It was finally time to leave the safety of Avonside and its mountain shield. I glanced up at the sun and groaned. The sun was beginning to blur slightly as the morning moved over into midday, and still we weren’t ready to leave.

Idly, I wondered what caused the blurring — rather than there just being a momentary eclipse when the sun went behind the other side of the ring. There were a lot of things about the ring that I didn’t expect or understand, actually. Like for example, the ring barely spun at all, and I’d heard of obrec mines that were hundreds of metres deep. It wasn’t just a few feet of soil and then scrith. Hell, people here knew what earthquakes were, which implied some truly strange things about this world.

“I apologise for the late showing,” Dr Ross puffed, looking like he’d just run a marathon as he arrived at the gathering of people coming to see us off. “My faculty decided that the day of my departure was the perfect time to bring urgent matters to my attention.”

I waved off his apology. “No problem. Are any of these urgent matters something I should worry about?”

“Oh, no. They’re urgent by the standards of our work in creating a proper constitution and laws, nothing immediately life or death.”

Avonside was slowly evolving into a real political entity, but progress was slow. Being teleported to the ring had unified people somewhat under the existing power structure, but now that the settlement’s future was up for discussion, no one could agree on anything.

On a personal level, I was very much left leaning, and so it was extra frustrating to see ‘my side’ falling to the same bickering as usual. What was it about the left that caused us to fight, condemn, and fail to cooperate with each other? I'm sure if I asked, Dr. Ross, he'd have an answer, but we had a journey to begin.

Turning my attention to the group at large, I said, “Okay, folks. It’s time we got going. I doubt we’ll get far with only half a day left, but any progress is better than none. Is everyone ready?”

One by one, Grace, Adam, Duncan, Eilian, Dr. Ross, Jenna, and Tom all signalled they were ready to go, and we bid goodbye to those of our friends who were staying in Avonside. Of course, most of the Order folks would see us in the evenings, but the rest wouldn’t see us for months.

Before we could make our escape, Dr. Wilcott arrived to say goodbye. “I’d like to say a few words, if that’s alright.”@@novelbin@@

I stifled a groan of impatience and Grace had to cover a chuckle with a cough. We shared a little glance, and I was once again reminded of why I loved her.

“With this expedition, Avonside will be making its first diplomatic overtures out into this new world, and in doing so, hopefully solidify its sovereignty as a distinct political entity—”

I tuned out. Flowery speeches were never something I was interested in listening to, and especially not from a group I was still sorta grumpy with. She wasn’t wrong, though. It was definitely an important milestone for the fledgling city-state.

“—and so, Dr Ross, I’m entrusting much of our future to you. Please help ensure we have one.”

“I’ll do my best,” said the man in question, chuckling at his own joke. At least, I think it was meant to be a joke.

It took us another minute or so to get moving, because the act of leaving itself felt so anticlimactic. Like, we were heading out on a grand journey and all we did was start walking? Weird. For those of us in the Order, it was made even stranger by the fact that we’d still see everyone each night.

The mountains that sheltered Avonside were beautiful. The university sat on what had once been an elbow of a river, as time had moved on through the years, it’d twisted and turned, leaving the relatively flat area we knew. The rest of the mountain range was not so gentle.

Sharp peaks rose up into the clouds, buttressed by the many ridges that had formed below them. Between those ridges and peaks, dense forest ruled, and I wondered again if that forest could be turned to my advantage. I had so many ideas and so little time to implement them.

As of right now, however, I had one job. Since this mission was a contact mission, it was no longer required that Avonside keep a low profile. So as we walked, I was burning a path through the forest with magic. Hopefully it would allow someone else to come through and build a proper road later on.

"I'm happy to be back on the trail," Grace commented quietly from beside me.

I glanced over at her. "Why? I'm kinda anxious to be honest."

"Because… I don't know," she shrugged. "Why are you anxious?"

With a deep breath, I idly considered the clouds overhead. "This is a pretty important mission, and I'm in charge of making sure it goes smoothly.”

Reaching out, she took my hand in hers and gave me a reassuring smile. "You'll do great, my love. Plus, if you need help, Troy and co are just a little planar hop away."

Her confidence bolstered mine, and I felt a smile touch my lips. “A planar hop away. Like a… bunny hop?”

Laughing, Grace rolled her eyes. "Sure, goofball. Like a bun."

I joined her laughter, and together we kept walking through the forest while it withered under the assault of my magic.

One day later, and we were still slogging down out of the mountains when Eilian suddenly stopped. Her abrupt halt caused the rest of us to glance over, so we all saw her frown and cock her head to the side. In the silence, the wind plucked at the leaf litter around us, causing it to rustle and dance.

Eilian's ears twitched, and swiftly, she drew her sword and hissed, “There’s something out there.”

“Something?” Jenna asked, the blood draining from her face.

Eilian nodded and opened her mouth. She pulled this weird expression and began to breathe deeply through her mouth. “I can smell something foul, like… aged rotten meat.”

“Oh, that’s just delightful,” Duncan grimaced.

