I’m jolted awake by two things at once. The vehicle stopping moving and then the awful jingle that follows. Drowsily, I rub my eyes and work to remember exactly where I am for a few moments. The nap did a number on me, and it’s not until the skyglide chimes a second time, clearly annoyed with my speed of departure, that I fully rouse. Trying to avoid a third complaint, I quickly gather my things and hop out of the vehicle. As I turn to send it away, I remember the reason for its apparent urgency — the runes on its side are quite dim, as always happens this far away from the city. The Skyglides are designed to work around the city of Kharbon, using its natural essence levels to power their operation.

  I’ve heard that other cities in Eldara have similar set-ups, but I’ve never been to another major city other than the capitol when I was still a child, so I’ve just taken it on faith. This far out, the essence levels have returned to the standard(referred to as the Primal Median) that exists in the vast expanses between population centers; a relatively low but even distribution of the four elemental primal essences(Ignia, Hydrus, Terran, and Aero) but very-little-to-none of the either Ordo or Perditio. Which leaves these vehicles in very limited operation and with no real hope of going any farther without risking being stranded.

  For this reason, I find myself standing in the dim coppery-gold moonlight at what amounts to a small hutch sitting atop a magically shaped and smoothed concrete platform. The hutch is large enough to support maybe 6 people comfortably, has glass covering the front, including a glass door, and the rest is framed with wood that's reinforced with a deep red brick with a copper tile roof. Directly next to it is the sole source of light in the area, a single essence lamp emitting the off-pink motes of Lux essence in a wide area — a far wider area than one would immediately expect as Lux essence actively seeks out dark places to illuminate. The lamp itself is more of a collector and emitter than a traditional lantern or torch and will illuminate anything in a huge range as long as the essence can make its way to the location without obstruction.

  In the darkness of this early(or late?) hour, the air has an intrusive chill that seems to seek the cracks in my armor just to get at me beneath. With a shiver, I reach out and press a rune to set the skyglide on its path home. I watch it move off at a far greater speed than it ever would with passengers, pulling my cloak tighter and beginning to focus on heat within my mind. Ignia comes to my beck and call readily, leaping to my vessel and draining the nearby area of what little heat exists to suit my needs. I direct it through my skin and into my cloak and I watch the runic sigils across the cloaks hem begin to glow a gentle red, beginning the self-sustaining process of absorbing ignia from the air and using it to warm my armor and me. It’ll take a few minutes to work, so I make my way into the hutch to wait and speed it along.

  As I step in four gentle yellow essence-lights kick on, filling the space with a warm glow that reveals the soft white and blue paneling on the walls, the comfortable-enough-looking seating and the Ignia runes spaced regularly on the floorboards to heat the space. A couple of moments later a pleasant tune fills the space as a couple cabinets on the back wall turn on with a garish light display.

  I walk over to them. Each is about my height and are covered in pictures and names of local brands of food and drink respectively all displayed proudly beneath a sign declaring:

  [Provided free of charge by the Kharbon Wellness Committee]

  Since I’m waiting to warm up anyways I tap a rune on the panel that’s marked Emberdew Tea. I wait as I hear and feel essence being concentrated from the air as the machine rattles and clanks. Before a minute has passed, a small crystalline door opens up to reveal a plain metal cup with a sealed top. When I pull it out, the rune I depressed blanks out its display panel for a moment before showing a timer and the word “Synthesizing” in its place.

  With practiced ease, having gotten this drink just about every time I’ve passed through here, I twist the cap clockwise, which activates a heating rune, and immediately twist it counterclockwise, which pops the top off. In no time flat the cup becomes steaming hot, warming my hands as I cup both around it and begin to sip at the drink. It has a pleasant earthy flavor that ends with a spicy sweetness aftertaste that lingers for a while. Along with drinking it, I feel the raw essence used to synthesize it diffuse into my body very quickly and efficiently — things prepared this way don’t tend to remain in their synthesized state for very long. Irrespective, though, you get all the flavor and all the essence, it’s just not filling in the slightest since you’re not technically eating or drinking anything of substance.

