“It’s not like beings can follow your every movement,” said Noseen with an almost snort. “Offenders eventually get taken care of. There aren’t many who partake of the skills necessary to hunt them, but the ones that do are greatly rewarded.”

  “Hence, the bounty hunting skills I unlocked and merged.” Accidentally, but I didn’t add that in.

  “Yes, they give you skills that most wouldn’t have access to.” He buzzed a little at the end of that sentence.

  “Not to mention Experience Tokens,” I said with a little chuckle, thinking of the number of levels I could gain with my tokens.

  “Experience Tokens?” asked Noseen.

  “Can’t you just see my memories?” I almost rolled my eyes, but resisted. Yet, it was clear now that Noseen didn’t actually see everything I’d done while in these dreams. I wondered what he did see.

  “Do I have permission?” he asked.

  “Sure…” The words were barely out of my mouth before everything that’d happened in the last fight with the Forger flashed by, including the notifications.

  I couldn’t help but wonder why he’d asked. Hadn’t he done that without permission before?

  “That’s why you asked about the Firsts…” he muttered. “If you run into the First from that planet you’re on, treat them with the utmost respect.”

  I just raised an eyebrow. I was respectful to everyone I met for the most part. As long as they weren’t trying to kill me, that was.

  “Also, don’t leave the planet you're on.” He turned to look at me as the sky suddenly lightened. “That dungeon is useful, take advantage of what you have been given.”

  “How are you doing?” I asked, wondering why he was in such a mood.

  “Ah, well, I suppose I owe you some explanation. I was called into a neutral space with the Forger whose portal you destroyed.” He chuckled again. “Interesting they weren’t an Offender. Or if they were, they found a way to bypass the Great Ones dislike for Offenders.”

  An Offender-less Forger. They must not be into the cloning stuff, or at least that was all I could come up with.

  “The Forgers adapt to their surroundings, it's why they went with cloning in the first place,” I added, for once giving knowledge.

  “Hmmm, that makes sense. He stays in staging areas to remain… stable. The in-between spaces don’t change.” He nodded sharply to himself, then smiled that sharp smile. “I bet they struggle on any of the higher ranked worlds. The increase in danger would accelerate their rapid evolution.”

  That made sense.

  His eyes suddenly all snapped to me. “Something to ponder.”

  Our surroundings grew dim on the edges, even as the sky brightened. Then I woke up, still leaning against the wall.

  Dengu’s lite snores filled the air, and Kabi still rested beside me. Lenna’s eyes were shut and a faint light hung around her.

  Pleasure and happiness tingled along the stretched out bond with Strange. Hopefully, that meant he’d reached his destination and delivered the message.

  Nothing pinged on my radar, yet I wondered what was up the stairs. I slowly stood and stepped on the first stair. When nothing happened, I continued up.

  Round and round they went, until suddenly light came from above.

  The tower stopped at a landing, and light shone in from high windows. Yet, they weren’t windows. Runes blazed along the rocks making them transparent, but they were still rocks. They even felt like rocks when I touched them.

  In the distance, other dark rocky spirals dotted the empty landscape, and things moved in the distance.

  That had to be the fortress. It looked like any other rocky hillside, except for a wall surrounding the front in a half circle.

  People looked like ants from here and I couldn’t tell what or who they were. I could only tell that a line went through the opening in the wall.

  So much dark orange rock dotted the landscape in that direction. If I looked the other way, I could eventually see the rolling hills. The other rocky towers were different lengths reaching up into the skies.

  A shadow crossed the ground, and I leaned closer to the ‘window’ to catch a view of the creature. My radar didn’t pick it up at all, and I couldn’t see much of it. Only that it flew high in the sky.

  Yet, the shadow continued to the fortress in the distance. Eventually the lines shattered as people ran in all directions as it dove.

  The creature was huge.

  [Golith, Paralysis Fear, Level 200, Predator, Unknown.]

  I couldn’t make out much more than massive wings, long legs, and a beak that rivaled some of the flyers from Lenna's world.

  It swooped over the people in the distance and snagged two off the ground before flying high.

  Suddenly, both people dropped. Then it dove to the ones still scrambling about on the ground, grabbing another. Again, it dropped them near the first two, before grabbing the now non-moving people and flying to the north.

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  I shivered.

  It cracked those people like eggs then took them off. Probably to eat them, since I hoped they’d died quickly.

  This had to be why Kabi didn’t want to travel in the daytime within the badlands. The grasslands were dangerous at night because of the Flora Maw. This world had its share of predators, for sure.

  The people near the fortress eventually regrouped near the entrance, and a line formed again.

  I shook my head at the sight, wondering how many of them were Forgers, versus slaves or what not.

  From here, I couldn’t tell if there were beetles, either.

  Just dots. The smaller ones I guessed were beetles.

  The cracks across the landscape stretched in all sorts of directions, and I kind of wished we’d stayed in the tunnels. From here, I didn’t know how we’d reach the Fortress.

  Shifting my attention away from the view, I focused on the runes dotting the stone. Using the notebook from Dan, I flipped through the pages to see if any of these were written down.

  No go.

  I had nothing to use to add them to the book, which was frustrating.

  There were a few different ones, and I wanted them all.

  Next time we had a fire, I needed to grab some charcoal to write with. It’d be something, at least.

