The Incandescent Fox.
A Warden-ranked threat that should have torn them to shreds, lay steaming on the forest floor. The clearing was a wreck of scorched earth, slick mud, and shattered rune-stones.
Kaitri's team stood in a loose, exhausted circle around the corpse with their chests heaving. They were covered in soot and sweat.
Varik's Tachi was already wiped clean and sheathed and was kneeling at the creature's nape. He worked with a surprising, almost surgical precision, his own blade slicing deep.
"Thanks for the help, Kaitri," Varik panted, digging his fingers into the wound. "You cut really close to the Momento Sinew." He grunted, pulling a long, fibrous, and faintly glowing strand free. He held it up… it was their first real prize.
He sighed, tossing the sinew to Hunter, who quickly stored it in a preservation bag. "Shame it didn't drop a Momento Coin, though," Varik grumbled, kicking the fox's cooling carcass. "I would have loved a weapon or an armour."
Kaitri who was busy re-wrapping the grip on his own Tanto, didn't look up. "Dummy. The spirit of the Dark-souled has to respect its killer to drop a coin. And no Terran in history has ever gotten a coin, because we don't even have Resonance to use it."
"Foxy doesn't respect his Daddy!" Varik yelled at the dead creature. "We killed you! Drop a coin!"
Paul, who had been silently cleaning his curved daggers on the grass, sighed. The sound was full of profound, weary annoyance. "You need a strong soul, not a loud mouth."
Varik spun on him, his face flushing. "What'd you say to me, bird-brain?"
Paul slowly stood up, his dark, emo-styled hair falling over one eye. He raised both his hands in a lazy, mocking gesture of surrender.
"Nothing. You're very intimidating."
He then walked off, brushing past Varik to stand next to Kaitri, and began whispering something about the perimeter.
Kaitri listened for a moment, then addressed the group. His voice was raw. "We were lucky that we encountered just one Warden. We stay out in the open, we're dead. We need shelter. Now."
"So, here's the plan," Kaitri said, his eyes scanning the tense faces. "Paul has agreed to scan ahead. He'll be back."
An hour later, Paul reappeared, dropping from the canopy as silently as a shadow. He looked... annoyed.
"Well?" Kaitri asked.
Paul sighed. "I found a monkey-like creature. A Fragment. Tried to... interact with it."
The team's expressions turned to ones of shock.
"It chased me. Fast. Through the high branches for ten minutes," Paul said with a dry smile. "So, we can't make a treehouse, I guess."
Varik, to his credit, managed to hold his laugh in for a solid three seconds before bursting. "You tried to play with it?"
"But," Paul continued, shooting Varik a look that could curdle milk, "I saw a cave during the chase. A big one. I wasn't able to check it out since the monkey was still in the area."
"Did you lose it before getting back here though?" Sibil asked, her voice soft and concerned.
Paul looked offended. "I'm not stupid, y'know?"
"Then why did you think a monkey-like creature in the Darkwood, which is literally filled with horrors, would be friendly?" Varik exclaimed, his voice cracking.
Paul's scowl deepened. "Creatures are ranked by Intelligence in the Concord," he argued, as if explaining something to a child. "One star is basic instinct. Two is just sentient with battle learning capabilities… Three can understand general language by learning. Four is a strategist. Five is... human-like intelligence." He crossed his feathered arms. "I thought he had some stars of Intelligence. My mistake."
"You might have two stars, if I'm being honest," Sibil joked.
Even Hunter cracked a smile at that. Paul's face went from annoyed to thunderous. "Fine. Scout yourselves next time." He turned and stalked away, sitting on a log at the edge of the clearing, his back to them.
The laughter died. The team looked at each other, feeling bad. Sibil sighed, picking up her waterskin. "I'll go." She walked over to comfort him.
Varik, Hunter, and Kaitri were left in an awkward silence. Varik and Hunter both turned, giving Kanut an expectant look.
"What?" Kanut asked.
"You are the only one who can eavesdrop, so spill," Hunter said. His voice was a low, gravelly rumble, his 'r's rolling in a way that sounded strange and foreign.
