Chapter 75 – The Ones with Numbers

  Duty Calls

  The late afternoon hum of the guild hall was comfortable—laughter from the dining corner, the faint clatter of dishes, and Fluffy’s half-sung tune echoing somewhere down the corridor. For once, Seven found himself almost relaxed.

  That peace shattered with a sharp, rhythmic beep.

  Raven’s communicator pulsed at her belt, runes flaring a cold, precise blue. She pressed a finger to the rune and listened, expression turning unreadable.

  She pushed back her chair and stood. “Guild business.”

  Seven looked up. “Already?”

  Raven’s eyes softened just a fraction. “Duty doesn’t wait.” Her tone carried no irritation—just simple fact. She gave him a curt nod, a silent promise they’d speak later.

  Arne rose beside her, stretching with feline ease. The grin that followed was pure mischief. “Looks like we’re up, rookie. Try not to burn down the city while we’re gone.”

  He clapped Seven on the shoulder, nearly knocking the wind out of him, then followed Raven toward the exit.

  Fluffy tilted her head as they disappeared through the archway. “Well, that was abrupt.”

  Then her smile returned, bright as always. “Which means we’ve got the rest of the afternoon! Training grounds? Or maybe…” She leaned in, ears twitching conspiratorially. “The canal—less people watching. Perfect for stealth practice.”

  Seven smirked faintly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Stealth training with you sounds like a trap.”

  “Maybe,” she winked.

  But his gaze lingered on the doorway long after they were gone. Raven’s tone had been too sharp, too controlled. Whatever pulled them away wasn’t routine.

  Novastra’s evening air was cool and damp, heavy with the scent of rain and steam from the canals. Lanterns burned low, their reflections trembling across cobblestones as Raven and Arne strode side by side.

  The communicator message says to report back to the guild for briefing a tracking mission.

  Arne broke the silence first, his tone unusually subdued. “Tracking duty, huh? Any idea what’s got Hopps so wound up?”

  Raven’s cloak shifted as she adjusted her pace. “Reports of magical beasts gathering near the eastern wilds. Too close for coincidence.”

  Arne arched a brow. “Another migration?”

  “No,” Raven replied, eyes narrowing. “Pattern’s wrong. She wants confirmation before the city panics.”

  The War Rabbit Guild’s headquarters loomed ahead—its great hall alive with movement. Recruits darted between mission boards, veterans returned bloodied from patrols, and the clatter of boots echoed through vaulted stone.

  From her perch by the command desk, Miss Hopps—tall, poised with authority, red hair pulled into a tight braid—watched everything. Her crimson eyes cut through the noise the moment Raven and Arne entered.

  “Right on time,” she said, voice crisp enough to slice the air. “Most of our teams are deployed. That leaves me with you two.”

  Raven came to attention, her posture straight as a drawn bow. “Understood, Guildmaster.”

  Hopps nodded once. “Reports confirm a large congregation of Wild Magical Beasts—species unknown as of right now, movement irregular. I want eyes on it. Document patterns, track routes, and if you can contain it quietly, do so. We don't want to disturb the wild life to much as it may disrupt our trading routes.”

  She stepped closer, lowering her voice so only they could hear. “Do not engage unless you must. I won’t lose another pair to a wild surge. If it escalates, call it in. I’ll dispatch back up just in case.”

  Arne’s grin was gone now, replaced by something steadier. He slung his rifle across his back and gave a quick nod. “Copy that, Boss.”

  Hopps’ gaze lingered on him a moment too long, then shifted to Raven. “Take care of him. He’s reckless but useful.”

  Raven smirked faintly. “A dangerous combination.”

  Hopps folded her arms. “Exactly.”

  The armory thrummed with life—a symphony of gears, steam vents, and faint aether static. It smelled of metal and ozone, the air hazy with drifting motes of mana.

  Raven moved with ritual precision. She checked the tension on Blackfeather, her enchanted crossbow, each pull whispering a soft metallic song. She counted bolts, tested seals, and murmured the activation glyph under her breath—the weapon answered with a brief pulse of black light.

  Beside her, Arne handled his gear like a gambler shuffling cards. His rifle spun through his fingers, catching the lanternlight before he slid in a fresh mana cell and holstered his shotgun. Despite the casualness, his movements were deliberate, economical.

  From behind a pile of scrap and tools, a voice barked: “Don’t you two dare walk out without clearance!”

  Luro, grease-streaked and wild-haired, stomped toward them, goggles skewed across his forehead. “You think this armory runs on fairy dust? No, it runs on me!”