  I turned and headed down the stairs. My descent took less time than climbing them had. Everyone still slept, though Kabi shifted as I sat back down.

  His eyes popped open and he stretched before he whispered, “I feel a little better.”

  At least he appeared a little better.

  “You don’t have any charcoal, do you?” I asked.

  “Here.” Lenna held out an awkward piece. “I pack up any charred sticks that aren’t still burning when we leave a campsite. The fewer ways to follow us, the better.”

  I nodded and took the piece and frantically added the runes from earlier in the back pages, along with my observations.

  “What’d you find?” she asked after a few moments watching me scribble.

  “I know why Kabi didn’t want to be outside during the day here.” I shivered, thinking of the massive flyer. “There’s a lookout tower up there. Those fliers put ours to shame.”

  Lenna flinched. “I prefer the trees.”

  “More places to hunt,” said Dengu, as he flicked his tail before standing.

  “I’ll go check it out then,” said Kabi as he took the stairs two at a time.

  I chased him, hurrying to catch up.

  “I dislike stairs,” mumbled Dengu as he climbed to his feet.

  “It’s a dead end,” I called down as I continued up.

  To my surprise, I heard Lenna follow us as well. Each light footstep on the stone was nothing but a single tap.

  Then I stood back in the bright sunlight.

  Kabi peered around like it was magic as he studied each direction. Then again, it was magic, just the rune magic of his people. “This wasn’t what I expected to find.”

  Lenna’s eyebrows rose at the sight. “Ah, this feels like a tree.”

  I stayed near the stairs, though I kept glancing in the direction that Golith had gone.

  “This is more of a maze than I thought,” said Kabi. He frowned up close next to the stone, glancing down and then farther out.

  “You found this place.”

  “Only because of the runes.” He shook his head. “The fortress used to be a holding for the First. There are warnings scattered all over to keep away. We could use those warnings to find our way there, I suppose.”

  “The tunnels would be easier,” said Lenna in a low voice.

  “Yeah, but we’d need to find our way back to them, and then how would we sneak up on it? At least this way, there is an entrance right there.” I pointed at the line still entering the wall. It felt never-ending.

  “We don’t have a way inside, plus we don’t know how many Forgers there are.” Kabi sounded defeated.

  “I can create fake collars and we can join the line, or we can figure something else out.” I pulled the map out. “The portal off-world is in that building, along with The Shard and who knows who else.”

  The list of bounties would come in handy for that.

  “We need an army to stop them,” said Kabi.

  “Or we need to be sneaky and smart,” I said, thinking hard about how we could blow up another portal and stop a retreat. If there weren’t any way for them to leave, and we destroyed the cloning facility, then each time they died they died for good.

  None of the Forgers had vanished since the lake faculty was gone.

  “We just need to sneak inside.” I sounded more confident than I felt.

  “We should wait to hear from Havi,” said Lenna. “The water tribe wants to strike at this location as well. With reinforcements from there and Steadfast, this is possible.”

  ###

  Havi at Steadfast…

  A shadow flickered near the edge of the chair but I didn’t react. The little guy had entered awhile ago, but waited patiently for the meeting to wrap up.

  Ever since we’d reclaimed the city, it was nothing but meetings with families who wanted to offer their support, along with making plans to defend the city from any more waves of attack.

  Yet, nothing else had come.

  The grass moved in close to the city, closer than it had in ages, and now nothing else approached.

  I was certain the shadow was the little one who hung around Alex.

  Patience. I needed to know how things went with my son, but keeping that between his mother and me was key.

  Already, Sevtar pressed the issue since my cousin's child had passed at some point during the fighting. The city had no heirs until someone presented themselves to the blade.

  At one point, we’d had more than we needed, which is why our family left. We’d broken off from this branch, and decided to find a place that suited us better. I’d bound my power in the blade to marry my wife. It’d been worth it.

  In-fighting, and others leaving to different worlds for their own reasons, had dwindled the pool. Now, all that remained were Kabi and Cekta. And I didn’t want this life for them.

  Finally, the meeting wrapped up, and I nodded at everyone who stood to leave. All bowed deeply. The outcome had been determined before any of these people had shown up, and the warriors were already training. We only needed a location to strike.

  While the Water Tribe marched to war, so did Steadfast. The Forgers had few days left on our planet.

  The shadow flickered again, and out stepped the little one.

  He squeaked, “Delivery! Important Delivery to Havi.”

  “I will gladly take it,” I said, kneeling down closer to him.

  His tail shook in glee as a folded parchment appeared, along with a round stone.

  I snatched the parchment and opened a map. One clearly marking the tunnel system used by our ancestors. Now with an expansion.

  This was what we needed. We had targets. Several of them.

  “Stone important! Very important!”

  I jerked at the comment as the little one stared at me. He nudged the stone, and glanced back at me waiting.

  I picked it up. “What is it…”

  [Communication Stone.]

  My eyes widened and I clenched it in my fist, unable to stop myself. “Kabi? Kabi?”

  Manee appeared at my side, staring at my hands. “Love?”

  “It’s a communication stone…” I glanced at Strange. “How do I use it?”

  “Send message to Alpha.”

  No matter what, I’d figure this out. I had to speak to them. Kabi had to understand.