Kanut sighed, his focus shifting. He was listening. After a moment, he shrugged. "She's... offering him water and asking if he wants to talk. That's it."
Kaitri, meanwhile, had ignored the drama. He had the expedition map unfurled on his knee. It was a blank topographical chart, but in one corner, six small, pulsing dots were clustered together. A runic sorcery location tracker.
'Looks like the wristbands have a tracker in them,' Kaitri thought, his eyes narrowing. 'I will remember that.' The map also showed a large, red-shaded area to the far north. The territory of the Sentinel. Their final boss.
After a few minutes, Sibil and Paul returned, Paul looking marginally less murderous. They gathered around Kaitri.
"So," Kaitri said, folding the map. "The cave. Should we try it?"
Hunter was the first to answer, nodding. "Might as well. You already proved you are fit to be leader, and no one has spoken up." He shrugged. "So, your call."
Kaitri's face instantly flushed. He held up his hands, waving them dismissively. "No, I'm not... I was just suggesting ideas. That's all."
They all stared at him. The deadly, focused strategist who had engineered the fox-trap was now blushing like a schoolboy.
Sibil broke the silence, a warm, amused smile on her face. "Uhm, you know... you are a weird guy, Kaitri Anam."
He opened his mouth to reject that but decided to just keep his mouth shut. He grunted and dug into his pack, pulling out an artefact made of black metal and etched with dormant runes.
"What's this?" Varik asked.
"A gift from Jenny." Kaitri activated it. The runes glowed, and a faint, shimmering field, almost like heat haze, enveloped the group. "It'll mask our scent and sound. Let's move."
Hunter's eyes lit up, his earlier awe replaced by pure, academic fascination. He scurried closer, peering at the artifact in Kaitri's hand as they walked.
"Is that the modified VPL?" he asked, his voice filled with reverence.
"VPL?" Kaitri asked.
"Veiled Private Location artefact," Hunter explained, his eyes tracing the rune-work. "Standard issue for House scouts. Very expensive. But this... this looks like the modified version. It has Miss Jenny Eldrane's imprints all over it. The energy cycling is twice as efficient." He looked at Kaitri, his eyes wide. "You must have bought it off her. Great thinking! I want to be as good as she is one day."
"Uh- no," Kaitri said, side-stepping a patch of acidic-looking fungi. "I just asked her, and she gave it to us."
Hunter's mouth hung agape. He looked at Kaitri as if he'd just claimed to have punched a Dominion-ranked monster and won. He was clearly processing the absurd, impossible reality of someone just asking the Eldrane prodigy for one of her prototypes and getting it.
They began to move toward the cave, Paul taking the lead, his Corvian eyes scanning the dense, black-barked trees. Kanut walked near the back, his head on a constant swivel, his hand raised. He was their early warning system.
Kanut would occasionally stop, change their direction with a silent point. Each time, Paul who was in the lead, would let out an audible groan before obeying.
They eventually broke through the dense undergrowth into a large, unnatural clearing. The trees here weren't just gone; they were splintered, as if something massive had used them as toothpicks.
"Uh- Kanut," Varik said, his voice dropping to a nervous whisper. "Are you sure this is not the territory of a powerful creature who... cut down all the trees?"
Kanut shook his head, though he looked uneasy. "I don't sense anything. We should move fast, though. We can't hide here."
"Sure, you can," a deep, gravelly, manly voice replied from the shadows. "In my belly."
"Varik, don't make jokes like..." Sibil started, her voice trembling.
They all turned as one. They jumped back, weapons drawn, scanning the clearing for the giant that had spoken. They saw nothing.
"Down here, idiots," the voice boomed.
They looked down. Sitting on a rock, no taller than Kaitri's boot, was a tiny, vaguely humanoid creature. It had leathery green skin, huge black eyes, and long, spindly arms. It was picking its teeth with a large splinter of wood.
Varik blinked. "It's... tiny."
The creature grinned, revealing a mouth full of needle-sharp teeth. "Tiny is fast."