  Finishing the drink, I head back outside to let my cloak draw from the environment, rather than risking depowering the runes of the building by sapping them.

  After a few minutes, I’ve reached a comfortable temperature, and the cloak sets to maintaining that temperature at a much lower passive cost, though in the interim, a rime of frost has settled on most surfaces within about fifteen feet of me. This method of warming gets less effective the colder an area is, but it can fairly reliably protect you from any temperature above the freezing point of water, or the inverse for warm areas. In a couple months I’ll likely need to change out this lighter fighting cloak with a more comprehensively enchanted survival-focused one, but I’’l lput that off as long as possible, I find the greater weight stifling.

  Casting my eyes around again, I spot the Directory. It’s a very involved enchanted apparatus that is updated once a day or so — more frequently when necessary — that displays known routes, monster dens, abnormal essence concentrations, likely travel hazards, travel times and distances, and a weather forecast. A general helpful tool for any of the rare folks who travel between protected settlements. I feel a pang as I look across it. While there are dozens of towns of various sizes represented in the region, there are five that have been marked as uninhabitable, and one that I know will be marked as such very soon once word spreads and maps begin getting updated. Five cases of the Vigil failing to stop a calamity in time. Five regions that will have been rendered unsafe for an indefinite time due to essence instability until the land has had a chance to heal naturally — a process that can take decades even when helped along by modern methods.

  Making note of the last one and its relative direction, I set off. While I’ve made this trek recently, I’ve never traveled the roads at night that far, and it’s about a good few days walk, with one small town about halfway which I’ll stop at to resupply. Initially walking, but in time I work up to a jog as my limbs warm up to the idea and eventually into a sustainable run. “See? I can run just fine.” I snark at the menders in my head, still feeling a little bitter over being treated like a child.

  With every few strides, I draw in a deep breath of cool night air and feel it cool my steadily heating core just a little each time. I focus on measured strides and a steady pace, long-distance running like this is about control. Alongside my breathing and strides, I keep regularly drawing in Aero and Ignia essentia to bolster my breathing and my general physical vitality to keep me going longer with minimal fatigue, though I keep the doses low, as this is a very long-distance jaunt, and it would do me no good to wind up overheating from Ignia poisoning or risking a broken bone from Aero poisoning.

  But, in time, I settle into a rhythm that sees the minutes turn to hours without really needing to stop. I’ve built up fairly substantial secondary benefits due to consistent exposure to essentia over my life and through training, and those benefits afford me far greater than normal general physical abilities atop those boons from my heritage — specifically in physical endurance and general alacrity as Ignia and Aero are best known for. Those benefits are a major reason why I love running. Running feels good, encourages me to use my preferred essence types more, which builds secondary benefits, which makes running easier, which lets me run more, which feels good…

  Though, even with my considerable endurance and the ability to artificially extend my runs, I do eventually start to need to slow. I feel heat rising in my core above and beyond my norm from the earliest stages of Ignia overexposure, so I have to take it easy for a little while. The sun is rising far over the horizon and sending veritable showers of sparkles off of the distant Ironreach peaks as the shadows draw long across the ground. The scenery is gorgeous. Frost on the tall and flowering grasses lighting up in the early sunlight, a light mist settling over the ground as Hydrus essence begins to break down in the face of the coming Breath of the sun, and the first sounds of birdsong and the noises of nature coming awake.

  Coming up on a wayfarer’s rest just off of the roadway, I decide to settle for a bit to recuperate. While I can recover while walking through careful usage of essence, I’ve made good time, and I’m well ahead of anyone who will be looking for me and will remain so at the pace I can maintain easily. The little campsite is lightly reinforced with high stone walls that curve inwards towards the top without completing a hemisphere and a simple metal gate, all surrounding a spot to light a campfire and plenty of room to pitch tents while shielded partially by the walls from any weather. Swinging the gate open and locking it behind me, I pull up on one of the surrounding benches and sit, stripping my pack and several pieces of gear that would be inconvenient for sitting or lying down.

