He ended up having to wait a little while before rejoining the party. Turns out he'd sort of drifted East a little farther than anticipated while running from the monsters, on account of he was more worried about not getting caught, and dying, or fumbling the threads of power overwhelming, and dying, or running headlong into some other wilderness horror, and dying, to keep track of the position of the Twins. So sue him.

Ulric hated navigating across these godsdamned boulder and moss strewn high lands, there were so few useful landmarks to triangulate with and the dancing suns above only gave you a general bearing. So it was that his orienteering snaffu led to him having come all the way to a set of fjords along the coast, without crossing the paths of his wife's group. After a minute of angrily staring at the Vatyn's white caps and endless horizons, he determined that, having completely fucking missed them, he would need to sit tight and signal with a big smoky fire, the way the Legranel did.

"FUUUCK!!" Ulric shouted across the plateau.

It wasn't reasonable to feel betrayed by having reached the coastline without meeting anyone but then, his day so far hadn't been exactly the most reasonable experience. Godsdamned adventure. Godsdamned huge ass plateau. Godsdamned fucking monsters roaming around like voracious locusts.

Someday, he'd learn to watch his great big mouth, both internal and external because a burst of motion from over his left shoulder was all the warning he got before a sand colored scorpion the size of a Doberman tried to harpoon his face when he turned towards the commotion.

*Crack*

Ulric went over backwards as the barbed stinger punched him in the forehead like a juiced up Barry Bonds. His helmet mashed his face but he would never complain about its saving his thought slug from certain doom.

"Oooof!" his breath escaped him as his back slammed into the sod and he rolled away, and kept rolling, with the pincered terror following with snaps or claws and spearing tail.

He rolled to his feet, the monster ruthlessly closing on him, and accessed his core's strength, a brief explosion of power and speed gaining him distance from his arachnoid assailant, and taking a measurable portion of his stamina with it.

[Surge]

One great leaping backstep took him out of the creature's reach and he got his sword loose from the clever half sheath in time to block a wad of oily venom shot at him from the arched tail. The acrid magenta sludge made him think of battery acid mixed with fruit juice and hoped it wasn't a contact poison because there was definitely a glob on his neck, which he quickly scrubbed off with his gauntleted hand. Mostly. Fuck that stuff was like pine sap! Or Quickcrete, as he learned when he took hold of his sword's hilt and his gauntleted hand stuck, its joints locking in place around the base of the hilt.

Life sure never got old around here. That was about all he had time for idle bullshit before he shifted gears.

[Warrior's Instinct]

[Battle Rhythm]

Calm focus settled over him and a feeling like a metronome keeping time to the furious pace of combat combined with the adrenaline racing through his veins.

Its attempt to blind and smother its prey foiled, the scorpion came on faster than he liked for something with eight dagger tipped legs, serrated razors that snapped like bear traps, and a tail that would simply love to pour acrylic glue spiced with hyper venom into his chest cavity. The chittering cries from its mouth parts put the finishing touch on this little slice of not okay rushing him down.

The soothing, analytical distance of his combat skills were vital to keep his head above the Lord Instinct waters of rage. Together they synchronized to ready him for this knife edge struggle, as they always did. That was useful when a nightmare bastard of a scorpion was barreling down with your death on its skittering mouth pincers. Best part was, Ulric had only recovered about fifteen percent of his mana pool, not having had the opportunity to sit down and rest. He'd have to deal with this cqc and try to avoid using [Surge] unless absolutely necessary.

That proved a worse proposition than he would have liked as the creature massed far more than its size would indicate and he found it's mad assault nearly bowled him over, in spite of his own strength. A claw reached for his leg and he withdrew the shin just out of the snapping reach with a branching back step, bringing his sword from its high guard down and across to hack the offending thing off. Streaming sparks declared that strategy to be a failure, the armored carapace managed to endure Xef'tocht's cutting enchant. The runed sharpness aura from his enchanted weapon had scored a deep gash into the chitinous armor, but hadn't gone through. The scorpion thing was harder than whatever steel Prespang's soldiers used!

A skill he hadn't properly employed in active combat from his class blossomed into his mind and Ulric's core extended his limited magic into the metal of his sword, establishing some kind of circuit throughout the metal. He intercepted the swipe of a claw, batting it aside and felt the surprisingly stiff force behind it fall off sharply, and his blade's edge took on a mild heat shimmer.