Before they could react, it moved. It was a green blur. It zipped past Varik, snatching the waterskin from his belt. It darted between Hunter's legs, stealing a runic pouch. It leaped onto Kanut's back, yanking a ration bar from his pack, and then used Paul's head as a springboard to jump into a nearby bush, cackling in its deep voice.
The whole thing took two seconds.
"My artefact components!" Hunter yelled, enraged.
"My food!" Kanut shouted.
"It... it touched my head!" Paul looked personally violated.
The creature popped its head out from the bush. "Too slow, big-ones! All your shiny-shinies are mine!"
The tiny Dark-Souled, a Fragment-ranked Grave-Mote Gremlin, was too fast to hit. It led them on a chase around the clearing, stealing anything not strapped down, all while laughing and taunting them.
"It's too fast!" Sibil yelled, as it dodged a waterjet from her hands.
"Just hold still, you little demon!" Varik swiped with his Tachi, slicing clean through a bush the creature had already vacated.
"This is embarrassing," Paul muttered, refusing to engage.
"Enough!" Hunter roared. He didn't chase. He stood still, pulled a small, cube-shaped artefact from his boot, and waited. The Gremlin, seeing a new shiny, zipped toward him. "Mine!"
Hunter simply dropped the cube. It popped open, and a cage of blue, solid light snapped into existence, trapping the creature instantly.
It slammed against the bars, its deep voice high-pitched with rage. "No fair! No fair! Cheater!"
The team finally gathered around the cage, panting.
Then, the creature's attitude shifted. Its face crumpled, its huge black eyes filled with cartoonish tears. It looked at Sibil. "Let me out, kind girl," it boomed in its deep voice, which was now trembling pitifully. "I'm just a poor, lost... thing."
"Awwn," Sibil said, her hand going to her heart. "It's so cute. Maybe we should let it out."
WHAP.
Hunter slapped her hand away from the cage. "You are weak-willed," he snapped. "It's controlling your mind. They can do that. It's an Abyssal-type creature. All mischief and lies."
Sibil lowered her head, disappointed in herself.
The Gremlin, seeing the ruse had failed, instantly changed again. It gripped the bars, its face demonic with rage. "Do you want me to be killed by the horrors here?" it shouted. "Let me out, you cowards! Let me out, or I'll scream 'til every horror in this wood finds you!"
Kaitri, who had been watching silently, noticed Kanut glancing at the caged creature. Over and over. A strange, curious light in his eyes.
"Hunter," Kaitri said, "does the artefact have a time limit?"
Hunter who was still fuming as he retrieved his stolen pouch, grunted. "A year. Why?"
"Kanut," Kaitri said, not taking his eyes off the Crier. "Congratulations. It's your pet now."
"Wait, what?" Hunter was thrown aback, looking at Kaitri like he was insane.
Kanut's face brightened for a split second before he composed himself, striking a nonchalant pose. "Sure. Whatever. It's loud. I can relate." He noticed Sibil looking at him, smiling and nodding, and he quickly walked off, picking up the cage.
He immediately started rambling to the creature inside.
"I'm going to name you Jabber."
Jabber, the Gremlin, just gripped the bars with an expression of pure confusion as the loud, blabbering human carried it away.
They finally reached the mouth of the cave Paul had spotted. It was a dark, yawning fissure in the side of a granite cliff, hidden behind a curtain of black vines.
"Finally," Kaitri said, pushing the vines aside. "Let's scout the area and make camp."
He took one step inside, his hand on his Tanto.
Kanut who was right behind him, suddenly grabbed his shoulder tightly. His face was pale.
"Guys..." he whispered, his voice shaking. "There are two... huge... creatures in there."
It was too late.
A harrowing roar, deep and guttural, blasted from the darkness. It came with a concussive force of wind that tore the vines from the cave mouth, scaring flocks of unseen birds into the air and echoing across the Darkwood.
Kaitri drew his dual Tanto blades, the steel ringing in the sudden, terrible silence. He stared into the darkness.
Behind him, he heard the hiss of Varik's Tachi, the thud of Kanut's shield–the others drew their weapons as well.
Kaitri let out his own growl, low and confident, he muttered.
"Bring it on, bastards."