***Tirnanog, Mount Aerie***

***Magnus***

Etan's halberd glanced off my face-shield.

Together with the scraping of steel on iobeetle shell I also felt the sharp snap of one his filaments strike my knee with the force of a steel cable under a few hundred kilos of tension.

My own filaments acted as a buffer between the armour and my body and prevented heavy injury, but they couldn't change physics.

I roared as I was taken off my feet yet again. The power of the impact was enough to force me into an involuntary sideways somersault while I swung the spetum in an act of pure defiance.

Etan raised his forearm and blocked with his bracer which shot out and deflected my weapon before it could come close. The elder's filaments immediately pulled the piece of armament back into its proper place.

It was his go-to move to minimize physical contact with me as much as possible.

Since we started our daily training routine, I only managed to taser him into submission once – right at the beginning of our training lessons. He had quickly wised up and no longer gave me any openings in that regard. Sadly, Etan had no problems enduring my electrocutions when it was just a short contact.

In return I had gotten a thorough beating – excuse me, training.

But it had been worth it to see him lying on the ground, twitching. If offered the chance, I would do it again.

“You have to use your armour more actively!” Etan preached as his halberd came back for another swing.

I rolled away and catapulted to my feet by using my filaments to push off with my shoulder pauldron instead of using an arm. My hands never left my weapon as I stabbed forward at the same time, fully intending to gut my father in law.

“Oops!” Etan dodged just in time by comically bending at the waist and parrying my spetum. “Never stop listening to your instincts. You can defeat faster and stronger opponents thanks to Precognition. Are you sure you deserve my daughter?”

“If I wanted to, I could fry you with a few lightining bolts! I would like seeing you try to be faster than light,” I complained. “But I believe Astra would have something to say about getting her Dad back lightly smoked!”

“Then try it!” Etan mocked. “The first time you got me by surprise-”

I held out a hand and formed a fist before I channelled all the power I could muster, aiming it right at Etan. An electrical discharge would always seek the path of least resistance, but I had found out some time ago that by combining the purely electric discharge with my evolving electromagnetic field technique, I could somewhat direct the attack.

“Wow!” Etan threw his halberd forward, hacking it into the ground just in time to use it as an impromptu lightning rod to ground out the arm-thick lightning bolt I had thrown at him.

Before he could speak up, I launched another, just to show him that provoking me had its limits. Two full power attacks were enough to heat the halberd's metal reinforcements to the point of glowing red. The wood first smoked, then ignited.

Etan shook his hands from catching the edges of the first discharge and quickly ran for the rack with the blunt training weapons.

I flash-stepped, appearing between him and his goal, already swinging the spetum.

The elder actually caught the blade between the palms of his hands and tanked a short moment of electrocution before his filaments snapped and took me off my feet.

Again!

By the time I managed to get back up he had reached the weapon rack and grabbed himself a spear. The training weapons were all real metal, but dulled.

He was already in position when I readied my training spetum. It left no question. He wasn't fighting seriously.

“That's actually a potent trick,” Etan lectured. “But have you noticed that you are still a little disoriented when you use that flashy movement trick of yours? It leaves openings in your stance which you don't have normally. You are also always moving in a straight line, which makes it predictable.”

“Then how about this!?” I engaged, this time utilizing my speed to stab four times in the blink of an eye.

Etan blocked the third strike with his spear, moving just fast enough. The other attacks all got diverted by snapping filaments. They shot out from between his armour plates before snaking back in.

The unexpected parry had me surprised. I hadn't known he could do that!

Another sharp 'snap', and I was spinning once more, landing awkwardly on my hip because he had aimed for my ankles this time around.

“This is starting to hurt,” I complained, but rolled back to my feet nonetheless.

“Then let's rest and go over your alignments once more,” Etan suggested. “There is no point in training if you lose focus.”

I sighed and slowly unwove my filaments to show Etan that the weaving he had taught me was still in place.

Even with my new mental abilities it had taken some time to master the weaving technique which turned the Frost's special armour into an exoskeleton with the filaments acting as its muscles.

My filaments were just long enough at this point to use the technique.

“Show me the strider stance,” Etan instructed.

I rewove my filaments and flexed the ones at the base of my spine awkwardly. This caused the armour's extensions at my calves to slide out, giving me half a metre of additional height and adding a third joint to my feet.

