The survey expedition team arrived in Sharnwick at eight-thirty in the morning, exactly on schedule. Their final stop was a modest village, at least by New Ostor’s standards. In Ozzy’s eyes, the place was rather high-class as far as minor settlements went. The streets were paved, there were plenty of solid multi-story buildings, and one could hardly notice the smell of dung floating around. More importantly, the druid was glad to finally have truly fresh air going into his lungs for once. He still hadn’t gotten used to the smog permeating Last Flag, and he doubted he ever would. Ideally he’d just wear that face mask he purchased when he first got there, but the apparatus didn’t agree with his facial situation. The device had to be fastened in a way that enveloped the nose, mouth, and chin for it to be effective, and Ozzy’s beard prevented that. In theory he could just shave it off, but the man refused to do so unless it was a last resort. He’d spent far too long cultivating that magnificent mane to just get rid of it.

“Hey,” a voice called out to him. “Real quick, sorry for all the trouble. I’d appreciate it if we got to chat some time later. Maybe on your way back?”

Ozzy glanced towards the steam engine at the very front of the train. He couldn’t reply from this distance and he doubted the conductors and engineers would look kindly to a stranger feeling up their locomotive. So, he opted for a simple thumbs up above his head.

“Great! Looking forward to it!” the machine spirit said. “My name’s Thomas, by the way. See you later!”

The druid’s gesture turned into a wave as he walked off towards the cargo car in the back of the train. As one might imagine, it was swarming with people trying to get their stuff. The rest of his team was already busy unloading several crates of gear and stacking them up on a trolley. Well, Wade was, at the very least. Angela and Eva carried only their personal belongings, which consisted of two suitcases and Marcello’s cage. The hawk cried at Ozzy’s approach, prompting his owner to throw the man a playful smile.

“Aw. I think-a he likes you,” she cooed.

“Somehow I doubt it.”

If nothing else, he suspected that ‘I will tear out your eyes and shit in the sockets’ was not a term of endearment.

“Wade, let me give you a hand with those boxes,” he offered the youngster.

“I’m good, sir. They’re not heavy, just big.”

“Nonsense. What’s the point of me being here if I don’t do some heavy lifting?”

He strode over and grabbed several of the wooden crates. He was already accustomed to being the Quartet’s bipedal pack mule, and it showed. He stacked up the boxes in his arms with practiced ease, to the point where they towered over him. It looked like an incredible feat of strength and balance to the casual bystander, but it was much easier than it appeared. As Wade said, the crates felt quite light for their size, yet there was no rattling from the cargo within.

“Where do you want them?” the druid asked.

“Oh. Uhm, well…”

The technician hesitated for a moment. In truth, because of the aforementioned size situation, he was planning on making two trips. He only had the one trolley for transport and it was already full. He didn’t feel right telling someone else to do manual labor, especially when they clearly had seniority over him, and not just in terms of age. However, he had a feeling that the truck that walked like a man would not mind.

“Can you carry those and follow me?” he finally said. “Just try not to drop anything, there’s some delicate equipment inside.”

“Sure.”

“Great. Right this way.”

Ozzy followed Wade as he wheeled his trolley off through the bare bones train station. The one in Last Flag had six platforms hidden behind a grand, cathedral-sized building. By comparison, Sharnwick’s single rail line and shack-like office looked positively pitiful. It was nevertheless quite functional. Some kind of train official ran a quick check on all the luggage and crates while Eva signed some papers on the group’s behalf. Barely ten minutes later, Ozzy and Wade were walking across the street to the vehicle bay on the opposite side of the station with the girls following close behind. Sharnwick was little more than a pit stop at the base of Forchill Hill, and none of them intended to stick around unless they had to.

So, the group rented a truck at the League’s expense and set off. Angela was doing the driving with Eva in the passenger seat while the guys situated themselves in the back with all the cargo. It wasn’t too bad at first, but the paved roads gave way to dirt paths before long, turning it into quite the bumpy ride indeed. Ozzy and Wade were handling it alright, but the way the boxes bounced all over the place made the druid worry. The technician warned him about ‘delicate equipment,’ so surely this level of jostling was bad news. The young man didn’t seem too concerned, though. Was he confident nothing would break? Or did he simply not realize the potential damage? Ozzy decided to find out.

