Aunty Ray and Tina’s hair. So similar, so different

  A kiccaw can swallow a chitterrat whole while it’s still alive and kicking.

  If you leave a corpse long enough, sometimes it’ll rot from the inside out and explode due to a build up of gasses.

  In order to collect horse semen for artificial insemination, a handler baits a stallion with a mare or dummy, then intercepts the erect penis with a lubed tube which they hold in place until the stallion is finished.

  All things I wish I didn’t know and never seen firsthand, but you can’t scrub memories out of your head. If I could, I’d scrub this one for sure, because I never knew Razorscythes got a thick meat straw a tongue that telescopes in and out when they feeling frisky. Least that’s how it looks, especially in light of that stallion memory. Frisky that is, with its bulging bug eyes all glassy and wide while the bright red proboscis drips with juices while rigorously thrusting that hollow red rocket out from between its clacking mandibles in suggestive fashion. Or maybe I’m just messed in the head and got sex on the brain, because that there is clearly feeding behaviour, not mating, but the sight still makes my stomach churn all the same.

  Doubly so when the Razorscythe is doing it right in front of Aunty Ray as she locks eye with the Aberration at arm’s length and holds it in place with her piercing baby blues. Ain’t her fetching good looks that’s got it stun locked though; it’s her Ability, one that makes her and most other Enchanters such great Disruptors. While Diviners like myself often gain a Portent to warn them of incoming danger or give them a flash of insight in a much-needed situation, Enchanters can develop a Hypnotic Gaze which allows them to send a single target into a tranced daze with little more than a stare. Takes all their attention and Concentration to hold it, so it effectively takes the Enchanter out of the fight too, but back in the old world, where the Aetheric Concentration levels allowed for Ninth Order Spells as opposed to Third, taking a single powerful Abby off the board could net you huge returns.

  Because more Aether means stronger Abby, some powerful enough to be considered calamities all by their lonesome. Spellslinging Jotuns capable of unleashing Chain Lightning and Disintegrate, unstoppable, unrelenting, and unkillable Wight Lords inhabiting hijacked corpses reinforced by Ecto and Aether, or full-sized Feral Behemoths big enough to use a house as a stool and laden in enough armour to tank missiles for days.

  Aunty Ray’s Hypnotic Gaze was also plenty useful back in the day when the First Wave of settlers first arrived on the Frontier. There were a lot less Abby hanging about back then, and those that did show up tended to be stronger than their modern counterparts. Back then, there wasn’t much competition here on the Frontier, so Proggies spawned more for quality than quantity whenever they could. Magical beasts aside, even the most ferocious predators don’t want to tangle with something that can potentially hurt them, so instead of sending weak gobbos and swarmlings at wulves and mammoth mooses, Proggies went for bigger, sturdier Abby like Bugbears and Burrow Hulks since those rarely died to anything but the fiercest of animals. As such, they were also difficult for the settlers to fight against them with nothing but sharp sticks and heavy stones, so having someone like Aunty Ray lock one down made for a pretty decent 1 to 1 trade.

  Things have changed since as we got Aetherarms and such, but Hypnotic Gaze is still plenty useful seeing how Aunty Ray’s got the lone Razorscythe locked up and helpless where it stands. I ain’t ever seen one this close or so clearly, as not only are they camouflaged stalkers who excel at remaining unseen and get stark raving mad when they’re made, they’re also a fairly recent addition to the Abby army. Only been around for five years or so, and I done well enough to avoid them so far. Don’t much like what I see though, as meat tube tongue and honking big blade arms aside, Razorscythes are just ugly all over. Rather than a hard shell or smooth skin, it got a moist, slimy texture to its mottled, greenish black body thanks to a layer of slime slathered all across its spongy, meaty exterior, exposed grey muscle tissue stretched across a hive-like framework just like most other bug Abby round these parts.

  In fact, Razorscythes are probably stretched even thinner than most, as they gotta keep their weight down to jump so far and so fast while standing of equal height to Aunty Ray and carrying a whole caboose and thick muscled legs. As for the slime, my best guess is that it’s part of the camouflage mechanism, seeing how it shimmers in rainbow colours like oil on water. A sight made all the worse by how its entire body is covered in countless holes that expand and contract like they breathing. Probably is, because these things are based on bugs after all, which ain’t designed to work in a creature this size, except Proggies make it work somehow.

  Looks right soft though, meaning it’ll go down even to small arms fire no doubt, which is good to know. I raise the Nanfoodle all the same, because it fires Flame Bolts as opposed to Force Bolts. Ain’t strictly an upgrade since Force is typically king when it comes to all-round utility, but Elemental attacks have their upsides, especially when Metamagicked to the gills like my 44-80 Nanfoodle here. Means it uses overpacked rounds stuffed with twice as much Aether as a standard round to power a whole host of extras aside from the standard suite. It’s got all those of course, the Distant and Extend Duration for extra range, the Intensify, Empower, and Maximize to hit hard as any Bolt can, the Prime and Efficient to reduce charge up and wind down times to a full second total. That already costs 8 more Aether than your standard 40, but I got something of a controversial take on how the remaining 32 is spent.

  For the standard price of 4 Aether, you get Elemental (Fire) to transmute the Force Bolt into a Flame Bolt, which I don’t much like. A Flame Bolt is slower, heavier, and a whole lot brighter than the standard Bolt, meaning it’s harder to hit at distance, has a lower maximum range, and exposes the shooter’s position every time you shoot. Then you pay 8 Aether for Piercing Metamagic, which is like Penetrate for Elemental and Spell Resistance as opposed to armour. Which, don’t get it twisted, is pretty great, but ain’t all that many Abby walking around with natural Resistances. Reason being is that it’s an expensive attribute to bestow, and Proggies these days are all about bang for buck to get more bodies onto the Frontier.

