***Tirnanog, Mount Aerie***

***Astra***

Our first day of hunting ended with a feast.

We retreated with our catch to one of the shelters which had been set up by my family. Then we spent the rest of the day grilling caveglider ribs and gorging ourselves on meat which wasn't cooked into unrecognisable stew for once.

Just like with the travel shelters between the Old Camp and Mount Aerie, my family had seen to it that all of the important hunting grounds provided relatively safe resting places – if you knew how to find them.

The next day, I led Magnus out of the Maw and down a narrow cave system which was collectively called 'The Beast's Throat'.

“Let me guess, the next cave we are headed to is called 'The Beast's Belly',” Magnus commented jovially while he followed me down a jagged tunnel which required more climbing than walking.

The natural caves in Mount Aerie weren't formed by human hands and therefore were often not easy to traverse.

Luckily, my filaments allowed me to slide more or less smoothly down the steeper inclines, while Magnus tried his luck with jumping from one ledge to the next. Where he couldn't do so safely, he simply relied on his strength to climb while I used my filaments like a set of ropes.

“You are so astute!” I praised him. “Now you just have to get over your pride and allow me to carry you. Or you could hold on to one of my filaments and slide down.”

While bantering with him, I tried to sneak a filament around his waist but he batted it away with a mild slap, like the groping hand of a naughty child.

“That's not necessary.” He cleared his throat. “Besides, it would be bad if we encounter something while we are... entangled.”

“You are well aware I could let you go within moments.” I rolled my eyes. “There is no real risk if I carry you through the nasty parts of the passage.”

“Then I admit I don't want to be carried around if it's not necessary,” Magnus grumbled. “It hurts my pride. And climbing on my own is good training.”

At least he admitted it.

“Fine.” I reached another steeply angled crevice. “But if we have to be quick, you won't complain about me picking you up.” After inspecting the ceiling, I tangled my filaments around a sturdy part of the jagged rock and swung myself down the almost vertically descending tunnel.

Magnus nodded and jumped, pushing himself off a wall before he found a foothold on a narrow ledge. His fingers found a small fissure in the rock and he held himself there while he waited for me to lower myself to his level.

“You haven't answered my guess,” he pointed out.

It took me a moment to remember his original statement. “Yes, you are right about the next large cavern being called the Belly.”

And I could already predict he would complain about the Aerie being not very imaginative with giving names right about... not yet... he first has to purse his lips... now.

“Whoever named these caves wasn't very imaginative,” Magnus commented right on cue.

“Wow...” I whispered and applauded myself inwardly. “I am getting good at this.”

“At what?” He frowned and turned his attention away from the darkness beneath us to look at me.

“Predicting what you are going to say,” I replied. “I almost got your superiority complex down to the second.”

He winced. “Don't you think it's bad for a couple to become like this after just a few weeks? What's going to happen in a year? Are you going to get bored of me? Will any of my thoughts stay hidden for long?”

I knew he wasn't really concerned for our relationship because he was smiling, so I continued our verbal fencing duel.

“Then let's be glad I am not solely keeping you around for your limited mental qualities. Your physical attributes are more than enough incentive for me.” I giggled while I slid down the next few metres heels overhead. My filaments allowed me the freedom to orient myself whichever way I wanted to while I was hanging from them.

“That's a very nice view,” Magnus commented while he followed me. “It's good to know what you value in your partner.”

“You are a letch,” I used a filament to slap him lightly on the back of his head, meaning he probably didn't feel it at all.

Despite our banter, we never failed to pay attention to our surroundings. And so both of us noticed the sound of falling rocks coming from further down the shaft.

I focused my senses, but whatever it was, it created so much noise that I couldn't make out anything helpful apart from falling rocks. There was only one thing for sure.

Something was on its way up and it wasn't concerned about being detected.

Not a bit.

I quickly grabbed Magnus with several filaments and pulled him to me. By relying purely on my echolocation, I swung both of us into the narrowest part of the vertical crevice we were in. Once I had a firm hold on the wall, I drew in my filaments and dimmed my bioluminescence before I covered Magnus' mouth with a hand.

There were only a few creatures in these caves which didn't care about making noise, and none of them should be messed with light-heartedly.

