Deidra sits in the room, multiple maps splayed out on their table. She shifts the map as she sips on her cup of tea. The opening of the door tears her attention away from them at towards the surprised Crimson.

“Well, I wasn’t expecting to see you here,” Crimson admits as he sits down next to her. “You usually don’t choose to relax.”

“Well, this is research. But it is rather relaxing for me.” She admits with a shrug.

“And what exactly are you researching?” He says as he looks over the maps. “Drawings?”

“No? Well, Yes but actually…” Deidra tries to reason. “They are drawings of the landscape. Like where Stena is in relation to noticeable land marks or other cities. Fey offered to get them for me after I questioned her about them. Very adamantly as well.”

“Oh, those are maps then right?” He questions as he grabs one. “I’ve never actually seen one.”

“You’re correct, these are all the ones Stena had in the armory,” She informs him. “I wanted to discern where Stena was compared to my previous…location. My travels didn’t really leave me with a lot of time or information to orient myself. It’s a miracle that I even found this place to be honest.”

“Well, can you teach me? Probably something I’ll need to know.” Crimson reasons.

“Of course,” She agrees, grabbing the map from him. “It’s rather easy if you have one of these on hand, or if you memorize it like I’m trying to.”

She begins pointing out important locations, along with the drawings used for identifying said locations. Crimson is quickly drawn in as she explains the ins and outs of map reading.

“And here we are,” She says as she points towards the middle of one of the biggest maps. “We are surprisingly closed off from most other civilization, guess that’s why we haven’t seen many other people outside of Stena.”

Crimson nods and begins looking through the map, noticing one of the larger villages near Stena. Thinking that maybe it was the one they visited he goes to ask Deidra but sees her staring intently at one of the smaller maps, a distant look on her face.

He leans over and sees that the map is clearly older than any of the other ones. The only location on the map being something called Dead Kingdom, the area it covers being significantly larger than anything else he’d seen in the last few hours.

“What is that?” He asks. “Anywhere important?”

“Depends on when you’re asking.” She says as she puts the map away.

Crimson remains silent at her answer, not wanting to open what seems like an old wound.

“I never actually asked but how long were you traveling to Stena?” He asks as he settles back into his chair. “I only had to travel for like…four days, and I was asleep for most of them.”

“I honestly don’t know,” Deidra says with a hollow chuckle. “It was a bit of a blur. Waking up in the middle of the night to keep moving was a regular thing, made it hard to keep track of days.”

Deciding to instead stop this whole line of conversation, Crimson takes up another map this one with a massive blank spot in the middle.

“What’s this?” He asks as he hands it to Deidra.

“I believe that is the Crevice. I believe we’ll be passing through these towns,” She says as she puts another map in front of him. “These two have me worried though, they don’t have names but they seem rather large. The mountain range shouldn’t be a problem though, if Navi and Trace know the landscape as well as they should at least.”

She points at the map, two close settlements along a large river and just beneath a mountain range.

“I was told by one of the smiths I asked that they are ruins of an older civilization, though this map is rather old so it could be outdated.” She says as she points towards an initial at the bottom of the page.

“Hopefully Navi and Trace know what they’re doing.” Crimson says as he looks at the map.

“I’m sure they do,” She says as she hands pours herself another cup of tea, filling his after. “They wouldn’t be senior members if they didn’t.”

Crimson nods in agreement as he leans into his chair, intent on studying the maps.

=======================================

Waking up from her nap Mon stretches as she walks out of the library, the incense of the forge drifting into the armory. Breathing it in she walks into the forge, intent on either fighting something to eat or someone to annoy. Her eyes quickly lock on Echo who’s busy talking to a fellow smith. Seeing her opportunity, she crouches onto all fours and begins stalking through the forge. As she creeps closer Echo had finished talking to the other Smith and had begun walking towards the stairs exiting the forge.

Staying out of her line of sight Mon continues to creep a few yards behind her as Echo enters the lobby. She opens the large doors heading to the courtyard, Mon slipping through the gap as she opens it.

The still oblivious Echo walks towards the racks of training equipment. She pulls out a rather small hammer and begins swinging it lazily, trying not to strain her bandages. Just as Mon is about to initiate her attack, another group approaches Echo. With three males and two females, they were clearly competent. Each of them having seen combat.

“You’re one of the hounds right?” One of the females ask, scooting close to Echo much to her dismay. “What happened to you though?”

Echo scoots away from her quickly, the smith clearly not liking the close contact. Despite Echo’s obvious discomfort they continue to close in and ask constant questions.

“What happened at the refinery? What’s with that scar? Why aren’t you speaking?” They begin to rattle off.

Just as Echo is about to turn in leave she bumps into Mon.