  Has to do with the fact that semi-automatic and fully-automatic weapons ain’t all that prevalent just yet. Tina got hers early about 7 years back, and criminals got plenty of access to semi-automatic handguns, albeit junky, unreliable ones prone to jamming, cracking, or exploding. As such, Proggies done crunched the numbers and decided that they can get more use out of 10 small Abby or 3 armoured Abby as opposed to one Force Resistant Abby, assuming they all cost the same to produce. The actual numbers are probably off, but the idea is still there, and doubly so when it comes to Elemental damage. We humans just don’t use enough of it, and ain’t locked down to one particular Elemental type either, so ain’t no incentive for Proggies to produce Resistant Abby of any flavour, not even Force.

  As for Spell Resistance? That’s a catch-all term for anything and every Spell related, meaning protection against Force, Flame, or any other flavour of Bolt or Spell. With Spell resistance, a Fireball that hits you does less damage than it otherwise would, but also something like Entangling Grasp has a harder time bogging you down, and Illusions have a difficult time convincing you they’re real. It’s a powerful defensive mechanism and thus exceedingly costly to Imbue into Abby or items, so much so that the only actual factual example I know of here on the Frontier comes from them cute, cuddly diamondclaws that ain’t so cute or cuddly when they aren’t people in Wildshaped disguise.

  So really, the Nanfoodle could do without Elemental (Fire) and Piercing Metamagic, saving you 12 Aether. As for Burning Metamagic, that costs another 8 Aether and sets your target ablaze. Lot of fun putting a Flame Bolt into a Beetle Behemoth and watching it burn from the inside out. Can kill it in a single hit, but so can a compressed Whumper which shoots 44-40 shells, albeit thicker ones different from the 44-40 cartridges a Bolt Aetherarm uses. Either way, for what you get, I’d say the Nanfoodle ain’t really worth an overpacked round, and the rest of the Metamagic offerings don’t move the needle none. For 4 more Aether, you get Ignite, which ensures that anything you set on fire remains on fire even after the Spell’s duration comes to an end. Normally, magical Fire is just that, magical, fuelled not by oxygen or accelerants, but by Aether, meaning it’ll wink out of existence when the Spell comes apart. That’s why a Fireball don’t set nothing on fire, because even if it do get hot enough to burn things to a crisp, as soon as the Spell’s duration ends after round about 10 to 20 seconds, all that magical Fire goes out like a like because there ain’t no Aether to sustain it. The Ignite Metamagic changes that, turning all that magical Fire into plain old regular fire, so that Beetle Behemoth you set on fire with the Nanfoodle will remain on fire, and continue to burn long after its dead so long as there’s mundane fuel for the flame.

  Which honestly? Is more of a downside than anything else. Hardly safe to use incendiary Aetherarms when you live in a lush forest, but seeing how I done plundered this off a scav who made his living in the Coral Desert, I can appreciate how it would’ve been less of a drawback given the environment.

  Last but not least, the Nanfoodle’s final Metamagic is the crown jewel sitting atop a dung heap, the one saving grace that keeps it from being relegated to a showpiece on my wall. Used it to great effect on Mikey when he and his people showed up to collect their stolen wagons of booze, as the aptly-named Explosive Metamagic showed. Blows things to kingdom come it does, ringing a target’s bell and knocking them off their feet, and can hurt bystanders real bad if they close enough to the explosion. I made sure to wait long enough for them mafiosos to run clear of the wagons before I lit them up, but if they’d been standing within 5 meters of the explosion, they might well have died from the concussive force alone.

  This Explosive Metamagic is what made the Nanfoodle famous, because carrying one around was almost like having ten tiny Fireballs loaded into a bolt-action rifle. Course, this was back in World War Two when chemical explosives were still in use and hitting a man with a grenade on his belt would set it off, which could then set off the grenades on the belt of the fella beside him and kick off a chain reaction. Even better if you hit a munitions stockpile, setting off bombs, missiles, and Aether in crystal, liquid, or gaseous form. Out here though? Explosive Metamagic is only a little better than Concussive and Toppling put together, albeit for 2/3rds of the price, 8 Aether versus 12 for the pair. Once you factor in the 8 Aether spent on Elemental (Fire) though, which is necessary for the Bolt Spell Core to make use of the Explosive Metamagic in the first place, then it don’t look so great anymore.

  All in all? My take on the Nanfoodle is that it’s a very pretty piece that ain’t all that practical, or even strictly better than a standard bolt-action rifle like the 3-Line. Sure, the Nanfoodle will do better against Armoured Abby, and you can hit a big target like a Beetle, Ankhrav, or Burrow Hulk a single time and let it burn to death when it might otherwise survive a Force Bolt, but there are specialized Armour-Penetrating bolt-action rifles that can do the job better than the Nanfoodle with standard rounds. What’s more, Fire Resistance is the most common resistance for Abby to develop, simply because Spells aside, mundane fire is one of humanity’s greatest weapons. Molotovs, Greek Fire, and napalm to just name a few, to say nothing of how the Celts, Picts, and Gaelics used to light their honking big swords and axes on fire before charging headlong into battle naked as they day they was born.

  Still brung the Nanfoodle along with me on this trip to the badlands, for the sole reason that it fires Flame Bolts instead of Force. Despite all the downsides regarding costly Metamagics and the fact that the barrel gets red-hot after shooting a single magazine of very expensive ammunition, there’s one upside regarding the Nanfoodle that makes it uniquely suitable for use out here in the Badlands. That slow, heavy, and exceedingly bright Flame Bolt is so slow and heavy that it travels at subsonic speeds, meaning that aside from the metallic clink of the hammer and the hollow pop of hot air exploding out the tip of the barrel, the Nanfoodle is whisper quiet when I pull the trigger and shoot the ugly Razorscythe right in his ugly, meat tube telescoping face.

  Or at least it’s quiet until it hits the target of course, landing with a wet squelch of a hit as the Explosive Flame Bolt pops its bulbous head and red, telescoping meat stick both. To my horror, the Razorscythe doesn’t go down despite lacking a head; it remains standing upright, slug-like flesh quivering from bow to stern as Aunty Ray’s Hypnotic Gaze loses effect on account of how it don’t got no eyes to see with anymore. Against all logic, its headless torso then raises its scythe-like arm to lash out directly in front of it, where it last saw Aunty Ray who’s still recovering from the abrupt end of her Ability and unexpected spray of Abby brain matter exploding right in front of her face.

