***Tirnanog, Mount Aerie***

***Astra***

My partner coughed and took a step further away from the piece of misery lying on the ground. “You know, I was once on a trip to Germany and got myself into a little culinary misadventure. They have this dish there which they call Mett – which is essentially minced raw meat with spices plus onion. Sometimes they also allow it to ferment before it is served. Unfortunately, that’s the version I got. At the time, my belly didn’t agree at all.”

He pointed a finger at the silently wailing woman and swallowed before sharing his final judgement. “And she… she looks exactly like Mett… at least I hope it's a she… otherwise something very important dissolved before we came to the rescue.”

I hit Magnus’s upper arm for his lack of compassion. I couldn’t hurt him in this way, but it felt like the right thing to do at the moment. “Go and get our gear! We have to lend some first aid or she won’t make it!”

In fact, I wasn’t sure whether she would survive even with our help. Or was Magnus right and we were dealing with a very unfortunate ‘he’? Could a human survive losing all of her... his skin?

I chose to tentatively settle on ‘her’. Although judging by the physique, we could also be facing a more androgyne ‘he’.

“Wouldn’t it be kinder to just put it out of its misery?” Magnus asked, but he turned nonetheless to retrieve our backpacks from their hiding place. We had stored them beneath a large mushroom to not be burdened needlessly during the fight.

“Maybe, but we won’t be the ones to do it!” I gathered my filaments and used them to lift the hunter out of the remains of her party. Gosh, I hoped she hadn’t been soaking in the bodies of her friends or lovers.

Touching her caused the hunter to let out a tortured moan, but it couldn’t be helped. We had to clean and wrap her in antiseptic bandages to give her at least a small chance of survival. I just hoped we brought enough supplies to do so.

The antiseptic cream which came with the standard survival gear was normally enough to treat a grievous wound or amputation. It prevented infection and stopped bleeding. Otherwise, people relied mostly on their mutations for healing.

Unfortunately, I didn’t know whether too much of the cream could have adverse effects. I had never tried to use it on someone who lost all of her skin.

In any case, we needed a lot more water than we had on hand to clean her.

“Magnus,” I addressed my partner as soon as he returned with the gear. “Do you remember the large blue plant we passed on our way here? The one that gathers water?”

“Yeah, you mean the waterbulb?” He looked in the direction. “Should be ten minutes away if I run.”

“Please take the waterskins and fill them to the brim. Then bring them back here while I do what I can for her,” I instructed. Sending Magnus off alone was a calculated risk I wouldn’t have taken normally. But it wasn’t far and we definitely couldn’t move the survivor like this.

We ended up spending more time patching up the hunter than I wished to.

Thankfully, only small carrion eaters were attracted by the battlefield we had created.

The local version of zippers were carrionworms. Though they were far less dangerous than the little monsters with whom I had come to share some genes. Carrionworms were a union of a worm and a centipede without the carapace. They were magnetically drawn to dead biomass and started feasting on the bodies around us within minutes by burrowing into them.

Their main defence was an extremely nasty substance which they spat at anything interfering with their feeding. In stark contrast to zippers, throwing something like a stick at them with enough force to hurt was a sufficient deterrent in most cases.

Until Magnus returned, I was able to chase off any which came too close. Once he was back, he took over chasing away the critters while I cleaned the survivor as best as I could.

Before I was done, I had to step out twice so I wouldn’t sully her with my own vomit. My parents had seen to it early on that I would be hardened against the gruesomeness of this world, but this was something which turned even my stomach. The smell of the matriarch’s stomach acid was too overwhelming.

Almost an hour later, and me wishing I hadn’t struck a deal with Magnus to be the one who digs through the matriarch’s guts, we finally had our survivor on a stretcher. She was wrapped up like a mummy in all the bandages and clean cloth we had on hand.

I couldn’t claim I had done a great job. But in my defence, it had to be said whole-body-bandaging was a technique that was normally restricted to the realm of comics and jokes.

Somewhere along the line, our patient had lost consciousness and was completely out of it. Which was a blessing in disguise. Having your whole body covered with the antiseptic cream must have felt like being dissolved in stomach acid all over again.

While I was busy with first aid, Magnus managed to retrieve most of his throwing spears.

When I gathered my equipment, I encountered a very annoying downside to my throwing stars. They were almost impossible to find if I didn’t remember exactly where I had thrown them. My partner’s approach with ranged weapons was the better one. Disposable metal balls for small fry and large projectiles for the big stuff.

In the end, I had to admit that nothing could be done about me losing most of my throwing stars.

With our backpacks a lot lighter and a lot of our gear lost to the chaos of combat, I abandoned any hope of continuing our hunt and instead led Magnus to the closest shelter.