“Oh, Mon!” She says in a startled tone, her hands fidgeting with the maul.

Before she can say anything else Mon steps in front of her, stopping the approaching group. The group stops in surprise, not having noticed her despite them having been looking in her direction.

“Oh, you must be her teammate!” One of the guys says as he steps forward, the action causing Mon’s claws to appear.

“Leave.” She says, her eyes dilating and breathing becoming shallow.

One of the girls go to argue before she’s stopped by her teammates. They all quickly take their leave, easily seeing they aren’t wanted. As they walk off Mon’s claws disappear and her eyes shift back to their relaxed state.

“You ok?” She turns and asks Echo.

“Yeah, they weren’t doing anything,” Echo explains. “I just don’t do well with new people.”

“I know. You haven’t told me why though…doesn’t matter, feel like training still?” She asks as she returns to her playful self.

“Sure, I wasn’t planning on going to hard though,” Echo admits with a shrug. “Just trying to get the blood moving.”

“I just woke up so I’ll go slow, good dodge practice.” She explains as she sways to the middle of the arena, waiting for Echo.

With a smile and a shake of her head Echo squares up to Mon and begins the bout by swinging her hammer in a wide arc, easily dodge by Mon.

“How’d you know I wasn’t good with people?” Echo asks as another one of her strikes is swiftly dodged.

“You always jump when you someone touches you,” Mon explains. “Not to mention any time you’re alone you try to look as small as possible

“How do you notice that?” Echo asks in confusion. “Where do you even see me alone?”

“I sometimes just stalk people…an old habit really, not to mention its really entertaining seeing how long it takes them to notice,” Mon admits as she jumps another swing. “As for how I noticed, its similar to how prey acts. They jump at every unknown and are hesitant to interact with anything.”

“So I’m prey?” Echo asks, her attitude plummeting.

“When you’re alone,” Mon says as she sidesteps a halfhearted swing. “But not when you’re in a group. So if anything you’re more like a pack hunter.”

“A pack hunter?” Echo questions, her vigor slightly returned.

“Yeah, you’re a lot like Crimson in that way. But he’s more like that in a fight than anything else.” Mon explains.

Echo thinks back to all the times she overreacted to meeting new people, the most recent being almost jumping into the forge after she met Smith.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

“That’s accurate at least,” She agrees. “I’m not used to being alone, and the few times I have been…well; they haven’t gone well.”

“Being alone doesn’t seem to be fun,” Mon agrees. “It took me a while to get used to Fey not being around.”

“Seems you’re used to it now,” Echo remarks as she ducks a sudden kick from Mon. “Hey!”

“Oops…” Mon says as she backs up. “Sorry, got carried away.”

Echo shakes her head as she feels a bit of pain embed through her body. Walking over to the weapon rack she places the maul down and attempts to turn just for her to hear the ripping of her bandages. Slightly lifting her shirt, she sees the bandages covering her ribs have ripped open. She bites her lip as the pain grows, the air irritating the wound. She looks up to see Mon hurriedly rushing towards her, but Echo stops her by putting up her hand. Carefully undoing the knot in the bandaging, Echo releases them. The pain is immense for a mere moment before dulling back to a constant ebb.

“They needed to come off anyway,” She explains, easing Mon’s worry. “Gotta love Stena blood, wounds like this would usually be a lot worse. Still, I don’t think it’s gonna be a pretty scar.”

“At least its healing,” Mon says, looking at the fresh skin covering a decent portion of Echo’s lower right side. “I’ve never seen anything able to stop her flames, so the fact it even looks like skin is a good sign. The change in color is a better outcome for what happened.”

“You’re not wrong,” Echo agrees, swatting away Mon’s poking finger as she does. “It’ll be another week before I feel comfortable to fight though.”

“Good, I’m sure Crimson and Deidra are eager to get to training,” Mon suggests, attempting to poke past Echo’s defenses as she does. “We need to work on teamwork mid fight anyway. Though your shotcalling is great overall, we still need practice on working with each other.”

“Why would my shotcalling matter?” Echo questions.

“You tend to lead us,” Mon answers as if it was obvious. “Figured you’d have noticed that.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Echo denies quickly. “I think Crimson takes that more than anything.”

“In our day to day maybe, he seems to take care of most of the boring stuff,” Mon agrees. “But in a fight you usually take over. Plus, you can talk to us…without having to talk which helps. Have you lead people before or something, or are you just really good at it?”

“I…had something similar to this I guess,” Echo answers as she thinks about it. “But I never really ‘lead’ them.”

“Then maybe I’m just new to it,” Mon suggests with a shrug. “I’ve never had a team.”

