“Bach,” Ava whisper-shouts, not wanting to draw too much attention, “come look at this.”

When the sun rises there is a man laying in the road with his neck twisted in the most painful way. It can only be broken. He can only be dead. Bach plods over to see what Ava wants and he freezes. He stares down at the corpse and he frowns.

It's Sawyer.

“I thought you killed him?”

“I did. With my own two....” he trails off.

“Then how?”

“I couldn't say. Maybe he had a twin?”

“I'd swear those are the same scars.” She lifts the back of his shirt using her foot, just a little – just enough to reveal the criss-crossing whip-scars. “I remember them from my first day. Even with everything else going on – his scars were shocking. The violence someone had done to him was shocking.”

“Maybe he had a twin who was equally deserving of corporal punishment?”

“Bach.” She glares at him. “This is serious. I thought you killed him. What is he doing here?”

Uri and Ellie come pacing out from the healer's hut to join them. He guides her by the arm, but from the way she's turning her head to squint at the wreckage Ava can tell her vision is returning at least a little bit.

“I'm glad to see you up and about,” she says, “how're you feeling?”

“Like I'm waking from one nightmare right into another.”

“What about you?” Uri asks, “holding up okay?”

She knows what he's talking about – the pair of knife wounds on her side and bicep that nearly killed her. They haven't had more than the most basic attention – tightly wrapped with improvised bandages, simple scraps of torn bed sheet. They hurt like hell and Ava knows she's still hovering just below her maximum wound threshold.

She struggles to find an answer to Uri's question, finally landing upon, “I'll live.”

“What do we do now?” Ellie wonders, squinting at the destruction all around them.

“I don't know. I can hardly think.”

“We should help them rebuild,” says Uri.

And Ava feels a little excited at the prospect of reconstructing Cripple Creek; at the prospect of exploring the workings of the upgradeable stations.

She's eager to play the game.

But then when she stops fantasizing about game nonsense that same excitement transforms into simple shame.

Quit playing with these people's lives.

“Check this out.” Bach says to Uri and Ellie. He prods Sawyer's stiff corpse with his boot.

Uri and Ellie look at the body—his head twisted to be facing nearly backwards—and then at each other. Their faces display confusion and more than a little disgust.

“Well?” Uri shrugs. “What do you want me to say?”

“I'm not in the mood for this.” Ellie folds her arms across her chest.

“But, do you not recognize him?” Ava asks.

“Who?” asks Ellie, “this broke-necked dickhead?”

“Do you know him?” Uri stoops to have a closer look. He shoos a fly away from Sawyer's face.

Ava glances up at Bach and he looks as perplexed as she feels. How do Uri and Ellie not recognize him?

“It's Sawyer, right?” Ava reminds them, “aren't those the same scars?”

“Sawyer's dead.” Uri stands and brushes himself off, annoyed he was tricked into inspecting the corpse up close.

“I know, but – this is him, right? How is that possible?”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Ellie asks. “Are you making fun of me? Because I'm still a little near-sighted?”

Bach ignores her. Instead he turns to Uri and frowns. “This doesn't look like Sawyer to you?”

“No. This just looks like a dead villager we helped kill.” Uri shakes his head. “I don't think this is very funny.”

“Come on, Uri,” says Ellie, “let's go see if we can be of aid to any non-fuckin'-lunatics.”

And they leave Bach and Ava alone with the dead man who looks exactly like Sawyer.

Misery.

When they are done being mystified by the corpse of Sawyer's doppleganger Bach and Ava return to the misery at hand. They rejoin Uri and Ellie and they don't speak any further of Sawyer.

The townsfolk can't function. This is the unique misery of losing a child—multiplied many times over—communal, compound grief.

Yesterday there were only the sounds of their wild celebration but today it is a different sort of chorus. A dirge for the dead and the stolen. The town has become a mass funeral pyre, everything beloved becoming ash and drifting away on an unnaturally chilly breeze.

“What can we do for them?” Ava asks. “Where to even begin?”

“Nothing.” Bach seems made of stone, shutting down his empathy so he can still function in this ashen environment. “Nothing can be done.”

“There's never any recovering from the loss of a child,” says Ellie, sounding far away from everything, even herself.

“Can we get them back?” Ava wonders.

“Who?” Bach asks, “you mean the kids?”

“Yeah, where would H.R. be taking them?”

“A vast series of underground dungeons they call Castle Dia,” Bach says, “where all resources in this sector are processed.”