“Hey, Wade?”

“Hm? Yeah?”

“Is it okay if these boxes shake like that?”

“Uh… Oh, crap. Angela!” he yelled towards the cabin in the front.

“What?!” she yelled back.

“Slow it down! You’re gonna break the gear!”

“‘Kay!”

Sure enough, the violent rocking of the truck bed settled down significantly as its speed dropped to more reasonable levels.

“Ugh. I’m not letting her drive on the way back,” Wade grumbled.

“You take issue with her wheelmanship?” Ozzy raised an eyebrow.

“You heard that groan just now! She’s not stepping down on the clutch hard enough, and the old girl is struggling to shift gears. This is a brand new truck, but if she keeps this up, it’ll run like a second-gen jalopy by the time we’re done.”

The druid nodded sagely while trying to hide the fact that he had no idea what some of those words meant.

“Surely you could just explain that she’s operating the machine wrong,” he offered.

“No. I really don’t think I can,” the mechanic sighed. “Nine out of ten times I’ve told someone they’re driving incorrectly they took it as a personal attack. Like this one guy that lives on my street, he keeps parking incorrectly and sometimes bumps into other vehicles all on his own. But when I try to give him some pointers, suddenly I’m the asshole.”

“Hm. I suppose there is some degree of talent when it comes to controlling a vehicle. Otherwise there would be no fender benders, and you would be out of a job.”

“Heh. I guess.”

There was a brief lull in the conversation while Ozzy considered something.

“I was thinking, I’d like to learn to drive.”

“You should. It’s an important skill to have in this day and age.”

“Exactly. The sooner the better.”

In actuality, Ozzy hadn’t even considered that until Wade mentioned it just now. The young man probably had a point, but the druid’s motives lay elsewhere. He still hadn’t given up on the Ostorian Grand Prix. He dismissed it at first, but he was considering the opportunity more seriously once he learned how the League did things. An unproven newcomer like Ozzy could only take on routine work like this survey expedition, and that sort of thing wasn’t going to get his name and face in the papers. Winning the Grand Prix, on the other hand, was certain to make him famous. Admittedly it would take a small series of miracles for him to even qualify for the big race, and he had some ideas on how to make that happen.

Before he could get to that stage, though, Ozzy first had to get a handle on the basics.

“Well, you’re in luck,” Wade declared. “I know a guy called Simmons who’ll show you the ropes.”

“I was hoping you could teach me, actually.”

“Oh. Uh, sorry, but I don’t think I can,” the man politely declined. “Teaching is a skill all on its own, and I’m no good with it. Believe me, I’ve tried. Besides, you have to take a course to get a license anyway, so you might as well just go straight to Simmons. He’s government certified and all that.”

“Hm. I’ll think about it.”

This was Ozzy’s way of politely declining. He didn’t feel comfortable having a total stranger teach him, especially one that was ‘government certified.’ The druid had some unorthodox ideas when it came to operating a motor vehicle, and he couldn’t risk trying those in front of someone he couldn’t trust. Then again, Wade fell into that category as well. He seemed honest enough, but he had no idea Ozzy wasn’t exactly normal. There was no telling how he would react. Benjamin was another story, though. The young cabbie hadn’t reacted too badly to the druid admitting he was one of these ‘mutants.’ Perhaps he would be willing to assist Ozzy in his… experiments. It certainly couldn’t hurt to ask, at any rate.

“We’re here, boys!” Angela yelled from the front. “Start unpacking!”

The man mentally shelved that subject while the redhead brought the vehicle to a stop. Ozzy and Wade climbed out the back to find themselves surrounded by greenery. Pines, mainly. Forchill Hill’s modest peak loomed overhead to the north, while Sharnwick village and its surrounding farmlands rested below and to the south. The dirt road the truck had been following stopped and broke off into four separate foot paths that were far too narrow and bumpy for the heavy vehicle. The machine could take them no further, which meant this was where the group’s expedition started for real. And, much like the Quartet, every member got ready in their own way.

