The footsteps grew louder. Any time now, their new company would appear in their line of sight. Beast knew he had to make a decision fast. After what happened in the Fortress of Lanos, to say that Lortan would not be pleased to see him would be a grave understatement. While he might have gotten stronger in his travels and gained equipment such as Blatta and Burfrest which would give him more of a fighting chance, he was sure that the PKer warrior would have too.

And Beast was not very confident of winning, given how he was trashed the last time round.

He could meet them head on, or avoid and observe.

Decisions, decisions…

“Eh...” Aveye watched on, confused, as Beast grappled with his choices. “There are about five to six people coming, if that helps.”

Beast blinked blankly into the archer’s face. How could she not have said that earlier? Going head on when they were outnumbered would only equate a pointless death.

“I took the tracking skill path.” Aveye shrugged at Beast’s questioning stare. “It goes well with my job-”

Before she could finish her sentence, Beast had already pushed her behind a boulder at the side of the mountain trail. His hand instinctively went to cover her mouth before she could let out any remarks of indignation while the other extended a finger to his own as an indication of silence.

“Shhh.” Beast hushed, ignoring the muffled sounds coming from Aveye. He turned around to check that they were fully covered by the rock, just as a group of five players came into view.

One of them was the silver armored warrior he knew full well with a large silver claymore for a weapon, only that his breastplate and boots were now a dull iron sheen. Beast briefly wondered what could have happened to Lortan before his attention was forcefully diverted to a more surprising figure.

“Caldrin?”

There was no mistaking the muscular dwarf from the mines, now walking and talking among them. From where he was, Beast could barely overhear their conversation.

“… Cald, you know your role here.” A tall lanky male human dressed with twin falchions strapped to his leather belt approached the dwarf.

“Yes. Yes. I know. After I harvest the Horn for you, I will go back to my mines.”

“Ever the antisocial one, Caldrin.” Lortan quipped with a sneer. “A dwarf just can’t leave his mines, can he?”

“Says the person who owes me thousands of gold made from those very mines. Don’t get cocky until your pay back your debt, boy.”

A distance away, Beast felt the heat of the burn that left the warrior blistering with rage.

“You little-“

“Stop quarrelling.” The same lanky male stepped in, breaking up the argument before it became explosive. He must have plenty of influence, for two of them meekly complied immediately after.

“Yes, Don.”

“Yes, Stefan.”

Stefan… Don… whatever his name was, he turned to the fourth person of the party – a cloth-wearing female who had several glowing stones levitating around her like some sort of display of grandiose. Beast had no idea what profession she was. The best guess he had was some sort of magician, probably an advanced one.

“Chelsea, could you get a fire going? We will rest here for a bit. And thank you, Mousebear.”

At his words, the fifth and last member of the party – a cleric judging from the staff he was holding – withdrew a small pile of firewood from his inventory and dumped it onto the ground before the magician. With a silent nod, one of the floating cyan stones shone intensely before bursting into a beam of intense light and igniting a flame upon impact with the firewood.

It appeared to be some kind of inanimate familiar that channeled energy, which would make the magician some kind of enchanter or summoner.

Regardless, it seemed that they will be around for a while.

A small tap on his hand alerted Beast back to the archer he had all but forgotten about. “Oh shit! I am sorry.” Quickly releasing his hand from her mouth, Beast apologized as Aveye went into a gasping fit for air.

He steeled himself for a retributory strike or scolding, but the other did neither.

“I didn’t expect you to be so rough.”

W-what?

Beast soon realized why the archer, who was flushed and breathing heavily, said that. The crevice they were in was tight for space, prompting a need for close bodily contact lest they were to be revealed. What ever would people say if he was found in such a compromising position with an androgynous male? Or worse, what would become of him if Adele Mitty’s fanboys knew of this? They would surely tear him from limb to limb. Suddenly, he found himself wishing that Lortan and his buddies would quickly pack up and go.

But they will be around for a while. Beast groaned at the thought.

“Hey… what is that over there?” A sudden interruption from the party sent a shiver down Beast’s spine.

“Seems like a body.”

He had forgotten to cover up the corpse.

“Some poor smuck died here?” The annoying voice of Lortan came.

“Seems like an NPC. Otherwise, it would have been dried bones. It is weird it did not disintegrate into data though. And it looks like someone rummaged through the body just recently.”

“They might not have gotten far.”

“Chelsea, would you please?”

All of a sudden, their situation had taken a turn for the worst. Peeking out from behind the boulder, Beast caught a glimpse of several blue trails of light arcing across the air as the floating stones surrounding the magician girl spread out. He had seen and played enough games to guess that it was an area searching skill and they were in eminent danger of being discovered.

“Aveye, we need to run-“

Just before he could throw all caution to the wind and burst out from behind the rock with his weapons drawn, a glowing stone peeked over the boulder. It stopped short and shuddered, as though it had chanced upon a scene that it did not want to see.