  Luckily for the both of us, her other baby boy is on top of his game as a full-sized Cowie goes charging in with both horns out. Hits the Razorscythe in the flank and punches it clean off its feet as he whips his powerful neck upwards o fling the big blade bug away. Born with the instinct to kill, the Razorscythe lashes out mid-air in a blind attempt to cut Cowie down as he approaches, but the big white bull is two steps ahead and stops well out of range. Too disciplined to bellow out here in the badlands, my fluffy partner lifts his head proudly as he huffs, then puffs, and incinerates the bug with a massive gout of flame, one that leaves the charred Abby’s corpse all a twitching as it lays there smouldering in the dirt.

  Since he also been taught to double tap, Cowie hits it with a second gout of flame just to be sure, then proceeds to head over and stomp it flat for daring to threaten Aunty Ray. When he’s finally satisfied the Razorscythe is good and dead, he flings off the black-green Abby gore and lifts his head up high, only to blow a raspberry at the corpse before turning away to check on Aunty Ray. Goes all sweet and soft to do it, dropping the horns and his posture both as he sidles up to her like the gentle giant he is, giving her a nuzzle and a lick while she wipes her face with a kerchief.

  Ain’t that I’m not concerned for Aunty Ray too, but I’m busy standing guard with my Nanfoodle at the ready, scanning the area for Abby and cursing myself for a fool because both my Detect Spells done dropped. Don’t got any Aether to sling ‘em or time to sit down and go through the Ritual, so I gotta rely on eyes and intuition only, with maybe a bit of help from my Portent. Though it comes in handy when you least expect it, it ain’t as reliable an Ability as Hypnotic Gaze, so banking on it working is putting your life in God’s hands, and not for nothing, but I seen how careless He can be with His creations.

  “You alright Aunty Ray?” I ask, after a small, quiet prayer of apologies to the Big Guy upstairs. “Get hit with any shrapnel?”

  “I’m fine,” she says, sounding real miffed indeed, but not at me. “Time was I could’ve walked it back and away, then hit it with a Hold Creature, but I couldn’t trance it deep as I’d like.”

  “You see any other Abby?”

  “Not a one,” she replies, coming up to stand beside me even though I’d rather have her behind. Woman almost died twice already, first when the Razorscythe approached and again after I blew its head off, so I’d rather not push our luck and see if third time’s the charm. “Caught this one coming up the ridge under camo, but couldn’t hit it with a Spell at distance because it was concealed just enough to keep it from being targeted. Hopped on up quick as a blink and I gave it the Evil Eye because that’s all I could do.”

  Since I told her not to shoot unless she had to, but that don’t mean holding fire while a Razorscythe hops on up in front of your face. My mistake, and I’ll correct it soon as I can, but I ain’t about to lecture her hear and now. Tina arrives a half-beat later, and I keep eyes on the horizon while giving her orders. “Check if your mama’s okay.” Mostly because I don’t trust Aunty Ray not to hide a cut or something, but also because you can never be too careful when it comes to Abby fluids. They already got Roly-Poly bugs that explode on death, so I wouldn’t put it past a Proggie to genetically engineer their stealthy assassin bugs to have toxic blood or something.

  “She’s not hurt,” Tina says, after a quick and quiet check up.

  “Good.” Sparing a moment to give them both a glance just to be sure, I hold back the urge to heave a giant sigh of relief. “Aunty Ray, head on back to check on Chrissy and start packing, but make sure she knows it’s you before you open up the wagon. Tina, stand watch while I cast Detect Abby.”

  Credit where it’s due, neither one of them argues the facts and fall in to do as instructed. Cowie follows Aunty Ray away, who’s got one arm resting atop his back because she needs the support. Emotionally, not physically, and he makes the right choice to follow along, stepping carefully so as not to tread on her boots as he sticks close to offer comfort and stability. As for me, I fall into the Ritual right quick, setting out the 4 nubby candles atop a silk kerchief at each cardinal direction with help from the Compass Cantrip. Out comes the wood ash, a thimble of distilled water, a single grain of crushed quartz, and a stick of silverleaf beech incense, which go in the south, west, north, and east respectively. 4 Elements, 4 cardinal directions, all of which go around the lid of my copper candy tin as I shave a pinch of powered silver from the finger-length bar I keep on me at all times. With all my material components in place, I draw my wand from its lead-encased sheath stitched onto the inner lining of my duster and fall immediately into the chant, touching the candles one by one at the appropriate time to lit them anew as I draw raw, primal Aether from the Immaterium and bend it to my Will.

  The ingredients go into the copper lid one by one in the order listed, and it all swirls together without me having to touch it. The candles blaze in one last moment of glory before the light is drawn into the mixture too, leaving me kneeling there with 4 unlit candles and a wispy trail of white smoke leading from their still-hot wicks to the copper lid, within which sits a smidge of perfectly mixed grey paste which I then smear over my eyes, one that melts away at a touch and unfurls a Spell within my mind.

  Detect Aberration. Take all that is natural within this world, wind, water, earth, and fire, and discard it away to reveal that which does not belong. That’s the general gist behind the Detect Aberration Spell, one tailor made some Archmagus or Immortal Monarch so long ago that its origins have long since been lost to history. The Qin Immortal Monarch even said as much, going on record to say the Spell’s origins were already unknown when he first came to power some 2000 plus years ago. Man might well have been the oldest surviving Immortal Monarch before they all went the way of the dodo, mostly because he left so many of his supposed peers and allies in the lurch that the rest all looked the other way when he was ambushed by the Nipponese Immortal Monarch and heavily wounded by the Blade of Amaterasu.