The both of us held our breaths while something large ascended the tunnel, kicking loose dozens of rocks on its way and sending them careening down the shaft. The creature meandered on its way. As if trying to inspect every part of the cave it could reach, or as if it couldn't decide on the optimal path.

Thankfully, the thing's large bulk prevented it from entering the narrower part I had chosen to hide in. A questing white tentacle slapped against the cave wall in front of us, then loosened with a wet slurp as the creature passed us by. It left behind a glistening substance which covered the rock with a transparent sheen.

Not moving, I held Magnus silently in place for several minutes even after the monster's passage. I only loosened my hand on his mouth once no more rocks were falling from above and everything was silent.

“That was close,” I lamented. “If the shaft had been any narrower, we would have had a nasty fight on us.”

“Was that a ghostleech?” Magnus whispered, proving he had paid at least some attention to the bestiary I had him study. “The book didn't say they got so large. If I had to guess, it was at least ten times my size.”

“Yes,” I replied. “And a large one at that. Some of the hunters up in the Maw will have an unpleasant encounter.”

Ghostleeches were like a mixture between a snail, a tapeworm, and an underground octopus. They were utterly blind, deaf, and possessed no sense of smell as far as I knew. But they also didn't need to.

They hunted by randomly roaming the natural caves while relying on their sense of touch and taste.

If they made contact with something edible, which was pretty much anything organic as far as the leeches were concerned, they could rely on their extremely effective paralytic contact poison. It was strong enough to incapacitate eventual prey within minutes of touching the slime which ghostleeches excreted in stupendous amounts.

The creatures did not need teeth or other natural weaponry, because once the victim was subdued by the poison, they had all the time in the world to enjoy their meal with a rasp-like tongue which was capable of scratching stonemoss from cave walls. If it came to this point, the less resilience a human had, the better.

I shuddered at the thought of something eating me by 'licking off' one layer of flesh after the other.

Once I was sure the creature hadn't noticed us, I slowly lowered us down the rest of the shaft, careful to avoid touching the remnants of slime which the ghostleech had left behind.

“Shouldn't we kill it?” Magnus asked once he realized I was taking us away from the ghostleech.

“Why?” I frowned. “I don't want a ghostleech mutation and deal with slime excreted from my skin.”

“That would be a slippery business,” my partner commented with a chuckle, lost in a – without a doubt – dirty fantasy. Then he shook his head. “You mentioned someone would have a bad day with the thing. Aren't you concerned for your people?”

I shrugged. “I don't necessarily want to fight something we are ill-prepared for. Ghostleeches are renowned for lacking brainpower. It will throw itself at any source of nourishment it can find, not stopping until it is dead or has eaten its fill. If it reaches the Maw, it will slow down and stuff itself with all the plant life that's available up there. Soon afterwards it will fall into a form of food-coma. At that point, it would take an especially stupid hunter to step into its slime.”

We reached the bottom of the shaft and I set Magnus down. “Besides, one of the ghostleech's hunting strategies is to slime up a tunnel with its excretions. Then it will double back and feast on anything that was incapacitated from touching it. Do you want to fight it inside a tunnel where half the surfaces are covered in its slime?”

He looked around as if only now noticing the generous amounts of goop which dripped from the walls and parts of the ceiling. It would take a lot of skill to prevent all contact, even if our armour provided some protection.

Finally, he gave his verdict by vehemently shaking his head.

The cave was splitting up on its way further down, so I pointed out the path without slime.

“Got it.” Magnus followed the cave which was now getting a little wider and descending at a more comfortable angle. “We don't want to be here in case it decides to double back before it reaches the Maw.”

He suddenly stopped, causing me to bump into him from behind.

“What's that?” Sounding wary, he nudged something with the blunt end of his spetum.

I stepped around him to see what he had found.

On the ground lay a heart-sized piece of smooth stone. It was covered with the ghostleech's transparent slime, but the bright green colour of the stone made it stand out. “I think it's a lesser core. Maybe the ghostleech shat it out. Remains of its latest victim.”

Magnus wrinkled his nose and used his water bottle to rinse off the worst of the slime before he picked up the core.

I didn't call out in warning because my partner's new armour came with thick leather gloves, which should be enough protection to prevent him from keeling over. “Just be careful. The slime packs a punch if you get it on your skin.”

