“[Okay Maurice. There’s a B-rank within two hundred feet of us. It’s not moving, like you requested, and before you say anything, I won’t tell where it is. Does that work for you?]”

  Maurice rubbed both claws together. It had taken them a couple of tries to get things right, but he could move on to the next step. “[It’s perfect. Don’t tell me where it is. But keep an eye on it okay? Don’t tell me anything else.]”

  “[You got it, buddy. You need anything else?]”

  The crab opened and closed his claws a couple of times. “[That’s it. Thank you!]”

  Maurice settled in and activated Find the Path once more. This time, he tried to find a nearby B-rank by level. By soul. By mana-reserve, but nothing. He hadn’t expected them to work. But there was something he hadn’t tested; it wasn’t something he could name, as he had no clue what it would be called. But he knew how it felt.

  For this next attempt, Maurice recalled the impression he had felt from Sundots. The dolphin’s… presence. The knowledge that even if he was blind and all of his senses were cut off, he would still know it was there.

  Find the Path. Find that feeling. It’s close. Find it.

  Maurice activated the skill and tuned every speck of his being toward feeling out what he got back from the ability.

  The presence of his companions faded into the background. His mana flowed into the skill, and something began building up in his soul. The spell, he assumed, but he couldn’t sense what it was doing very well. It fizzled out after a few seconds.

  Damn. One more time.

  He should be able to cast it at least four more times before he would need to rest and get his mana back.

  Find the presence. A B-rank. A heavy presence.

  The second attempt, he felt the spell begin to point in a direction, but it fizzled once more.

  The third time, Maurice thought only of the impression he’d gotten from the dolphin. He didn’t allow any thought to disrupt or distract him. The spell took in his mana, coalesced and whirled, and something snapped into place.

  Maurice opened his eyes and saw a hazy rope of golden light point below him and to the north-west.

  Did it work?

  Maurice’s eyes turned to Henry. “[Henry! Henry, is it that way?]”

  Henry looked up from the swirling mana between two arms and glanced in the direction Maurice was pointing. Then, after a long three seconds of wait time, Henry’s voice reached his mind.

  “[Huh… Yup, it’s right there. How did you do that?]”

  The mana continued coalescing between Henry’s arms as he listened to Maurice’s small breakthrough. As he asked Maurice questions, a few more clones were created and sent out. “[Oh… So that’s what it meant? I tried asking the Octomind how it was finding the A-ranks, but it couldn’t tell because the skill was part of it. Maybe by taking control of Find the Path, it somehow figured out the best way to describe a target and used my impression of them?]” Henry mused. “[If that is how it’s detecting them, it would make sense why it worked I guess, considering we felt what an A-rank is like.]”

  Maurice couldn’t wait to get his own sub-minds to that level.

  With that confirmed, Maurice focused back, and this time, he set his aim on A-Ranks. Which was a feeling that was a lot easier to recall.

  Maurice had had a couple of dreams where they were running from that giant turtle. Its stifling presence was still fresh in his memory, so with that in mind, he triggered Find the Path once more, looking for A-ranks.

  His heart rate picked up. He didn’t want to find anything. He shouldn’t even find anything, because Henry would have definitely checked. And thankfully, after three more tries, nothing came up.

  That in itself was comforting, if only a little. What if his skill wasn’t working? What if there was one, but it was just out of range?

  Maurice rubbed his pincers together nervously. Henry might have not been using Aspects to detect the A-rank monsters, but the crab had an Aspect that would be perfect for such endeavors. And he had enough juice in it for an attempt or two.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Curiosity of the Hermit.

  He wanted to know. He also didn’t want to know. But he had to know. If an Aspect-empowered Find the Path detected an active A-rank, they had to skedaddle. But if it was asleep or peaceful… maybe they could steal a peak.

  That was an exciting thought.

  Maurice took a few deep breaths through his gills and let his mana refill a bit as he tried to calm his thoughts. At least his Clawminds helped a bit with that, and after a short while, Maurice activated the skill again.