  Didn’t die then and there, but didn’t no one help tend to his injuries either. Died soon after, because there’s only so much modern medicine can in the face of a powerful Artifact like the Blade of Amaterasu, one crafted from unique, Aether infused materials that done spent countless years, decades, or even centuries sitting in a Proggie nest and soaking in the near-Immaterium. That’s all anyone knows though, because the Nipponese have been super tight-lipped regarding their national treasure of a weapon, so don’t know one really knows what it does, or even what it looks like.

  All that to say how much history the Detect Aberration Spell got behind it, so any failing is on my part, not the Spell’s. Soon as it’s cast, I let the Aetheric wave crash out a single time in all directions to make sure we’re in the clear before condensing the wave down to a beam and sending it out from the palm of my hand. Can’t just swing my arm all about though, because it’s a series of pulsing waves directed in a single direction, and it takes more than one wave to get through an obstruction, so I take my time panning my arm all across the horizon in search of an incoming Abby army.

  Don’t find nothing, but that don’t mean there’s nothing to find, so we best get a move on right quick. What’s more, and I’m only guessing here, but I’m pretty sure Razorscythes have some way to leave a trail for other Abby to follow. They’re hunters, stalkers, infiltrators, and assassins, and while they also fulfil the role of scout, I somehow doubt they have the means to communicate with other Abby over long distances, or even report back to a superior while out in the field. That ain’t how Abby work, not unless they got a Synapse. A Razorscythe might well report back to their Proggie to show them what they seen through the Record Video Spell, wherein their memories get plucked and read straight from their heads. Otherwise, Abby pretty much work individually, even those based on bugs that work well together. They’ll follow each other around and coordinate to hit targets like them mercs we saw this morning, but as far as collective discussion and stand out leadership goes, they’re more like sheep moving in herds than anything else.

  My best guess? Razorscythes leave Aetheric signals behind, like the one we stumbled across under dark in Pleasant Dunes, the ‘Do Not Approach’ sign that wasn’t visible or even discernable to the four Rangers in the group, but one I done picked up on thanks to the Detect Aberration Spell. Try as I might, I can’t find any obvious signals this time around, but it was only a guess. Could be some other sort of magic at work, so I settle in and conduct a Ritual to cast Detect Magic too. It hits the same notes, so much so I can use the same candles and copper vessel from before without having to move them.

  Rather than the 4 Elements though, Detect Magic only requires crystallized Aether as the material component, and only 4 grain worth. The Spell don’t exclude the world to reveal magic like Detect Abby; you simply feed it Aether and the Spell locks onto that signature, simple is as simple does. More importantly, instead of smearing the resulting purple paste over your eyes, you dab it in the middle of your forehead, which represents the Third Eye.

  Still use my normal two to look around though, and I even use the same trick of condensing the wave into a beam and panning it around, but once again, I get bupkis. No hits on Abby or magic to be found, not even on the Razorscythe’s corpse when I give it a cursory pass, which is strange to be sure. I was positive there was some sort of magic in the slime on its porous grey skin, because that’s what my daddy said, and he was rarely ever wrong. Said they wasn’t changing colours like an octopus of chameleon would, but rather using Illusions to hide itself in a way that was easier and cheaper than Invisible. Wasn’t perfect, and you could find them even with the naked eye if you careful about it, while it was even easier to find their tracks. That’s how I done been avoiding them these last few years, by making myself scarce and using Pass Without Trace as soon as I spot any signs of Razorscythes.

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  So the question remains: how come I couldn’t throw this one off our tracks?

  Assuming it’s the same one we saw this morning of course, and that’s a fair enough assumption. They tend to work alone, and while there are usually roaming around the Watchtowers and looking for vulnerabilities, they ain’t seen all that often. For good reason, considering I now know they got some means of concealing themselves from Detect Aberration. It’s got me wondering if I been good or lucky these last few years to never have seen hide nor hair of any. Also gets me wondering about other ways they could lead other Abby to their prey, and how I might counteract it. Maybe with pheromones, or a trail of slime that them other Abby then follow. There are plenty other things it could be, because Proggies are a clever bunch who can glean plenty of information from the biomass they eat, up to and including a whole host of chemical processes it can then make use of in Abby.

  Like the physical build of these Razorscythes enabling them to not only leap great distances, but somehow survive getting their heads blown off. Heard about chickens running around with their heads cut off, but I suppose bugs work too, and I for one am not happy to have learned this lesson firsthand. If it wasn’t for Cowie’s decisive actions and sheer luck, he or Aunty Ray might well have been done in by the headless Razorscythe while I was helpless to do anything but watch on.

  All because I failed to cover our tracks and guard our perimeter well enough. This here is our second day out in the badlands, and I almost lost Aunty Ray and Cowie both, on top of losing Tina’s respect and admiration to boot. Disaster don’t begin to cover it, so soon as I figure we clear, I conduct a third Ritual to Conjure up a Floating Disc so it can carry the dead Razorscythe away. As I stalk back to camp with Tina in tow, I ask, “How good are you with Force Disc now? Think you can Conjure one up with the Ritual, hitch it to the wagon, and ride it while Cowie canters away?”

  “…Not for long,” she replies, which is a disappointing answer to be sure. “Five minutes maybe? Figured that’d be good enough for snowboarding, so I never really pushed it.”

  Five minutes might as well be nothing. I don’t say anything to disparage her though, don’t even make any sound at all as I run through our options in my head. “Alright,” I begin, just as we reach Aunty Ray and Chrissy who’re putting the last of our things away and turn to face me while a fresh cleaned baby Cowie sticks close his adopted mama’s side. I would do the same too if it wasn’t for my pride, because we done almost lost her tonight. “The horses will be tired, but they should be able to make it to Watchtower Two over yonder if they go without a rider.” Pointing to our south-south-west where safety lies and beaming out Detect Abby just for my peace of mind, I explain, “It’s farther than Watchtower One which we passed earlier today, we just came from that direction leaving a big fight behind, I don’t care to find out what else might’ve followed after our trail. Tina, you get in the driver’s seat, Chrissy and Aunty Ray, you take shelter inside. Might be bumpy and uncomfortable, but you’ll both be safe.”