Wade was the busiest of the lot. Much as the redhead had instructed, he started unpacking the crates without bothering to load them off the truck. Ozzy was unsurprised to find they contained a number of bizarre devices that he had no hope of recognizing. They ranged from small cylindrical things to boxes adorned with gauges and dials. Each gizmo was designed to be carried easily by hand, and a few were even worn as equipment. All of them were packed in with a copious amount of dried straw, presumably to absorb the vibrations and impacts of travel so as to prevent damage in transit.

The technician loaded himself up with a fair few of these gadgets. A brass gauntlet with a watch-like face on the back of the hand was fastened to his left forearm. He filled his backpack with a wide array of tools, then strapped some rope and a rolled-up sleeping bag to it. A leather flap adorned with several overstuffed satchels hung from his belt and rested against his left thigh, and a heavy bag with cables coming out of it dangled from his right hip. He then clasped some metal fittings to his boots, encasing his heels and toes. Last but not least, he grabbed a pair of goggles and hung the protective eyewear from his neck.

Angela wasn’t carrying nearly as much stuff. While she also had a backpack with various camping supplies, it was far more compact. The pistols at her hips, the rifle on her shoulder, and the various munitions strapped to her body or hidden in her coat made up the rest of her gear. The armaments were heavier than they looked, but the redhead was athletic enough to easily bear their weight. This was actually lighter than she usually travelled. She usually packed more explosives, but there was no feasible need for them on a survey job. With everything else prepared, she finally released Marcello from his cage, allowing the hawk to stretch his wings as he circled overhead.

Eva was the most lightly equipped of the group, which made sense given her academic role in the team. She wasn’t carrying anything aside from a backpack like Angela’s, although she did have a curious collection of satchels on her belt. They looked about the right size and shape to hold books and, sure enough, that was what she packed them with. Finishing things off, she put on a different pair of glasses that had a jeweler’s lens affixed to them. She no doubt needed the extra magnification to peer at all those dials the presumably scientific instruments had.

Ozzy was the clear outlier in the group equipment-wise. It wasn’t until the truck had come to a stop that he finally changed out of his fancy Huxley & Smith attire and into his old adventuring equipment. He’d taken the time to wash the leathers and furs of their old bloodstains, of course. Wouldn’t want to appear like a complete savage to his more civilized teammates. He folded his civilian clothes as neatly as he could and put them in the suitcase that previously held his gear. He then retrieved the two handaxes he purchased on a whim from Rizby’s, tucking their relatively short handles into his belt. Having finished gearing up, Ozzy hopped in place a few times and did a few quick stretches and flexes to get his blood flowing. With that rudimentary warm up done, he casually threw his enormous backpack over his shoulder.

It was at that moment that the druid noticed the other three were staring silently at him. Wade was cringing slightly, Angela was giving him a sultry smirk, and Eva had covered her mouth in shock while a light blush reddened her cheeks. Ozzy froze, unsure of what would elicit an array of reactions. He glanced left, then right, then behind, looking for some outrageous sight that he had somehow missed. As expected, there was no spectacle to be found other than himself. That vain hope crushed, the man did his best to maintain composure as he tried to play the whole thing off.

“What?” he asked. “Did I do something weird?”

“You… changed right in front of us,” Wade pointed out.

“So?”

“So, maybe don’t do that in front of the ladies?”

“… Ah.”

Indeed, Ostorian culture was more prudish than Einhan’s. Ozzy was well aware of that fact, yet failed to consider it. He was so excited about this upcoming adventure that he was momentarily lost in his own world. The way he casually stripped down to his underwear in front of three people no doubt offended Wade and Eva’s sensibilities. They probably thought he was a freak. Hopefully they would recognize the culture shock for what it was and not make a big deal out of it. As for Angela, well…

“Nice-a body!”

If her words and wink were any indication, she enjoyed the show. So did Eva, though she wasn’t as keen to admit it. Regardless, all of them were adults and were quick to pretend the indecent incident never happened as they set out into the wilderness. They had to leave the truck unguarded, which Angela assured them was fine. None of the country bumpkins around these parts knew how to drive and anyone desperate enough to steal the empty boxes in the back was welcome to them. Still, Wade took a minute to remove a vital valve from the vehicle’s compact steam engine. Should a carjacker actually show up and try to abscond with the truck, they wouldn’t be able to even start it.

