The morning found the men drawn up in ordered ranks. And if they weren’t parade ground pretty, weapons were sharp, armor securely fastened and those inside it bright-eyed and eager. And if it wasn’t completely clean, well, it was as good as one could expect considering the time constraints and conditions.

  And, what was more important, they were his! “Are you ready to end this?” He bellowed, his voice bouncing through the cavern.

  “AYYYY!” They roared back. He smiled widely.

  “Move out!” The outline of golden light shone through the cavern as the 12-man wide column marched into the northeast tunnel. Taking with them fully 110 soldiers and another hundred Labori as a baggage train.

  Behind them another two hundred Labori were hard at work and had been through the night. A hundred would leave and enter the rift every two hours, bringing high energy and a will to work in, and carrying mushroom logs back out. They’d done a fair number on this cavern and were now forced to expand.

  Mostly to the cleared cavern the band was walking to. Carrying already felled and stacked mushlogs, thank you bugs, out was a far cry faster than having to cut them down first. Even if the longer walk was going to slow things down a bit.

  They also left behind nearly ninety newly minted Bandsman. Thirty from before, not even half-trained and a further sixty that made the jump overnight. Outfitted in spare armor and weapons, they were a far sight from competent soldiers, but as insurance against leakers from on top of earthworks, they… were at least better than nothing. Especially with James and a handful of 2nd tier lancers to stiffen the ranks.

  The new men needed training and isn’t a brisk fight at low stakes good training?

  The thought didn’t linger long as the Bandsman continued marching through the tunnels, through the previously cleared cavern and on to the usual series of simple, easy fights against the small bugs groups in the tunnels.

  In very little time, another cavern opened before his eyes. Spreading in front of his eyes was a small, shallow lake, dropping slightly from the tunnel's entrance and extending outward to either side in a wide arc. Gently rising up from the glass-like water, land appeared again in gentle mushroom-dotted slopes. Slopes riven here and there by small creeks, pouring down its sides in winding courses to feed the lake below.

  At the top, the father of all mushtrees graced and fully occupied the hilltop. At least a hundred feet in height and he could only guess at how wide. It looked like a cliff wall, not a growing plant.

  Hell, its cap shaded the entire cavern, shifting the colors from the light yellow of the rift's natural lighting towards blue luminescence.

  Trickles of water poured down from it, from tiny rents and tears in its fibrous flesh.

  He felt a moment of vertigo, as those small beads of water flowed out and down before pouring into the lake in front of him as creeks several feet wide!

  It took him a moment, the monster of a shroom on the hill stealing his attention, but eventually he did spot the additional, if almost minuscule by comparison, monstrosity. A long, articulated neck topped by a beady head and a pair of mandibles arced through the air above the lesser mushtree caps and bit a chunk out of that cliff wall, leaving another wound that bled water down the hill in a new creek.

  Fuck, but that was a giant bug!

  Nor was it alone. Flashes of movement, bits of brown and ivory flashed between mushtrunks. Even more obvious when thy crossed the blue of a water course. Exact numbers were but a dream, but there had to be a lot of them.

  “Walls are clear.” Leo’s voice offered from behind him.

  “That’s something at least. Any elites?”

  “Not that I can see, but with a forest of mushrooms and a hill to hide behind…” He trailed off.

  Ethan nodded. That was definitely a thing, but with a moat, even a shallow one in front of them… Huh. “Set up here.” He offered quietly, glancing sideways at Conner.

  His mouth twitched, masticating slowly as he rolled both his usual weeds and the problem around, then finally he spat a dark green liquid to the side. “Moat’ll do. What yous gonna do if that bigger sucker rolls on down?”

  “Retreat into the tunnels.” Ethan responded, not needing to think about it. At that size… no way a sarrisa wall was going to do much. “Doubt it can fit, but if it tries, it should limit its movements.”

  He nodded, sizing up the forest and the head still visible in the distance. “Should ‘ave some time…” He mused. “Any chance at scoutin dat mess?”

  Leo shrugged. “The edges. Circle the island like. Bit close in da forest. Wit dems moving all about… Maybe.” He didn’t sound convinced.

  Ethan slashed a hand in negation. He’d sacrificed scouts before. Pushing them out against and through packs of low-end demons to get a necessary understanding of what was coming.

  When you rolled the dice like that, some poor bastards wouldn’t come home. But if you didn’t look, it wasn’t just the scouts that rolled. It was the entire band. He’d do it again if needed, but the juice had to be worth the squeeze.

