The trees shuttered as a gust of wind tore up the side of the rocky cliff, uncaring towards the man who was jogging along the ledge. Arthur had been at it for a half hour now, unsure if he made the right choice in his search for the landslide. He was unsure ten or so minutes ago, but kept going, figuring he was already in for the penny. Turning back would make the whole trip a waste.

As the next gust of wind shuttered the vegetation around him and Arthur slowed his jog to a walk. The next moment he paused to figure out his position. That was one of his largest issues currently, the location of the landslide. He had taken the direction when he first left, southeast. The problem was as he progressed; he wasn’t sure how close it was or if he had passed it by.

He let out a sigh and took off his pack. He was tired from the jog and apt to make a mistake if he continued blindly charging along. It would be best if he rested for a while before he resumed his jog. With that in mind, he pulled out his map of the trails and looked around at the land that surrounded him. A few minutes later he had a good idea of where he was. Roughly three miles southeast from where he started.

“I’ve made good time at least,” He stated as he took note of the terrain to come.

There was a major road about another mile or so to the southeast. If he didn’t find the source of the landslide by then, he would probably have to hitchhike his way back into town. With nothing to do about it, he gathered his gear and continued his trek.

Arthur moved along the ledge, on the lookout for the quickest way down. From the looks of things, he would have to go a mile or two out of his way before he finally found an escape from the sheer cliff between him and the road. Accepting the inevitability of the detour, he settled his pack on his back and began his hike. He would walk for a while more before he started to jog once again. His body needed some more time to rest.

However, with his next step, the ground started to shift below him. Arthurs’s eyes widened, and he looked around for something to grab a hold of. His feet tried to push off the sliding land, but they found no purchase upon which to thrust. The earth fell and Arthur soon found himself sliding along a tunnel of earth and stone, doing his best to try to slow if not stop himself. The issue was the surrounding ground was all mud, wet from the recent flooding.

The next instant he was thrust out into the open sky, forty or so feet in the air. Time seemed to slow as he tried to process the nearing trees. His hands thrust out as he reached for a nearby branch. He managed to hold for a second, shifting and slowing his momentum before he was tugged off. Unfortunately, it also sent him into a spin, the world around him moved nearly indiscernibly.

His side crashed against a branch and on reflex he tried to hold on. All that he managed, however, was right his momentum into a straight freefall. His feet crashed against the ground and he rolled, the last fall a good deal shorter than he feared. Still the pain in his knees and forearms told him he was far luckier than he could have been.

The man took a moment to feel his body. Cautious of anything that was overly sore. Once that was done, he looked back towards the direction of the cliff, noticing the weird tunnel that the rain clearly eroded into the earth. From below it looked far higher than he previously thought.

“I’m not sure if I was lucky or not,” He mumbled to himself as he brought his gaze down toward the forest around him.

As his eyes began to adjust to the shade of the trees he noticed a few pairs of eyes staring back at him from the shadows of the cliff. On reflex, his hand fell to his side arm as he slowly backed up. The eyes began to multiply, growing by the second until there were at least a dozen pairs.

A terror filled his heart as his hand pulled his side arm out of the holster. One of the eyes moved out of the shadows and revealed a large, dog sized, blue rodent. The creature slowly moved towards Arthur as he took another step back. As seconds passed more of these rodents stalked out of the shadows and the fear in Arthur’s heart deepened. It looked like he was being hunted by creatures he’d never seen let alone heard of before.

A quick aim and Arthur released a series of shots into the lead rat. The creature fell and across the forest a loud screech was heard. Arthur fought the disorienting sound as dozens more of the beasts started to fall in all around him. Arthur had hoped to scare the creatures away, not call out to everyone in the forest. In pure terror he spun as his hand holstered his side arm. The next instant he took off into a sprint.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

The weight of the pack on his back registered with each step he took, and he contemplated dropping it for more speed. He thought better of it, however, given his extra ammo and other necessities were in there. If he were to lose it, it would make survival all that much more difficult.

