The next day passed by without any danger, their travel only interrupted by a scant few monsters that Zedna easily took care of. Because of their hectic flight they were making good time, a small upside to an otherwise bleak situation. If they could successfully escape from the Greenstone Rager they would have shaved days off their travel time. But when the halfmoon was just starting its descent Tormacc heard a loud roar echo out from behind them.

“That’s not what I think it is, is it?” he asked rhetorically, gulping as he felt his stomach drop.

“Damnit,” Zedna said. “Another day and we should have lost it. Can the two of you run any faster?”

“It can be done, but not for long,” Athra said. “Takes too many skills.”

“Same here,” Tormacc said. “If we went any faster I would be drained and useless for a fight.”

“You would be useless for a fight anyway,” Zedna said. “Neither of you have any chance of fighting it, or at least not of causing it any real damage. Something like that shouldn’t be roaming the Shard, as I’d imagine 95% of people would be helpless in front of a Greenstone Rager. If monsters like them freely roamed about, Shards would be a deathtrap. We have no choice but to try and outrun it. From the sound of it we still have another few hours until it catches up, so I’m going to increase the pace slightly.”

Once they had left the area with the goats the ground had flattened out as they entered more valley-like terrain. That had kept consistent for the first part of the day before they started to ascend once more. They were still going up, with the incline creeping up to a fairly steep slope throughout the day. Currently they were exposed on an open slope, the path they were taking scaling straight up toward a ridge far above.

On a normal mountain ascending such a steep incline would be incredibly dangerous, as one wrong move and you would slide all the way back down, potentially to your death. But the main cause of slipping was unstable footing, which wasn’t a concern on these mountains. All the loose rock had long ago fallen down, leaving the group almost free-reign to choose where to place their feet.

Looking back down the slope, Tormacc cast his eyes around to see if he could catch sight of their pursuer. The foot of the slope met the valley far down below, giving him a fairly open vista to sweep his eyes over. Thankfully there was no movement, but if Zedna was right the Greenstone Rager should be substantially faster than them, meaning if they couldn’t lose it somehow it would catch up eventually.

“Let’s reach the upcoming ridge before taking a break,” Zedna said, noticing how her two party members were struggling. The steep slope they were on was barely more difficult than flat ground to run across for her, but the other two didn’t have as easy of a time with it, and because of the increased pace they were clearly flagging.

Reaching the ridge, Tormacc drew in a deep breath before flopping to the ground, taking every second he could to give his legs a break. As he massaged them, he was surprised they weren’t sore, and once he took stock of the rest of his body he found it to be in a similar condition. There was the ache of a workout present, but clearly he hadn’t actually strained himself beyond what he could handle.

“It’s the skills,” Zedna said, seeing Tormacc looking at his own body in bewilderment.

Zedna’s words made his mind seem to restart; it was his brain that was tired, not his body. The strain from using so many skills had built up, and because he had been expecting his body to give out first, he had been stuck on that, unable to process what was actually slowing him down.

After a few breaths more he was feeling a bit better, his thoughts flowing once more. He had been steadily interspersing his movement skills during their run to keep up the pace, and his rate of skill usage had only increased when the roar of the Greenstone Rager caused them to increase their clip. Apparently he had used up too much mental energy. It was a good thing Zedna called a stop when she did or he might have been down for the count: his mental energy sapped enough that he couldn’t use skills for a few days.

On the other side of the ridge lay more mountains, but instead of a sharp incline, the slope was more reminiscent of rolling hills. Also unlike the slope they had been running up, which was mostly smooth and clear of disturbances, the area ahead of them was littered with boulders, crags, and crannies, the slope about as big a contrast as you could get to the area they just came from.

Looking at it more, it reminded Tormacc of something, but with his thoughts still recovering it took him a little while to recall why. Then it hit him: the blasted plains and the Stone Giants. The area ahead looked like it was the subject to similar abuse as the plains where the Stone Giants tread. The ground was clearly beat up, and knowing the Shard it didn’t do that to itself.

“Do the two of you think the area ahead looks suspicious?” he said, gesturing to the craggy ground

“Why?” Zedna said. “It’s just more rock, the same as everywhere else.”

“It reminded me of what the plains below look like after the Stone Giant’s traverse them,” he said.

“Fair point. Athra?”

“Wait,” Athra said. “Need more time to rest. Ran too fast.”

Tormacc wasn’t alone in his sluggish thoughts, as Athra had been forced to use too many skills as well. Tormacc would have guessed that her Stonesensing abilities were inborn, but from what she said he gathered that even if she had an intrinsic ability to sense things through the ground she needed to use a skill to supplement it, likely for more distance and accuracy.

