I dream of embarrassingly pleasant things considering where I’m at and what I need to be doing. But even subconsciously, I’m unable to fight them. When I wake up I do so feeling good. Well rested for the first time since before the expedition. As I sit up, I hear birdsong and glance around.

  Everything in the room is where it should be — except it’s not quite… One of my armor plates has fallen on the floor. A fairly large one, even. My shoulder-guard is laying on the ground, upturned. It had been on the top of the stack of plates, but I can’t think of a good reason as to why it might have fallen over. I suppose I might have not stacked them as cleanly as normal, but… I look up and glance out the window, seeing that the morning frost has already melted from it-

  I realize with a start that the sun is much too high. Instead of streaming into my window, it’s casting shallow shadows around the town outside. It has to be near or past noon. I all but leap out of bed before hopping back onto it abruptly after my feet touch the cold floor with a yelp. I expected the floor to be heated too, since the room is so comfortable otherwise. With a sigh I lower myself down again and look outside to see the town bustling with activity.

  Thinking of all the things I have to do and how behind I am, I feel a little bit overwhelmed. I start to mentally break it down: Equipment, Resupply food, new knife, check for bounty contracts and dangers, hit the road. Ultimately only five steps, but so much time has already been wasted. I must have slept nearly twelve hours, and mentally reprimand myself for it.

  Following my plan, I quickly don my arms and armor, a task that takes the better part of ten minutes, but as I pull on the last few things I feel substantially better. Being out of armor always makes me feel slightly uneasy. I can abide not wearing my helm most of the time, but everything else is less comfortable.

  Shaking that thought off, I grab my carryall and the key for the room after doing a once-over to tidy things up — refusing to be one of the people who leaves things in a worse way than I found them. I make my way down the stairs and into the now quite bustling frontroom. The old proprietor is moving well faster than I’d have expected he could as he delivers food to various tables alongside another much younger teal-scaled merkyn boy. They make their way in and out of a room in the rear where I hear the occasional curse or order confirmation from. I just stand for a moment, taking in the chaos. Probably thirty freelancers in the room, all dressed in the myriad ways that their like are wont to.

  Arguments, laughter, serious discussion and everything inbetween abound. After a scan, I see neither the guards, the people I helped, nor the freelancers from last night among them and sigh in relief. I've been dreading meeting any of them in the light of day when they could see me clearly.

  I walk up to the front desk and drop my chit into a basket on the now more cleared table. The old man chimes in as he passes by, “You be safe on the roads. Heard some big mountain of a man came through and went off stompin’ towards Meadowfields.” he finishes and disappears into the back, leaving me to walk out the front of the building. Chiding myself for my late start after being reminded about the whole reason I’m out here. Stepping out into the chill air and warm sun, I start to push through the press of bodies as adventurers and townsfolk go about their daily routines.

  I spend the next hour making my way around town to one of its provisioners for rations and other travel supplies and a smith to buy a new knife to replace my broken one. It’s a different style and slightly differently weighted but nothing that will be a problem. To limit any potential confusion, I put it in the space in my braces that I’ll draw last.

  Satisfied with my preparations I begin to make my way to the eastern gate, angling to stop at the directory to see if there’s anything of note on the next path. The directory is in the middle of the town and is currently surrounded by a handful of freelancers planning their next endeavors. One of them catches my eye — the heavily robed and hunched person looking no less obfuscated than the previous night, even moreso even. Approaching, I watch them rip down a bounty from the side of the board indicating travel towards Kharbon and head off away from me down the road.

  Pushing my curiosity down, I stand before the directory and look over the route I traveled and will be traveling down. I take it in, notice that there’s a note next to the wayfarer’s rest I stayed at indicating the presence of a powerful monster stalking the area. What’s more, in Garrick’s handwriting there’s an additional note about it being a stealthy creature and its likely type. I groan loudly at the notes, only passively noticing that I catch some side-eye from people nearby.

  I look over to the board indicating travel to the next town to see if there’s anything of note, but it’s been picked entirely clean of everything. Turning to a stocky gray-furred canid beastkyn with impressive striking gauntlets, I ask, “”Nothing for heading to Meadowfields?”