“Yeah, that’s probably it.” Echo agrees as they begin walking to the main door of Stena.

“Should we head back to the room? It is late,” Mon suggests, looking at the dipping sun. “I’m hoping Deidra already has dinner ready.”

“Yeah, let’s go,” Echo concedes, her hunger and exhaustion catching up to her. “Hey, do you know why Deidra chooses to cook rather than us all just going to the canteen?”

“I think she likes to,” Mon determines. “She always has a smile on her face when she cooks.”

Echo nods, not really thinking too much of it as they enter the hall. Walking into their room, they immediately smell the delicious scent of a home cooked meal. They also see a passed out Crimson leaning back in his chair and a content looking Deidra looking over a parchment of paper.

“Maps?” Echo asks as she sits down, already staring at the steaming pot in the corner of the room.

“Yes, and it’ll be ready in a little bit.” Deidra answers quickly, noticing the anticipation on both of their faces.

“What are maps?” Mon asks as she prods at the paper, slightly ripping it before Deidra shoos her away.

“You’ve never heard of a map?” Echo questions.

Mon shakes her head as she sniffs at the pot of food, the growling of her stomach confirming her hunger.

“How did you manage to get around? Tell me you didn’t just stumble your way to Stena.” Echo pleads.

“Of course not, I followed Fey’s scent here,” Mon answers as if that’s normal. “That’s how I usually get around.”

“Fey was content with that being your only navigational capability?” Deidra asks as she puts down the map and heads towards the food.

“She taught me everything I really needed to know, but she didn’t teach me that,” Mon answers as she hovers over Deidra’s shoulder. “So I guess I didn’t need to know, it worked out didn’t it?”

“I guess, but you know she’s not infallible right?” Echo tries to explain. “There could be other important stuff she forgot to teach you.”

“Yeah, I know. But that hasn’t put my life in danger yet,” She argues with a shrug. “She did forget to teach me how to cut my hair though, that was a shaggy few years before I figured it out.”

“You didn’t cut your hair for how long?” Deidra looks at her suddenly. “How would you even fight without it trimmed?”

“I could cut it, but I only ever did it with my claws. That hurt a lot though, luckily I eventually learned from watching my uncle,” Mon explains. “Probably the only thing he was good for.”

“Your uncle taught you nothing else?” Deidra questions as she places the meals in front of Mon and Echo, the broth’s smell drawing both of them in.

“Nope.” Mon answers as she begins draining her broth.

“Well, that’s irresponsible.” She says, lightly shaking Crimson awake so he could eat as well.

“Fey didn’t like it either.” Mon says as she finishes the bowl, Deidra quickly replacing it with a full one.

Crimson looks up from his broth, the conversation not processing in his head.

“What’d I miss?” He asks.

“Mon’s lesser uncle and her lack of knowledge of maps.” Deidra answers.

“Oh, wasn’t he the one that inducted you?” Crimson asked groggily.

“Yeah.” Mon answers bluntly.

“Wouldn’t that be something else?” Echo asks with a slight confusion.

“Nope,” Mon answers again, then looks ups with an excited look in her eyes. “Echo said she’d be ready to go in a few days. We can get our teamwork down and finally hunt some stuff!”

“I said a week not a few days.” Echo corrects.

“Same thing.” Mon waves off.

“No it isn’t.” Echo says as she finishes her bowl.

“Either way, it’s good we will get the chance to improve as a team,” Deidra interrupts before the banter continues. “We still need to have some type of cohesion before exiting the safety of this area.”

“We already have decent teamwork; we really just need experience I think.” Crimson suggests, burping slightly with a content stomach.

“Not exactly easy to get, maybe we can head back into the forest and look for another monster?” Echo suggests. “I’d just be worried about us being injured before having to head out for months.”

Everyone nods at the caution, the thought of starting off on the back foot not appealing.

“What if we spar with one of the other teams?” Crimson suggests, recalling the groups he’d seen as they’d returned from the refinery. “I’m sure we could find one willing to go against us, and it’s definitely less dangerous than fighting an actual monster.”

Everyone thinks about it, the ideal filling all of their needs without leaving much room for error.

“It would help with teamwork, especially since we’d be fighting intelligent opponents,” Deidra says with a nod. “I approve. As fast as Crimson is progressing, he doesn’t last long enough for me to improve.”

“Ouch, really hitting him where it hurts,” Echo comments with a snicker. “How’s your pride doing ranger?”

“I’ve been learning how to use it for less than a month,” Crimson defends himself quickly. “She’s probably been doing it since birth or something so my pride is more than fine.”

“He isn’t wrong,” Deidra confirms. “And he is advancing surprisingly quickly for his lack of experience.”