“Nothing now, but maybe something soon,” Athra said about ten minutes later when she recovered enough to scope out the area in front of them. “The rock, is not old. Is new.”

“What does that mean, exactly?” Zedna said. “How can rock be new?”

“Do you mean it’s been disturbed recently?” Tormacc asked.

“Yes, that. Is what I said. Rock is new.”

“That probably means this is the territory of the Stone Wurms,” Zedna said, her voice grim. “The good news is that might mean we can lose the Greenstone Rager, but the bad news is we can’t rush through the Stone Wurms’ territory. And if the Greenstone Rager doesn’t turn back and catches up to us before it runs into a Stone Wurm, well…”

She left the later part unsaid, but Tormacc could fill in the blanks. They had the Greenstone Rager behind them and the Stone Wurms in front. It was a dangerous situation, but he was actually relieved they might have a way to lose the Greenstone Rager. Maybe it was a case of fearing the evil you know, but the whole reason Zedna wanted Athra to come along was to help guide her through the Stone Wurms’ territory, so it had to be reasonably safe. Or so he hoped.

After another ten minutes of rest the trio set off, this time as a much more sedate pace than their previous one. Because the Stone Wurms were reasonably intelligent ambushes were a big concern, so they couldn’t afford to rush ahead blindly. This was where Athra came in, as she was constantly searching underground for any signs of life.

The Stone Wurms were dangerous, likely even more so than the Stone Giants in a straight up fight, but it was their ability to ambush from underground and intelligence that posed the real dangers, but with Athra invalidating their ability to move undetected their party should have a leg up against any Stone Wurms they came across. But after a few hours as day started to break all was silent, and Tormacc would have guessed they were in any random section of the mountains as opposed to the territory of one of the most dangerous predators on the Shard.

That silence was then broken as another roar echoes out around them. It was hard to tell, but Tormacc would have bet money it sounded closer than the previous one.

“How is the Greenstone Rager tracking us anyway?” he asked. “I don’t know how it would follow actual tracks in these mountains, so it has to be smell, right? Couldn’t we do something about that?”

Zedna snorted. “If only it was something so mundane. As best as I can tell the Greenstone Ragers have an innate sense for detecting people they have previously battled. It’s almost like an internal compass, pointing them directly at their prey. Maybe if we had the right skills it could be evaded, but you would need a skill or item specifically for that purpose which was also powerful enough to overcome their ability.”

“Wait a second,” Tormacc said. “That means, the Greenstone Rager isn’t tracking us, it’s tracking you.”

“Feel free to go off on your own then,” Zedna said, chuckling.

She had a point. The only reason Tormacc and Athra were in the mountains in the first place was because Zedna was there to protect them. Without her, they would still be forced to farm the Stone Giants, waiting a long time, perhaps years, until the exit portal moved, and even then they didn’t have any guarantee it would move to their side of the mountains. Tormacc wasn’t sure about Athra, but he had no intention of staying in the Shard for that long.

They continued on up through the rocky terrain until midmorning, only stopping briefly to take a short break and have a bite to eat. They had covered a fair distance, and looking back down they could see part of the valley where they came from spread out behind them. Hearing another roar echo out, this one much louder than the ones before, Tormacc habitually glanced backwards, checking for movement. He wasn’t actually expecting anything, but something caused him to do a double take. Now fully concentrating, he strained his vision, peering off into the distance.

“Hey guys,” he said, “I think I can see the Greenstone Rager.”

“Fuck,” Zedna said, the exclamation quietly escaping her mouth, the word barely more than a whisper. “We need to move faster. Athra, notify us of the slightest sign of disturbance underground.”

The Greenstone Rager still had to move all the way through the valley and up the steep incline before it even reached the Stone Wurms’ territory, but as Tormacc kept stealing glances at it he could tell it was moving much faster than he ever could. And because they were forced to slow down from the threat of the Stone Wurms it was sure to catch up. The only question was how long that would take.

As it turned out, not that long. Barely four hours later and the Greenstone Rager crested the lip of the steep incline, allowing Tormacc and Athra to get their first good look at it. It was large, standing just below four meters, and it was almost as wide as it was tall. It was covered in plates of green-tinted stone, which was likely where the name came from. This one was missing it’s left arm just below the shoulder, but the wound seemed to have scabbed over and the missing arm wasn’t delaying it any. It’s large strides sending it shooting after them.

“Forget the Stone Wurms,” Zedna shouted, “just run!”

At her urging the party sped up, running forward recklessly in a full-on sprint. The chase was on.