As it turned out, I had only worn half the armour when Sullivan gave it to me the first time.

With the full set I now looked like a mixture between a futuristic biomech and medieval warrior. The impression was magnified by the strider stance, which was supposed to allow for faster running by making energy conservation more efficient. It was like having those spring-legs which were normally only provided to invalids with para-Olympic ambitions.

Sadly, I had yet to master my sense of balance when using this technique.

Etan waited until I stopped wobbling and pointed at the other end of the training hall. “Run as fast as you can and come back. Don't hit your head on the ceiling again.”

I grumbled, but did as I was told, starting slowly this time. It wasn't easy to find just the right balance between tautness and relaxation to give my filaments the necessary tension to act as springs, which was necessary for this type of movement.

Once I reached the end of the hall, I didn't stop. Instead, I jumped and landed with both feet on the wall. Thanks to strider stance, I bounced off without losing much of my momentum.

I rolled off and got right back to running until I reached Etan and slowed down.

It was the first time I hadn't made a total fool of myself by face-planting into the ground or jumping high enough to nick the ten metre ceiling with my head.

“Better,” the elder acknowledged. “Normal stance!”

I slid the extensions back in and returned to feeling like a normal human and not some alien warrior.

“It works better if you use just the balls of your feet, like a dancer,” Etan instructed. “Also, don't try to force contact with the floor. Let the weave do the work for you when you are running. It's just about redirecting the force into forward momentum when you take a step, instead of adding your own force to it. Also, pay attention to the filaments supporting your hips. If you do it right, you can practically sit inside your armour while the filaments do all the work.”

I nodded and tasked several sub-identities with paying special attention to Etan's suggestions. It was the first time for me to struggle with a new skill since I had gotten Parallel Minds.

“How am I doing?” I asked. “On a scale of terrible to passable.”

“Not bad actually.” Etan's reply was surprisingly positive. “Most filament users need years of training before they can be trusted not to injure themselves with the art of armour weaving. You are already almost there, and with another month, you might actually be good at this. I assume your new mental ability gives you a huge boost with learning?”

“It does,” I confirmed.

“Sirs!” a shout interrupted us and I turned to find one of the female guards jogging towards us. “We have an assistance request from the tenth! Farming cavern twenty-two was breached by a swarm of ratkin. The farmers evacuated everyone they could and sealed the access for the time being. The tenth doesn’t believe they have the people to deal with the problem without suffering unacceptable losses.”

Etan rolled his eyes but froze when they landed on me. “This might be an opportunity.”

He turned to the woman. “Assemble a strike force of one hundred of our best. We will join up with them right away and take care of this.”

“Sir?” The guard looked slightly confused. “I am sure the hunters can manage if you just sign the dispatch order.”

“I am sure,” Etan replied jovially. “I believe it doesn't hurt if the people get to see my daughter's partner in action. He also has to see how we are doing things – given he is intended to take a future leadership role. Nobody would say no to having an elder as backup if things get dire.”

“Of course not,” the guard confirmed.

“Then what are you waiting for?” Etan made a shooing gesture. “I am sure the troops don't gather on their own.”

I frowned beneath my faceplate while I regarded Etan in his armor – which was a much fancier version of the one I wore. Compared to my rather dull black, his was a cobalt blue which was almost black, and there were intricate silver inlays which marked him as someone in charge.

“I still don't have my own armour, or a weapon.”

“You can keep this one until Gilbert finishes yours.” He waved a hand dismissively. “As for a weapon, I am sure Sullivan has an appropriate spear in his armoury. Unless you want to fight with a training weapon?”

Of course, I didn't want to fight with a dull weapon!

I returned the rod of metal to the rack and we went to get additional gear from Sullivan.

Not knowing what to expect, I went with the standard equipment. A pouch with metal balls and my throwing spears. Only, this time I didn't need the quiver to hold the spears, and instead used my filaments to hold them to my back. I also grabbed my knife and a short sword as secondary weapons. As the main weapon, I chose a halberd with similar weight distribution to my old spetum.

When I met back up with Etan, I was surprised to find he had chosen a spear and a tower shield.

“A shield? Seriously?” I asked. “People warned me against any fighting style which requires standing up to a monster.”

Etan only grinned in reply. “A hunter has to choose his tools according to his prey.”