The changelings’ nesting area was still mostly untouched, but I hoped for the blow we dealt to their population to be grievous enough to make eventual survivors easy prey for any predator which came along.

That said, I found it very strange for the matriarch to leave the nest. Normally, I would have expected it to stay behind and guard the offspring. Its appearance on the battlefield almost caused Magnus to be injured. It was a sobering reminder that I shouldn’t take a wild animal’s behaviour for granted.

I had no time to mope over my mistake because we were finally forced to leave the area due to the increasing number of carrionworms.

Between the two of us, we had no problem carrying the unconscious survivor on an improvised stretcher.

The shelter was a well-hidden bunker in the cave’s floor, located roughly in the Belly’s centre. The single, large room was a lot better equipped than the shelters between the Old Camp and Mount Aerie. Which was to be expected, considering that only members of the family would know about this place.

Once the shelter’s trapdoor was locked, the first thing I did was raid the shelter’s emergency supplies to top up our gear. Miraculously, our survivor hadn’t died during the trip – an outcome which wouldn’t have surprised me in the least.

“She must have some mutation with an exceptional healing factor,” I mused when I checked on the patient. I drew away a part of the bandages and found the flesh beneath still raw, but it had scabbed over and dried up, preventing further loss of fluids. She wouldn’t be able to move any time soon or everything would break open again.

At least it didn’t look like she was in any immediate danger of dying.

I wasn’t a doctor, but common sense told me that loss of liquid would be the greatest threat to the woman’s life. So I did my best to feed her some leftover soup from a bottle. We had it leftover from yesterday – boiled to an unrecognizable slurry of course.

“Sounds like the regeneration ended up being a curse,” Magnus commented. He inspected his spetum and pulled down the corners of his mouth in displeasure. It had suffered quite a bit when he used it as a jumping pole on the changeling matriarch. “It looks like I need to have a new one made, but it should hold up for another fight.”

My eyes were drawn to the missing tip. “You won’t be stabbing much with it in this state.”

“It’s still good for slashing and I think I saw a file and a whetstone among our gear,” Magnus mused. “I am not a metal worker, but filing a new point onto it should be within my capabilities.”

I left the service of his weapon to him and took care of feeding our survivor some liquid food. If her regenerative ability was anything like Thalia’s, then she would need a lot of nourishment and water to heal.

Surprisingly, she opened milky-white eyes when I carefully brought a bottle with soup to her lips. The iris had been attacked by the stomach acid which rendered her blind, hopefully only temporarily.

“Who?” she softly croaked with a raw voice.

“We are hunters from the twelfth strata,” I informed her. “We came across your camp and a group of changelings. We couldn’t overlook their presence in our hunting region and followed their tracks to their breeding grounds, where we pulled you out of their matriarch’s guts. I take it your presence in the Belly wasn’t authorized?”

“No.” The woman shivered.

“Which strata and what’s your name?” I asked.

She didn’t answer.

“You know that we will find out sooner or later,” I pressed on. “Your gear was intentionally obfuscated to hide your identity. From my point of view, we wouldn’t have needed to lend you aid because you might not be clan.”

“Third,” came the reply.

I considered the answer.

The third strata was led by Bruce and Travis Patel. Officially, the third was focused entirely on mining the mountain’s riches. But unofficially I knew them to be a little bit like the clan’s black sheep. They liked to skirt the council’s law and often enough people turned out to be connected to the third strata when shady business was going on.

My father insisted that their back-alley deals had to be tolerated as long as things didn’t get out of hand. No government had ever ruled the masses without circumventing their own laws, and this was where the third strata had proven its expertise.

It wouldn’t be surprising if they orchestrated some unsanctioned hunting trips in my family’s territory. There was only one thing that sounded a little bit fishy to me.

The Patels weren’t idiots or incompetent.

“What kind of stunt were you pulling out here?” I asked. “The third may be one of the lesser stratas, but they aren’t so incompetent as to send people without the right qualifications to poach in another’s territory. How could a few changelings overpower you?”

“Not changelings…” the woman groaned. “Mindflayer… controlling them. We attacked… nests… slaughtering changelings… but then… everything went...”

A cold shiver ran down my spine once she mentioned a mindflayer.

“Shh...” I shushed her and placed the bottle against her lips, allowing her to drink.

“Mindflayer?” Magnus leaned over us, his eyes gleaming with interest. “Wasn’t that the creature which gives psychic abilities?”

I sighed and shook my head at his obvious eagerness to challenge such a foe. “I should have realized something was wrong when the changeling matriarch left her nest to come after us. The mindflayer must have taken over the changeling colony.”

“Taken over?” Magnus asked.