Ozzy moved at the head of the group, doing his best to watch out for trouble. This proved difficult due to how relaxing this pine forest was. Back in Einhan, wild woods untouched by civilization were a breeding ground for all kinds of dangerous monsters. Giant spiders in the treetops, mole sharks in the soil, and the occasional angry treant or overprotective dryad, to name a few. There were zero signs of such creatures here, though. It wasn’t a stretch to say that Ozzy was perhaps the scariest thing in it, maybe tied with Angela and her guns. This place was so peaceful that the druid was having trouble keeping his mind on the job.

Eva seemed to share his outlook. She followed a few paces behind Ozzy, thoroughly enjoying the nature walk for what it was. She occasionally stopped to make a few quick notes in a journal before picking up the pace a bit to catch up. Wade was trailing further behind her and clearly having trouble. He had overestimated his physical abilities and ended up bringing too much gear. He was keeping pace, but struggling to do so if the sweat and grunts were any indication. Bringing up the rear was Angela. The redhead clearly had too much energy, given the erratic zig-zag path she took while she walked, skipped, and hopped all over the place. Perhaps, Ozzy pondered, she was simply taking an active part in making sure that nothing and nobody snuck up on the group. Or maybe she was just having a bit of fun? Either way, he found it impossible to tell what was business and what was pleasure with her.

The team reached the first of thirteen survey sites about an hour after setting out on foot. It was a fairly wide and flat clearing marked by a solid stone pillar in the middle. The object was about a meter thick, thrice as tall, and seemingly natural. It looked positively ancient, its surface cracked, weathered, and dotted with moss. The grass and dirt surrounding it were dry and trampled, betraying the spot’s tourist appeal. Ozzy approached the odd rock and stared at it intently. He couldn’t shake the feeling that it didn’t belong here. Was it just his imagination? Perhaps the resident history expert had a clue.

“Eva?” he called out. “What is this?”

“Oh, that’s one of Forchill Hill’s standing stones. It’s a local landmark.”

“Where’d it come from?”

“Natural formations, best as we can tell.”

“Huh.”

That didn’t seem right to the druid. There was no way a rock this old would be standing upright like that. Between the animals rubbing against it, the rain drenching it, the winds lashing it, and the sun baking it, it should have been worn down to sand ages ago.

“Maybe someone put it here?” he suggested.

“Maybe. Anyway, can you get over here and help out?”

“Oh, sure thing.”

He strolled back towards the edge of the clearing, where Wade was sitting on the grass. He panted heavily while leaning against his backpack. Ozzy helped Eva fetch some stuff out of it while the technician caught his breath. The cylindrical things he spied earlier were revealed to be containers - glass tubes inside a rubber and metal shell. The librarian used these to collect a dozen samples from the surrounding area. Bark shavings, pine needles, bush leaves, grass cuttings, moss, soil, and other such things. The druid had to assist with the animal feces portion of the survey. He groaned inwardly when Eva asked him to do that. Why did people automatically assume he was fine with handling that stuff? Regardless, he grabbed a sample container and set off into the woods to find the… materials.

When Ozzy returned several minutes later, Wade was back on his feet and helping Eva by taking a bunch of readings with his gadgets. Something about air pressure and magnetic fields, among other things. It all went over the druid’s head while the scholar dutifully recorded the results in her journal. Once she was done, she handed her notebook to the technician, who had to verify everything was accurate and sign off on it as part of some procedure. Thankfully for Wade, he had done his homework. Though this was his first time handling all of this equipment, he had no trouble using it. It was, after all, designed with the average explorer in mind. Which was to say that even a monkey could figure it out.

As Ozzy surveyed the scene, he noticed something potentially concerning.

“Where’s Angela?” he called out to the other two. “I don’t see Marcello, either.”

Wade looked up and around, as if only just noticing the pair had vanished while the druid was on doo-doo duty. Then, as if on cue, a loud bang echoed through the forest, causing a small flock of birds to flee from the treetops to the southwest. It didn’t take a steam engineer to figure out its source.