  They turn to look at me, eyes pointedly settling on my horns for a moment. “Ah nah. Heard someone came by and took everything couple days back and nothin new’s been posted since. It’s a shame, too, was planning to head that way to see some family but don’t ‘ave much reason to now.” They shrug, seemingly nonplussed, but I just stare at them for a moment, suddenly struck with a very difficult decision.

  I’m caught between telling him that there’s likely nothing left there or playing ignorant and waiting for the news to arrive here naturally. Either option has serious consequences. If I tell him, word will spread and in an uncontrolled way. Freelancers will certainly go looking and I can’t guarantee it's safe. If I say nothing, people might eventually wander over there and find it for themselves. Wracking my brain, I decide to let it play itself out naturally until Garrick and I find proof of the man’s death. “I appreciate it. That's common around here; people taking a whole board of bills like that?” I try to keep it casual after my well-too-long pause after hearing his sentiment.

  He gives me an almost worried look, “Nah. Some of those bills were for serious contracts, I don’t know any one person who’d take it all on in one go. Ya doin’ alright? Ya seem a bit off.”

  I answer, a little too quickly, “I’m fine, just trying to make plans. Thanks, you stay safe out there.” I unclip my helm as I turn to walk away, quickly pulling it on and activating some of its minor enchantments: one-way transparency and general sensory improvements. There’s also a side benefit of obscuring my heritage to an untrained eye, which is something I appreciate more often than not. The helm secures around my horns in such a way that it looks more like an aesthetic crown to the helmet than my own real horns. I hear the canid make a remark about demonkyn in general and the Vigil in specific that I ignore as I walk. Before long, though, I realize I am traveling the same way as the mysterious stranger and wondering if they happened to be heading towards Meadowfields too…

  Ten minutes later, as I’m nearing the gate, I hear a sudden shout from a nearby side-alley leading to some specialty shops. Turning my head to the noise I see two titankyn looming over someone. I will more essence into the sensory-boosting enchantments in my helm and feel my field of view stretch and my hearing become sharper in turn. I turn and angle that direction, peering past the pair of oversized and barely clothed, heavily tattooed, pale-skinned kyn and spot a now familiar-looking cloak backed against a wall before them. Notably, I see that the glaive that they’d been using as a walking staff last night is nowhere to be seen — until I realize it’s in the smaller of the two’s hands being inspected.

  “It's not your problem, Nyss, it’s a local spat.”

  As I make it to the entrance into the alley, I get a clearer idea of the conversation, “Lis’n little one, if you’re gonna walk ‘round with something this nice, I think ya should show us ya other toys. We like ‘ta look at nice things is all.” The taller female one says with a voice that sounds gruff and about as soothing as rockslide. She’s about Garricks height and covered in essence-focusing tattoos — a standard spellcasting method for the titan clans as far as I know. They practice wordless casting using the tattoos to preshape essence and hold it for long periods of time.

  “Just keep on walking, some locals will notice and intervene. Your gear shouldn't be used to fight people.” I begin to call essence, a fair amount of every base type that I can and feed it into my armor, largely on reflex.

  The shorter one follows on and I find myself walking forward towards the scene, “What’ve ya got under the robes, huh? More fine gear like this’n? Just give us a peek, yah?” I see the robed figure tense as the male grabs ahold of their robes and tugs.

  I nearly trip as the robes are ripped away. The “hunched” figure was not “hunched” and not a man as I’d anticipated based on their bulk. No, instead what’s revealed is someone who gleams from head to toe in a mixture of copper red and verdigris green. Huge red-orange, leathery wings spread wide and I see that she has matching scales all over her visible body all the way down to a thick and heavy-looking tail. Her arms are visibly deformed for what I’d expect from any non-human kyn, looking more like rending claws than fingers and what I’d mistaken as gauntlets was clearly just her actual hands and arms. Her face is soft, with patches of scales framing her verdigris eyes, chin and mouth. Her head is framed with backswept white horns and hair that begins red-orange at the scalp and eventually turns an oxidized green at the tips and she looks terrified. Seeing that face reminds me of another scared girl from my past who didn’t used to be able to fight but definitely can now.

  “Now there was som’thin valuable under the robes. Didn’t know there were any of you left. Boss’d love to talk to ya, little’un.” The female titan reaches out and grabs the scared girl’s wing at a central joint and she lets out a small yelp of pain as the woman squeezes..