“Chelsea? What is wrong? Why are you blushing?”

“There… behind… rock.”

From behind cover, Beast could feel the stares of everyone landing on the very boulder that separated them from the rest. For a second, nobody moved. Then, someone shouted.

“Get them!”

“Run!”

It was the start of a chaotic mess of actions.

Beast rolled out behind cover, letting loose a mana bolt he had gathered up in a direction he presumed the attackers were in. Multiple beams of light lanced down at the same time and narrowly missed him by a few inches. Using the momentum from the roll, Beast pushed off his feet and broke into a sprint towards the trail without giving second look back.

“Air Walk!”

In an instance, the twin-falchion wielding man flipped overhead in a gravity-defying maneuver, landing gracefully in Beast’s path. Two vicious blades came swinging towards Beast’s neck right after.

Clang!

Beast had flashed out Blatta and Burfrest just in time to stop the blades in their tracks. He was not sure how critical hits really work in Ages Online, but going by how vital points translates to additional damage in most games, if those two falchions had landed he would have most certainly be dead or at best, critically injured.

“You are not running away, young man.”

“Beast?!” A voice came from the back.

“The merchant?!”

“You guys know him?” Don Stefan was briefly distracted, enough for a split-second interruption by Aveye who chose this moment to reveal herself from the rock.

“Beast, duck! Double shot!”

Twin arrows flew true, grazing the head of Beast who chose to follow Aveye’s order at the last moment and striking the falchions that had been hastily withdrawn into a protective stance against the sneak attack. Taking the opening given by his companion, Beast swept his leg under the swordsman’s own, successfully knocking the latter off his footing while slicing his hamstring open with a well-timed dagger slash. As the swordsman crashed into the ground with a howl of pain, Beast sidestepped out of the way. Aveye caught up there and then, and they both ran off as fast as they could.

At first, Beast thought he had shaken them off. Then, an array of laser beams started lancing in from all directions around them.

“Oh my fuc-“

-145 HP

-143 HP

-145 HP

-144 HP

-145 HP

-145 HP

Although it dealt below average damage, there was way too much of them to avoid completely.

Beast felt the concentrated beams of light burn through his clothes and skin even as he tried his best to dodge and outrun the glowing stones that had taken up position around them. One of them had struck his Lunar Fleece, activating the artifact effect that reflects the spell back towards the stone, destroying it in a spectacular display of debri. It gave him the idea that the stones can be destroyed and he began returning fire with balls of mana. However, for every stone destroyed, another rose up from the ground to take its place.

It was endless.

“Beast!” Aveye shouted in anguish. Despite being more agility based, she was not faring any better. The more fragile archer was already below half health.

-145 HP

-143 HP

-145 HP

-144 HP

“Run as hard as you can! Prime: Bloodline aura!” Beast shouted back, downing all of his potions he had in a desperate attempt to survive – Health regeneration, dexterity enhancing, anything to help him out of this predicament.

If the stones work on a familiar-based system, they would most definitely have an operational range. Mages are known to be slow; if they could get out of that range, they would be home free. But no matter how they ran, they never could seem to do it. The laser beams continued their fire.

-143 HP

-145 HP

-144 HP

It was then Beast noticed a distinct lack of scenery to his front. It was almost like… empty air. There is only one explanation: that they had been chased all the way to the point in the path where it turned back inwards. He skidded to a halt in abject horror as a vast view of the Splinter Mountain range came into view. Any further straight and they would have been running past a cliff edge and free-falling down to a rocky death.

“BULL CHARGE!”

Beast felt a solid wall of metal crash into his back, knocking him forward with enough force to cause him to tumble frighteningly close to the ledge.

“You… I have to pay you back for Lanos!” Lortan yelled with a mad gleam in his eyes. A mighty swing of the silver claymore followed, stopped short only by the last second parry with Blatta and Burfrest.

“When you are heavily in debt? It’s okay.” Beast could not resist getting a jab in, drawing furious looks from the warrior. The lasers, he noticed, had stopped firing. The rest of the pursuers had caught up, cutting off any path of escape. The mage Chelsea was riding piggyback on Don Stefan who had his wound healed by Mousebear, which explained why they could not hope to outrun the laser array. Aveye was noticeably limping to the side cradling her burns while being surrounded by the glowing stones, unsure if she should attack when the odds were against them.

“You will regret the day you crossed the path of the Predators guild.”

The weight on the claymore pressed down upon Beast’s blades, threatening to break the only barrier between the latter and the sharp edge of a gigantic sword.

“Wait!” Caldrin stepped forward, putting his hand on Lortan’s shoulder to pull the warrior back.

“Don’t stop me you stupid dwarf. I want to kill him.”

“And why is that?”

“Why would you want to save him? I didn’t know you turned soft, dwarf.”

“Enough.” Don Stefan interrupted. He turned to the mage on his back for her opinion. “Chelsea?”

