“What are you doing here?” Katarina asked as Abernathy arrived with the cart.

  The man looked away from Katarina, shuddering. He had thrown up and bits of his dinner clung to his black beard. He moaned, his eyes flitting closed.

  Katarina slapped him, bringing his health dangerously close to zero. His eyes flashed open and he started screaming. The screams were incoherent, half-sobs.

  I performed Radiant Winds, sending the healing magic into his shoulder and body as Abernathy secured the cart and walked over. Katarina grabbed the man’s jutting shoulder and shoved it back in place with a sickening crack. The man screamed again, then fell silent, his breaths evening out.

  His health had risen to just over 25% from the healing, and it appeared that the worst of his injuries had been mended to a small degree. “Fucking bitch,” he snarled.

  Katarina grabbed a fistful of his hair and raised his face, looking him in the eyes. “What did you sa—”.

  He spat in her face, interrupting her sentence. She jerked away in disgust, wiping the bloody spittle from her face before slamming a fist into the side of his head, sending the man and chair crashing to the ground. It was a sturdy wooden chair from an inn and withstood the impact. The man’s health dropped an alarming rate as his head recoiled from impacting the ground. He managed to survive the haymaker, if just barely.

  I began performing Radiant Winds again as Katarina loomed over the man. He blinked up, dazed from the impact. Katarina put the end of her mechanical leg, a rubberized tip about the width of a gold coin, against the man’s temple.

  “We don’t need answers that bad,” she said between gritted teeth, staring daggers down at the man. His eyes regained their focus. He looked angry, defiant, and resigned. I finished the performance and sent another volley of healing orbs into the man’s head as Katarina sat him back up.

  The man spoke, looking at Katarina with disgust. “People like you are the worst. Worse than scum. How can you do this to your own people?”

  “How can I do this? Me? You have the balls to make me out to be the bad guy here? With your fucking slaver wagon over there?! You think we don’t know what those cages are for?!” Katarina spat the words with disgust, squeezing her hands into white-knuckled fists.

  “They ain’t for humans. Never for humans. We look after our own.” His eyes moved among us, first from Katarina to Abernathy, then lingering on me for a moment, before looking back to Katarina. “You spit on the name of the Bloom and all we stand for, teaming with these lesser races, who think themselves above us. You make me sick.”

  He tried spitting at Katarina again, but she casually side-stepped the glob. “The Bloom? What is that?”

  He blinked, scowling in disbelief. “You expect me to believe that you don’t know about the Bloom?”

  “Is that why you were traveling to Verdantbrook? For the Bloom Initiative?” Abernathy asked.

  “Fuck you, rat,” the man spat, glancing at him for a moment before returning his eyes to Katarina.

  “Well actually I’m a—”

  “The Bloom works toward one goal. To better humanity, to carve out a kingdom of our own in this Godsforsaken world. There ain’t no way you don’t know who we are.”

  “Doesn’t ring a bell,” Katarina said. “Enlighten me.”

  “Enlighten — fuck you. How’s that for enlightening? Fuck you, you traitor bitch. Just kill me. I’ll gladly follow my brothers to the Sacred Fields for the sake of the Bloom.”

  Katarina took a step closer to the man. He didn’t flinch, staring her in the eyes with defiance.

  I sighed, looking around. It was just us.

  Chanter: See anything up there, Encore?

  Encore: No. There is a distant fire further along the mountain trail, maybe a day’s travel. I am making one last lap around before returning. It looks like a part of the mountain to the north broke free from the explosion about half a mile to the north, but it appears to just have been a movement of rock and earth.

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  Chanter: Alright, thanks Encore. Be safe.

  I stepped around the man, out of sight, and Transformed into my human form. I continued walking, coming back into his line of sight.

  “Why were you making the journey to Verdantbrook?” I asked.

  “What the — you were — by his blinded eye, you’re one of them. A Gods-be-damned baby-snatcher!” He looked to Katarina in disbelief. “You ain’t shocked. You knew? You been travellin’ with a damn changeling and you knew?! You’re worse than a traitor, you stupid bitch. Wait. You’re a whole pack o’ baby-snatchers!”

  He laughed, coughed a few times, and spat to the side. “You’re the reason we came. Rumors of changelings.”