  “I guess I’m locals today.”

  I dump essence into my armor's enchantments to bring it up to a fighting standard and it instantly feels hotter inside as the various patches of runework ignite on the armor's innermost layer. With each step, my stride lengthens considerably as my physical enhancements kick in. At the same time, my helmet’s perceptive abilities max out, providing a heavily distorted nearly three hundred and sixty degree view around me. It’s something that made me vomit the first time I experienced it when I tried to watch it all at once. Throwing up inside a sealed helmet was a uniquely unpleasant experience that I’ve managed to never repeat now that I know how to use it properly after all these years of training.

  The scaled girl spots me a moment before my first blow lands and ducks away from the grabbing hands but one meaty hand manages to grab a wing. I make use of my momentum to drive a punch into the grabby ones’ ribs. Amplified by speed and the armor's own enhancements it lands like a dropped anvil and I see the ripples radiate outwards from the impact. Something resists for an instant in time, but then there’s a gut-wrenching crack and they release the girl's wings to hold their side as they turn to swing with their free hand on reflex.

  “Nyssa, you’re fast. The armor will help make you strong and tough, but your advantage will always be speed. Use your awareness and speed to dodge and tire your opponents, only strike on overextensions.” Never fight more than one enemy at a time if at all possible”

  With Lan's lessons in my mind, I split my focus between the both of them, losing track of the girl in the face of actual threats. I duck the swing which collides with the nearby wall with stone-cracking force at the same time her tattoos flash. Amplified strikes, I note as I slam my mailed fist into the side of her knee, using my duck to put more force into the blow. It strikes solidly but doesn’t snap like I’d hoped, instead I see green energy flare across her body at the point of impact leaving her apparently unbothered. Essence barrier, I identify, resolving to strike softer but more often to overwhelm it.

  “Never fight more than one opponent in close quarters. Definitely don’t do it alone.”

  I remember the advice a little late, but at the same time that a swing with that glaive is coming at the back of my head from the male, escalating the situation instantly in my mind. “Weapons.” I think as I throw myself to the side into the slightly more open intersection of the alleys, vacating the swing arc at the last moment. There’s a moment where all of us hesitate and I begin calling Aero essence as I reach for my fighting knives. I spot the girl sitting tucked into a corner of the alley with her knees pulled up to her chest. She’s largely out of sight, thankfully, and these thugs won’t be looking away from me anytime soon if I can help it.

  “Now I don’ know why you stuck your nose into our business, but you’re gon’ regret it.” The grabby one slams her fists together in a shower of green sparks, wreathing them in a thin layer of stone guided down the tattoos in her arms.

  “Terra caster.” I note “They’ll get sluggish before too long.”

  I don’t respond, only fools talk during combat. The male takes a step back, allowing the shorter-ranged fighter to close the gap. She obligingly does so coming in with an obvious feint now seemingly unburdened by the injury after she likely imbued herself. I dodge the feint and the follow-up and quickly unsheathe one of my daggers into a draw cut. The moonsteel bites through the essence barrier with serious resistance. But it does still bite. I slash down the road of her extended arm as I fade backwards into a graceful handspring to create distance, trying to keep drawing them away from the girl on the opposite side of the alley. I don’t know what they want with her but I'm not about to let it happen.

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  The one with an opened forearm lets out a string of curses and I see her arm starting to try to knit itself back together. I make to dart forward to strike her while she’s vulnerable but lose track of the bigger picture just long enough to not see the blow with the glaive coming as it strikes in the middle of my back with enough force to drive me to the ground. The impact dampening spreads the blow across all of the armor as intended — taking it from what might have been a lethal hit to just concussive force. Several rune indicators in my helmet flash out, indicating damage to those emitters and weakening the general enhancements of the armor by ten or so percent.

  Recovering from being knocked in the back with a somersault into a handspring I level a kick at the larger woman’s chin to wheel back onto my feet. It connects with a satisfying crack. I watch her head lock backwards as she stumbles back from the blow a few steps. I land from the flip, reaching for three knives and release my held spell.