[Inpulsa Soak]

At the cost of a small chunk of his mana, the scrabbling monster's attack was dulled and his weapon put off a noticeable warmth. Oh! Oh dear, this was more useful than he'd given it credit. Ulric pulled back and deflected another overhead stab of the venomed barb, the penetrating strike caught with the flat of his sword and another draw from his Ceraunic core stole the impulse from the attack. Even while the jabbing tail slowed, his blade's enchanted edge turned from its usual cyan to a dull red that faded to merely shimmering heat mirage as the scorpion retracted its barb to ready for another attempt to spear him.

The creature must have sensed some measure of risk in further delay because it advanced with heightened aggression, lashing out with pincers and tail and even its legs when he tried to circle it to put those natural weapons at a disadvantage. The eight legs kept it incredibly mobile, turning in place like a tank on treads just as quickly as he could side step, presenting its offensive firepower at all times. Time and again, Ulric found himself on the defensive, having to make sweeping parries and rapid blocks, switching from multiple angles as his multi limbed attacker could make simultaneous attempts to rip into him. Three times a claw almost hooked an arm or leg to drag him off balance before he was able to retreat or deflect it, nearly to the end of his rope under the maddened assault.

All the while, the circuit of Ceraunic magic from his core stole energy from the clash of weapons and added a portion of it to his own as heat that began to draw blackened lines where the blade met chitinous exoskeleton. Definitely he'd been sleeping on this [Ceraunic Knight] ability's usefulness.

A magenta dripping barb lanced in towards his leg and he side stepped, his balance sure in the dancing steps of the Elves and Ulric put his back into the first real opening for a counterstroke. Xef'tocht's unreal cutting power, heightened by the visibly radiant heat held now by its edge, parted the armorclad tail, just behind its bulbous venom gland sending the scorpion's most dangerous threat spinning high into the air, a spurt of vitreous green ichor coating his armored skirt as it did.

"SCREEEEE!!"

Earsplitting screech, like nails dragged across a chalkboard through a loudspeaker made him flinch. The enemy wasn't advancing though, it retreated out of his reach, claws withdrawn defensively. Ulric wasn't about to let the bastard off that easy, not and let the gathered energy within his sword dissipate until he could no longer defeat the fantastically hard exoskeleton.

Yelling fiercely, he burned his strength to finish the creature before it could flee or regroup from the loss of its potent stinger.

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[Surge]

A diagonal dash to the left took him to an angle and Ulric's upstroke removed the front most leg at ankle height before continuing through the leg behind it close to its body, its shift away from his blow preventing the arachnoid creature from being bisected. Ulric backstepped from the dual pincered attempt to grab his arm and face, even as he twisted his wrists to bring the weapon in a circular motion, catching those claws from below. Feeling the flow of the monster's movements, knowing this was his chance, he poured the last of his Ceraunic energy into a combination, electromagnetic force gathered into the cutting reverse edge of his sword.

[Maxwell's Parry]

The burst of charged repulsion pushed the murderous pincers high above the creature's ground hugging thorax, and Ulric pulled his sword's hilt back to his shoulder, lining Xef'tocht parallel to the ground, tip aligned with the gnashing mouthparts.

[Surge]

The combination finished as he lunged into a stab, driving his enchanted blade through the creature's snapping chelicerae to the sword's leaf-shaped guard, and the heavy monster's limbs flailed as its brains fried inside its armor. Ulric ignored the aimless battering of carapace to wrench the blade back and forth, tearing apart the innards and guaranteeing the beast was killed for good.

Dead weight threatened to drag him down as the scorpion thudded to the ground, heavy corpse suddenly inert. Reeling from the sudden expense of his reserves, Ulric fell back a step and went down when his rearmost leg went jelly on him. He hit on his scraped hip and cursed viciously for a few minutes, in between panting breaths.

A whole group of notorious Greater beasts felled without a scratch and here he was damned near killed to death by a bug. He'd have laughed if he wasn't too busy being relieved.

Close, Ulric, he told himself, watching the bright lime colored hemolymph of the scorpion drip from its tail and mutilated cephalothorax.

Too close. It was a reminder of the innate danger of this land. Things came from ambush, far stronger, far faster than they had any right to be, with an instinct to kill that was close to insanity. There was no safety out in the wilderness of Varda, nothing was guaranteed in this primal place.