We left the armoury while he explained. “You may have already noticed that the ratkin defy the normal naming tradition which is predominant with most other native animals. That’s because the ratkin are a self-sustaining group of deviants. Humans who went down a bad mutation path and escaped extermination.”

I looked at him.

He shrugged. “Coming from Earth, I know what you are probably going to say, but there is no saving them. They retain a basic form of intelligence which allows them to swarm and use basic tools, but they are mostly instinct-driven. There is no way to cooperate with such creatures.”

“I’ve heard that a lot,” I commented. “The changelings too. Astra didn’t even want to discuss the matter of their grasp of speech.”

Etan shrugged, looking unconcerned. “You will learn that many creatures on this world are uncannily close to human level sentience. Too close for comfort. But even back on Earth there are birds who can mimic speech, or apes who use tools. Nobody would put them on the same level as humans. I am sure that if we ever manage to tame this world, there might be people who want to ‘coexist’ with these creatures. But right now, we simply don’t have the luxury for idealism if we want to survive. As I see it, if there is no way to talk them out of killing us, killing them will put them out of their misery.”

He walked faster, signalling the discussion of this topic was over.

I nodded, still wondering whether there was some type of social taboo regarding such matters.

We reached the manor’s exit and found a group of one hundred people already waiting for our arrival. They barely fit into the entrance cavern, but had formed up in ranks nonetheless. There were also ten large wagons which should be able to transport ten people apiece.

The elder clapped his hands together, looking proud. “Ah, there we are. Who is in charge of the operation?”

A woman who hadn’t joined the ranks approached us and bowed to Etan. “First hunter, Conla Leece at your service, Sir!”

She looked human and was wearing light armour. The extremely long, pointed ears screamed elf, though the image was somewhat destroyed when Conla swivelled them around like antennae – which looked just bizarre.

“Good, good.” Etan gestured at the much smaller family carriage. “Everyone, mount up. Conla, you might join us. We have to discuss our involvement.”

The hunters mounted their transports while Etan, Conla, and I chose the Frost’s luxury version of a carriage.

“Conla, may I introduce you to my son in law, Tulkas. He is Astra’s partner. I want to get him used to working with larger fighting groups. It seemed like this would be a good opportunity to get him some real combat experience.” Etan gestured at me with a jovial smile.

I nodded at Conla, who was apparently a decorated hunter. “Nice to meet you.”

Conla smiled but didn’t seem pleased over having additional complications added to the operation. I could only guess what was going through her head. It was probably something along the line of having a VIP dropped on her head right before entering a hot zone.

“Why don’t you give Tulkas a short introduction on how we conduct business?” Etan suggested.

For a moment, Conla’s mask of professionalism slipped and she looked at Etan as if he had lost his mind. Right now, my status was surely downgraded to VIP who wasn’t even familiar with combat protocol!

She sighed when the wagon rocked into motion and gathered herself before she began, “We operate in teams of ten, with commanders and combat-roles clearly defined. The ideal composition of a team is two sensors who take the roles of team commanders, support and combat medics. Then we have three close range specialists, referred to as tanks. The remaining five are ranged combat and referred to as scouts. You can probably imagine that it’s the tanks’ job to intercept charging beasts while the scouts support from the rear and take care of reconnaissance. If we are lucky and get assistance from the ninth, we like to add two dedicated healers as focused combat medics, bringing group strength up to twelve.”

Conla thought for a moment before she continued, “I’ll take the role of overall group commander for this mission. If I may ask,” she looked at Ethan, “How am I to treat the two of you? It’s a little much to incorporate someone new into team strategy right before going into battle.”

At least she was nice enough not to call me untrained. It was also admirable that Conla was willing to speak her mind in front of a superior instead of just going along with his whims.

Etan chuckled. “Don’t worry. I wouldn’t drop such an unreasonable task on you. We will join your command group as observers and you may use us as juggernauts if you deem it necessary. Don’t hesitate to use Tulkas. The lad needs experience fighting monsters.”

Conla looked a little relieved. “That makes more sense.”

“What’s a juggernaut supposed to do?” I asked.

“A juggernaut excels in any form of combat compared to the average clanner,” Etan explained. “Juggernauts are paired warriors whose mutations elevate them above the normal hunter. Their task is to go in and fuck shit up. If everything goes right, Conla will never have to call upon us. But if things go awry, she might send you in so her people have the chance to reform the line and change tactics.”