“So who’re we fighting?” Mon asks, her attention to the current discussion waning. “I saw this one guy with two shields, I want to fight him.”

“I suggest we take whomever is willing,” Deidra responds. “Less time to prepare would train us better in the wild.”

Mon pouts with a frown but remains quiet.

“I guess we have to wait for Echo to recover then,” Crimson says, finishing the conversation. “Hurry up will you.”

Echo throws him a sarcastic thumbs up. Deidra begins retrieving the bowls, Mon begrudgingly offering hers, while everyone prepares to sleep. Just as they are about to settle down for the night they all feel the familiar vibration of Echo’s speech.

“What did you ask Grunt?” She asks, the light from the chandelier washing over everyone.

“Oh, we forgot to tell you two.” Crimson realizes as he sits up.

“You forgot to tell them,” Mon corrects as she pokes her head out of her bunk. “We agreed for you to do it.”

“Do you just come up with these imaginary conversations?” Crimson asks annoyed.

“No, it’s just assumed.” Mon explains, her tail accentuating her words.

“Whatever,” He says, not bothering to argue. “Grunt said he’d talk to one of the senior members about it, and that he’d heard of smaller groups sometimes attempt to steal Stena territory. He referred me to Vulture to ask anything else.”

“At least we’ve relayed the information.” Deidra confirms, relief evident in her voice.

“Did you ask Vulture anything?” Echo asks curiously.

“Yeah, mainly about basic stuff,” Crimson answers. “Most of it is up to the team in question, but she said bring any important information to the top of the staircase directly. She also mentioned some of the more dangerous groups that we should watch for.”

“Those being?” Echo asks, her interests peaked.

“Two of the groups were some type of purists…that they call Purists. They really hate monsters, and apparently that includes us.” He says, his arms making a collecting motion. “And another group they call Mutts, supposedly they attach monster parts to themselves.”

“Mutts?” Echo questions, her vibration stronger than usual.

“Yeah, she said they were probably the most dangerous,” He relays. “Those two tend to keep each other busy according to her, but it’s possible we’ll run into them.”

“Yeah.” Echo agrees, tracing the scar along her neck.

“You okay?” Crimson asks, seeing her discomfort.

“Yeah, but I really advise not fighting those…things,” She says in a cautious tone. “They don’t always kill Stena members.”

“Did they-“ Deidra starts just for another vibration to cut her off.

“No!” She denies quickly. “I’ve just heard things, none of them good.”

“Any idea why they keep them?” Mon asks curiously. “It doesn’t seem like a good idea.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s how they attach…the pieces,” She says slowly. “They need Stena blood, so they keep them alive as a constant source.”

“That’s barbaric.” Deidra says angrily.

“We drink blood for power.” Crimson reminds her in a deadpan expression.

“We drink the blood of monsters, and dead ones at that.” She snaps back.

Crimson holds his hands up, not arguing with her point.

“How do they do that though? They don’t have a mark.” Mon asks, pointing at the dark handprint on her throat.

“They do it through infusions rather than a mark, it doesn’t always work,” Echo explains. “But when it does, it allows them to use the pieces they attached.”

“Well, that’s descriptive.” Crimson comments.

“How often does it work?” Deidra questions. “I’d like to know how many of the Mutts we will have to deal with at a time should we run across them.”

“Rarely.” Echo answers with a half-hearted shrug.

“And if it fails?” Deidra continues.

“Same thing that happens with monster blood,” Echo answers. “Violent, deadly mutations.”

“Well at least most of their numbers don’t make it there,” Mon says with a flick of her ears. “That’s good.”

“Still, even one of those would be especially deadly,” Deidra cautions. “An extra limb is advantage enough, a monster limb even more so.”

“It’s not just limbs,” Echo reveals. “Sometimes its internal structures, like eyes or something.”

“I guess we’ll just have to cut it out if we come across one like that.” Mon recommends with a flick of her claws.

“That’s all you,” Crimson offers with a shake of his head. “I think I’ll skip the removal of parts from another person.”

Mon sticks her tongue out at Crimson’s lack of approval before looking back to the others excitedly.

“Oh, we even know when we get to stop being hounds.” She says proudly.

Both Deidra and Echo look up to her expectantly at the announcement.

“It’s whenever the senior members can’t control us,” She relays. “Whenever that will be.”

“Well that was informative, truly a spring of information.” Echo says with a shake of her head.

“Well that’s what she said.” Mon says with a cross of her arms.

“Nearly word for word I’m afraid,” Crimson reinforces. “Seems that strength equals command.”

“We’ll get there, eventually,” Deidra announces optimistically. “Now I believe I’ll be heading to bed; it is rather late.”

Murmurs of agreement and good nights sound as the room grows dark.