Bitterly, Ulric mused for a moment, what if there were two of them? Guess I'll just die, he decided. If that monster had gotten a clever bone, it would have splashed his shoulders and legs with that incredibly fast setting venom paste. His hand was still locked to the hilt of his sword. Just a little of that shit on his shoulders and it would have prevented him from putting his weapon to use. A bit on his knee or ankle would have crippled his mobility. Either way, he'd have been pretty fucking toast.

The sense of victory from earlier that day was gone, replaced by the awareness that Varda punished mistakes. Especially the ones you hadn't known you'd made. Slowly, Ulric pried his gauntleted fingers from around the hilt of his weapon and then went over and collected the head sized venom gland and forearm length stinger. What a gnarly critter. Gigantic bugs were now at the top of Ulric's most hated monster type. Nothing with that many legs should ever come in a party sized package.

With care to avoid too much damage, Ulric split the carapace with his sword, it was difficult, but less difficult now than when it was alive. Probably reinforced through some kind of magical shenanigans, as so many of these things seemed to be. The core he beheld, pulled from deep inside the corpse, was a whirl of lime and magenta and big as his fist. A large core, compared to the size of the creature. Maybe a Greater. He'd have to ask Taipan when he saw her. In any case, Ulric had to start a fire and all that running, survival juice fueled battle rage, and near dying bullshit put him in a mood for roasted crab.

Highlands scrub grass wasn't bad, as tinder goes. Some dead scrub branches were a little bit suspect but he found one that was sound enough for a hand drill and spindle and what's the good in having a young body if you weren't going to use it to make a friction fire? Five minutes of spinning wood got him the ember and a tuft of grass granted him that old friend of humanity. Five minutes of adding fuel later and Ulric put the legs of his assailant over the coals of the fire and then draped the whole thing in a piece of damp sod, careful to leave some gaps between coals and sod so as not to suffocate the flame. Billowing white smoke rolled up into Vatyn's trade winds, and Ulric sat back, sword across his lap in case anything else cropped up that needed deading, listening to the pop of steam escaping carapace, accompanied by the calming music of a fire while he waited.

Wonder of wonders, the Plainsfolk knew what they were doing, Ulric noted mildly observing a movement on the horizon. He'd been resting for a couple of hours, maintaining a high smoke volume from his now bigger rock pit and there, just over a short hump in the terrain, Taipan led her caravan of tramps, slowly, towards his stone lined bonfire. They were a good few kilometers out, just specks on the landscape. Ulric reckoned it was at least a couple of rounds of the suns above before they made landfall on his camp.

Plateau scorpion, as it happened, was good eating. A little stringy, a little smokey, but not far off from a rich lobster flavor. His water bag was nearly empty, and he’d probably go ahead and find a little rock spring, of which there were not a few on this highland, the aquifers kept full by frequent rains. Thought was followed by deed with that regard and he located a spring large enough to submerge his head within a half a round of the Twins' dance. In addition to the refill of his waterbag he’d take the chance to scrub scorpion guts off his armor and body. The venom-glue was not a contact poison, fortunately but it was somewhat volatile and Ulric felt some muscle tremors in his legs and forearms that promised a powerful neurological component to whatever suite of toxins in that secretion. Taipan would be thrilled at having a new pharmaceutical toy to add to her collection.

Munching thoughtfully on the delicious meat hidden inside those razored pedipalps, Ulric couldn't help but lament the lack of butter in his life. It was a gross oversight. Just because he was roving out on a trek of revenge and war didn't mean he had to do it like a damned savage. A nice, vacuum sealed tub, that's what he'd work on one of these evenings.

Ears twitching slightly at the sight of him, those ever impressive emerald and bronze flecked eyes taking in the cleaned monster husk impassively, Taipan guided her crew into camp. Stiff from the long ride, his partner climbed down from the seat of the wagon and stretched gingerly while the few Elves well enough went to help tend the draft animals. Ulric rose and gave them a hand, filling feed bags with grain and securing them over snuffling muzzles of the dim, horseish creatures.

They had the appearance of a Clydesdale but with shorter muzzles and broader foreheads. A third eye in the center of said forehead also set them apart. The thickly muscled haunches, fetlocks, and ankles of the animals, terminating in heavy hooves were very similar to a horse. The beasts had a thick coat of wooly fur and each had that curious brown and white piebald blend of coloration. Fortunately, the enormous draft animals were less skittish than horses, probably because they could imbue themselves with a potent burst of Caelum and run atop the air, escaping into the skies for a few minutes. They also turned invisible when threatened. That combination of evasiveness and stealth made corralling and rounding the fuckers up when they got spooked a near total exercise in futility. You just had to put out food and wait for them to get hungry and come to you.