  “Can we spare ten minutes for a Catnap?” Aunty Ray asks. “Chrissy can get you, Tina, and herself, while I can cast it on the horses and keep watch with Cowie.” Who rears up at the sound of his name and rubs his head against Aunty Ray’s hand, who promptly gets to scritching his itches away. Gets real bad when he breaks out the horns, which don’t make no sense since they magical to begin with. It’s not like they retractable or anything; he uses what I think is a watered-down version of Second Order Alter Self to sprout them, or possibly a Transmutation Ability of some sort that makes him a better shapeshifter. Don’t no one know for sure, since Cowie can’t come out and tell us, but those are the most plausible answers given the Spells we know and understand.

  Plus it explains how he can use Minify to shrink down and look all baby like a real calf instead of just a smaller version of his regular self. Which would be plenty cute still, but this way is much cuter.

  As for Aunty Ray’s suggestion, I’m a little torn. Ten minutes might not seem like much, but I don’t know how far ahead of the pack a Razorscythe will range. More to the point, there’s no guarantee it didn’t alert a nest of Abby to our presence, so we might well be getting encircled even as we speak. I’m still utilizing Detect Aberration out in random directions every now and then, but it don’t do nothing to calm my nerves none. “Maybe in a few hours,” I say, though I doubt it soon as I do, because once we get moving, there ain’t no point in stopping until we reach Watchtower Two and the two Rangers stationed there.

  It's those fucking mercs. They just had to stir shit up when I’m coming in with my family, and now look where we are. With more shit-stirrers up ahead coming in from the south, we might as well just head home so I can drop them off and come out by my lonesome afterwards. Even if I bite the dust, Tina, Chrissy, and Aunty Ray will be alright, and doubly so since Uncle Rigsby has his suspicions of what’s going on up at the mesa. If he knows, then so does everyone else, so they’ll all help get Aunty Ray up there to claim what’s hers. The Marshal might make a stink about some of it and claim it on behalf of the Feds, but he’ll make sure she gets fair value at the very least, which is better than what my daddy got for all his years of service.

  So in accordance to my wishes, we got moving out right quick as soon as the Razorclaw done been stuffed into storage. The horses whicker softly in protest as they get to cantering alongside the wagon, but Cowie don’t complain none since he got stamina for days. The only reason we stick to 50 klicks a day is because he’d need even more feed if we didn’t. More feed means more carrying more weight, which means more expenditure of energy and more feed to recover, so 50 klicks is his ‘sustainable’ pace. If we’re travelling along the Highway and can stop every other night, he can move fast enough to go from town to town in 18 hours flat, though the gates would be closed by the time we arrived and we’d have to camp out all the same.

  Kneeling in the back of the wagon, Aunty Ray pokes her head out to chat with Tina, while Chrissy does the same and stares up at the night’s sky. As for me, I’m stood up top my Floating Disc which is tethered next to Cowie, so I can stay up close and keep watch alongside him. Takes Concentration to maintain the Disc while moving at speed, because it ain’t built to travel so quickly. It’s possible to upcast it to carry more weight, but the speed never changes no matter what Order you cast the Spell at. It’s a little like putting an egg on a spoon. Under normal circumstances, it ain’t all that difficult to lift the egg and move it about, but once you start moving at speed, things get a lot more complicated. The Spell is the same, so I gotta bear down and focus to maintain the flows while also scanning the world cast in greyscale from Darkvision, as the sun has already set and darkness is upon us.

  Problem is, I can’t beam Detect Abby while Concentrating on maintaining the Floating Disc. The first don’t require Concentration per se, but it requires more focus than I have to spare while actively Concentrating on something else, and ever since I learned the trick and seen how much more information there is to glean, I done lost all confidence in the base, unaltered Spell. Sounds crazy I know, because it done served me well for years until maybe six months ago, but now it feels wrong to rely on the Spell as is. It’s like going back to wool bedsheets after learning the joys of full-threaded cotton, something that is entirely possible, but just not as comfortable now that I’ve come to appreciate a higher standard of comfort and safety both.

  Which is why the night looks darker and scarier than ever as I glide through the badlands exhausted in mind and spirit, if not body. The oppressive anxiety eats away at me as I consider what I’d do if we ran into a horde of Abby. Go loud, that’s for sure, because if we make a big enough fuss and are close enough to the Watchtower, maybe the Rangers manning them will come out to help. Which is against protocol I might add, and I ain’t exactly in the good books with most military types these days, but Aunty Ray done banked a lot of goodwill and there lots of men who’ll do lots of things for a smile from a pretty girlie.

  One who done almost died tonight, and left a pretty corpse for us to bury.

  A surge of rage and sorrow both catch me off guard, and the Floating Disc unravels beneath my feet as I struggle to maintain emotional control. Luckily, I’m much more dextrous than I am wise or intelligent, so I hit the ground running instead of falling flat on my face. Don’t even stumble as I get to jogging alongside Cowie, who gives me a concerned look with his big grey eyes, which are glowing bright in my Darkvision to show he got Darkvision too.

  Now that I think about it, he got a lot of Second Order Transmutation Spells. Minify, Dragon’s Breath, Alter Self, Bull’s Strength, and Darkvision. A shame he didn’t get Barkskin, Levitate, or Spider Climb, as those would make him more durable or more mobile, but if wishes were fishes, then wouldn’t no one have nothing to eat. Patting his neck as we run side by side, I suppress yet another wave of emotion as I reflect on how easily he could’ve died tonight too. Wouldn’t even take much, just a single slice to the torso from that Razorscythe’s claw. If he hadn’t stayed put to cast Dragon’s Breath, he might well have lost both front legs charging in, and then where’d he be?