  Conner shrugged and nodded. “It’ll have to do.”

  He gave Andrew and Guile a glance, eyebrow raised. Neither spoke. Good enough, then.

  “Deploy.” He barked loudly, before continuing in a much quieter voice. “Sir Andrew, get ready to bring them to us, yes?” He didn’t wait for a response.

  “Sir Leo, find a vantage point and give us some warning if the big boy starts moving.”

  “Girl.” Leo offered. “Big damn girl. Umbral Matriarch and a ways into tier 3.” At this distance? Ethan gave him a side-eyed glance even as he fought not to grimace. He must have ranked something up to manage that.

  But tier 3… It wasn’t unexpected, but that didn’t mean he wanted to hear it.

  Still, one thing at a time.

  “Girl then. Give us what warning you can.”

  “Can do.”

  Ethan nodded and waited a few more moments for the men to spread out, under Conners and the officers’ barking orders, expanding from the entrance in a shallow arc. Braced against the wall to either side and occupying all of the available dry land. With feet or spears.

  “Loose at will.” He offered, a second later, a blast of air hit the side of his face and a dark black shaft shot upward in a graceful arc, before plunging between mushroom caps and halfway through a worker. Piercing right through the thinner articulated rings at the back of its neck.

  Fuck, but the man could shoot! Lucky too, of course, it hadn’t moved in the second it took the arrow to cover that kind of distance. But you had to be good enough for the Lady of Luck to bother.

  The world froze or at least all the bugs in it that he could see. The oddness of it struck him like a slap to the face. No shouts of pain, no warcries of rage. Nothing for a full second.

  Then chunks of mushroom were dropped, chores ignored as bugs streamed towards the center. Directly between the Humans and the big bugger above.

  Partially screened by the mushroom forest, the caps still lacked the density to really hide the growing numbers. Another arrow leapt past, arcing up through the air and back down to ping off a bug’s carapace. Not even Andrew could consistently make shots on armored figures at 300 yards. But he didn’t need to, like a kicked wasp nest the bugs shifted and exploded into motion. A motion that was remarkably lacking in Elites.

  He wasn’t sure if he was happy or disappointed. If the water slowed them like it should, they’d go down easy enough… But then should was never his favorite word.

  The wave charged down the hill, dodging around trees and hopping over the creek course as needed, and slowing down a bit in the doing. Arrows continually flew over his head, becoming more and more accurate as they got closer.

  Soon, even sentinels were dropping with the regularity of a marching drum’s beat.

  Then the wave became a real wave. A massed front of bugs crashed into the shallow water, barely above knee height to a human, but kissing the bottom of the bug's thorax with their wider, lower stance. They slowed to a crawl crossing it. A frenzied slow-motion crawl.

  He had the sudden urge to laugh at the visual contradiction.

  Barely 10 yards of water, but it was enough. More than enough to kill their mobility and disrupt their balance.

  “Pick your targets!” Ethan bellowed, before letting Andrew pick up the call.

  “Prepare to volley- Volley!” A heavy wave of pilum flew out, arcing over the front ranks to fall into block of workers with ruinous effect.

  The two front ranks switched, taking their two-handed spears in both hands and presenting them to the enemy, while those in back kept them upright in their left hands, and while their right pulled another pilum from a leather quiver on their backs.

  “Prepare- Volley!” Andrew called again.

  Then the slow-moving bugs hit the spears like a slow-rolling log into a saw blade. Without the closing momentum they did very little damage. But the spears likewise did little in return.

  It was a grinding, slow melee. Blocks of spears timing massed Thrusts at 2 per minute. A pace, with the Standard and Ethan’s buffs, they could keep up for an hour. Hastati crouched behind their shields to the front. Blocking as little of the Phalangites’ sight as possible, until a bug managed to push its way through the thicket, then they lunged forward with a shield bash and a short chop. Knock back, cripple or just hold them off while spears to either side searched for a gap in its armor, and put it down permanently.

  It was an exhausting, brutal slugfest. Just the kind the Band had cut their teeth on, and they were a hell of a lot better at it than the bugs. A steady stream of reinforcements filtered in, replacing the wounded or those with broken weapons. Replacement weapons were handed out and wounds bandaged before they returned to the battle in a circle that seemed interminable.

  Periodically, volleys of pilum would lash out from the back ranks till the last bug went down under thrusting spears and iron discipline.