“Mindflayers act as parasites which like taking over herds of animals. Their ability to influence and control other animals allows them to stay undetected and feast on their host animals. A changeling colony would be an ideal target for a mindflayer. It's not a stretch to assume the mindflayer influenced the changeling matriarch to come after us despite its nature.”

“But we killed most of the colony,” Magnus pointed out. “Shouldn’t it have come after us too?”

“Mindflayers are dangerous due to their ability to cause hallucinations, but they have their weaknesses. Their bodies are relatively weak and it wouldn’t be surprising for it to get killed in the crossfire of a chaotic situation. Unless something enters their chosen hunting grounds, they are unlikely to act directly. Instead, they prefer sending their host animals after the intruder,” I recited what I could remember from my studies. “And while they can influence a lot of individuals at once, their range isn’t exceptional.”

Magnus pursed his lips. “So they are like bums? They take up housing in something like a changeling colony and use the hosts to get them food. How do we kill it?”

I shrugged. “The two of us? Not at all. From what I know it takes several people with ranged weapons spread out over a large area to hunt a mindflayer. As soon as it reveals itself, those who aren’t under its influence shoot the thing. Hopefully, before someone dies.”

Our moaning patient drew my attention and I fed her some more of the soup. “How did you get caught up with the mindflayer?” I could sense every word causing her pain, but we had to know. If there was a mindflayer loose within the Belly, then we had to be more careful than ever with every step we took.

Her eyes fluttered. “Attacked… nest… then… fighting… each other.”

“They went for the changeling nest and the mindflayer caused them to attack each other,” Magnus concluded. “And I assume the changelings just had to finish them off.”

The huntress nodded and then moaned in pain. She had opened up a few new wounds on her neck with the movement.

I hissed in sympathy and went to get some more of the salve. “Just don’t move. You are in no condition to do anything right now.”

After I had patched up the huntress and fed her the rest of the bottle, Magnus and I retreated to our bunk in the far corner of the shelter.

“What do you think?” he asked once our patient’s breathing patterns suggested she was sleeping.

“That our hunting trip is over,” I grumbled softly while lying next to him. “How unlucky can we be to run into a mindflayer right at the start? I suppose we shouldn’t complain as long as we didn’t end up in its belly.”

“There is no chance for the two of us to hunt it successfully?” Magnus asked. “I would like to have such a mutation.”

I huffed. “There is a reason why only large parties go after mindflayers. We have to go back and tell the family. My parents will send a prepared raiding party to make these hunting grounds safe again.”

“How exactly does their ability work anyway? And what do they look like?” Magnus continued his questioning.

I closed my eyes and concentrated on what I remembered. “Large brain-spiders… or bugs. About as big as a human. Their appearance depends on the mindflayer’s age. It’s generally a large, tumorous, and very vulnerable body with chitinous appendages for movement. The legs are the only danger apart from their ability to play mind games with their prey.”

“If it can cause us to attack each other, can we solo it? It sounds like the creature itself is weak without its minions.” Magnus suggested. “Just walk there alone and kill everything in sight, no matter if it looks like our own mother?”

“The mindflayer can use its ability to hide,” I pointed out the flaw. “It may stand right next to you without you knowing you are within its sphere of influence. With a mindflayer, you can’t trust any of your senses.”

“Then how do you explain us not seeing it when we watched the clearing?” Magnus continued after a few moments of contemplative silence. “Were we already under its spell?”

I frowned and shook my head. “The longest recorded range for a mindflayer is about twenty metres. Beyond that, they rely on other methods for stealth. This is why you need a large group to draw it out. They are very patient creatures.”

“Then where could it have hidden on the clearing?” Magnus mused. “The changelings were meticulous about keeping everything tidy. There wasn’t anything aside from the nests and the pile of bones which the matriarch sat upon – and I doubt the mindflayer would have liked to be squished by that monstrosity.”

I pursed my lips. “I suppose it isn’t out of the imagination for the mindflayer to hide inside one of the nests. The changelings naturally protect it and the mindflayer could eat the eggs which the changelings place inside.”

“One of the nests which I set ablaze,” Magnus mused. “Maybe it’s already dead? A lucky shot – and the reason why it sent the matriarch after us.”

I snorted. “Oh, please. Stop dreaming.” Then I stopped as I thought about it.

Why would it send the matriarch if not out of a knee-jerk reaction because it had been attacked? “This line of thought fits the sequence of events.”

“I say, tomorrow we go back and set all the nests on fire from a safe distance. If we drive it out, we have a go at it with ranged weapons,” Magnus spoke with absolute confidence.