“Then let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” I commented drily. The role of a juggernaut sounded like it was only taken by the clan’s strongest people. Things would have to be dire to send a juggernaut to the front-line. “How likely is my involvement and what do I have to expect from these ratkin?”

“It’s likely for me to use you as a relief force,” Conla explained with a contemplative expression on her face. “If you forgive me, I would rather use a resource at my hand than not use it and lose people.”

“I understand,” I acquiesced.

“As for what to expect,” she continued. “The normal ratkin should be nothing more than an average unpaired warrior. You can expect clubs, sticks, teeth and claws. The trouble lies in their numbers and general disregard for the lives of their brethren when they swarm. Occasionally, there are variants who are much larger and stronger than the normal ones. These are close to the level of a paired warrior and I will probably send you in immediately if one shows itself – instead of having normal hunters fight it.”

Conla answered a few more of my questions – like how likely it was to have access to a juggernaut.

Not likely, as it turned out. Juggernauts were generally people close to an elder in combat power. Such a personage wouldn’t have any trouble making a living on their own.

It was only natural for them to accumulate resources quickly and gain a lot of influence. Someone like Etan couldn't be bothered with the clan’s weekly troubles and would only be called upon or contracted when there was a verified need for it. At most the clan had a few hundred people who could take up the role.

Risking such powerful people in daily combat was also looked down upon. Not even the most powerful were immune to bad luck and losing a juggernaut to something like a ratkin invasion would be regarded as a blow to the clan’s future. Juggernauts would only be called upon when the settlement faced an existential crisis.

The vast majority of issues could be dealt with by hunting parties composed of specialists like Conla, who was a pure sensory type. Conla would have trouble dealing with a single ratkin, but her extraordinary sensory abilities gave her an amount of overview over the battlefield few others had without technology.

Clan Aerie preferred to have people like her in leadership roles when it came to combat situations. In the heat of a fight, the time necessary to relay commands could often cost lives.

Our time spent in the carriage felt much too short before we had to dismount in front of a large blast door, not too dissimilar to the one which had protected the last checkpoint before leaving the clan.

The hunters dismounted and quickly stood to attention in ten rows of ten.

Conla walked in front to address us.

“Okay people! This is a ratkin incursion. Should be a fairly standard breach job. From what we know, they invaded farming cavern twenty-two by digging a tunnel right into the agricultural sector. All the farmers who could do so got out, but there are sixteen people unaccounted for. With luck, they may have taken shelter somewhere. We will find out. We will go in there and clean out the cavern, then push on through the breach. A pioneer task force from the seventh is already on the way and it would be nice if everything is ready for them to bring in the machines and plug the hole asap. We can count ourselves lucky. The honoured elder and Tulkas, Astra’s partner, are joining us today in the role of juggernauts. Are there any questions?”

Nobody had any, but I was painfully aware of the gazes some of the hunters directed towards me – almost as if in worship.

Conla hadn’t joked when she spoke about the high social status a juggernaut received.

She gestured towards the blast door while she retrieved a foldable map from her thigh pocket. “Team ten and the juggernauts stay with me. We have about two hundred metres of connection tunnel ahead of us. I want team one to four take the main tunnel. Advance slowly. Team five, take the parallel service tunnel to the left. I want nothing coming through a hole in our backs. The rest is reserve and takes the rear.”

Everyone’s gear was somewhat unique, which made them look like a ragtag group of mercenaries, but they moved like the experienced veterans they were supposed to be. The tanks took the lead and opened the heavy blast door while the scouts readied ranged weapons like bows and crossbows.

Conla cursed when the tunnel beyond revealed pitch black darkness. “They took out the lights!” She gestured. “Team six, bring the support carriages and drop some glowmoss every few metres.”

Slowly and silently, the group advanced and I decided to get myself some additional intel by activating Second Sight. To see over the heads of the leading teams I also went into strider stance.

Twenty metres into the tunnel we encountered our first ratkin. Four of them were fighting over something and didn’t even bother with the approaching humans.

This quickly changed when a crossbow bolt sprouted from a ratkin’s eye, followed by several more projectiles. One more creature fell to the initial barrage and the remaining two charged the tanks who cut them down with relatively little effort.

Once the front-line groups had advanced over their foe, I could take a look at what the ratkin had been fighting over.