  The pastoral scene from a half hour earlier was as dead as the bugs. The previous ideal lake was now spotted with stepping-stone-like corpses. Its surface slick with green ichor.

  A pity, but needs must.

  Ethan's eyes flashed in reflected light for a moment before they darted to the cap of a mushroom on the opposite shore, where Leo was already sheathing a burnished dagger. The man shook his head.

  No movement from the boss at all? Now why… “Check it out.” He spoke softly. Leo nodded and quickly disappeared into the forest.

  “Take a break.” He offered in a much louder voice before pointing out two Decurions with mostly fresh men and gesturing them forward. They spread out and forward into the water, thrusting spears into the downed bugs before gesturing the Labori out to begin their usual work.

  Ethan walked to the edge of the water, considering the hill ahead and the monstrosity atop it. The men in front and around him began their usual post-combat rituals. Checking weapons and sharpening out knicks and flaws, pounding a dent out of a pauldron, checking harness straps, getting the many cuts and scrapes delt with, washing up or even just leaning against the wall to rest.

  He left them to it, considering the hill and the head that was gazing with what he imagined was confusion from above the shroom caps. Time dragged on for a time, but at last a wake appeared in the lake ahead, quickly followed by a Leo’s frame, plate covered in a mottled, hooded cloak.

  Even good stealth wasn’t going to work on a wide open flat of water. Not that that would make Leo would feel any better about getting spotted.

  “So?” he asked as the man passed through the bodyguards, stopping briefly to salute the standard.

  “Eggs, Milord. It's sitting on a right fat lot of em. Or rather surrounded by em. Fat as that bitch be, if she was on them, they’d be scrambled.”

  Connor snorted while Guile just grinned.

  “You ain't seen her. Even if she was to move, it wouldn’t be fast. Cept you get close enough. Popped that long neck out 20 feet to eat another bug,” He snapped his fingers. “That fast and it was gone. No chewing, no fighting, no noise. Just gone. And the rest of dem workers just kept on walkin about her, bringing food, moven eggs.”

  “So there are more? We didn’t get em all?” Guile started.

  “Ya no. Different kind of bug. Egg Minder, taller, skinnier and with different pincers. More like sickels with padded inner edges for moving eggs about. Fast fuckers too. Wasn’t only time that bitch tried to eat one. They just move too fast, twice a sentinel maybe and not just forward. They was dodging that ill-tempered bitch, maybe a bite every couple minutes. Only saw one succeed. About 20 of em, but don’t let um get inside the formation or they’d cut us to ribbons.”

  This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

  Annoying, but not really a problem. Fast was dangerous, but with a Sarissa head in every direction… can’t dodge if there was nowhere to dodge to. And on top of that? Well, he wasn’t so slow either. Nor his knights or Tier 2 Bandsman.

  “Anything else?” Ethan asked.

  “Na. Ghost town da rest of it. But that bitch is going to be a job. I’d not want to bet on dodging that pounce. And the bark of th’ giant shroom was sizzling and bubbling after she took a bite, so acid to. Maybe spits it if she ain’t mobile.”

  “But stationary.” Conner grunted, “Gives us options, it does. Poison, pilum volleys, arrows. You name it. Hell, climb up that shroom from the back and drop sumptin on er.”

  Andrew gave him a side eye, raising his curved ram's horn, wood and sinew bow. “Not going to do much to her with this. And you’d need a pond of poison for something that large.” He objected.

  Conner froze mid-shrug, and an evil grin came over his face. “Then hows about we get somptin bigger?”

  They all stopped, and grins began to grace their faces. “Baroness did have a number of right pretty Ballista and Onagers out there, didn’t she?” Ethan offered.

  “Oh aye, that she did.” Guile chuckled, rubbing his hands together gleefully.

  “Course, we’d have to buy them off her.” Ethan continued.

  “Whaaa? Why da fuck we’d do that? Solving her problem for her.” Guile objected.

  Ethan shrugged. He wasn’t exactly wrong, but at the same time he was. “You ever seen people willing to give away weapons for free, just cause you say it’s for their benefit? Most condescending bull shit I’ve ever had to deal with was that fuck of a Reeve at Cosbins. Remember that, don’t you? Taking our coin for our own good.’ And organizing a grand party with it. Thought we’d all be grateful.”

  Grimaces were his only response. He forced a soft chuckle. “No lads, it’s a position of weakness to go begging, even when they should offer it for free. You offer pay and if they turn it down, why that’s different. But you don’t start with an empty outstretched hand. We’re better than that.”