  “So you made the journey for a few measly gold?” Katarina asked.

  “A few gold? Is that what they told you down in Verdantbrook? Them knife-eared fucks dont offer a fraction of what other kingdoms do. Specially the tribes. Gnolls. Ogres. Goblins. Tribal folk pay in gemstones for manflesh. Whole piles of it for changelings. Enough to carve out a bit of kingdom for humans. That’s what the Bloom is about. Planting seeds of humanity across the world, crop for the Sacred Fields, the eternal dance of blades. Amass wealth. Make a kingdom of our own. And we will succeed.” He snarled at Katarina.

  “So the Bloom wants to build a kingdom for humanity, I get that, but why deal in flesh and blood? There are other ways to make money,” I asked.

  “Ain’t explaning shite to you, baby-snatcher.”

  I sighed. My plans of changing into a human to get him talking to me had utterly failed. I should have known this would happen.

  “Okay, can you tell me why humanity is so subjugated here? We were treated badly in Verdantbrook and it seemed like a universal sentiment.”

  “Universal sentiment,” the man mocked back at me. “We? We? Get one thing straight, ya changeling fuck. You ain’t’ hume, dont matter if you change your skin to look it.”

  “He has a good question, though,” Katarina said, walking back around. She had calmed. “Why are humans treated badly here?’

  “You don’t know? You really is this ignorant? Well I’ll be damned. You must grown up in one of them small coastal towns far from everything. Us humes been treated like dung since we came to this world. Four generations gone, and the other races treat us like we’re less than. Like we had a damned choice to come here.”

  “Wait, humans aren’t native to this world?” I asked.

  He spat at my feet.

  Encore: I see something. Shadows in the dark, heading for the camp. They travel in a pack. Hard to see, moving from shadow to shadow. They will be there in moments.

  Chanter: What? What are they? Abernathy, quick get to the cart.

  Katarina: We should go. Leave this piece of shit to his fate.

  Encore: I can’t tell what they are. They sneak about on two feet but run on four. They are nearly there. I didn’t see them until I was nearly back. Prepare yourselves!

  Chanter: We can’t leave him. Let’s get him back to the cart —

  A spear flew from the shadows, impaling the bound human man though the side of the neck. The force of the impact knocked him over, his corpse sliding down the thick spear shaft as it sank into the ground. I sent the message in a panic, rushing towards the cart and performing Kinetic Overload.

  Abernathy pulled a glass sphere from his inventory, turned and tossed it to me. “Catch!”

  I stopped playing and caught the glass orb. It was clear, with two glass chambers within. One chamber contained a pink fluid, the other contained a deep orange fluid.

  Sphere of Alchemical Radiance

  Break to emit a steady source of light equivalent to ten torches for ten minutes.

  “Throw it!” Abernathy shouted, climbing into the wagon. I complied, turning and throwing the orb in the direction the spear had appeared from. Three more spears soared out of the shadows. Katarina caught one and used it to deflect the other two.

  Chanter: CLOSE YOUR EYES!

  The orb detonated in an explosion of vibrant, white light. I shielded my eyes from the blinding radiance. The flash dimmed slightly. A light hovered ten feet from the ground, a pulsing sphere of blinding white light.

  Light washed over the area, shoving the shadows back in an instant. Six figures crouched and covered their faces, yipping at the sudden illumination. They would likely stand over seven feet tall, had they not been crouched over. They were covered in black fur speckled with spots of darker black, with twitching ears and short tails. They wore roughly prepared leather armor and carried bundles of spears affixed to their backs. Bone daggers hung from crude belt. I could just make out nameplates from the distance.

  Shade Gnoll

  I went back to performing Kinetic Overload as Encore swooped in, supporting the song with a bwuam bwuam bwuam of Harmonic Concordance as he slid to my side.

  Katarina sprinted for the pack of shade gnolls with no hesitation, spinning the spear and throwing it at one of the beasts. The spear flew wide, sinking into the earthy soil a nearby. She was twenty feet away and closing the distance quickly, halving it before they could adjust to the sudden light.

  I began walking towards them, finishing the performance and sending the enchantment into Katarina, who immediately used the first charge to leap high into the air, flipping over the glowing light. She soared downwards towards the closest gnoll as it blinked and looked up, sniffing the air.

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