  The temperature in the site is more neutral than outside, likely due to its construction bringing a small amount of Ordo concentration into the area and thus providing a stabilizing effect on the area that resists changes to things like temperature and air quality. While it helps and makes my equipments job easier, it is still quite cold overall now that I’m not in motion. So when I lie down on the bench, itself about twice as long as I am tall and just wide enough to lay down without my arms draping down, I pull a light blanket out of my Carry-All to cover myself with along with my cloak. Between the two and my own natural body heat, I’m feeling fairly comfortable.

  Closing my eyes in this nice and relatively shadowed area, I drift off fairly quickly. My dreams are troubled by the same repeating scene of Garrick and the Calamity fighting, but it’s not as terrifying. I make it in time to drive the man off, something I suspect is brought on by my being in motion again. But as I feel the rest of the dream play out in my usual indistinct way, I hear a sharp noise and feel something warm wrapping around my ankle that I realize is not a part of my dream.

  With effort, I wrench my eyes open and raise my arms into a block just as a scaled mouth dives forward towards what would have been my throat. Instead of ripping my throat out, it clamps down onto my armored arm with bone-shattering force. It stares down at me with 3 sets of emerald-like gem tone eyes that glint with malicious intelligence. My armor creaks but takes most of the hit and holds sturdy against the chomp long enough for me to swing a mailed fist into one of its eyes with a wet squish. It releases my arm and reels back with a pained screech, giving me a full view of the creature.

  The monster is about ten feet long from the tip of its bark-like and vine-covered tail to its short, alligator-like snout. It has a series of deep-set beaded eyes running the length of its elongated head in 3 pairs of increasing size towards the rear of its head that glow with a green energy. It’s long, serpentine body looks almost like a fallen tree, with dense brown scales covered in mottled moss and glowing mushrooms of some variety. That body ends with a long tail that has writhing vine-line tendrils whipping around it, and as I follow the tail down, I realize the cause of the feeling of something being wrapped around my ankle.

  I reach for my weapons but move just a moment too late. I am wrenched off the bench by the creature's shockingly powerful tail and sent rolling into one of the walls with a huff of air leaving my lungs. It doesn’t hurt too bad, but that was a demonstration that I need to take this seriously from the jump. It dives forward on three pairs of powerfully lithe, viciously clawed legs at me headfirst, moving in a way sitting uncannily between a snake and a drake that is hard to predict: equal parts wandering slither and threatening lope. I’m in the middle of rising as it reaches me and I throw myself forward, rolling into a kneeling slide. Spinning to face my assailant, I see it rear up, kicking off the wall to redirect itself without losing much speed and launching itself at me again. No time to rise, I bide the coming seconds and begin calling Aero to create a barrier to buy a moment to get my weapons, but it arrives too fast, making me lose my concentration and the spellshape. I dive to the side again, with the same timing to force it to commit to an attack , and just as it seems I’m clear, I see green energy burst from cracks in its scales, causing vines to erupt in my path.

  Cursing, I release my stored essence to absorb into my body — a small benefit is better than being pinned down by a predator, even if it costs me a chance at a meaningful spell. As the Aero settles into me, I feel my perception shift, information coming at me a hair faster, limbs moving with slightly more alacrity. Small boons, but enough to identify the lowest-risk path forward. Halfway through my dive, I tuck my legs and roll onto my hands in a partial somersault for a moment before uncoiling my body like a tensioned spring, kicking my legs up and thrusting myself away from the ground. The maneuver gains me only a moment of hang time, but it’s enough to clear the grasping vines and to flip, landing on my feet for the first time in this encounter, drastically and immediately improving my odds over crawling and rolling.

  The beast lets out a hissing roar that I take as frustration about my slipping its grasp. It postures for a second on the other side of the room by standing on its rear two legs and rising, flaring its legs and sides out and appearing quite a lot larger than it had previously. “Taunting is always a mistake. Punish anyone or anything who does it.” Garrick's words come to mind as I spot my fighting knives and I dash for them. The creature seems to anticipate the act, displaying a bit more intellect than I’d given it credit for. It had deliberately yanked me away from my weapons — not just into a vulnerable position. It also darts towards the weapons, clearly aiming to meet me at them when I would crouch to grab them.