  “Course,” his grin got a bit wider. “Just because we offer pay, doesn’t mean we have to miss out. Those levies looked more than a might famished, didn’t they?”

  “That they did.” Conner nodded, his eyes showing he’d caught on.

  “And we have, what, twenty plus tons of Umbral meat?” He glanced at James.

  “Closer to 23. Rancid stuff… But she doesn’t care, does she.”

  “Exactly so. Offer her a ton of meat for a half dozen engines. You can even offer to give any that survive back, not like we’ll want to drag them with us.”

  “How much you willing to give up, My Lord? Give me a bit of bargaining room.”

  Ethan shrugged. “We’re going to be overloaded anyway. We can’t take it with us, so sell whatever you have to. Just don’t leave us lookin like credulous fools.”

  He nodded easily. “Take me a bit. 5 or 6 hours at least with lockouts and time to bargain.”

  Ethan just shrugged. “Then we get a hurry-up poke. Not to mention it’ll give us more time to harvest. Worth it.”

  Leo gave an exaggerated nod. “You really don’t want to go melee with er. Really don’t.”

  “Go ahead, and take a decade of Hastati with you James. We’ll march the men back to the last cavern and get a meal into them. No reason to stand here with thumbs up our asses. But…Sir Leosige stick around. Find us a few spots to set up the siege engines.”

  He glanced at the fairly thick mushroom groves in front of them. They might have to log a few…

  “Done it before for the Siegemen.” He shrugged.

  Damn. That was a problem too. Not a class among them that could use the damn things as anything better than amateurs. Not a one… Wait a damn minute.

  “Leo, when you was workin with the Hammers to site those siege engines. Didn’t you get some imperial support?”

  “Not so’s I recall. Harmon’s, well, Baronet Harmon’s men handled setting them up and such.”

  “But when those onagar shots hit, they were pulsing with red lightning like nonsense weren’t they.”

  “Oh, Oh! Magisters! That there were. College war Magisters Milord, didn’t quite put that as Imperials.”

  “It is the Imperial College.” He pointed out drily, but let it drop. “James?”

  “I’ll ask your brother. But magic and loading, aiming and firing an engine aren’t the same thing.”

  Ethan shrugged. “Familiarity will help. For the rest, there’s practice. And against a stationary target, we can afford to give them a lot of it!”

  “I’d just as soon not.” Conner objected. “Desperation brings out the danger in beasts and men.”

  “Then practice a bit in the other Cavern.” He shrugged.

  ______

  And so they did. It took closer to 7 hours for Blake to return with 2 onagers and 4 ballistas. James stayed outside to watch the camp. Teams of Labori carried the heavy engines in, the tunnel floors too jagged to wheel them.

  Carried them and worked the cranks at Blake's direction, while Andrew and a set of his best archers tried to sight and fire them. They lacked the skills to make the best use of the engines, but at least they had a trained sense for trajectories. It took another hour of practicing and a second, much larger hurry-up poke, before they were confident enough to try it.

  But a quick march, a bit of logging and some rudimentary earthworks later and they were at last ready.

  “Loose at will!” Ethan ordered. Lending his buffs, for what little they’d help with an unfamiliar weapon.

  Blake, glowing with a jagged red light, touched the onager’s basket full of head-sized stones. His hand lingered for a moment, as the jagged red lightnings poured away from his body and surrounded the stone, he took a step back and pointed. A hair-thin bit of red shot forward to mark the Matriarch.

  He stepped back into the elaborately inked ritual, an eight-pointed star with a minor core at each point filled with writing no one else could read and symbols no one else could bear to look at. He barked a word Ethan's ears refused to hear. Painfully rejecting the very concept of it while more red lightning poured from the already dimming stones to outline Blake again. He repeated the same process with the second onager before glancing at Andrew and nodding.

  Andrew grabbed one lever, Bowman Decurian Gais the other. Both pulled them at the same time and the twisted bundle of sinews snapped the lever arm upright. Launching a half dozen glowing stones towards the giant bug. Followed quickly by the rapid snap of similarly torsion spring-powered bolt throwers.

  Spears shot through the air as glowing red stones rained down on a bug whose head rapidly shook and twisted to avoid a spear.

  But while the head dodged wildly, the body couldn’t. Stones struck, slammed onto and through great rings of carapace, cratering the bug and throwing up spurts of black ichor that sizzled and ate into both mushroom and ground around it.