He heard a squeak, and a small stream of water shot a few feet from his head, blasting bark off a nearby tree. That nearly brought him up short. What kind of creature was able to shoot such a fine stream of pressurized water? His instincts, however, drove him to continue to run. He could not take on these creatures. Not by himself.

** **

Falreath looked from the wall of sharpened wooden sticks they had erected towards the forest Byung had entered. Though it wasn’t much, the semi-circular barricade would hopefully give them some sort of edge in the battle to come.

Behind him Eldridge continued to place the rest of the sticks they had, further fortifying their defenses. He sighed and walked back to his friend, having little to do till Byung returned with more branches.

Still, Falreath felt there had to be something more he could do. He had managed to heal Eldridge with one of his new skills after all. Following his intuition, he brought up the Freki screen once more. He scanned over it, in case there was anything that stood out. He had roar II, light II, and intuition I. Setting aside intuition and roar as he had no idea what those could do, he focused on light. His mind tore through the instinctual knowledge he gained when he unlocked the skill earlier.

It was a skill of purity, of purification. Could he use it to erect a barrier against the rats, could he purify an area of a type of creature? A part of him thought it was possible, though apparently Eldridge had thought it was possible to control a dead bear, so he was a bit wary of this line of thought.

“I’m going to try something, it would probably be best if you took a step back.” Falreath said with slight trepidation as he finally gave into his gut.

He walked to the middle of the now closing circle of pointed sticks. Eldridge looked at him then carefully stepped over the short wall they were making.

“You’re not going to destroy our hard work, are you?” Eldridge half joked as he turned to watch his friend.

“Hopefully not,” Falreath said stoically as his hands started to glow in that familiar white light. The glow started to fade into his hands as Falreath moved the xenoid through his body. Below his feet, a faint white light started to materialize in the familiar form of a twin circle. The circle slowly grew in mass until it covered most of the spikes that surrounded the man.

Falreath instinctively knew his image of the manipulation would matter as much as the words and connection he used. So, as he focused on moving the xenoid into the skill, he thought back to that night. To the creatures that attacked him. The large white rodent-like creatures that resembled giant rats. To him, the only thing that came to mind was the cat that stalked the rat. The one slips through the night, the predator to its prey.

With that thought in mind, Falreath wrote “The line shall hold!” His image, one of giant cats holding the line as the defensive rush tried to crash through. A last push of power and the circle suddenly solidified with a pulse of light.

He opened his eyes to watch a transparent yellow-white wall slowly grow up from the edge of the circle. He followed the growth with his gaze until it closed into a dome above his head. The moment the dome closed, an apparition of a lion formed in the air above him and gave a roar so loud it echoed for seconds to come.

“That was awesome!” Eldridge shouted as he pensively walked towards the outside of the circle and slowly reached out to touch it. As his left hand encountered the wall of light, it passed through as if it was nothing. “What is this supposed to do?” He asked as he stepped through the dome and turned to look outside.

“If I did it right, it should be a kind of ward against rodents.” Falreath replied as he too looked through the dome of light.

“Did you hea…” Byung yelled as he popped out of the forest above the landslide. “What is that?” He muttered as he thoughtlessly dropped the bundle of branches he had cut.

“Our fort!” Eldridge yelled. “Quickly come inside, it should help protect us.”

Byung shook his head and began to carefully make his way down the loose earth. “You know, before today I was perfectly happy not knowing about this,” He said as he pointed to the dome of light.

A screech louder than any they’ve heard yet echoed around them. Everyone turned to face the top of the landslide as fear attacked the edges of their thoughts. Before Byung could react, a well-built man burst out of the tree line and crashed into him. The two men flew for a few feet before they slammed to the loose dirt and rolled down the hill.

A second passed before the treeline broke, dozens of giant blue rats burst out of the forest as if a wave of living water descended upon them. Falreath took in a deep breath, the air thick with moisture, and tightened his grip on his street sign. A few of the rats glowed a deeper blue as water condensed above their heads. Intense streams of water started to rip along the ground, dirt clouds filled the air, before they slammed into the dome of light.