“Wait here,” Ozzy told the others. “I’ll go check it out.”

“Don’t bother,” Eva said with a sigh. “Knowing her, she’s just getting us dinner.”

That assumption was put into serious doubt a few seconds later when two more bangs sounded out. And then a third and a fourth followed shortly afterwards, each clearly closer than the rest.

“Or… not?” the librarian was visibly worried.

“Hide behind the pillar. Now!” Ozzy roared. “Something’s coming for us!”

The two hesitated for a moment, but seeing the mountain-man draw his axes made them realize they best do as he said. The druid then walked closer to the edge of the clearing, ready to intercept whatever emerged from it. Peering through the trees, he easily made out Angela’s crimson hair as it bobbed and weaved between trunks and under branches. And there, about ten meters behind her, was an enormous pile of black fur with a set of nasty-looking fangs at the front.

“That better not be what I think it is,” Ozzy mumbled under his breath.

Unfortunately, his intuition was right on the money. As the gunslinger and her pursuer drew closer, it became clear that Angela had found a black bear. She had also somehow pissed it off so bad that the beast pursued her through the dense foliage while roaring with anger. The cause of its ire seemed obvious, given its bleeding ear and the smoking revolver in Angela’s right hand. The redhead herself was unharmed. It was a testament to her physical ability that she was able to outrun a bear, but the beast would surely catch up to her once it no longer had to zig-zag through the dense array of slender tree trunks.

“Incoming!” Angela yelled as she erupted into the clearing.

“I noticed!” Ozzy snapped back as he moved up.

The druid and the gunslinger ran past each other, the former charging forward and the latter falling back to cover him. She holstered her revolver and reached for the larger caliber rifle slung across her shoulder. Angela’s fingers moved with speed and precision as she took a large bullet off of the ammo belt on her waist and fed it into the weapon. She slid across the trampled grass feet-first, coming to a stop about twenty meters behind Ozzy. The redhead then flipped onto her belly and took aim at the incoming threat, using the ground to help steady her arms and her weapon.

The bear had already emerged from the treeline by then, and the druid had diligently stood in its way. The beast roared angrily as it tried to maul the man, but couldn’t even touch him. Ozzy was using the flat sides of his axes as makeshift clubs that blocked those dangerous claws. Either that or he avoided them completely with some back-and-forth footwork. That erratic movement also had the side-effect of making Angela’s job harder. Hitting a bear in a vital area was difficult enough when it was standing still, what with all that fur and fat distorting its body shape. Doing so when it was actively trying to murder something while also avoiding friendly fire?

That was the sort of trick shot Angela lived for.

The rifle thundered as the sharpshooter placed a bullet squarely in the beast’s back left thigh. The redhead clicked her tongue as she yanked back on the bolt and loaded another round into her weapon. She was aiming for the knee, not some flesh wound that would barely slow the thing down. Her second shot found its mark, crippling the beast’s leg. It roared as it lurched to one side, barely able to keep itself from falling over. Ozzy capitalized on this by moving in closer than he had before. Discarding his weapons, he grabbed the bear by its head and then slammed his forehead into the beast’s with all his might, stunning the creature. He then hooked his arms under its front legs, pressing the back of the beast’s thick skull against his belly. It tried to maul and bite him, but neither its claws nor its fangs could reach the druid in this position. Then, in a feat that defied this world’s common sense, the man lifted the apex predator’s generous behind off the ground, flipped it over his head, and slammed it into the grass behind him with a meaty thud.

Angela, Wade, and Eva stared in stunned silence as Ozzy stood up after literally headbutting and then suplexing a goddamn bear. The beast was still breathing, but blissfully unconscious. The man left it where it lay, casually picked up his axes, and walked towards the redhead. The feralian managed to snap back to her senses and stood upright just as he reached her.

“So,” the man spoke, “what did you do?”

“… Excuse me?” the redhead replied.

“How did that bear get so mad that it almost killed you?”

“I don’t-a know,” she shrugged. “It just charged at me, I shot at it, and here we are.”

“Uh-huh. Y’know, bears are more peaceful than people give them credit for. Smart, too. They would never assault a person, let alone a group of them, unless they felt sufficiently threatened.”