  My Aero-enhancements are fading fast since it had been such a weak imbuement but the enhanced agility leaves me with a risky option — a stupid risk — so I take it. I vault the bench between me and the monster, aiming to slam into it with my full-body weight to hopefully stun the creature instead of going for my weapons. The change in angle is too much for it to compensate for, so I crouch slightly before the impact, putting every bit of force I can into a shoulder tackle into the much heavier beast. I hear something crack as the shock of the impact rolls through my armors padding and into me. The serpentine creature reels away, being knocked sprawling on the ground with what I see is a cracked carapace leaking ichor just beneath its middle set of legs.

  Seeing an opportunity, I dive for my knives, scrabbling the last couple feet to grab them. The moment I wrap my hands around the hilts, my ankles are snagged again, forcing me to either drop the knives and catch myself or hold onto the weapons and be jerked away. I hold my weapons. I am once more yanked hard, this time I feel something in my legs pop with a moment of serious pain at the jerky motion. The wall comes up to meet me quickly, but this time the creature is poised to pounce on me when I arrive.

  I slam into the wall, and the creature is immediately on top of me, swiping with claws at my more heavily armored midsection — something that would have gutted someone less armored instantly. I, however, am prepared and use its moment of attempted savagery to ram home my dagger into the split in its carapace from my earlier body slam. We both let out a scream of pain, as when I lift my arm to stab it, it reveals a softer section of my armor which by luck or intent is promptly punctured by a claw causing me to release that dagger.

  It rocks back off me, hobbling a bit. My dagger must be sticking into something important, that leg seems outright disabled. Lucky for it, it has redundant legs. Unlucky for me, I do not have a truly redundant kidney. With nearly blinding pain I roll backwards onto my feet and away from the creature as it crouches low on its haunches and lets loose a screech at me. I stumble backwards a few further steps starting to call Ignia as I create space and the creature seems reluctant to pursue right away clearly recognizing me as a threat after receiving a wound.

  [Cauterize]

  [Touch | Imbuement | Ignia]

  I finish shaping, placing my palm over the blood-leaking puncture, and manifest the spell. There’s a moment of incredible pain followed by relief as the essence reinforces that part of my body after searing it closed. Ignia is far from ideal for healing, but it can perform certain tasks in a pinch, and I've never been able to call Hydrus in any useful capacity even if it would be substantially better for this.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Never taking my eyes off the creature, it suddenly emits a shower of glowing dust particles obscuring my vision in this enclosed space. I quickly shape a small amount of Aero for a versatile protection spell.

  [Puff]

  [Burst | Aero]

  I blast it outwards from my body through my armor’s vents, quickly dispersing the cloud only to see the creature seamlessly sinking into the ground without disturbing as much as a single pebble. “Drek! I hate it when they dig!” I groan as I get into motion, running for the rest of my equipment — namely my helmet and my throwing knives. The former snaps onto my armor with a single smooth motion and a single clack, momentarily restricting my vision before the helmet turns slightly translucent using a similar enchantment to the skyglides windows from earlier. The latter, I latch into position on my left arm and left thigh as I make for the gate into the open. Fighting something that large with so many ways to disable me in an enclosed space is suicidal.

  The instant I pass through the gate by bodily knocking it open — shearing the lock off — the creature erupts from the ground where I’d been standing a moment before. Again demonstrating its intelligence and ability to guess my actions. This thing must have been alive a while to have so much experience fighting people, and I’ll be doing the world a service by putting it down. “How many people have you killed, monster?” I wonder to myself, feeling a rising fire in my heart as Sanctus essence begins to coalesce around my legs and easing my pain and fatigue. I break into a proper run, creating some space and betting on it being unable to pace me with my knife still lodged in its carapace and a disabled leg. While running, I start to call Ignia and Aero to myself, “arming” myself to shape spells. I have to concentrate to prevent it leaking into my body passively, but it’s second nature at my level of development, so I don’t lose much focus.

  Casting my eyes back, I see it’s disappeared again, and I hedge my bets about its plan. I start forcing essence into my most familiar spells and cast both the moment they’re prepared.