  He snatched Blackfeather right out of Raven’s hands, ignoring the lethal calm in her stare. “Hm. Runes holding steady… string’s still true.” He handed it back with a grunt. “At least someone respects my craftsmanship.”

  Then he spun on Arne. “You! Every time you ‘test limits,’ my stabilizers cry for mercy. You break it again, I’m welding your rifle shut.”

  Arne flashed a grin. “Aw, come on, Luro. You love fixing my messes. Gives your day meaning.”

  “Yeah,” Luro deadpanned. “Right between the existential dread and the explosions.”

  Despite his grumbling, his hands moved quickly—tightening screws, checking the focusing lens on Arne’s rifle, re-aligning Raven’s mana channels. When finished, he waved them toward the door with an oil-stained rag.

  “Go on then. Try not to bring any exotic diseases or acid-spitting wildlife back this time.”

  Raven offered a curt nod. “We’ll return with a full report.”

  Arne saluted lazily. “And maybe a souvenir.”

  Luro’s muffled groan followed them out. “Souvenirs explode, don’t they?”

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  As the armory door hissed shut behind them, the faint hum of aether engines faded into the distance. The mission had begun—quiet, simple, and far from routine.

  The clatter of buckles and metal clips echoed through the armory as Raven adjusted her harness, movements precise and practiced. But her mind drifted elsewhere—back to a night of frost and blood.

  Five months ago.

  The wind had howled through the wilds that night, carrying the scent of iron and ash. They had found a boy—barely breathing, bleeding into the snow. A human who should have been dead.

  Seven.

  Now, standing in the same armory, the same faint hum of mana lights above her, that memory came crawling back like a cold draft under a locked door.

  “What if it’s another Seven?” she said suddenly, her voice cutting through the room.

  Miss Hopps froze mid-step. The Guildmaster’s expression didn’t shift, but her crimson eyes sharpened. “Then we handle it the same way,” she said, each word deliberate. “Intelligence first. Containment second. Judgment last.”

  She crossed the floor, the click of her boots echoing against metal. “But we don’t assume. The mission is the beasts. If there’s another human out there…” Her tone dipped, lower, heavier. “We deal with that when we see it.”

  Arne, who had been checking his rifle, stopped cold. His grin was gone. “One wildcard was enough for me,” he muttered. “Don’t really need a sequel.”

  Hopps shot him a sidelong glance—not angry, but weary. “Then pray this isn’t one.”

  She gave Raven a final nod, her authority absolute. “Report back the moment you see anything out of the ordinary. And, Raven—be careful.”

  Raven met her gaze. “Always.”

  Hopps’s expression softened—barely. “That’s what worries me.”

  As the Guildmaster left, the heavy door hissed shut behind her. The silence that followed felt heavier than armor.

  The Northeast Gate

  The northeast gate of Novastra towered before them, a giant among walls. Eight stories tall, its timbers blackened from age and layered with iron runes that pulsed faintly with warding light. Even seasoned veterans paused under its shadow.

  Raven led the way, her crossbow strapped across her back, hood drawn against the chill. The city’s life buzzed faintly behind them—merchants shouting, bells tolling, children laughing—but each step toward the gate dimmed that sound, as if they were already crossing into another world.

  Arne fell into step beside her, his long coat brushing the cobbles. “Almost feels like the first time again,” he said, scanning the crowd. “Remember when we had to beg for clearance? Now they just wave us through.”

  Raven’s lips twitched into the ghost of a smile. “Earned trust is a rare luxury. Don’t waste it.”

  Two guards at the gate straightened when they approached, recognition flashing in their eyes.

  “Heading out again, HowlCrest?” one asked, ears twitching nervously.

  “Routine patrol,” Raven answered, voice level.

  Arne tipped an invisible hat. “We’ll bring back a souvenir.”

  That earned a chuckle, but the laughter faded quickly. Beyond the gates, the forest loomed—a vast tangle of snow-cloaked pines and whispering wind.

  The moment they stepped through, the hum of the city’s barrier rippled around them, a low vibration that prickled against the skin. The world beyond was colder, quieter, alive in a way that made the air itself feel watchful.

  “Trail’s this way,” Raven said, kneeling briefly to trace faint claw marks in the frost. “Fresh. Within a day.”

  Arne drew his rifle, runes glowing faint amber along the barrel. “Then lead the way, partner. I’ll keep the ghosts off your back.”

  As they moved into the treeline, Novastra’s light faded behind them—replaced by the endless pulse of the wilds and the soft, distant howl of something stirring deeper within.

  Meanwhile, within the city’s heart, life carried on.

  Fluffy practically danced along the cobblestones, her twin swords clinking at her hips as she tugged Seven along. The scent of baked bread and roasting meat mingled with the brine from the sea wind. Lanterns flickered to life above them, casting a warm orange glow over the streets.