“Got it.” Magnus used his water bottle to free his find from slime and to wash his gloves while I pulled him along.

“You may be able to sell it, depending on the metal content,” I pointed out. “The blacksmiths are paying well for certain cores.”

“No need.” Magnus rejected the idea without a second thought. “I want to find out how this thing works. It looks like a biomechanical version of a diaphragm pump. These are the in- and out-takes and I assume the third, large hole held the diaphragm, but it’s missing now.”

I frowned and took a look at the core in his hands. “A lot of people have tried to put the cores to better use than just melting them down, but nobody succeeded so far. I assume you aren’t too far off with your assumption. Most cores serve the purpose of a heart for larger monsters. They function where a purely biological solution wouldn’t work. Sadly, they shut down almost immediately when the creature is killed.”

“Well, if it’s what I think it is, then this one is busted. And it looks like someone designed it that way,” Magnus mused while he played with the core, going so far as to electrocute it without result. “Can you imagine any way such a thing would develop naturally?”

I shrugged. “You may be right. You may be not. This is an alien world. All I can say is I would have no idea how to prove or disprove that the creatures on it are bioengineered. Does it concern us as long as the issue isn’t immediate and we have other problems?”

He pursed his lips, his attention still on the core. “I guess not.”

We eventually managed to leave the ghostleech's territory and arrived in the Belly, which was an even larger version of the Maw. But where the Maw had a relatively open ecosystem, the Belly housed a veritable jungle.

I pointed out a narrow path which had been cut through the alien vegetation. “Looks like another group of hunters took this path before us. Let’s just follow it for now.”

There was no point in finding our own way through the dense foliage, which would have taken us a lot of time.

“How old do you figure this path to be?” Magnus asked once we had advanced a good distance into the Belly.

I inspected the slice on a coral plant which was more mushroom than real plant. When I tested the damaged part with my finger, it came away sticky with a substance similar to tree gum. “No older than two or three days at worst,” I gave my verdict. “The substance these plants lose when they are damaged hardens within a week. See? This is still very malleable and sticky, so it shouldn’t be very old. If we are lucky, we run into the other hunting group when they are on their way back. They could inform us about the terrain ahead so that we don’t waste our time in some uninteresting hunting ground. It would be ideal if they could point us towards an open path which leads to the foot of Mount Aerie.”

The area at the base of the mountain would be ideal for us to search for a bloodmantle. Here in the Belly, I didn’t expect to find something worth our time.

It took us another hour of slowly following the ready path until we reached a small glade where seven people had set up a desolate camp.

I was instantly alert when the people stood up to face us. All of them were gathered around the fireplace in the middle of the glade. And, unfortunately, we had stumbled right into them without giving us the chance to observe them first.

Touching Magnus’s shoulder with a filament, I gave him a meaningful look and whispered while I indicated the camp. “Something is wrong here. If I tell you to fight, hold nothing back. Go for the kill.”

The reason for me being so tense was the fact that this camp looked like a fight had taken place in it. One of the three sleeping bags was slashed open and the fireplace looked like someone rolled through it, scattering the ash everywhere.

The five women and two men who were waiting for us with smiles on their lips also looked strange.

At a glance, they seemed like they had been in a fight. But once I took a second look, I realized something about their clothes was off.

A very loosely sitting backpack was hanging from a woman’s shoulders. Nobody in his right mind would carry heavy gear willingly like this.

Then there was the arm guard which didn’t sit as it should on one of the guys. He seemed unbothered by the fact that he hadn’t put it on correctly.

All these were things a normal person would feel uncomfortable about and fix as soon as possible. Yet, these people had been sitting around a campfire without a care in the world.

And who in his right mind would set up such a shoddy camp right in the open when there should be a shelter at the Belly’s centre?

My eyes wandered to one of the backpacks which lay open with its contents strewn around the camp.

I smiled and waved a hand at the group of people who were still watching us with relaxed smiles on their faces. “Hello!”

One of the women raised a hand and waved it exactly as I had done. “Hello!”

I slowly walked forward while I gestured for Magnus to get ready and hissed through clenched teeth. “Go for the heads. Beheading or destroying the brains works best.”

Magnus imperceptibly changed the grip on his spetum.

