Beware the twice-Changed beasts, for they are more than twice deadly.

Northern Proverb

There was something to be said for having a narrow encounter with death or at least maiming, and that it focused you on the essentials, or so were Johanna’s thoughts.

“This is sparse,” Tom complained, as they started to pry yet another cover leading to an underground space.

“But still good. The area might be decayed, but the basement spaces are mostly undisturbed,” Johanna noted.

“But I’m not feeling safe trying to carry those weird chemical things,” Tom whined.

“We've found one single container still filled. And the symbol on it just says it’s acid,” Johanna insisted.

Peter made a disgusted face before coming to the rescue of his male friend.

“There’s acid, and there’s acid. The shit that stings your hand, or the shit that melts your bones,” he said.

Johanna almost sighed. Oh, in the abstract, she knew where this was heading. The encounter with the skeleton king had broken the momentum of the scavenging expedition. They were spooked. Hell, she was spooked as well, even if she did try to not let it affect her.

“You want to head back? You know we still do not have enough to pay the house and starting nest yet, and we certainly won’t have enough before next year. And what is going to pay for some top-notch healer in town to check if I have no concussion? This bag?”

She almost stopped there, because of course, the bag, even half empty as it was, would go for quite a lot. She looked at her teammates, seeing the concern still written large on their faces. Then she sighed for real, slightly exaggerating the expression.

“Honey, that encounter got us all concerned,” Tom said.

“With me. It’s not about me. What about you? You were all there, right? Anyone else feeling weird?”

Tom raised his hands defensively, but she pre-empted the discussion.

“Okay. We do one more day of salvage, then we head back, even if we have yet to fill the bags. You’re okay with that?”

She could see her boyfriend’s expression soften. That battle was at least a draw. He could be infuriating and overprotective, maybe, but he was a dear. He would put her welfare above the team’s… even if that was not the right thing to do. She knew what was okay for her.

The team turned back to the half-lit basement. She’d brought a torch up – the team had a dozen of the rag and oil contraptions around, and they made sure not to burn them more than necessary. But now that Johanna had agreed to return, they no longer focused on the highest value per volume items. Anything salvageable was fair game now. Or at least, anything good was.

Johanna looked at a shelf. It had a series of ruined blocky shapes. Almost certainly some containers that had decomposed decades before she was even born. She carefully swept away the things before looking at the shelf itself. The wood was nothing special, but sometimes, you could rip the shelf support. Most of the time, it was the wonder ancient metal, lighter than anything any modern crafter could make on their own. The various steels you found were nothing special, but Alium was a category of its own.

Old descriptions said Alium relied on the magical energies of the Ancient world to make. Without those – and the mana of the world definitively interfered with that process – all you could do is melt the ancient things, and try to shape the metal into useful things. Some books told you how to make the thing out of some ore, but for all she knew, they were worse than popular sorcery recipes.

At least, if you had a sorcerer around, some of those magics might work for him or her. The Ancient knowledge was about using lightning to separate ore and other non-sense. Without a thorough understanding of the Ancients, how to interpret all the old books, all she could do with that shelf was look at the many holes drilled in it, dropping the shelf support’s mass-to-volume ratio, and thus worth, by lots.

Half an hour later, the team gathered, the torch dimming, the good salvage opportunities of the basement exhausted. Or so they all agreed.

“Okay, one additional basement, then it’s camp time. The evening’s coming up, guys,” Johanna decided.

She was still climbing the stairs when Peter’s hand pressing against her shoulder stopped her. She moved slowly, and her gaze followed the man’s hand, pointing silently across the ruins.

Silhouetted against the sky was a furry head. She immediately put her hand behind her back, signaling the other two. They crept slowly out of the basement as she watched the animal carefully.

That fur crest was a bad sign. The creature was very obviously, judging from the head shape, some kind of Feral Canid, the plague of all places, with or without people.

The basic Canid was a feral descendant of Ancient dogs and wolves that had survived magical influences. Living in the pockets of mana-rich land like the northern forest changed things, and so, Canids ranged from wolf-like critters that had just slightly more mass than any dog had a right to, to monstrous beasts that only had the same similar shape as a common farm dog.