  Prevailing Winds

  [Touch | Imbuement | Acceleration | Aero]

  I loose the knives along with the spell, sheer white aero essence racing out from my armors vents and down my arm as I swing. It reaches the throwing knives the moment they leave my grip with a crack, imparting extreme speed to them. He’d been readying to block and manages to stop two of the tightly grouped knives in the split second of travel, deflecting them with the glaive. Only two, though, as the final one sinks into his clavicle, punching straight through his barrier and leaving him reeling just like the-

  I am punched solidly in the side of the head from a blindspot caused by my armors enchantments weakening from the blow from the glaive. It knocks me spinning sideways into a wall with a pained gasp as I bounce off of it. Five more runes wink out in the helmet, but before I can recover I receive another titanic punch right into my more heavily armored midsection that physically lifts me off the ground by sheer force. The stone sheathe around her arms shatters from the force of the blow and I feel metal bend at a bad angle, digging into my ribs. A third hammer blow comes in for the front of my helmet but I’ve recovered enough of my wits to dive forward and twist, risking putting my back to the male briefly to drive my dagger like an icepick into the back of the woman’s knee. I sense an attack coming, feeling it just on edge of my perception, a potent essence wave behind me, so I rip my dagger free and spin as the woman screams in pain. I brace the back of the blade with my offhand and meet the blow and begin to call Aero again.

  I see the glaive is red hot, far too hot for Ignia. The impact on my dagger starts to deform it so I twist, allowing the blow to continue, slamming into the ground and sending up a shower of magma at the point of impact. “A compound essence wielder? Ignia and terra is volcano or magma!?” He brings it up from the slam, spraying molten material at me and scattering it against my armor. The remaining runes wink out one by one as the superheated material eats into the enchantments. The armor is desperately trying to absorb the excess essence from the spell-wrought magma, but the damage comes too quickly to matter.

  I have to do something risky else I’ll risk my armor failing entirely which would leave me incredibly vulnerable with its weight. I step inside his guard, keeping my armor's lava-covered front facing him. When I’m too close for him to swing or block, I release my favorite simple spell after with every mote of aero I can manage.

  Puff

  [Burst | Aero]

  Far more powerful than I managed with the creeper due to the amount of essence I push into the spellshape, my spell erupts with a coherent wall of air. The force of the blast accomplishes two goals. One. He is knocked away and off balance, something I will capitalize on. But the second, and more important, effect was blasting the magma off of my armor and directly into his bare skin like a scattergun. I follow him as he stumbles backwards and the scent of blackening flesh filling the air. With one dagger in hand I spring up over one of his shoulders, wrapping my free arm around his neck to drag him to the ground raising my dagger high.

  We both land with a heavy thud though only one of us is prepared for what comes next. A cold feeling passes through me as I think about the fight in the moment before my dagger falls. “They turned this lethal first. They just failed to seal the deal.” I plunge my dagger down in a killing stroke and it sinks through his collarbone nearly effortlessly. He immediately reaches up to press both hands against the spurting wound. It won’t matter.

  Eyes refocusing and looking for the remaining threat, I spot her too late, though, having missed the blood curdling and pained scream of a name in the haze of my adrenaline-soaked mind. I am grabbed from behind by the titan woman and lifted clean off the ground and squeezed for everything she has, pinning my arms to my side. I see her tattooed arms just below my helmet flash red as she imbues herself with strength to squeeze the life out of me.

  My mind flashes back to something years ago, a similar situation with an ogre where I failed to escape and May wound up nearly killing herself to save me. The memory comes unbidden but does send a spike of panic through me. I wasn’t able to call essence back then though, I calm my mind just enough to start forcing ignia essence straight out of the air and into my muscles, trying to match her force for force, but she’s winning, even if only by degrees. But with every mote of Ignia I introduce to my system it gets easier to call the next and the next as I feel the impulsivity of ignia poisoning settle into my mind.

  I keep struggling but see the likely outcome coming. I’m somewhat resigned as I fight. “Hope the girl got aw—” I don’t get to finish the thought. I hear a monstrous roar and a wave of fire rushes around me, coming from behind the titanic woman behind me. I’m shielded from the flames by her body but she drops me the instant the rush of fire stops. Not much worse for wear due to my resistance, I spin around, ready to fight but see that it’s not needed.

