“Well done, little Tormacc,” Athra said as she walked over after the battle was done. “You may only be small rock now, but soon, you will be bigger rock.”

“Thank you?” That sounded like a compliment, right? At least he didn’t think it was an insult.

“Now you see why Stone Giant is hard fight,” Athra said as she started to set up a campsite. “Partner is best to make fight easy.”

He hadn’t known what she meant before when talking about fighting the Stone Giants, but after watching it chase after her, it was rather obvious. When the Stone Giant attacked him it would only swing its fist in his general direction, its blows rather straightforward to dodge as long as he was paying attention. But for Athra, the Stone Giant locked on to her with some sort of radar, its blows homing in on her position as she attempted to dodge away. He guessed that if she were to fight it alone it would be similar to his first battle: a long slugfest taking hours and leaving her exhausted and drained.

Both of them were able to defeat a Stone Giant by themselves, but it would be a tough battle fraught with perils. But together they were able to triumph rather easily, the low intelligence of the Stone Giant enabling their aggro switching strategy to go off without a hitch.

Looking over, Tormacc watched as Athra set up a campsite, spreading alarm spells over their immediate vicinity. It made him think: while he was in competition with everyone in The Tower, that wasn’t necessarily direct competition. He had no clue if his people outside The Tower had any conflicts with any other races or dimensions, but even if they did, the odds of him running into the representative of that race in The Tower were miniscule. Most people he met he had no relation to outside, meaning their successes or failures didn’t matter to him.

So if he could combine his strength with theirs to increase both their gains it didn’t matter to him that he was helping someone else, only that he himself was getting ahead. It made him wonder what his mindset had been before, as finding a partner didn’t even cross his mind before Athra approached him of her own accord. But in hindsight, it only made sense to team up. Two people could cover more ground than one, each person supplementing the other’s weaknesses. It had taken him the whole morning and into the afternoon to kill one Stone Giant, but with Athra supporting him, it had only taken them a little over an hour. If they could keep that pace he could earn more than twice what he could by himself, and looking at the numerous Stone Giants on the horizon, they certainly didn’t have to worry about running out of prey.

Athra finished setting up the campsite before sitting down on a chair she formed out of rock and looking at him expectantly. Unsure of what she wanted, Tormacc found himself part of an uncomfortable staring contest.

“Why you standing around?” Athra said. “Don’t you need to eat?”

Tormacc gave her a strange look. “Why would I need to eat?”

“You Humen need to eat, yes? I made you food. I watched you eat food.”

“We do need to eat, yes, but I just ate food before. Generally, we only eat three meals a day, maybe less than that if we have skills related to supplementing our food intake. So I don’t need to eat anything for at least another few hours.”

Athra looked at him askance, although because of her stone features it made reading her expression difficult.

“So no need to eat?” Athra said.

He nodded patiently.

“What about rest? You call it sleep, yes?”

“We sleep at night,” he said. “See the sun in the sky? While it’s light, we’re usually awake, and while it’s dark, we sleep.”

“You slept after last battle,” Athra said, sure she had caught him with her logic. She had evidence this time!

“Um, that wasn’t sleep,” Tormacc said uncomfortably. “That was fainting. I took too much damage from the battle and before the potion kicked in my body shut down to recover.”

They entered another stare-off, Athra freezing in an unnatural stillness he could never hope to match, her stone form imitating a masterwork statue.

“Then we don’t need camp?”

“No, I thought we would go kill more Stone Giants. They’re still plenty of daylight left after all.”

In silence, Athra stood up as the chair she was sitting on melded back into the ground before she started cleaning up the campsite. The whole conversation has been a bit surreal, and Tormacc realized that his companion might not be as knowledgeable as he had previously thought if she didn’t even know how eating and sleeping worked. It was a bit worrying, as he didn’t want to be responsible for educating her about common sense, but he wasn’t about to ditch her over that either. He needed her to farm Essence, and if this was the worst of her quirks he wouldn’t complain. There were worse traits she could have.

“You Humen are not simple,” Athra muttered as she picked up her alarm spells. “Like craggy rock with many layers and edges. Hard to know what’s inside without breaking open. Like geode. Dull on outside, but inside lie many mysteries.”

Tormacc ignored his companion’s complaints, and as soon as she had cleaned up the campsite, they were off to another battle.

Ravvik cursed under his breath as he led his two companions through the dusty hellscape masquerading as a Shard. He didn’t regret joining Zedna’s gang - he would have died from starvation otherwise - but she was a mean bitch, and she seemed to have it out for him in particular. He had just gotten back from a successful raid and here he was again, wandering the blasted plains, looking for a new mark. It didn’t help that he was assigned a new team. Shiq was okay, but of all people he had to get stuck with Derro as his number two.