Such a prominent fur crest meant more than a mere feral Canid. That was potentially a Changed Canid, one that survived deep magical influences or a mana storm, warping– fast or slowly, depending – into something far more dangerous than even a normal Canid.

Until today, they’d been able to avoid Canids. The predators were not that common, but they still ranged across all kinds of civilized lands. For the last year and a half, the worst had been hearing howls from afar, and rarely within the Ancient city. Slim pickings, probably. There was nothing good about Canids. The mutated freaks were trouble, no matter how and when you met them.

Johanna shushed the two climbing just behind, her warning sign enough to silence them as they reached the exit from the underground room. They all flattened before even spotting the Canid’s shape.

Tom slowly crawled next to her, reaching for her calf to squeeze. She thumbed back in acknowledgment.

Now, all they had was to try to avoid attracting attention. Like their domestic unchanged counterparts, all Canids normally had good smell sense, fair hearing, but were nearsighted. As long as the feral creature didn’t spot the traces of their smell… which might be impossible. They’d spent the day working, and that meant sweaty humans. No showering or bathing in the Ancient’s city.

She started looking around for an escape path. If they could get away without the feral noticing them… Then she wondered where was Peter? He had been there just a few instants ago, but now he was nowhere to be seen. She sought out her friend, hoping he wasn’t doing something stupid.

There. Off to the side. The small man was crawling across the ruins and stacks of bricks and wood, slowly moving. Flattened against the ground, dusty, his movements infinitesimal. If she hadn’t known he was there, if she hadn’t been looking for him, she’d have missed him. He was always good at squeezing through holes and passages where any of the three would be hard-pressed to go, but that one caper was far too risky.

If there was no Canid, she’d have yelled at him. But then again, if there had not been a Canid, he wouldn’t have done that, and she would have no reason to yell at him.

She kept watching him, alternating between the upright Canid silhouette and his crawling shape. Every time she’d looked away, she had difficulty figuring out again where he was for a few seconds. That was an awesome display of prowess, sure. She just wished he didn’t try it under those circumstances.

When this is over, if Laura doesn’t tear him one, I’ll do it for her.

Johanna had been looking at the Canid again when she realized Peter was back to less than ten feet from her, and she nearly jumped in fright. He pointed at the silhouette, then raised two additional fingers. Two more Canids then, not visible from their vantage point.

Going from bad to worse.

Canids were not just dangerous, they also didn’t fear man at all, like many of the Changed species. Individually, a beast was a threat unless you were a guard or a professional hunter. A pack, even a small one like that, meant they were probably in way over their heads.

A second large Canid head popped over a small ruined wall. The rest of the pack was closing in. No fur crest, which meant a normal Canid… and confirmed the mutated one, not just some exotic breed pack. And at that moment, that other Canid’s head dropped and she heard a loud sniffing and shuffling noise.

Fuck. That little shit has spotted us. He knows something is there.

Fleeing was out of the question. In the outdoors, maybe. In the ruins of a city, they would be lucky if they didn’t get into more trouble than they were running from. She paled, realizing there was no choice left to them, but try to get the beasts to run away, making the four of them too much of a problem to bother with.

She lifted her hand a bit, to attract notice from the rest of her team, then dropped it to her hunting knife handle to signify she was getting ready for a fight. Better not to kid themselves they were getting out of this one. She’d never much believed in the Jesus God on his cross, even if she went through the motions as everyone expected, but she could use its help. Or whatever god might be watching.

She wished she could ask her team, but the creatures would hear. She looked back and then started to slowly slide her knife out of its sheath. The three acknowledged and started to tense. She slowly lifted her hand. The Canid pack leader’s head rose, some feral instinct warning it about the impending attack.

Johanna rose from the ground, snarling. The Canid tensed, ready to rush at her, as the rest of her team jumped up and the last Canid’s head popped from where it had been searching for whatever.

The Canid howled, jumping over the small ruined wall and aiming for her. As it reached, she readied her knife, but she spotted movement from her peripheral side, and Tom crashed into the dog, half sliding, half braking with his feet, and breaking the charge of the Canid. She had no time to breathe as the Canid rose back and turned toward Tom, just as the man brought his fist holding the knife and slammed it on the head, sending it stumbling and reeling.