It was this action that the invisible hierarchy of this Predators guild became clear to Beast. Lortan and Caldrin take orders from Stefan, who in turned defer to the magician’s command. The cleric was probably someone of no import, tagging along only for a heal and a bag inventory.

The mage took one look at Beast and her face contorted, as though she had seen something disgusting.

“… Kill.”

“She said it! I call dibs on that silver cape!” Lortan exclaimed, shoving Caldrin out of the way and raising his sword up again for a finisher.

It was a mistake. Removing the weight of the sword freed Beast’s hands momentarily from having to keep a threat at bay. With a flourish, the Lore Keeper slashed as hard as he could with his weapons at the warrior’s legs, rending through iron into flesh and bone.

The resultant agonized scream was loud enough to elicit an echo back from the mountain range. It was also the distraction Beast needed to grab Aveye and leap off the cliff edge with the screaming archer in his embrace.

“What the? BEEEEAAASSSSSTTTTTTTTT!!!”

Even if he dies, Lortan would not be getting any of him.

The last scene he saw was one of the glowing blue stone following down after them as they plummet.

………….

Darkness.

Beast slowly opened his eyes, feeling the aching of his body flood through his nerves. He had expected himself to wake up in his capsule and was pleasantly surprised when glaring sunlight passing through the sparse shade of mountain trees greeted his return to consciousness.

He was alive, and so was Aveye if her unconscious breathing body lying to the side were to indicate. They took a heck load of damage though, with his health tethering dangerously close to zero. Even so, had he not pumped all of his mana into Chi Fortify and cushion the fall for the archer, he doubt that they could have gotten lucky with the drop from above.

High above, the cliff edge they fell from was almost out of sight, overshadowed by the spiny peaks of the Splinter Mountains. Broken branches lay all around them, with a soft bed of vegetation loosening the ground they had landed on. If he were to hazard a guess, they had fallen into one of the small valleys in the mountain range.

Then, Beast saw it – the lone blue stone that had followed them down. It floated a distance to the side silently, as though observing them.

Should it not be already out of the magician’s control range? Why was it still operational then?

Beast had half a mind to destroy it with a mana bolt when the stone suddenly dropped to the ground with a small tinkle. Despite apparently losing power all of a sudden, the stone did not lose its glow. Beast could not decide what to make of this strange phenomenon.

Finally, he went forward to pick it up.

A Michelin stone shimmered in his hand, one of the materials best used for conducting mana. Supposedly rare, it should not have been able to shoot laser beams like the magician girl was able to make it. It was weird indeed. Something nagged at the back of Beast’s mind, but he could not put a finger to it…

“…K-?“

“Urghhh.” Just then, Aveye stirred from her resting place, breaking whatever train of thoughts he had.

“Feeling alright?” Beast asked in concern.

“Never better.” Aveye replied scathingly. “Never. Do. That. Again.”

She paused, as though rethinking her words.

“Or rather, tell me before you try that again. A girl needs to prepare her heart too, you know?”

Okay, Beast concluded. Aveye was fine.

“So how did we survive that fall?”

“I have no idea.” Beast shrugged. It really was a mystery. There are skills and equipment that reduce falling damage, but those were usually unique to the rogue line of professions. Perhaps pure luck had been a factor.

“In any case, we need to head back up there again.”

Aveye raised up a hand. “Wait. Could you first let me know all about this feud of yours with the guys up there? That silver brute was so mad when he saw you.”

Beast paused. After giving it some thought, he nodded.

“Fair enough.”

Taking a seat back down, he started pulling up foodstuff from his inventory for some healing up. Only then did he begin to talk. Beast told Aveye all about his first encounter with Lortan, about how he was tricked into going into the Argent Forest where he became victim to the PKer’s griefing actions, about the other girl who was there and how she too fell into a similar fate.

Beast then spoke of the fortress of Lanos and how he chanced upon the warrior again. He talked about how he overestimated his own capabilities and was going to die once more when he was saved by the same girl that shared their fate. By the end of it all, Aveye nodded her head in comprehension.

“So, is this girl the one you crafted the dagger for?”

Beast nodded, his hand unconsciously going to Blatta.

“Then where is she?”

He had omitted Earth Lake from his story-telling and thus would prefer to keep Savathrox and his mind-control a secret. “She… left due to some circumstances.”

“A lover’s spat? I see.”

“W-what?” Beast stared at Aveye wide-eyed. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Don’t worry, I will try not be jealous.”

“I don’t really care,” Beast declared, packing up the impromptu rest ground so that they can continue on their journey for the source spring. With a brisk walking pace, he set off, determined to regain lost ground before the sun sets for the night.

“Sheesh, you are no fun.”

As he continued his arduous journey back up the slopes of the Splinter Mountains, he could not help but feel nostalgic after his reminiscent of the past, as though Kiki was journeying alongside him once more.