  ***

  Henry could feel his companions’ nervousness.

  Both Maurice and Stormsong hid their worry well, and Henry wasn’t sensing their mood through his telepathy as both of them had their mind shields active, but he could read their body language well enough.

  Maurice was quieter than usual, often rubbing his claws together and staring at the exit, while Stormsong was restless, moving from one spot to the next continuously as she worked on her mana exercises.

  Not that I’m doing much better.

  Henry checked on his scouting Octomind once more. He’d been checking often, even though he knew the sub-mind would alert him if something popped up, but he couldn’t help it. It’d been nearly a week now since they started their trip, and the random A-Rank they were barely dodging was ratcheting up the stress they were all under.

  Henry hadn’t dared even get close. As soon as the pathfinding Octomind detected them, Henry would immediately change directions. On one occasion, they had to stop and turn away when they realized they’d been on a collision course with the creature.

  How did they get that powerful?

  To be fair, Henry didn’t even tangle with mid B-ranks at this point, but the gap between the strongest B-rank and the A-ranks was incomprehensibly wide. It was almost like the difference between the juvenile sea serpent and the adult they’d seen a few days ago.

  It will take us a while to get to that point.

  At least they weren’t idle. Henry and the others were leveling, both from the Current itself and from the high C-ranks they were hunting. They hadn’t found an isolated low B-rank just yet to bring down, but it was only a matter of time.

  It would be best to do that when they felt safe that an A-rank wasn’t about to drop on—

  The flash of panic broke through Maurice’s mind shield and into Henry’s own mind like a bullet.

  Henry threw the congealed mana into his Maw and surged up, one arm reaching for Stormsong while the other was ready to pick the crab and store him in his Maw. “[What’s going on, Maurice?]”

  The crab was staring up directly above, claws twitching. Tuning into the clones he had above, Henry saw nothing.

  “[There’s one above us. Far above,]” said the crab.

  Henry stared for a second, then ordered his scouts to begin moving. “[Okay. Let’s go. We leave in—]”

  Maurice's claws shook harder, but he scuttled in place. “[It’s not moving.]”

  Henry slowed down, and so did Stormsong. The situation was still precarious, but not as bad as it would have been if the creature was coming down on them.

  In fact, because it wasn’t moving, the predicament might have just become an opportunity. Not that Henry intended on doing anything aggressive, but just knowing a bit more about the scale and possible abilities of these creatures was important. It was still a bit risky to send a clone to take a peek at them, but it was an acceptable risk.

  Maurice continued rubbing his claws nervously, looked at Henry, then looked above while Stormsong fidgeted about. “[Are we leaving or not?!]”

  “[We are,]” said Henry as he eyed the crab while a thrum of excitement—or fear—shook his arms.“[But… maybe once we’re at the edge of the range, I can send a clone to take a look?]”

  “[Maybe I’m wrong and there’s nothing…]” said the crab, but neither he nor Henry believed in that. The crab had always been the one with the sharper senses.

  “[Alright. Let’s go.]”

  As the trio followed Henry’s navigational Octomind, they swam up to allow the two blood clones to get in range of wherever the A-rank was. Maybe if they got close enough Henry’s Octomind would be able to find the creature, but Henry soon found that he couldn’t send them any further unless they started climbing the column of algae-covered bark and wood, which made Henry pause.

  If these trees break the surface… maybe it’s a bird of some sort?

  Henry was fully invested in figuring out what they were dealing with at this point. Such knowledge was bound to be valuable. If not to him, then to someone else. But he still didn’t want to take unnecessary risks, so after a quick consultation with the other two, they decided to pivot.

  Henry spread his clones and sent them upward along the tree trunks, leaving as many as he could behind to secure their retreat.

  They were going to see what this creature was—from as safe a distance as he could manage through the clones—and then they were getting the heck away.

  Finally. No big dev edits, but I'll do a quick resume when a re-upload the early chapters.

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