  I struggle to parse what I’m seeing as I watch her essence barrier collapse with a green flash. The woman is aflame, but the flames are…wrong. They’re not burning out like any Ignia flames should. If anything they seem to be growing and spreading, almost like a living creature trying to eat something. It’s mesmerizing and I only distantly hear what are surely ear-piercing screams. Eventually, she stumbles one last time and collapses, the fire still clinging like a greedy lover to her. Idly, in a bit of a daze, I realize I’m getting dangerously hot and the last few lights wink out on my helmet after indicating fire damage.

  But I’m nearly tackled as I see coppery wings wrap around me, tightly against my armor and I suddenly realize that the fire did not fully miss me. Wherever the wings touch, I feel heat being sapped away from my armor and body and a distant burning sensation lessening.

  The rest of reality comes crashing back in around me as the adrenaline flees my system and my battle trance is broken..

  “I’m so so so so sorry! I thought I would have missed you! Are you okay? Hey! Can you hear me?” I shake a bit of wooziness out of my head.

  “I….yeah. I’m fine. I didn’t take any meaningful damage, all things considered.” I report clinically as I look down to the scaled girl wrapped around me and realize that she’s actually quite pretty when she’s not scared. She steps back, tucking her wings in as close to her body as possible, looking almost…embarrassed? “I should ask you the same. They didn’t hurt you, did they?” With my armor enchantments disabled and my throat dry and raw, my voice is coming through the helmet deeper and with a metallic tinge.

  She makes a show of looking herself up and down, her wings seeming to passively pantomime her arm motions as she does. “Nope! I’m just fine, I think. Just shaken up. I’ll be fine otherwise though.” She beams at me with a cocksure grin that stuns me for a moment.

  I reach up to pop my helmet free with some effort. There’s a notable dent keeping a latch held, but it eventually loosens as it tries to repair itself, letting my matted hair fall free and for all of the pent-up heat in my body to start dissipating. Leaking out of my every pore comes all of the waste ignia and it carries with it body heat, blessedly cooling my body down as Hydrus reasserts itself in my body chemistry again. “That’s good to hear. I couldn’t just stand by and watch…that…Is there something on my face or something?” I realize that she’s staring at my face intently and with a redness coming to her scaled cheeks from however much she had to exert herself to cast that spell.

  She stammers a response, “I-I just wasn’t expecting the knight in shining armor who came to save the day to be p-pretty, I guess!” She awkwardly responds.

  I, equally awkwardly, respond, “Ah, yeah, the armor tends to obscure us a lot. It’s mostly by design, really.” I explain factually, ignoring the compliment out of habit, as I gesture down one of the side alleys to get away from this scene before it inevitably draws attention. Those people were clearly criminals and were willing to kill, so I’ll lose no sleep over it but I don’t want to subject her to it any longer than necessary. “What were you even doing in the alleys here?”

  “Oh, I was looking for a book at a little store back there. My group and I are heading to Cerbahn,“ She utterly butchers the name the way most people who’ve only read it do, “And we're going to take care of a bounty on something. A stalking monster of some variety.” She pauses, reaching into her bag, “I did get the book though!” She holds it up proudly, beaming again. At some point she had retrieved her glaive which, looking at it now, seems to perfectly stylistically match the light armor she’s wearing. Must be fairly well-off.

  My brain catches up to the conversation after a slight signal delay from the smile, “A mosscale creeper, right?” I offer.

  “Oh! You know it? Yeah, they’re apparently pretty dangerous and an adult one is supposed to be stalking the roads to the city.”

  “Yeah. I do know it. It tried to eat me.” I say matter-of-factly. “It’s quite dead now.”

  I watch her deflate and almost regret saying the words for how it changes her mood. “Oh. That sucks. Well, we can find another contract, then. Good thing it’s gone anyways. I’m glad it didn’t eat you, for what it’s worth.” I gesture down the alley and start walking, intending to take her to the main roads via side alleys to separate us from the scene as much as possible.

  “I didn’t claim the bounty — that’s not how we do things. I can mark down where I left the body for you, it’ll still be reasonably fresh and most of its materials are intact. You’re free to take it and report the kill.“ I shrug, thinking for a moment as she trots alongside me. I reach into my carryall and pull out the core, pushing it into her hands. “It was a monster with a core, you’ll probably get a bonus if you turn that in alongside it. I was just going to sell it but don’t really need the money.”