  Two eight-foot spear shafts struck through the base of the neck while a third bounced off with a hideous screech before burying itself completely into the mushroom wall.

  “Ready Lads!” Ethan called as 20-odd blurring forms shot through the spaced-out mushtrees.

  “Volley!” Andrew called as they closed, and a full flight of widely spaced pilum launched outward. Deliberately not aiming at them, but rather to cover as much space as possible.

  The bugs, paler, taller and more vicious-looking than a sentinel, spun and dodged like masters, but that extra speed came at the expense of armor. The pilum that hit, hit hard. Breaking through and leaving twitching, jutting wood shafts to trip and slow them. And once slowed, soon a half dozen more put them down.

  But they didn’t get all of them. Speed skill or just plain luck, but 9 of them made it through the lethal hail.

  Then stopped baffled as the earthworks were topped by a nearly solid hedge of spearpoints. They dodged to and fro, slicing at the spears, but unable to get past the long metal heads enough to hit the shafts.

  “Volley!” Andrew bellowed again, and this time, at point-blank, they were not so lucky.

  They left the bodies where they lay as Hastati at the peak of tier 1, having a much higher body stat then the Labori, rapidly turned the cranks to reload the engines. Some forty seconds later the next flight of spears launched. Followed a half minute later by another set of rocks, though without the glow only a few hit, the rest raining down on the eggs around it.

  Then another.

  And another.

  Ethan gave Andrew a side-eyed glance. “Overdoing it a bit, aren’t you?”

  “It’s still twitching.”

  Another flight.

  Ethan sighed.

  The onager thumped, jumping slightly as another set of rocks were launched.

  “Alright, alright. It’s dead now.” Andrew at last admitted.

  “Now?” Blake asked, laughing softly under his breath.

  “You can’t be too sure.”

  They marched forward to where a pulverized mass of acidic tissue and broken carapace graced a hollow surrounded by eggs, half-shredded and cratered themselves.

  Ethan considered the mess for a time, then sighed. “You get to lead the harvesters.”

  Andrew wilted a bit, but not much.

  “No such thing as overkill,” Andrew muttered, looking down and to the side. “Only I’m out of ammo and need to reload.”

  Ethan looked at him oddly for a moment, then let the odd comment pass. He circled the beast, avoiding the mess and stared into the cavity it had dug into the base of the giant mushtree.

  And saw nothing more than crushed bits of eggs, bug flesh and ichor. It wasn’t here.

  “Sir Leofsige.”

  “On it, Milord.” The Scoutmaster jogged out, giving a quick call to summon a half dozen similarly cloaked men to him, then they split in all directions to search for the rift core.

  As for the rest of them-

  “Shit!” “The Fuck?” “Ware!”

  Panicked shouts rang out as Ethan's blade made its way to his hand, stepping backward and to the side, weapon raised even as 6 Hastati did the same. Fully surrounding and protecting the standard.

  The giant mushtree was glowing. Glowing and moving, if slowly. A small frond-like growth grew out of the trunk next to them. Slowly at first, but visibly growing. Then another and another. Fully 20 hand-sized mushrooms grew out, glowing a soft bluish green color, before separating and floating quietly towards Ethan.

  A small ripple touched the edge of his mind. Not a voice, not an intrusion. Merely a feeling.

  Thankful. Gift.

  Almost despite himself, he reached out with his empty left hand and accepted the first shroom. As it touched his hand, an outside force offered a bit more. Information appeared in his mind.

  Well. Ask and ye shall receive. Guess he wouldn’t have to have James look into it after all. He handed the shroom to Conner with a small smile. Soon after, the men themselves picked up each of the mushrooms, gently and reverently putting them away. Padded pouches were emptied of food and small valuables, their contents tossed into less protected packs. Coins and food were valuable. But seeds for future better food?

  Priceless!

  Ethan had to cough a few times to hide his laughter. He really hoped the rift stone wasn’t inside this giant. It would be a cruel thing to bite an open hand. Thankfully, the thought had barely appeared before a shout echoed over the lesser mushtrees.

  “Found it!”

  On the opposite side of the cavern, stone pillars had risen from the Lake bottom. Providing stepping stones to a cave opening a good 20 feet up the cavern wall. An opening Leo swore hadn’t been there before.

  Ethan glanced back, but didn’t even have to speak before Guile ran forward, taking the steps at speed. Hopping from one to the next as gracefully as any gazelle or mountain goat. He landed inside and after a moment spent looking about, returned to the opening.