  Dead, that’s where, because a two-legged bull ain’t nothing but Abby bait, no matter how much I wish it were otherwise. I wouldn’t leave him to suffer, but that’ll leave me even more alone than I already am, so I can’t afford to lose anyone else. Not Cowie, not Aunty Ray, and most certainly not Chrissy. Don’t want to lose Tina either, but might well happen all the same. Maybe not physically, but an emotional loss don’t hurt much less than a physical one. Take Noora for example. She still back in New Hope hale and healthy as can be, but still hurts to lose her all the same. Problem is, I don’t know how to win her back, or how to earn Tina’s respect once more, not after she seen the truth of what I am. I ain’t no hero, just a regular guy who’s a little ahead of his peers, but life ain’t a sprint. It’s a marathon, and at almost 18 years old, I feel like everyone else is just getting their legs while I’m running on empty in more ways than one.

  Like the physical, as Cowie keeps a punishing pace for a person to keep up with. He makes it look easy, like he just ambling along, but forget a 10-minute mile. He clears it in 6 tops, which is 10 miles or 16 klicks an hour. Gets me winded right quick it does, especially since I’m still carrying all my regular gear which includes no less than 6 pistols and the Nanfoodle, but I push on through the cramps and shortness breath because endurance is about the mind more than the body. That’s what I tell myself at least, while wishing the Endure Elements Imbuement on my duster would do something about the heat. It ain’t actually hot though, I’m just putting out heat faster than it can leech it out to keep me cool and refreshed, while the cold winter air feels like daggers in my lungs with every god-damned breath I take.

  That’s the problem right there, my casual and habitual profanity. Not in the sense of bad language, though I have noticed I’ve been cursing more often of late. I’m talking profanity in the religious sense, as in taking the Lord’s name in vain. Maybe if I was a better Catholic, He’d bestow upon me a Faith based Ability like Lay on Hands, which would come in real clutch right about now since it restores stamina and can even heal injuries or minor ailments sometimes. Not always or even often, but it’s been known to happen without rhyme or reason, which I suppose is why they’re called Faith based Abilities as opposed to magic.

  Because magic would at least kinda make sense, since there are rules that every Spell and Spell-like Ability adhere to, even if we don’t know them all.

  Takes about half an hour of running before I finally give in and call it quits, leading Cowie to park the wagon at the edge of a basin that I know for a fact done been cleared out less than three years ago, because I was the one who done cleared it. Needed an easy win on my first solo ride out, so I snuck out into the badlands without telling Aunty Ray and cleared this very basin of pedipalps and Abby both. Course, I didn’t get the biomass reserves stored as goop down under dark, but typically, when the pedipalp network feeding into those reserves are destroyed, the Drones will roll up the goop into big old crystalline balls of biomass and roll them on home to Proggie before starting fresh somewhere new.

  Still cover all my bases and scan the place with Detect Abby, even going so far as to trudge into the basin alone and send beams directly down the tunnels that are still dotted all about. Soon as I’m reasonably certain there ain’t an Abby ambush lying in wait, I slowly shuffle back up and frown when I see Aunty Ray and Chrissy having themselves a stretch next to the wagon. Never one to miss a thing, Aunty Ray shoots me a look from behind her Darkvision shades and whispers, “Been rattling around back there for a good half hour, so if you think I ain’t coming out while I can, you got another thing coming mister.”

  “I didn’t say nothin’,” I reply, smiling to see her still full of sass and vinegar despite her near brush with death.

  “You was thinkin’ it though,” she retorts, unwilling to back down. Done with her stretching, she strides over to get a better look at me. “That was some jog,” she drawls, grabbing my kerchief out my duster pocket to dab away at the sweat on my forehead and neck. “Tough holding a Floating Disc together, ain’t it?”

  She ain’t just making conversation. She’s angling to understand how I done lost focus and dropped Concentration barely fifteen minutes into the Spell. A typical lap down the mountain don’t last all that long, and even if they do, those tend to be start and stop as you weave through different trails to avoid hitting trees and whatnot. As such, it ain’t like you maintaining Concentration for the whole time, but the thing is, the faster you go, the harder it gets to maintain Floating Disc, and Cowie wasn’t running nowhere near fast enough to make it all that difficult.

  Knowing this, Aunty Ray is rightly concerned over my state of mind, so I grimace and say, “You right. Not that hard, but I suppose I’m more tired than I realized.” I done already told everyone I used up all my Spells, because that how it goes when you working in a team. Communication is key, so I make sure to add, “Was a good wake up call though, and the run got my blood pumping.” Also wore down my legs and lungs both, but I been doing plenty of running in my downtime, and I been fairly active to boot given how many trips I done taken out into these very badlands to test my limits and push myself to see where I need improvement.

  “Well, we got time for a Catnap now?” she asks, and even though I can’t see her eyes, I know they wide with concern as she mops my sweaty brow with the kerchief before hitting it with Prestidigitation for a quick clean. “The horses really look like they could use a break. They young and healthy, but they scared too. They ain’t all that used to the life out here, and the smell of dead Abby in the wagon got them real skittish.”

  Shit, the smell. “Is it leaking into the cabin? I never checked.”

  “No, we’re good,” she replies, waving away my concerns while tucking my kerchief back in my duster pocket before opening her arms for a hug. “Wouldn’t want to find out what it’ll smell like in a few days, but it’s perfectly fine to our human senses right now.” Squeezing me extra hard, she presses the side of her head right up against mine. “Now about that Catnap?”

  “I dunno,” I say, breaking off the hug to scan the surroundings with Detect Abby once more. “I’d feel a lot better if we had Alarm Wards laid out first, but if we gonna do that, we might as well camp here. Which we ain’t gonna do,” I add, as Aunty Ray takes a breath then stops herself short from suggesting just that. “We makin’ a beeline right for Watchtower Two, where we can rest in the relative safety of the Rangers manning it.” Fidgeting with my Nanfoodle, I take a beat to calculate how much time I got left on the Wildshaped Hand, and realize I’ll have to make do with the prosthetic for a stretch after this. I could use the Ability again for another 5 hours of uptime, but if we don’t make it to Watchtower Two before that runs out, then I’ll be forced to fight one handed with no upcasted Mage Hands to boot.