  “This way!” she said, dragging him around a bend before he could protest.

  They stepped out onto a massive overlook—and the world seemed to open.

  The Canal of Giants stretched before them, wide enough to swallow ships whole. Its waters shimmered gold beneath the setting sun, reflecting towers, bridges, and spires that curved toward the ocean. At its heart stood a central island bristling with cranes and piers—Novastra’s lifeline to trade and survival.

  Seven stopped, silent. “It’s… enormous.”

  Fluffy grinned, ears twitching proudly. “Told you! The canal’s older than the guild, older than Lord Deogon himself. Some say it was carved during the old wars by Aether engines the size of castles.”

  Seven leaned on the railing, watching barges drift lazily downriver. “And it still works. After all this time.”

  “Yep,” Fluffy said, her tone softening. “Without it, the city would starve. We’d lose everything—food, Aether shipments, medicine. This canal keeps us alive.”

  Seven glanced at her. “Just like the guild.”

  Her expression flickered between pride and melancholy. “Yeah. Exactly like the guild.”

  They stood there for a long moment as the sun dipped below the horizon, the water turning to liquid fire. Somewhere beyond those walls, Raven and Arne vanished into the wild, and the faint tremor beneath the city’s calm hinted that something was shifting in the world again.

  By the time Seven and Fluffy reached the guild courtyard, the sky had deepened to molten amber. The air smelled of rain and stone dust from the day’s drills.

  Fluffy twirled one of her swords idly, her ears flicking in mild frustration. “We should’ve stayed out longer. The city looks better when the lanterns come on.”

  Seven chuckled, rolling a sore shoulder. “Curfew’s in an hour. I’d rather not get thrown out on my second walk through the city.”

  “Killjoy,” she sighed, kicking a pebble that clattered down the steps. “Fine. But tomorrow we hit the obstacle yard early. I’ve got a new stealth trick that’ll make you eat your words.”

  Before he could reply, the guild’s great doors creaked open. Miss Hopps stood framed in the light—tall, composed, red eyes glinting. Her presence had a way of making recruits stand straighter without a word.

  “Back before curfew,” she said, tone clipped but approving. “Good. Raven and Arne are on assignment—routine perimeter monitoring. Wild Magical Beasts stirring east of the city. Nothing for you two to worry about.”

  Seven nodded. “Understood, ma’am.”

  Hopps turned to leave, then hesitated, her ears angling slightly. “Keep refining that combat technique, Seven. You’re showing promise.”

  He blinked—praise from her was rarer than Aether storms.

  Fluffy elbowed him with a grin. “Told you she’s got a soft spot under all that steel. Race you to the dorms? Loser hauls water tomorrow!”

  “Wait—”

  Too late. She darted off, laughter echoing through the courtyard.

  Seven sighed, but the sound melted into a laugh of his own as he sprinted after her. For the first time that day, the ache in his muscles didn’t feel so heavy.

  Miles away, the forest had swallowed the world in silence.

  Raven moved ahead through the gloom, crossbow drawn, each footstep soundless on the pine-matted soil. The deeper they went, the more the air changed—thicker, stiller, as if the trees were listening.

  “Tracks,” she murmured, crouching to brush aside frost. Deep claw marks scored the earth. “ Verglas coyotes. Recent.”

  Arne leaned over her shoulder, rifle low. “Thought they stuck to the eastern ridges.”

  “They did.” Raven straightened, scanning the dark trunks. “Something’s driving them this way.”

  Neither liked what that implied.

  They pressed on until the trees thinned and the wind carried a strange metallic tang. Ahead, the ground glowed faintly red.

  A drifting mist seeped from a torn hillside—thin tendrils that shimmered before fading like breath on glass.

  Arne instinctively pulled his scarf over his mouth. “Poison?”

  Raven inhaled carefully, eyes narrowing. “No… something else. Mana discharge, maybe.”

  The haze rolled across them and was gone, leaving the forest dead quiet. For a heartbeat both of them felt it—a pulse in their chests, ancient and wrong. Their instincts screamed danger, primal and sharp. Then it passed.

  Raven exhaled slowly. “Whatever that was, it’s not natural.”

  “Yeah,” Arne muttered, scanning the treeline. “And it’s heading this way.”

  They found the first body minutes later.

  Blood smeared the snow in dragging lines leading toward a hollow cut into the hill. The stench hit before the sound—the copper bite of blood and wet fur.

  Raven signaled silently. Arne covered the entrance as she slipped inside. The den walls glimmered faintly with bioluminescent moss, casting everything in sickly blue light.