“Magnus, I don’t know how to say this, but that’s a seriously bad idea,” I replied. “We shouldn’t risk it. Instead, we should hope to get home without encountering it. The mindflayer is an opponent we aren’t equipped for.”

He sighed. “Fine then. If you think we can’t even take a look, then let others take care of it.”

I could tell he wasn’t satisfied with letting the chance go. He seriously wanted us to go for this evolution, but I wasn’t in the right state of mind to discuss it. “Just let me sleep over it. Let’s revisit this topic in the morning when I am not dead tired.”

The next day, I was admittedly a little bit frustrated when Magnus somehow convinced me to at least check out the changeling’s nesting area with his new plan.

“I still think this is a stupid thing to do,” I complained while I allowed my filaments to reach out as far as possible.

“Then why are you here with me?” Magnus asked while he launched another burning throwing spear into a changeling nest.

Sadly, I didn’t have to perform deep soul searching to come up with an answer. “Greed.” I sighed. “The answer is a simple wish for power.”

And I had to admit the new plan which Magnus presented to me in the morning had something going for it in its simplicity, but I didn’t say it aloud because I figured it would provide him with an unhealthy ego boost.

The plan was to kill any remaining changelings, set their nesting area on fire, and hunt down the mindflayer. The trick lay in how to do it.

Magnus wanted us to rely solely on our electric abilities. Which was… a stroke of genius.

While the mindflayer could likely have us dream up any visions it wanted, I knew for certain that it couldn’t stop our actual bodies from doing stuff. If we fired off electric blasts in regular intervals, we would hit it sooner or later.

Even if it created a hallucination to have us see each other as a threat, we would be fine as long as we stuck to our electricity for offensive moves. Magnus and I could shock each other all day long without causing actual damage. Worst case, the mindflayer would figure us to be more trouble than we were worth and run away.

When we arrived, we found three changelings remaining at the nesting area. Killing them was easy enough with Magnus’s throwing spears. Then we proceeded to take out the nests one by one.

“And that should be the last nest.” Magnus lit his last wooden spear and fired it at the remaining nest. The dry vegetation used in its construction instantly caught fire.

I created another burst of electricity, keeping to our rhythm of twenty seconds and not relying on what my eyes, ears and nose told me. If the mindflayer wanted to get close, it was unlikely to do so without touching my filaments.

When I looked back to my partner, all I saw was the horrific maw of a changeling trying to kiss my face. It was so real, in any other situation I would have lashed out with all my might.

Instead, I closed my eyes and strained my muscles, creating as much of a charge as possible while I flayed my filaments around.

Something hit me in the shoulder and I went down before I felt an even stronger surge of electricity course through a few of my filaments and into my body.

I knew it could only belong to Magnus and answered with a power surge of my own while I kept flailing my filaments like a toddler.

“Are you okay?” Magnus’s voice brought me back to my senses and I felt myself being pulled back to my feet.

I opened my eyes and found my partner grinning at me with a stupid expression.

“We did it!” he pointed at the charred corpse of a mindflayer. “Sometimes, ninety percent of a fight is having a good plan.”

The creature was a blob of brain-like, tumorous flesh with ten spider-like appendages. It lay twitching on the ground just three metres away from us. My shoulder was pulsing in pain, but I felt ecstasy coursing through my veins.

Then I sent another burst of electricity into the thing, and Magnus, just to be sure.

The jolt had him jump half a metre into the air. “Hey! Watch it!”

I smiled. Just because we were almost immune to electricity didn’t mean a strong enough jolt wasn’t unpleasant. “I had to make sure it’s you. And I will keep doing it on the way back. Just to be sure.”

Magnus looked mortified. “I don’t think-”

“And who tells you there weren’t two mindflayers?” I asked. “They are rare, but it wouldn’t be surprising given how fucked up our little trip was.”

“That’s only logical.” Magnus nodded and grabbed one of my filaments. Then I had to yelp when my muscles spasmed.

I growled and drew a knife, pretending to go after Magnus before I stabbed it into the mindflayer’s grey flesh.

Magnus interestedly looked over my shoulder. He always paid attention when I demonstrated how to process a catch.

When my hands were already soiled with the fluids which accounted for the mindflayer’s blood, Magnus asked, “Will we really eat that?”

I turned and looked at him with a strip of mindflayer flesh in my hands.

His eyes wandered to the fillet I had cut and his face looked slightly green. “I am just saying… it looks a lot like brain…”

“You are going to tell me we gambled our lives on an untested strategy and now you want to go home without taking the spoils because you are squeamish? When I was the one who told you time and time again we shouldn’t risk it?” I narrowed my eyes at him.

Luckily for him, he got the hint and swallowed. “Understood. Eat the mindflayer and shut up.”