“It has the warmth of movement, though,” she continued, and pointed her blade out into the underbrush. “It also appears to be getting closer. We should prepare to defend ourselves.”

“Okay everyone,” I said, taking charge of the situation. “Avonsiders get behind, everyone else form a loose line facing the thing. Whatever it is.”

While they got ready to meet the danger that was coming, I spun up into the air to get a better vantage point. It didn't help — the trees were just too thick here. We needed visibility…

The trees needed to go, but I couldn't gently move or wither them like I’d been doing to clear a path — the area of those spells were purposefully limited in scope. I needed a little more… urgency.

Grabbing a handful of air, I called to my grove. My plants answered, climbing my arm as animated tattoos that bore their likeness, and I unleashed a wave of force that tore through the forest like a tsunami. Small trees and shrubs were flattened under the spell, clearing our line of sight into the forest.

As if in response to my magic, a howl erupted from the forest. It was quickly joined by many more, until it seemed like the trees themselves were ready to uproot themselves and go on the hunt.

“Wolves?” Dr. Ross asked anxiously. “That sounded like wolves…”

“No,” Eilian replied, drawing one of her many swords. “I am afraid these are much worse than wolves.”

The dull thud of massive paws filtered out from the surviving underbrush, and I pushed a lock of my hair out of my face. Were my people ready? I checked each of them over with a glance to be sure. Adam and Duncan had their heavy armour on in blackout mode. In their hands they both held heater shields and short swords, both of which were enchanted to improve their functionality. The shields could shrug off magical attacks up to a certain point, while the swords wouldn’t lose their edge even when hammered against solid steel. Our magitechts had further ideas, but they weren’t ready yet. For now, it was just the basics.

Eilian had her blades and magic, obviously, while her armour was of the Order’s medium variety. Beside her, Grace wore the same, except in her hands was the mother of all pistols. The hand cannon was almost as big as her forearm, but she hefted it like it was far smaller. While I watched, she flipped a cartridge out of her bandolier and breathed some sort of red-hot magic into the ammunition.

Within the forest, a tree exploded into splinters, and a massive monster flew through the debris. My stomach dropped, and I had to fight an animal urge to run.

Eilian wasn’t kidding. Standing on all fours at six feet tall to the shoulder, I thought it was some sort of emaciated bear at first. Its head was all wrong, though. It was canine in shape, except for huge mandibles of bone, perfectly shaped for ploughing snow. The bone armour continued as a massive thick plate on its brow and a trail down its spine. Shaking its head from side to side, it thrashed the mandibles up and down the armoured carapace on its forelimbs, creating an awful grinding sound that sent shivers up my spine.

“It has friends!” Grace cried, raising her gun. “Less staring, more killing!”

Sure enough, more of the diseased warg things leapt to join their kin, who broke into a charge. Grace’s gun snapped with power, and her shot flew out to hit the lead monster.

Faster than the eye could follow, the monster shifted its head, bringing a mandible up to block the shot. The projectile simply bounced off the flat surface of the bone armour and up into the sky.

“Oh fuck,” Grace swore, and ducked behind Duncan.

The boy grunted, and pistons in his armour hissed. There was a thunk, and hefty pins shot out of his boots and into the ground, bracing him. Then the monster hit him with the full force of a rampaging bull.

Sparks flew up from his shield, but he held. Just as Troy had trained him, he thrust his sword up under the chin of the beast while it stood confused by the fact that he wasn’t a mangled lump of meat.

“The carapace is resistant to magic,” Eilian called, all while throwing a blade of raw energy to knock the wind out of another warg as it charged. “Go for the soft squishy bits!”

Right. Time to fight. Another one of the monsters was trying to circle our formation, so I dove down and summoned my magenta blades. Hoping that I was wrong about needing them, I raised a hand and unleashed a beam of radiant green energy at it. Just like the other one, it suddenly gained a tremendous amount of speed and blocked the spell with the massive plate on its forehead.

To the surprise of both of us, my beam wasn’t deflected. Sure, it didn’t core the bastard out through the middle, but it was driven face first into the ground by the force of my attack. When I cut the beam off, I could see that the carapace had melted where I hit it.

Taking advantage of momentary stun, I gestured with my other hand, ordering my blades forward. They scythed through the air towards the monster’s throat like swooping raptors. Dark blood hissed up out of the wound, spraying high enough to catch my floating feet. It thrashed and howled in pain, but still tried to push forward, fury in its eyes. Alarmed, I jumped backwards and tried to shove it away with my mind. It moved slightly, but that was it. Damn things could take a beating from magic.

“Ryn, watch out!”

My head snapped up just in time to see another of the monsters fly through the air and slam into my shields at full speed. Like a ball from a cannon, I flew backward into a tree, which snapped explosively under the impact. Groaning, I looked up. Oh crud. Gravity was about to remind me of its presence via half a ton of wood. Unfortunately for gravity, I was a bit of a troublemaker when it came to laws of the universe. I wonder if the carapace wolves were resistant to high velocity tree trunks?