  “Clear. Only the Rift Core.”

  “Traps Leo?”

  The Scoutmaster sighed and dodged up as well. Faster, if with considerably less flash than Guile had. He disappeared into the cave, but soon returned and waved Ethan up. “No more than 10 men.” His voice easily covered the 20 yards between them.

  10 then. “Bannerman Quintus and six honor guards with me. Sir Conner you have the command.”

  The old goat nodded without complaint. Someone had to do it and Andrew was still cleaning up the mess he’d made.

  Quintus, the heavy standard raised before him, took the steps at a run, bouncing up them easily with his 2nd Tier body focused stats. The rest followed closely after into a small, but luxurious spherical cave. The very center held a waist-high plinth, no wider than an outstretched arm and a head-sized glowing crystal ball floating above it. The polished marble walls around it were veined with silver and black and covered in dense and elaborate carvings.

  Carvings of combat. Detailed and almost seeming to move out of the corner of his eyes. Of white winged humanoids, half-human lion centaurs, tentacled beings that made his eyes bleed merely from looking and several variations of elves fighting against everything from bugs, beasts to overlarge slithering reptiles. A dozen different species and as many again of defenders. Only one thing seemed to remain constant.

  A giant mushroom stood in the background of each picture, slowly growing bigger. Damn, but it was a good thing they hadn’t tried uprooting that monster looking for the core. Anything that had survived in a rift against this many invaders and rift spawns wasn’t helpless.

  A slight cracking noise rang out as the back wall twitched. Stone fell away as a new story wrote itself there. One with human faces and armaments. With skewered bugs and even siege engines.

  Well. That was one kind of immortality, he guessed.

  Still, there was a job to do.

  “Prepare –” He ordered, waiting a half beat as the men lined up. Standard to the front, the rest lined up behind it. “Honor!” The standard was raised and men bowed. They held it for a moment, then Quintus brought the feruled butt of the standard down on the crystal ball. It shattered and popped.

  Ethan smiled. It wasn’t a guarantee, but run a few rifts, and contribute heavily to success, and you might gain a point. Though experience told him maybe 1 in 10 of the men would get the same. Not always the same tenth. Contributions could stack up over multiple rifts.

  Like a crystalline soap bubble, the shards of the core lingered, twinkling on the pedestal and floor, then slowly began to fade away. First into multi-colored vapor, then into nothing at all. Leaving only a palm-sized stone behind.

  A palm-sized class stone! Murmured shock and avarice filled the room.

  With hesitant steps, Ethan reached out. Sometimes a rift was kind and told you what you won. Not always, and it was a gut-wrenching experience to be left wondering until you found someone with the right inspection skill. And high enough levels in it.

  A gut-wrenching that his family had endured for generations! None of their own were high enough to get more than the barest details from their own Military Core! And it was far too valuable to let anyone else look.

  Would this time be different?

  He touched the stone. Nothing happened and Ethan held in a curse. The mushent had spoiled him, apparently.

  “Sir Leo?” He had the best inspect skill of the lot of them. But it was aimed at identifying living beings, their tiers and occasionally the skills they used. Not rift rewards. Ethan wasn’t sure if he wanted the man to succeed. If he did, it would mean it was of a fairly low level.

  The scoutmaster stepped forward and gave it a hard look, then reached out both hands, one to the standard and one to the stone. A box soon opened in all of their minds. Echoed through the standard.

  A great active skill if a bit niche in use. Throw in a decent spread of weapons, spear, bow, skinning knife and sling off the top of his head and it wasn’t bad. Especially with Hunters Stalk being a combined stealth and tracking skill. Rather useful in a number of situations, that. Even as a scout substitute, though they’d see high casualties there with a lack of true armor or defensive skills. Still it was a rather useful, if common in all forms of the word, class.

  Not anything to write home about, perhaps, but it was still another option. And frankly, a better one for civilians where they were going. It might do little to add to their direct combat power, but it might make the peasants less vulnerable to beast attacks.

  Either way, it was a class! Ethan slapped himself. He was getting entirely too picky. He bowed once more to the now-empty pedestal and turned to make his way down.

  They’d add the stone to the standard later when the entire band could see and celebrate with them. In the meantime, they had a great deal of work to do, and only a little time to do it.

  Without the rift core, the connection to their home plane would become unstable. Slowly deteriorating till it broke entirely. And anyone left inside at that point would never be seen again.

  He was barking orders even before his feet hit the ground.

  ______