Speaking of getting spooked, some of the wagons appeared to be in rough shape and, at Ulric's questioning glance, Taipan favored him with a terse, "There was a burrowing variant of a [Steel Eagle], hidden beneath the valley floor. It was nearly starved and came out ravenous when the nursery vacated the dell."

He followed the baleful glance over her shoulder to see a carcass strapped atop one of the wagons. Seems he wasn't the only one ambushed. Glad to see that Varda knows how to share her bounty of nonsense with others.

"Were any harmed?" Ulric asked.

The amazon huntress signed "Nope." and he nodded, without further inquiry. It was handled, nothing more needed be said on the matter.

In a similar vein the tall dusky beauty indicated the body of the scorpion with a raise of her fine eyebrows asking the question with her expression alone.

"Dinner." Ulric responded simply.

The rueful giggle as she looked over the remains of his kill made him smile as well. It sort of went without saying that their meal had tried very hard to make sure that eater and eatee were reversed. Taipan sniffed the smear of magenta tar along the tail spike and her nose scrunched against its acrid sweetness. Then she carefully examined the core of the beast, the swirls of latent mana within the facets of biocrystal faintly iridescent.

"A fine kill, Glade Chief," Praised the seasoned veteran of Vardan big game hunting, "I have not seen this one before, but I have slain others of similar kind and they are always a challenge. The barrage of attacks from multiple angles are difficult in melee and the fiends normally do not engage unless they can ensure a close range ambush."

Good to know that his walking encyclopedia of virulent fauna had some working knowledge of the local critters. He decided to pick her brain a little, now that he'd gotten the "horses" taken care of. Taipan always had fun stories associated with her ecological surveys.

The other Aes'r had pretty much taken care of themselves, their rings becoming more self-sufficient as they convalesced. It was about two weeks since he'd rescued the first group of Legranel from Port Edunshire. It was only a week and a half since the freeing of the victims of Horrorville, but they were coming along well. Gentle questions asked of the residents had revealed that the farthest back anyone could date the places Prosper had created for the synthesis of their Aes'r Bane was two years, in the case of the swamp floated concentration camp, and about eight months for Port Edunshire. It could have been longer for the bog riding place, but no one had lived or spoken to any who had lived longer than two years past under the attentions of the inhuman fuckers that had been running the place.

"You say it shot the venom from a distance and that it hardens rapidly?" Inquired his partner, who had noticed the magenta encrusted gauntlet.

"Yep," Confirmed Ulric, showing her the smear on his neck as well, "Dries like acrylic fastener and near as hard as glass, which is super impressive for a natural compound. That venom gland must be the bug equivalent of a chemical refinery." He noted.

Amazingly enough, his Sylvan bride tasted a very small bit of the murdercrete and said with surety, "Mostly a paralytic. Hints of brain fog, and perhaps hallucination. Hmmm…" She hummed before taking a few extra sniffs, "And a heart's rhythm interference component. It was a more potent cocktail than its Southern cousins."

Ulric had learned long since not to underestimate his Shadow but she was stretching his incredulity now.

"Are you trying to tell me you can taste different types of chemical function in toxins?!" Ulric demanded.

Her head tilted in surprise and her lilting voice asked, "You cannot?"

Ulric crossed his hands in an "X" to reject that notion.

"No way. What? That's like…something only a wolfhound can do, or something." Ulric told her.

She was now visibly confused.

"But! Your glade, the herbs, roots, and other plant components you brought from there are all highly toxic. How did you know their effects when you gathered them, which ones could be prepared safely as food when first you harvested the riches of the glade?" His Shadow asked.

"I mean, I did skin contact tests, microdosing tests, and gradual edibility tests. The ones that smelled and, or, tasted toxic or if I never saw an animal eating, I determined by grinding it up, mixing it with lard, and using it to poison arrows so I could see how the wounded prey responded." Ulric told her.

How else would he know? Many toxic compounds had distinct flavors but that was just a general thing, like bitterness being associated with alkalinity and acidity being associated with sourness. Being able to taste test a poison like a fine wine and come up with the individual toxins and their effects was outrageous.

The Deep Woods scout steeped in decades of wood lore covered her eyes with her hand and her ears twitched hard, once, a sign of pique.

"What?" Ulric asked.