A badly mangled human body, looking more like roadkill than a human being was lying on the ground. The ratkin had gnawed on him – or her. I couldn’t recognize the gender. The poacher Astra and I had rescued from the changeling broodmother’s belly had looked only slightly worse.

“Poor bastard didn’t run fast enough,” Conla commented. “Just a few more metres. Must have been a let down when they closed the blast door right before his eyes.”

I turned my attention towards the ratkin who looked nothing like the mutated humans I expected them to be. Covered in thick fur, their limbs were strangely elongated.

With a lot of imagination, I could recognize human features in their faces – or snouts. It was like someone had taken a 3D model of a human face and stretched it out to achieve the necessary anatomy for a snout with impossibly warped jaws filled with sharp teeth.

The five fingers still looked human-ish, but were tipped by scythe-like claws.

They also had a furry tail which was armed with a spiky tip at the end.

“It’s the fucking Vermintide!” I commented while walking past one of the bodies.

“What?” Etan looked confused.

“Nothing relevant!” I sighed. “I really need to find someone to talk to who took his second major in historic pop culture.”

I hadn’t made my secondary Master to gain acknowledgement or better job prospects. It had simply interested me and was supposedly a free mastership – if only because nobody thought it to be worth any effort.

We advanced further into the tunnel and more blood on the floor dimmed any hope of finding survivors.

I didn’t bother to ask where the bodies had gone.

Seventy metres down the connection tunnel, we arrived at an intersection and stopped. Conla sent team seven into the side tunnel which was supposed to lead to a storage depot for unprocessed food-stocks.

“There is no need to advance before we know our backs are free,” Conla commented.

Five minutes later, the sensors warned us of incoming hostiles. Then the attack came, a seemingly endless wave of ratkin flowed out of the main tunnel, only to be blocked by the front-line tanks.

“There’s a lot of them.” Conla wasn’t surprised and ordered her remaining backup to the front. Her ears twitched and she pointed down the side corridor. “Tulkas, please go and support team seven. They are in trouble. Come back once they manage to sort themselves out.”

I didn’t ask questions and instead started running. Conla seemed like she knew what she was doing.

The tunnel was long and straight, allowing me to bridge the distance quickly with a few flash steps.

Team seven was really in trouble. My second sight allowed me to pick up on what I was charging into before I arrived.

They were facing a similar wave of attackers, but three tanks weren’t enough to reliably block all the ratkin. The tanks were forced to make a fighting retreat while the scouts picked off what made it past them.

I selected a throwing spear from my back. My filaments handed it over my shoulder, placing the spear directly in my hand.

When I charged past the two sensors in the rear of the overthrown formation, I hurled it at the group of ratkin who were piled on top of the slowest tank. There was really no way to miss the huge mass of tightly packed fur.

It punched right through the soft targets, causing more screams of anguish down the tunnel.

Another flash step took me past the scouts and retreating tanks.

I swung my halberd like an axe at the monsters who were trying to crack open the downed tank’s plate armour. I half expected them to dodge, or make some impossible move to block me like Etan always did.

It didn’t happen.

I roared as the halberd chopped through the mob, severing limbs, torsos and heads with seeming ease.

One of the creatures jumped me once the weapon had made its pass, but I reached in with a free hand and got the monster at the throat while one-handedly chopping at another.

The monster’s claws scratched ineffectively at the iobeetle armour before I shook it. There was an audible ‘snap’ and the creature went limp.

I threw the body at the encroaching mass and pointed a fist, channeling a full power lightning strike.

The snap of light and thunder, together with its impact on the front row of ratkin was enough to make the closest ones drop. The rest who got a taste of the electricity shrank back, which stopped the tide for the moment. It probably wasn’t often for these creatures to meet something which made them pause.

A short lull in the fight ensued and I used the chance to help the downed tank who was now beneath the pile of bodies which I had created.

I grabbed him at the scruff of his plate armour and pulled him out before I sent him skittering over the tunnel’s floor behind me.

His comrades could see to him.

Then I turned back to the ratkin. With the enemy in front and allies behind me, a smile stole itself onto my face and I started to chuckle, then laugh. It had been some time since I had this feeling of being the one with the power. I had first felt it after arriving on this world and coming to terms with my new body.

I had lost it somewhere along the line as I was faced with increasingly stronger foes.

But these ratkin weren’t elders who could beat me up on a whim. With them, I was the predator and they the prey.

I charged.