I could only hope he had understood what was going on because there was no way I could inform him about what was to come without giving away that we had caught onto our opponent’s spiel. If we ran away now, we would only give them time to prepare and it would become an indefinitely harder fight.

Just to be sure, I repeated the gesture, slightly varying the way I waved in greeting. “Hello!”

Again, the woman mirrored me exactly. “Hello!”

If she was a real human, I would believe she was trying to mock me.

“We left the central cavern a day ago. It’s so lucky to find someone who has been out here for a while to tell us about the lay of the land…” I kept on babbling as I closed in on the woman.

Slowly, I allowed my filaments to billow out as unthreateningly as possible. At the same time, I firmly gripped the heft of my rapier with my right hand and stretched out my left, as if offering it in greeting.

Two more steps brought me into range.

I drew my rapier and slashed out in a single motion with supernatural speed, the skill already honed by hundreds of hours sparring with Magnus.

The top of the woman’s head separated from what was beneath right where the eyes met the nose.

Magnus’ spetum shot past my shoulder, stabbing one of the guys into the throat and continuing onwards until the side blades completely separated the head from the shoulders. But my partner wasn’t done. Changing the trajectory of his weapon, he brought it sideways down on one of the other women.

But our moment of surprise was gone.

The woman hissed and blocked Magnus’s blade with her bare hand, showing off a set of four wicked claws which had burst from her forearm.

She nonetheless seized up when Magnus channelled electricity directly through his weapon. Drawing the short sword at his side, he quickly stepped forward and claimed another head before he kicked the corpse away to free his main weapon.

I allowed my filaments to shoot forward and up, entangling the four remaining targets while I reached for the plants above.

Finding a firm hold on a sturdy piece of vegetation, I pulled, acting as a sort of spring between it and my victims.

All of us shot upwards into the dense vegetation until we reached the point of highest elevation. When I felt the moment of weightlessness at the highest point, I pulled again with all my might.

Performing the attack could have taken no more than two or three seconds, but thanks to my sped-up perception it felt like an eternity until all four bodies came down and impacted the ground with all the force I could muster.

While they landed in awkward positions, I came down in a three-point stance on my legs and my free hand.

Quickly, I moved to stab one more stunned creature right into the brain, while Magnus also made good use of the opportunity I had created.

He threw his short sword, splitting the head of one enemy before he brought his foot down on another. The head was squished beneath the sole of his boot.

Squealing, the last creature got back to its feet. It tried to run away while its clothes and human physique morphed in front of our eyes, being replaced by a bipedal thing with silvery scales. Apart from the bent backwards feet and the arms which had four claws, it didn’t have any discerning features. No eyes, ears, nostrils, or other openings were visible on its smooth skin.

Magnus drew a metal ball from his satchel and his arm blurred before the last changeling’s head exploded in a shower of blood and brain matter.

Then the glade was silent once more.

“What a shit show!” Magnus cursed and spat on the corpse closest to him. It had lost its human form and was back to what changelings normally looked like.

“That thing could talk!” he complained. “How can it talk? I read about it, but I didn’t believe there are intelligent aliens in this world!”

I sighed. “They can’t talk for real, nor are they intelligent. A changeling can’t be reasoned with. They are more like parrots who mimic the noises of their prey to draw it in. Then they strike when your guard is down. Plenty of pseudo scientists caught them in the early days to prove they are intelligent. Admittedly, they have some limited problem-solving abilities, but they are far below a human’s intelligence. More like chimpanzees. If I had kept greeting it, it would have mimicked me until it became obvious I saw through its disguise.”

“If it’s so easy, then how did the other hunting group fall to them?” Magnus looked around the camp.

I bit my lip while I gave the camp a closer look. “There are only three sets of gear if you look closely. Three backpacks. I assume the changelings got the jump on the hunting group and finished them off before they realized what was happening. You shouldn’t underestimate how powerful the two of us are compared to unpaired warriors. Three unpaired warriors against seven changelings would be an unwinnable situation for the humans.”

I sighed dejectedly. “Please help me search the gear for any identifications. Once we return, we have to inform the clan that they won’t be coming back. And please be quick about it. We don’t have any guarantee these seven were all there is. Normally, changelings hunt in much larger groups.”