“There’s somethin’ up ahead,” Shiq said, shading his eyes from the sun. He was the scout of the group, which was why Ravvik didn’t mind having him along. The ratman smelled like week old feces, but a good scout was worth their weight in food.

“Well, what is it?” Derro asked, fingering his serrated blade.

Ravvik had to hold himself back from cursing at the man. He was the party leader, not Derro, but that wasn’t because of his strength. Ravvik could hold his own in a fight, but against Derro… He didn’t fancy his chances should they ever cross blades. There was something unhinged about the man, which was why he stayed silent when his leadership was challenged.

“Dunno,” Shiq said, wrinkling his nose. “I told yous a Stone Giant was killed earlier. Looks like another one jus fell.”

“Can you make anything else out?” Ravvik asked. He had never been a patient man, but he had to learn quickly once he joined Zedna’s gang. He wouldn’t have lived long otherwise. Now that patience came in handy when questioning Shiq. He was a good scout to be sure, but Ravvik suspected everything wasn’t all there in his head.

Shiq wrinkled his nose, his long whispers twitching erratically. The ratman swore his nose was what allowed him to see such long distances, but Ravvik didn’t buy it. Shiq also claimed if he ever bathed he would lose all his fur, but Ravvik knew that was false, as he had seen one of the mages in the group flip out over his stench and blast him with water and, low and behold, he still had his fur.

“It’s still too far,” Shiq said. “We’s need to get closer.”

It irked Ravvik that he had to rely on Shiq’s senses, but while unreliable in most things, he had learned Shiq was rarely wrong with his reports, and since neither himself nor Derro could see such long distances, they had to take the ratman at his word.

“Yes, closer,” Derro said. “There must be yummy food ahead! Ah, it’s been too long since I’ve had a good meal!”

Ravvik tried his best to ignore the crazed mumblings as he trudged forward. This Shard did strange things to people, especially when food was concerned, but he suspected Derro’s habits weren’t caused by the Shard. He had the unfortunate pleasure of witnessing the man tear into a fresh corpse, and it wasn’t something he could easily forget. Derro wasn’t the only cannibal in the gang, but he was certainly the messiest.

Walking along, he turned his mind to the situation back at camp. His brief stay in between forays had revealed the turbulence beneath the surface. Ravvik was someone that liked to keep his head down, as it was the best way to keep his head attached to his body, but even if he lived under a rock he still would have heard the murmuring about what happened. Apparently, Zedna’s second in command took on more than he could handle and the whole team was almost wiped out, with only one person escaping.

It was a bitter reminder of the line they tread: one wrong target and they were done. But they didn’t have much choice; if they wanted to survive in a Shard without food they needed to steal from others, and if their marks were able to turn the tables, well, that was just a bad throw of the dice.

“Looksies, there they go again!” Shiq said, grinning and revealing his rotting teeth.

“Did they start fighting another Stone Giant?” Ravvik asked.

“Me’s thinks so, thinks so,” Shiq said, his teeth snapping in anticipation. He was another one that liked Humen flesh, but so did most of the Beastmen in the gang, so he wasn’t alone in his tastes.

“Delicious!” Derro said, an insane smile on his face. “I can already smell them from here! Yes, come to me, my pretties.”

“Remember what Zedna said,” Ravvik barked. “I do the talking.”

Derro shot him a dirty look, but didn’t talk back, content to mutter under his breath about which part he would eat first.

It took another half-hour until Ravvik could see the Stone Giant himself. Shiq was right, and it did seem like it was fighting something, and based on how it was moving, that was likely to be at least two somethings. Hopefully two juicy prey they could snap up. Coming back empty-handed was always an unpleasant experience, but he didn’t want to have to return with Derro unsatiated. The man only recently got out from being under house arrest, and Ravvik didn’t want to be around if he lost it again.

As they closed in Ravvik started to look for a good vantage point. They were lucky they could observe their targets in battle, as it would give them a good picture of their threat level. It was close to impossible to estimate how powerful someone was without very special skills, and not knowing the skill level of your prey was a surefire way to have the tables turned on you.

Shiq and Derro may have a screw or two loose, but even they knew the importance of proper threat assessment, so they quieted down and followed Ravvik as he inched closer to observe the battle. Unless there were other people hidden elsewhere, he only spotted two marks: a women with earth elemental powers, likely some sort of mage, and a physical fighter with a hammer.

Taking down a Stone Giant with only two people was a dangerous proposition, so he was worried that they would have to retreat and find other prey, these two too powerful for them to take on. But upon further inspection, the duo seemed to constantly be on a knife’s edge, barely dodging what were almost certainly lethal blows from the Stone Giant.

Ravvik smiled a nasty grin, the wind screeching out a ghastly whistle as it blew through the holes in his smile where teeth were missing. The sound was how he got his name: the Ghost Whistler. And the Ghost Whistler just found his next mark.