“Look, I just tried to bag a small boar to make into dinner,” Angela explained. “How was I supposed to know a bear was sleeping in a nearby bush?”

“Okay. Let’s say I believe you,” the druid pressed. “If that’s the case, then why did you lead the beast back here?”

Hearing that made Wade doubt this turn of events as well. Angela de Fiorino was supposed to be an experienced explorer and a master markswoman. Surely, he figured, someone of her caliber would be able to handle the simple creature on her own. Even if she didn’t have her guns she’d be able to somehow escape the predator. Admittedly Wade was no expert on the subject, but he was sure there was some trick to outwit bears. Like how a crocodile couldn’t open its jaws if they were tied shut by a bit of string. The fact that she either did not or could not do that instead of endangering the expedition put her abilities as a fielder into question.

As for Eva, she knew exactly what was going on, which was why she stepped forward and bonked Angela in the back of the head with the thickest book she had on hand.

“Ahi!” the gunslinger yelped as she stumbled forward.

“I told you not to pull these stunts!” the furious librarian yelled. “Not even two hours ago you promised me you wouldn’t!”

“But I just-”

“No buts!” she cut off Angela’s words. “Do I really need to report you for gross misconduct? Again?!”

Ozzy watched on with mounting curiosity as the mischievous redhead shrank a size lower and looked away, like an unruly child being yelled at by their school teacher.

“Eva, what’s going on?” he asked.

The brunette sighed long and hard as she shook her head, then revealed the truth of the matter.

“She got bored and decided to ‘spice things up.’ As you’ve probably guessed, she provoked the poor thing on purpose, just for kicks.”

“It was not just that,” Angela grumbled. “I heard a rumor that Ozzy could suplex a bear. I just wanted to see if it was true.”

She then turned to face the man in question with an ‘OK’ sign of her hand, not a single trace of guilt on her face, and zero regret in her voice.

“Nice-a throw, by the way. I give ten out of ten.”

She was then bonked once more.

“Ahi!” she yelped again. “Okay, okay! I am sorry. I meant no harm.”

“You brought a bear to us!” Eva yelled.

“I could have shot it dead any time, so there was no real danger. I am not-a stupid.”

“That’s not the point! I’m not the one that had to stand in front of it! That was very brave of you, by the way,” she briefly looked to Ozzy with a smile, then turned back to Angela. “Apologize to him! Not me!”

“Ugh. Fine,” she rolled her eyes. “I apologize I tried to liven up this snooze-fest.”

She crossed her arms and looked expectantly at the man, as if awaiting a verdict.

This put the man in a bit of a pickle. As a druid, he was understandably upset that an otherwise innocent creature was seriously injured - perhaps fatally - over such a trivial matter. However, the civilized races of this world were at the undisputed top of its food chain. Nature had to adapt to them or perish, and in that bear’s case, it failed. That was all there was to it. What he took far bigger issue with was Angela’s motivations. She endangered lives for sport, and would likely do so again. It seemed to be a bad habit of hers, and she wasn’t about to magically break it just because she got yelled at a bit. Happy was the same way. Though largely reformed, the sneak-thief seemed incapable of leaving a room without pocketing something in it.

So, rather than simply admonish or condemn the redhead, he tried a more… diplomatic approach.

“Look, Angela,” Ozzy spoke calmly. “Let’s not beat around the bush. If you want to see me wrestle wildlife for fun, just say so. I have a way with animals, and most of them love to play. Nobody has to get bitten or shot, alright?”

The redhead was severely taken aback, and made no attempt to hide it. Of all the things she expected him to say, that wasn’t one of them. That said, this surprise was definitely on the pleasant part of the spectrum. Ludicrous statements about having a friendly tussle with feral beasts aside, the strangely supportive response made her a bit happy.

“I will hold you to that,” she declared with a toothy grin.

“That aside,” the librarian spoke up, her voice cold as ice. “Since you apparently have the energy to spare, you’ll be carrying half of Wade’s gear.”

“… That’s fair.”

Incidentally, the technician in question was currently patting himself on the back for shelling out a bit extra for his stain-resistant trousers.