  Something moved deeper within. A choked scream—human—echoed once and died.

  They ran.

  The chamber opened into carnage. Verglas coyotes scattered from the torchlight, hissing before vanishing into cracks. At the center lay a man, his body broken and half-buried in shredded bedding.

  Raven dropped to her knees beside him. His skin was ice-pale, but beneath the grime a faint glow traced the line of his throat.

  A number.

  Her breath caught.

  The man’s eyes fluttered open, unfocused. “M-my… friends…” His hand trembled upward. “Still… out there…”

  Then the light in his mark flickered once—and went out.

  Raven pressed two fingers to his neck. Nothing.

  Behind her, Arne stood motionless, face drained of color. “Another one,” he said quietly.

  Raven rose, scanning the den. The patterns were all wrong—nests torn apart, tunnels collapsed, scratch marks in every direction. “They weren’t hunting,” she said. “They were erratic.”

  Arne crouched beside a deep impression in the dirt. “From what?”

  Raven didn’t answer. Her eyes lingered on the dead man’s mark. “Something powerful enough to terrify predators or something else.”

  She pulled out her communicator, recording the scene with clipped efficiency. “We report this and move. If more of them are out here—and if whatever did this heads toward Novastra—we intercept it first.”

  Arne nodded once, his usual grin replaced by grim focus. “Lead the way.”

  They left the den in silence. The forest closed behind them, swallowing the stench of blood.

  Long after their footsteps faded, the clearing stirred. The red haze seeped back, curling around the body like breath.

  From the treeline, a cloaked figure watched. The mist clung to his coat, whispering along his shoulders—faint light pulsed beneath his collar—a number, 76, burning steady this time.

  He turned his head toward the distant glow of Novastra’s barrier, eyes narrowing beneath the hood.

  Then he vanished into the mist.

  The storm rolled in from the northeast, dragging sheets of sleet across the trees. The Wildlands groaned under the weight of wind and ice, the forest bending like old bones.

  Amid the storm’s hiss, a faint crimson light pulsed.

  A cloaked figure knelt beside the half-frozen body of a Verglas coyotes, its veins still glowing with residual red mist. He adjusted his gloves, the faint glimmer of a glass vial catching the lightning.

  The liquid inside shimmered like living blood.

  He held it up to the pale light, studying it with the cold patience of a scientist at work. “The reaction peaked too soon,” he murmured. His voice was calm, clinical, but edged with quiet frustration. “Wild specimens respond beautifully… yet the larger ones resist. The dosage needs refinement.”

  He turned the vial slowly, watching the crimson swirl along the glass. “Two Rabbits, exposed at proximity—no aggression spike, no primal bloom. Hm. So the drug fails at higher mana saturation.”

  He pulled a small notebook from beneath his cloak, its pages damp but filled with spidery notes and chemical glyphs. The script was half Earth science, half alchemy—an impossible fusion only he could read.

  

  ‘Subject Class: W.M.B.

  Result: Primal reaction consistent. Duration, twelve minutes.

  Subject Class: Demi-giant (Bunnyfolk).

  Result: Resistance extreme. Null response.

  Conclusion: Formula incomplete. Requires aetheric stabilizer. Test again in Varnholt.’

  He snapped the notebook shut and slid it into his coat pocket. The movement exposed the faint glow at his throat—a number, seared into flesh.

  76.

  Once, he had been a man in a white coat, surrounded by glass beakers and sterile light. A pharmacist. A chemist. A creator of relief and poison alike. He remembered the smell of ethanol, the hum of laboratory fans, the quiet certainty that his mind could solve anything given enough time.

  Now he stood in a world that was pure reaction—mana, blood, instinct. No regulation. No limits.

  The thought thrilled him.

  He crouched, pressing the vial’s mouth to the corpse of the Verglas coyotes. The liquid hissed, seeping into the flesh. For a moment, the beast’s eye twitched—the faintest red glow flaring, then dying again.

  “Promising,” he whispered. “Even in death, the mana clings.”

  He stood, cloak snapping in the wind. The forest stretched endlessly north, a dark, frozen ocean of trees. Somewhere beyond the horizon lay a place he’d heard whispered in scattered trade notes—a northern city of black stone and crime.

  Varnholt.

  He smiled faintly, the expression hidden under his hood. “A perfect marketplace for monsters and medicine alike.”

  He corked the vial, tucking it close to his chest. “One more ingredient. One more catalyst. Then they’ll all see.”

  The storm surged around him as he turned east, the red light fading into the sleet. When he finally vanished into the forest, only the faint smell of alchemy and blood remained—an omen carried by the wind.