  “You sure that’s the best decision?” So focused on figuring out all my options, Aunty Ray’s question makes no real sense, as I got no idea what she’s talking about. “Goin’ to Watchtower Two,” she supplies, eyeing me with what is likely concern seeing how spaced out I am. Physical exertion and fully empty Aether tank will do that to you, as the first makes your body feel too heavy to move and your muscles ache when you do, while the other leaves your thoughts moving like molasses’s and leaves me with a shorter fuse than normal. So far, I been directing it inwards and scolding myself for not catching wind of the Razorscythe, calling for a quick Catnap soon as we stopped, laying my Alarm Wards better, and a thousand other things I could’ve done better.

  Still, I don’t need to be in my best condition to know I’m in over my head. “Ain’t no other choice,” I say, shaking my head. “No idea what info that Razorscythe might’ve passed along, so we can’t know what might be waiting for us out there.” Gesturing back towards the way we came and swinging my arm out to include the direction we was headed, I take a beat to beam Detect Abby around again, because I can’t rightly remember how long it’s been. Again, I don’t find nothing, but that’s less reassuring than it usually is given how I done found nothing multiple times all day and still almost got Aunty Ray killed by a Razorscythe.

  “Even at Cowie’s pace, it’ll take us the whole night to get there,” Aunty Ray says, not exactly arguing, but laying out her evidence in preparation to do just that. “And then we’ll need to rest a whole day and night before the horses are ready to move again, at which point we’ll be two days behind schedule. Lose out on the whole head start we got from leaving town early, and any more delays might mean we won’t make it there in time.”

  Not sure what time she’s hoping to get there by, whether it be to pay respects on the anniversary of my daddy’s death or celebrate my birthday, but it don’t matter either way. “Won’t matter,” I say, ready to lay down the law despite the quiver of fear that runs down my spine when Aunty Ray straightens up and fixes her gaze on me like a hawk. “Once the horses are all rested up, we’re heading straight home.” Not wanting to give her time to argue, I lay out the facts as I see them. “Them mercs stirred Abby up good, and it’s worse than I thought it’d be. Since there’s a second band of troublemakers coming up from the south, we better off backing down and trying again another time.”

  “Like a few days time, or next year time?” Aunty Ray asks, but she don’t wait for an answer. “Or you just saying all this because you don’t want to bring us there anymore?” Fists on hips and head cocked to one side, Aunty Ray hits me with a glare, and despite her dark shades obscuring her eyes, I can sympathize with what the Razorscythe must’ve felt like when faced with her ‘Evil Eye’. “It was one mantis Howie,” she continues, picking up steam as she goes, “And I’d say I done handled myself pretty well back there, but since you seem to think different, let’s hear it then.” I shake my head, but I can’t get a word in edgewise because she’s left the station and is zipping away, or whatever it is trains do.

  I don’t know. I’ve never seen one, and don’t know why it needs tracks or why you’d pick a train over a boat or automobile. It’s all tangential knowledge I done absorbed through cultural osmosis, and don’t any of it make much sense.

  Aunty Ray is going off though, because she’s a little upset I think so little of her skills. Even though she couldn’t walk the Razorscythe back, she made sure it didn’t have any friends before hitting it with her Hypnotic Gaze, since that’s a good way to get got while you distracted. If it wasn’t alone, she could’ve thrown out a Quickened Hypnotic Pattern just as fast, and I best believe it too. If I don’t, then I can even test her to see how quick she can reach the Metamagic Rod fixed to her belt, because she done been practicing in the mirror and has gotten real good at it.

  There’s a bit more to convey, but I get the feeling I ain’t the only one shook by the attack as she continues to ramble on, and it’s my turn to offer a hug. One she accepts, but doesn’t slow her roll one bit until she finishes her tirade, at which point Chrissy and Tina have done cottoned on to the discussion and joined in on the hug. Cowie finds his way over too, and I make room to throw an arm around his head too, because he the real hero today, one who deserves all the hugs and berries his heart desires, but I only have so many berries.

  “It wasn’t nothin’ you did, right or wrong,” I say, once Aunty Ray’s heels have cooled off a fair bit and she’s smiling again. “Was my mistake not spotting the Razorscythe and throwing it off our trail. Didn’t put down enough Alarm Ward coverage either, so there’s that too.” Heaving a sigh as I shake my head, I add, “Got no idea how it weaved its way through without triggering a single one. Had them set up in layers to cover plenty of ground, so it was either sheer luck or them Razorscythes got some way of sensing wards on top of blocking Detection.”

  “Oh.” Aunty Ray’s interjection ain’t an acknowledgement of fact, but rather an exclamation of misgiving complete with hand over her mouth like she done forgot to turn off the oven back home. “I didn’t tell you?” I shake my head, and she continues, “I’m pretty sure that mantis was parked there before we arrived. I heard some stones sliding, and thought it was just the ridge settling in for the night. Leaned over for a look all the same and saw it coming out of a burrow for the night. I think it slept there and just woke up, which was why it was as surprised to see me as I was to see it. Then it hopped right on up the side of the ridge to come at me fast and furious. Didn’t see none others coming out, so I hit it with the Evil Eye, and you know the rest.”

  This here is the woman who done raised me. Mostly by herself, seeing how my daddy and Uncle Raleigh were always out and about, leaving her at home to juggle three kids by herself. More than that, I’m pretty sure she could wipe the floor with me if she were of a mind to, even if I had a full tank of Aether and the stones to raise a hand against her. I gotta remind myself of all these facts, because knowing that Razorscythe came up out of a burrow could’ve saved me a whole lot of heartache and self-recrimination over the last 45 minutes or so.

  Then again, it’s not like it would’ve changed much, so I suppose there’s that. “Still think we should turn round,” I say, smiling to see how sheepish Aunty Ray looks because it really done slipped her mind. Changes right quick when she registered what I done just said though, and Tina hits me with a glare too, all wide-eyed and pursed lip because she all indignant. “Even if we put aside them troublemakers coming up from the south, we still gotta contend with the fact that I didn’t sense that Razorscythe on Detect Abby. If it was burrowed deep, that’s one thing, but if it was closer to the surface, then I should’ve caught it, and seeing how I didn’t, that’s cause for grave concern.” To my great amusement, Aunty Ray and Tina both cross their arms in tandem, as they wearing the same grimace and even let out the same resentful huff.