She spotted the two other Canids rushing and Tom instinctively turned as the first was coming in over the brick barrier, aiming for Laura who was rushing with her knife high. He ran a few steps, then half jumped and butted into the new dog which was starting to jump for Laura’s head, turning it away from its attack.

Johanna’s head snapped back at the larger Canid next to her, as the beast shook itself.

For a fraction of a second, she saw some weird light gathering around the Canid. Then, bright red lines sprung around the Canid’s skin, tracing a vein-like network, and smoke started to pour out.

“Magic Canid! Fuck!” she yelled, as she realized those would be the signs of one of the dangerously magical-capable variants she’d heard horror stories about.

She had no idea for how long the smoking Canid would keep its burning aspect, but she guessed that it was devastating unless you had a bow or crossbow to fire metal or hardened bolts. Trying to engage one like that in any close-combat was a recipe for disaster.

Johanna was already trying to backpedal to keep her distance when the Canid jumped and threw her to the ground. She reflexively tried to get it away from her, but the beast was bending over her, and she could only try to hold it away.

The fur was slightly warm under her hand, not burning as she had been expected based on the Fire Canids’ descriptions of old. The glowing lines weren’t particularly dangerous either. At least it didn’t breathe fire or something. She held her own against the growling mass of Canid, as it tried to bite, then brought her knife hand slamming into its side. The blade sank slightly into the mass of doggy menace, which flinched away from the pain.

Tom crashed into the dog and screamed as he jerked away. She briefly saw embers dropping from his cuffs as she rose from her prone position. The Fire Canid’s head snapped between the two combatants, before focusing again on her. For whatever reason, the beast considered her the most dangerous of the two.

“Go back, help Laura! Fuck!” Johanna yelled at him.

“But…” he said before shutting down and obeying, turning away.

The Fire Canid smashed into her again, trying to bite, but this time, she was ready for it, as she used her free hand to block it – barely – while stabbing into its side. This time, the knife slid into its neck, hitting a vulnerable spot, and the creature jerked as she pulled the blade back, falling on the ground.

Johanna stabbed again at the neck, and the beast stilled. She turned back and spotted the other two beasts.

Tom and Laura were engaged with one of them. Tom was slamming his hand holding the knife inverted, while Laura was trying to put her blade into the creature.

A few feet from that, Peter was dancing with the dog. The creature was trying to bite, and he moved here and there, trying to avoid the maw, too busy avoiding the attacks to bring his knife into the fight.

She ran toward that beast, trying to relieve her childhood friend.

At the last second, the beast turned toward her and snapped. She raised her hand and…

Fire poured out of the hand, straight into the teeth trying to snap over it.

The Canid yelped in pain, trying to jerk away from the flame burning in its maw. Peter didn’t waste the opportunity, pushing his blade into the side of the distracted beast's skull. The Canid jerked briefly before dropping on the ground, dying from both the burn and blade at the base of his skull.

Johanna wasted no time reflecting on the impossible event and turned back, to see Laura pulling her knife from the side of the last dog who crashed on the ground.

For a few seconds, they all stood silent, breathing heavily as the adrenaline of combat receded.

Then Tom dropped to the ground, starting to yell, and holding his hand. As Johanna reached him, she saw the red and blisters on his left hand, the one he’d used to try to pummel the Fire Canid.

“I’m okay,” he immediately said in reassurance.

“No, you’re not,” Laura and Johanna both said simultaneously.

Johanna could have laughed if not for the realization that they’d gotten out of the encounter all alive. Barely. With the help of… a flaming hand?

Laura was turning over the hand, pulling away the blackened sleeve that had started to smolder from the contact with the mutated Canid.

“I’ll live,” Tom insisted in a display of machismo before he stopped.

The rash was slowly receding, and a few of the blisters were vanishing. Laura’s hand jerked away at the display… and the burn stopped healing.

For a few instants, the team stared at the burn. It looked more like a days-old wound rather than a fresh burn, but that was an impossibility.

Then Laura gingerly reached again to the wounded hand and passed her thumb slowly over the burn.

The red receded further, and the blisters under that thumb disappeared as she moved it over them.

Johanna looked at her friend’s hand, then threw a look at her own, before asking.

“Okay. What. The. Fuck. Happened. Here?”