  [A Fire Inside]

  [Self Imbue | Ignia]

  [Skystep]

  [Underfoot | Barrier | Aero]

  I skid to a stop, planting my legs and crouching as I feel the Ignia essence coursing through my muscles, bolstering them considerably. I hold, drawing three throwing knives into my offhand. The moment I see the ground distort beneath me, I launch myself into the air with an enhanced jump, getting about ten feet off the ground and “landing” in midair for a moment atop an Aero barrier. “Watcher, Lay low my foe.” I incant quickly using less than half of the full incantation. It directs Sanctus essence to my throwing daggers, empowering them as I see the creature burst from the ground. “Gotcha.”

  I dismiss my barrier at the same time I loose the three gold-wreathed knives at the creature while it looks around for its anomalously missing target. Beginning my fall behind my knives, I ready my remaining dagger and brace myself to land on its back. The fan of knives impact a second before me, spaced evenly along what I expect is the creatures spine, with a series of quick shnk noises that pierce its carapace effortlessly. It doesn’t have time to even let out a screech of pain before I land with my legs extended on its snake-like neck with a sickening crack. I ride the landing and collapse my legs to either side of its neck and bring my dagger down with both hands into a plunge with all of my speed behind it. Immediately after I hilt the dagger, I wrench it sideways to attempt to tear it through the creature's spine just behind its head.

  It immediately begins thrashing and tosses me off by bucking its head, causing me to lose my other dagger to being stuck in its hide. I land hard and immediately see flowering vines burst from the ground, but before I can act, they begin to wilt. There’s a punctuating heavy thud as the creature collapses into a spreading pool of white and green ichor from various punctures across its body. I lay there for a moment on my back, catching my breath.

  “Watcher Above, is this punishment for sneaking out?” I ask the clear sky and sun above. In lieu of answering, Serelune reveals herself, breaking free of a total eclipse of the sun that made her impossible to see. “I guess that’s an answer to my earlier question about what the implications of chaos were.” I sigh. The muscles in my legs feel like someone has been beating them with a club — as is normally the case after imbuing them heavily enough to leap like that. My muscles are given strength, but they aren’t made anymore endurant by the infusion, so they can take pretty bad punishment and even tear if I’m not careful.

  Heaving myself into a sitting position because the pool of ichor is approaching me, I bring myself to a standing position to inspect the creature more closely. Talking myself through its abilities, how the fight went, how I might have gone about things differently. It’s a process Garrick always practices. “Review while you’re fresh and update your codex if at all possible.”.

  I begin making a mental list of things I could improve, chief among them being to mask my presence while traveling alone far better. If the creature hadn’t taken the preparatory act of grabbing my ankle to counteract my first action, I probably would have started that fight with it trying to bite through my gorget. It probably wouldn’t be able to, since that’s one of the most reinforced areas of the armor, but it would have been a terrible position to start in. Following that, I disarmed fully to rest. The last time I’d been traveling had been with a cadre of ten other Vigil knights and two beastmasters. Plenty of bodies and eyes to deter creatures or catch anything bold or desperate enough to try anyways.

  I grimace. I was very sloppy. I recovered well and performed great considering the situation, but it was a situation I was in solely because of my actions or inactions. I could chalk it up to lack of sleep and stress and that’s a reasonable explanation, but it would have been of little solace had I died. I’ll need to be better in the future.

  I lift the creatures neck to retrieve my dagger, doing the same with its leg, and begin searching for my thrown daggers, just to discover that they didn’t penetrate clear through. So to get them back, I will need to carve up the monster, my least favorite part of hunting monsters. I’m not going to be dressing the creature to get valuable materials, but still, digging around in guts isn’t my definition of a good time.

  Resigned to my fate and pre-emptively steeling my stomach for the coming activity I go and grab my carry-all and toss my helmet inside dejectedly. It disappears into the small pack with a soft whump, and I follow on reaching in to pull out a field dressing kit for my side, my field codex, and a carving knife. The former to address the damage from the fight, and the lattermost to make my oncoming task recovering my weapons easier.