  Still, they don’t say nothing, which means I got the upper hand, so I press my advantage and add, “I tried after it was dead, but even then it wasn’t showing up on Detect Magic, so you know they got some real serious cloaking biotech in them.” Raising their value even further, and doubly so if I can get that slime to someone who might be able to figure out what it does and how to replicate it. Like Gunnar or Uncle Art, as they both Alchemists who know what’s what, or maybe Danny knows a guy or the name of a guy who knows Appraisal and Identify well enough to point me in the right direction.

  So lost in my own thoughts regarding the future, I almost miss seeing Aunty Ray and Tina trade a look. “You said it’s body wasn’t showing up on Detect Magic?” Aunty Ray asks, and when I nod, she nods back before heading over to the wagon. “You still got the Spell up right?” Cracking open the slot that goes down into the undercarriage where I got the corpse stored, she says, “Take another look with Detect Magic and tell me what you see.”

  To humour her and satisfy my own curiosity, I peer down into slot and blink in surprise. Didn’t even have to beam the Spell down to spot the telltale glow of magic, and it’s got me all sorts of confused because it wasn’t there earlier. Glancing at Aunty Ray, her triumphant expression is all I need to know she done figured it all out, and I also know I won’t get no answers unless I eat some humble pie. “What’s goin’ here?” I ask, and Aunty Ray’s grin grows even wider. “It wasn’t showing anything on Detect Magic earlier.”

  “Because you done got Spelled,” she says, and Tina giggles beside her, taking far too much delight in my ignorance. Not that she’s much better, because she doesn’t know why either, else she’d be tripping over her own two feet trying to tell me. As for Aunty Ray, she’s far more patient, so she takes her time and enjoys the moment as she explains, “That slime that mantis is covered in?” It’s Imbued with two schools of Magic. The first is Illusion, which it uses to change colour and cloak itself, but not actively. It just happens, as the property is inherent to the mucus the mantis produces, and not the mantis itself.”

  Which helps cut down on the cost of pumping out Razorscythes, since an Ability like that will have some sort of upkeep in terms of endurance and material cost. Meaning they probably have some sort of special diet necessary to replenish their mucus making Ability, which could be as simple as crystalized Aether or complex as having to nibble on some pedipalps because they can’t metabolize what they need themselves and need the Proggie network to help out.

  “Useful to know,” I say, nodding along as my excitement mounts since my previous conjectures about Alchemically recreating the stuff seems even more plausible now. Doesn’t explain how I wasn’t able to sense the Razorscythe with Detect Abby or Detect Magic though. “What’s the other school then? Abjuration to block Divination?”

  “Nope,” Aunty Ray says, slowly shaking her head and grinning like a cat. “It was Enchantment. A simple one that dazes and distracts anyone looking. Combined with the Illusion, it means they’re not only difficult to spot, your eyes will also tend to gloss over them when they’re standing perfectly still. What’s even better is that the Enchantment isn’t based on vision, but perception, meaning it even worked through your Detect Spells.”

  Unable to hold it in any longer, Tina laughs and exclaims, “You got charmed by an Abby, Howie. It was showing up on your Detection Spells, but it kept distracting you and saying, ‘look over there’, instead so you wouldn’t notice the registration. It’s the same as that stupid Magi Mind Trick in those dumb movies. You know? The one you kept making fun of? Where the old man in the cloak waves his hand in front of the Storm Soldier’s face and says, ‘These are not the Golems you’re looking for’?”

  Well… now I really wanna go home, but only so I can hide my head under a pillow until everyone forgets all about this. This is why everyone hates Enchantment. When it works, it really works, and you can’t help but feel stupid, because it feels like it shouldn’t have worked even though the Enchantment did exactly what it was supposed to do. In this case, distract and mislead me with an exceedingly subtle misdirect, one that’s easy enough to see through if you know what to look for.

  To distract myself from my embarrassment, I focus on the Detect Abby Spell and beam it out all around, this time making sure to really focus and Concentrate not just on sustaining the beam, but also the signal it returns. Sure enough, I spot what can only be a Razorscythe almost 4 klicks back the way we came and moving further away. At a slow and steady pace, meaning it ain’t chasing nothing, just moving about looking for prey or whatever it is they do all the livelong day. It wasn’t there the last few times I checked, or rather it was, only I just never noticed.

  Or maybe I did. Not saying this to save face, but maybe I knew it was there on some subconscious level, which was why I kept checking our six with the Spell. “Either way,” I say, once I’ve gathered enough of my tattered pride to speak without colouring my cheeks, “I still think we should call this trip off.”

  “Because you think it’s too dangerous?” Aunty Ray asks, and her tone shifts when she follows it up with, “Or because you think it’s too dangerous for us? Because if it’s the first, then you best believe you ain’t comin’ back here solo ever again mister. I’ll call in every favour I have to keep you out of the badlands without a Strike Team at your back, because if you think the badlands have gotten too dangerous to travel, then it most certainly is.”

  And if it’s the second, Aunty Ray ain’t gonna accept my decision, because she’s determined to go up to the mesa and pay her respects at my parents’ graves.

  Takes me a long minute to come up with an answer, and I realize that even without her threat, there’s only one answer to give. “I’m just scared to lose you is all,” I whisper, and all of a sudden, I find myself in yet another group hug.

  “I know,” Aunty Ray says, patting the back of my head and making me feel like I’m a kid again. “I know. But you can’t let your fear control you. Gotta face it head on and stare it down, so it knows who’s boss and won’t come bothering you again.”

  Spoken like a woman who don’t understand the true depths of despair, but I can’t argue with her. Never could, so I only hope my greatest fears never come to pass, not here on this trip into the badlands or for many, many years to come.