  She stares at me as I go on, “Seriously? You’ll just…give me all of that?”

  “Why not? I don’t need it and I’ve got to be on my way. Lightens my load and helps someone out, win win.” I state seriously, not even trying to be humble but rather just simply stating facts. I hear a chime and feel some essence catch in the armors runes as it starts to repair itself. A process that will take time after the beating it just received. “Those thugs bothered you because of your gear and said you were especially interesting since there’s not many of you?” I gesture to her wings, tail, and horns. “I’d be lying if I said I recognized your ancestry, but should you be seen publicly like this? I know the looks I get because of my horns, I imagine you’d get a more…extreme…reaction.”

  She’d been nodding along absently, smiling as we walk, but she stops. “I…probably shouldn’t, no. Wasn’t thinking of that.” She grimaces as she looks around but finds nothing of use.

  “Here, take this, then.” I reach into my carryall and draw out the oversized traveling blanket. “It’ll look awkward and definitely draw eyes, but it’ll draw eyes because you look like a cute, cold weirdo rather than a…” I hesitate, unsure what word to use. In place of a word, I just gesture at her whole body with the blanket.

  “I can’t really afford to pay you back for all this help. I think that’s how it usually works, right?” She looks at the blanket, a somber look on her face, seemingly pointedly not answering the implied question. I respect her privacy, in spite of my curiosity. The last thing I have any intention of doing is making someone different feel like an outsider by focusing on the physical traits.

  “I just said I don’t need money. The Vigil keeps us well supplied and if I need another I can buy it. Just take it, it’s fine.” I unfold it and extend my arms at her to wrap her up. She sheepishly lets me drape it over her and she takes on her prior hunched look. Knowing what she looks like, it’s a terrible disguise, but I can’t imagine anyone else will know what she is. The Vigil is trained on every creature under the Watchers eye and I’ve never heard of something like her.

  “Thanks. If we ever cross paths again, I’ll pay you back with interest.” She shoots me another stunning smile and draws a “hood” up using the blanket.

  “You really don’t have to.” I state simply, “But I appreciate the sentiment. I wish you well on your journey. Stay out of alleys and away from thugs, yeah?”

  “Yeah, I’ll be more careful.” She turns but stops, looking back over her shoulder. “What’s your name? I think I should at least thank my savior by name.”

  “Nyssa Vigil, Slayer Aspirant of the Order of the Eternal Vigil.” I half bow, arm across my chest.

  Her smile.

  “Wow, so formal, you really are a knight, huh? Lilly would love you.” She says with a distant look in her eyes and a small smile, some pink coming to her cheeks again. “My name is Ayre, Ayre’A’khana… Nobody Important of the… Random Travelers of the Road.” She giggles a little at her joke before turning away, waving over her shoulder. “Thank you, Nyssa Vigil, Slayer Aspirant of the Order of the Eternal Vigil!” and trots off away, breaking into a light run that almost makes me think of a retreat rather than a simple departure.

  I release a lot of tension I’d been holding onto: she didn’t seem to recognize me or my armor from last night, which is ideal. I didn’t want to drag out our interactions any further than necessary. It’s never been a good idea for me to get close to people like that and I’ve already done more than was necessary by a leap and a bound.

  Sighing, I cast a glance back down the alley, imagining the site of the battle in my mind's eye. With a bit of effort I get what I feel is a good enough recollection and call some aero essence to shape a more complex spell. I stop, giving the task total focus

  Zephyr’s Grasp

  [Projectile | Split | Homing | Forced Imbuement | Aero ]

  Composing the spell makes me light headed and takes about thirty seconds of concentrated effort as I walk away from the scene, but when I loose it three small clouds rush away from me and to the location in my minds eye. They retrieve my daggers and whisk them back to me, settling them in the prescribed holsters.

  As I make my way to the gate, I’m feeling shockingly good considering recent events and can’t really stop myself smiling when I think of the strange girls smile. I cross the gate with no issues and the sun still reasonably high in the sky and begin to jog while my armor works hard to repair itself in the interim.

  “Ayre’A’khana, maybe we will meet again.”

  way back when I was still working on the first book of the other series and thinking I could write both at the same time. Translation being: The quality and consistency of the writing spikes up pretty quick from here on out.