  But first things first, I take the medical kit and sit on a nearby rock and start to strip away the plates and layered fabric above the wound. The armor is designed to be taken apart piecemeal as we often operate alone or in small groups where it’s not always practical to have a dedicated medical specialist, and so comes apart easily to reveal my flank, which looks absolutely hellish. The wound itself wasn’t too terribly bad, but the spell afterwards definitely didn’t do my skin any favors. It’s dry, cracked, and there’s sections of blackened flesh that just smells oh-so terrible.

  I open the kit and pull out a rejuvenation patch. It’s a slow-acting patch you place over wounds that it will work to repair any damaged tissue above and below the skin. Wounds that are deep, like proper organ damage, are well beyond the ability of the simple enchanted patch, but for this it will probably be enough. I peel off the backing layer, channel a bit of essence into it to kickstart its process, and gently place it over the wound. I wait for the itching to start so I can know when it’s working. A few moments after that, my mouth starts to dry out — the cost of healing magic. Your body will repair itself faster but use proportionally more resources to do it. You get hungry, thirsty, and tired far faster. For that reason, these patches will stop operating after an hour and require being reactivated.

  You do not want to experience waking up after a full nights sleep of being under a healing effect. It’s frankly, worse than whatever injury might have necessitated using it. Some medical sorcerers can bypass those issues by using obscure essence types or by being able to multitask their spellcasting to offset the worst of the oncoming symptoms to allow for far faster healing. “Like May…” I find myself thinking as the itching worsens. I sigh and replace the segments of my armor, seeing that the fabric is already re-weaving itself into a slightly lesser, but functional, replacement over that section using basic synthesis.

  Approaching the creature, I pull out my codex — a small crystalline slate sheathed in a nullstone alloy on all but one face. Large enough to hold comfortably in one hand, it’s a vital tool for field operating; it provides any vigil knight with access to the collective information accrued both by the Vigil and provided by the Blackthorns within the Archives. It has four primary functions: Acting as a repository for information regarding flora, fauna, and monsters, keeping track of ones own status, recording reports, and collecting data to add to the Archives.

  I activate the codex with a small pulse of essence which quickly brings the complex little construct online as it begins drinking in ambient essence to compound and filter into the types it needs. Out this far from society, this tends to be a very slow process since it used a lot of Ordo in its operations, but the rest stop nearby has collected a fair bit of the stuff so it comes up faster than expected. Its front face lights up and the Vigil's little tune plays. I grit my teeth, as I do every time. I’ve looked into a method to disable it but never had any luck…

  The screen is mostly black with a few azure blue panels with sharp white outlines that react to essence.

  As I approach the creature, I tap on the “Recording” tile and wave it across the body of the creature. An ephemeral green essence pours from the device, tracing and outlining the creature while the codex chitters and chatters away. After about a minute, it chirps the Vigil jingle and displays the information in simple block lettering with a five-pointed graph displaying known traits, a list of relative capabilities compared to other monsters we encounter, known abilities, and a description of general behaviors.

  Breezing over the info, I sigh, entirely unsurprised how this thing had managed to survive so long. “Well, maybe we can give some people some closure when we make it to town, because I’m sure you’ve ruined at least a few peoples lives.” Feeling somewhat grim, I consider looking around for any bodies or personal effects that may still be around. But after reconsidering my need to catch up to Garrick, I resolve to just note the location and give as much information to local authorities as I can if I have the time.

  Looking back at the creature after stowing my field codex into a pouch on my waist, I address it, “Alright, time for you to give me my knives back you stupid lizard.” I smile as I remember a piece of advice Garrick gave me in years past as I eye the damage I did, “Nobody looks up when they’re in a field”. I begin taking off my gauntlets, as I really don’t want fluids getting into them. It feels awful and is nearly impossible to clean easily. Kneeling beside it, I heft the oversized carving knife and chop down with it to open the creatures belly. The blade flashes on contact with the skin, using a small burst of Perditio essence to cause the material to break down rapidly on contact, abrading the affected area as well as easing the actual cutting.

