke next, “I do wish to ask, as we have time to do so, what can be expected in realm events? While the Foxkin tribe has quite a bit of knowledge stored, we lack any information or realm events.”

I tilted my head, smiling slightly. For one, I knew what Eldar Madri Would say as I'd asked her the same thing. For another, I could appreciate the way her eyes darted toward the rings; she was as excited by them as I was.

“Anything, the gods create realm events, and they design them in any way they see fit. It could range from a battlefield to a series of puzzles or a survival quest. It depends on the god, as Void is a god no one knows much about. It's all in the open air.”

There was a rumbling from Bolder as he spoke, and his voice suited him perfectly. If it had a slight accent, I couldn't place it. “Fighting might only be part of the event, but I will handle it; puzzles, I will not.”

I smiled at him, and for a moment, I figured that the upcoming event might not be that bad.

Aster

I sat down, crossing my legs and leaning against Umbra's chest, closing my eyes. My body still ached from the flight and spar, but the anticipation dulled it all. We'd figured out and agreed at the beginning of arriving through the portal that a good way to end the night was to cheek on the bond.

Entering the bond was almost second nature when next to Umbra, and having contact, even a slight one, made it all the easier. Taking in a breath, I felt what I could only say was a small world expanding in my mental vision. Our bond, like any bond, was unique, with the only nearby ground being giant ever-stretching branches that came from a massive tree that looked close but ever far away and impossible to reach. After a moment, the glowing orb that was Umbra appeared next to me. Her appearance was Identical to mine; her orb was a lighter blue compared to my darker-colored one now compared to the first few times we'd explored this place.

“I wonder what will happen when it reaches the next branch.” Umbra hummed her orb, floating closer to the edge of the tree.

What she was referring to was the vines, the only way that the branches could be traversed, almost web-like in their expansion, had so far only connected us to one other branch, but now they were just shy of halfway to a third.

“I hope it's another skill that works well with the other bond skill.”

The skill I was referring to was Frost Control, currently our only bonded skill. It was sitting at rank three and hadn't improved in weeks, making progression equally as slow as the vines. While I found the skill fun to use, it was limited. Shaping ice and snow in a half-dozen-foot radius at a pace slower than doing it myself had no use in combat. Still, it did seem to help mediation work in sync with Frost Affinity Meditation, but only when surrounded by cold and some type of snow or ice.

“Should we continue to the tree?” Umbra motions to it by bobbing towards it.

I responded by setting off, but like her, neither of us expected a change in the distant tree, though it gave us something to do while we talked. One of the unlabeled benefits of the bond was the way time worked when we were inside it. It wasn't exactly slowed down, but when both of us were in the bond, it felt stretched, where an hour in here would only be half of one outside or even less. The time difference ranged quite a bit.

While we bobbed along, we discussed the flight and training, mostly the difference in combat that would take place when we fought in the sky, a subject that was becoming more relevant. Our written studies were taught by Sarah and focused only on styles of fighting. Recently, since we started flying, she had gone into the history of air-based combat and how different each fight could be based on a number of factors such as weather, wind, what was beneath us, and more.

With Umbra being a dragon, she was a dominant force in the sky that couldn't be ignored. Her affinity for frost made her slightly unique compared to anything else that flew, with most creatures taking on an affinity for storms or wind. Most frost dragons stayed well into the north, and there wasn't any history Sarah knew of where a frost dragon had been bonded.

“I need to figure out a way to help you in a fight when we're in the air.” I sighed, bringing up a subject that had been discussed what felt like hundreds of times.

Even without eyes, I could sense her eye roll. Umbra was of the opinion that I should just stay on her back in a fight and let her, a dragon, do the fighting. Still, she didn't ever stop me from trying to think of ways to help.

I knew in later grades, it would be easier to help as my abilities grew, but there had to be something I could do now. Arrows were almost useless on Dragonback with as fast as she flew in the air, that was, unless I was aiming behind us. Otherwise the arrows were actually more dangerous to us, a fact established by testing. Still, the whole idea of just giving up on my main way of fighting didn't sit well. It's what had led me to etching runes on the arrows and my earlier test in the spar.

My starting idea was to create a wide variety of arrows that could help in the air and on the ground, but it took less than a week to throw that idea out. Rune-etched arrows were a pain to make, each one had to be carved in almost perfect detail, and then each type of arrow type had to be tested and reworked until they worked properly, even then they tended not to work the expected way and were most times destroyed in the process of being used.

At times, it had been fur pulling annoyance, but without another person who had made rune arrows with us, I had resolved myself to the process of creating the rune setup for each type of arrow.

For all purposes, the ice arrow had been a big success, and I drifted off in thought as I went over the rune formation. Making the arrows in any amount would be possible now that the formation had been proven to work, but it would take over an hour for each one if I didn't want to rush, and I still had two other types of arrows I wanted to work on.

“Aster, even if the arrows work the way you want, you won't be able to use them in flight except for behind us, and even then, the wind will still be a problem.” Umbra sensed my drifting thoughts and what they were about.

I gave her a mental shrug. “Hopefully I'll find some skills to help with it, or I'll have to wait until my attributes are high enough to account for it, but it's a start.”

After a while, a mental agreement was reached, and we pulled out of the bond. I stretched, feeling my joints pop, then stood, letting my ears twitch off the frost that had built up on them. Around us, an inch-deep set of frost had formed on the grass and rocks thanks to Umbra's Frost Creation skill. It let everyone else think we were meditating, a way to cover for time spent in the bond, a secret that neither of us felt inclined to share.

“I'm going to head over to Kat's tent and see what she thinks of what grade two gives us access to. Did you want to come?” I asked Umbra.

Umbra shook her head, her tail twitching, “I want to go on a night flight before my advancement.”

“If you see any low-level beast, can you bring one back? We need to dry some more meat. We're running low.”

After a mental agreement, she set off, and I headed to Kat's tent, curious about what she would think of the skill points.