  I am instantly assaulted by the smell of guts, though these are tinged with the odor-limiting secondary effect of the creatures own Aero essence, so it could be much worse. I see one of my knives immediately, having punched just shy of all the way through the stomach on the way out. Another is stuck between two vertebrae — a blow that probably would have disabled its rear two leg pairs had it had a chance to do anything else. I nod, satisfied with the aim, though that was mostly luck to actually catch the spine directly.

  The last one requires…digging. It’s the one that struck the center of mass and had the most material to get through. With how poorly my Sanctus essence wreathed them this time, I expect it’s going to be stuck in the dead center of the creature and set about carving deeper. As I reach about elbow deep into the creature, the knife strikes something solid and promptly deactivates its cutting aura. I feel the change through the handle and pull the knife out and look at it. “Did you break?” I give it a disdainful glare, “I guess I’ll do the rest by hand. Thanks.”

  I reach inside the gap and dig around with my bare hand, suppressing the urge to gag the entire time. I wrap my hand around the solid thing I struck and it feels…smooth. River rock smooth, polished, even. It takes a bit of effort and straining, but it pops free suddenly and I fall backwards onto my butt. Embarrassed, I look at the anomaly. It’s a grey-brown orb, perfectly spherical, with what appears to be a swirling dust-storm inside.

  Remembering, I break into a grin. I'm holding in my hand a rare object — a condensed essence core. Monsters that have lived long enough can wind up making these if they make active enough usage of their essence-related abilities. It empowers the creature, acting similar to the secondary essence benefits that the mortal kyn are buoyed by, but contained in a core, rather than your spirit and soul. The magical theory behind why isn’t something I’m aware of, but I know the outcome. I’m in possession of an incredibly dense source of essence above and beyond anything that any person could call in any reasonable length of time without risking death.

  The problem, however, is that I don’t know what type of essence it is, so I’ll need to consult someone to find out what it is before I can consider using it for anything. Referencing my codex again, it’s almost certainly Terra or Pulvis, but with no experience with either messing with it would be anywhere between foolish and suicidal. Though…selling it wouldn’t be the worst idea, enchanters and alchemists will pay good coin for these because they simplify the enchanting process a lot.

  It confirms that I'm right, at least. It was an old bastard of a thing, and it almost certainly had spent a lot of its life fighting, and presumably killing, people. Not any longer, though. This thing had been probably the top of the food chain in the area and probably was stalking this specific spot for lone travelers or poorly equipped groups. Good. One less threat, and my duties to the realm are upkept.

  Reaching in past where the core had been, I find my knife with its tip chipped, probably from striking the core. Same reason that the carving knife turned off I assume. Must have detected an essence-rich item and prevented itself from abrading it, preventing the risk of breaching the core and loosing its essence into the area. Which I'm grateful for. If it's core had vented while I was sitting on its back, it probably would have been crippling at best.

  I let out a long sigh, thinking on the odds of the repair enchantment being able to fix the broken tip, but decide to chalk it up to a loss. Even if it does manage to repair itself, the tip will be weaker for it, and it’s better to accept having nine knives than to think I have ten and have one fail at a critical moment. I pitch it into my carry-all for eventually.

  I spend the next while cleaning and preparing for travel. I use bits of Aero essence to lighten the load and drag the creature off the road a fair distance to limit the chance of it attracting more monsters. Following that, I clean my armor and hands, oil my weapons, and perform general essence upkeep on everything, feeding small bits of the appropriate primal essence types into each to ensure their operation continues uninterrupted into the future. Aero and Ignia are easy as they’re the ones I have the greatest affinity with, but each of the others are markedly harder and leave me feeling flush and nursing a minor headache after the effort.

  As the time to depart draws nearer, I remove the rejuvenation patch, returning it to the field treatment kit, and spend some time filling my extra canteens to offset the dehydration of the healing I’ve been going through in addition to what I’m going to need just for the distance I intend to cover over the coming days. With luck, I should be able to make it to the fortified town of Silverbrook, the first stop on the journey to my destination and where I hope I might catch up to Garrick. He’s probably moving along at a good clip — his endurance is beyond compare in that regard, but given the situation he might not be rushing.

  Finishing doing some stretching, I heft my carry-all and put boots to the road, aiming to push myself for this leg of the journey to ensure I can make it before it’s too dark.