“Could you not talk about people like that?”

“As resources?” He smirks. “What do you want me to call them?”

“Anything else.” Ava stares at him. “You know how to get them back, don't you?”

Bach grins. “Maybe. What makes you think so?”

“I think maybe you were a Body-Snatcher once-upon-a-time, yourself.”

“Maybe I've just been to Dia as a captive.”

“Yeah that could be, too. Either way, you know how we can get them back, don't you?”

“Sure. We'd just shoot our way in and take 'em. Nothing a couple thousand bullets can't handle.”

“Well that's what we're gonna do, then.”

“That's nuts,” Ellie says, “you've both fucking lost it.”

“I can't believe I did this.” Ava sifts through the aftermath of her battle with the Body-Snatcher. There isn't a single salvageable herb left in the healer's hut. Everything has been incinerated.

“It woulda happened regardless,” Bach says, “H.R. Would've burnt this place to the ground. At least you left most of the walls intact.”

Uri and Ellie thank Irina for her time and care. They promise to help her rebuild.

“Not necessary,” she says, “I've no heart left for healing after the theft of my child.”

“I'm sorry,” says Ava, “I didn't know.”

“We're going after them,” Bach says.

“That's quite insane,” says Irina. “But if you're going, take this. It's all I have left.”

“Thank you.” Ava accepts the herbs without asking what they do.

“Ephedra is a powerful stimulant.” Irina turns and walks away, seemingly distracted mid-sentence. “Use it wisely.” She leaves her hut in a trance.

“Ava,” says Uri, “you're hurt bad. Ellie and I can heal you in increments – but at the moment I don't feel comfortable having her perform more than a minor reconstruction psionic. I fear in her current condition anything stronger could injure her worse.”

“I understand,” she says, “I'd never want either of you to suffer an injury just to heal mine.”

Uri and Ellie chant together and execute the [Mend Minor Injury] psionic. The injury on Ava's side seals up and she unwraps the soiled bandage from around her torso. The stiff and painful slice on her bicep remains.

“Thank you both.” She smiles, rubbing the spot on her ribcage where the cut had been.

“After twenty-four hours we can attempt to mend the rest.”

They find Ostby in the thoroughfare. His face is not stunned like so many of the others. Instead, his brow is hard and his demeanor is grim. He appears to be collecting data on the abducted.

“I'm sorry,” says Ava.

“Don't be. You're not to blame for Horst's evil heart.”

“What's the damage?” asks Bach.

“At least eighteen dead, so far. And a dozen abducted – all children.”

“All Slaps?”

“It appears so, yes. Horst must have ordered H.R. to target them.”

“Damned cruel bastard,” Bach says, almost admiringly, “what better way to crush the souls of these people than to steal their children?”

“Maybe he has crushed a few,” Ostby says, “but mine was already gone. It left with Gloria.”

“Who's that?” asks Ava.

“She was my wife. Darby's mother. And a talented hunter.”

“What happened?”

“Something in the forest took her, long ago.” He stares into the distance; into the woods. “Despite my best attempts to track her down I never found more than a few scraps of her cloak.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Nevermind,” he says, shaking free from the memory. “Just know that Horst hasn't crushed me. He's simply taken the last precious thing I had left to lose.”

“We're going to Castle Dia,” Ava promises, “we're going to get them back.”

Ostby is quiet. He presses his lips together. Then he says, “you're going to need guns.”

“I have a comrade on the plains,” says Ostby, “he can help us with arms and perhaps even a vehicle.”

“Like a car?” Ava asks, incredulous.

“Yes,” he says, “like a car. Or possibly motorcycles.”

“I haven't driven in many years,” says Bach, “wonder if I'd even remember how.”

“Don't sweat it,” Ostby says, “I can drive.”

“So, on the plains, you say?” Ava asks, “how long will it take us to hike there?”

“A week or more.”

“The Slaps will be processed out of Dia by then,” Bach warns, “they'll be divided up and sent to every corner of the continent.”

“I know,” Ostby says, “we can't afford to hike. We can't waste any time at all.”

>>>>The Stable has been reduced to Level Zero.

“What now?” Ava asks, standing in the ruins of the stable. The fences are down; the paddock scorched earth. Sacks of oats are spilled in the dirt. And worst of all – there are no horses.

“We'll have to track them down.” Ostby studies the ground, identifying their hoof-prints. “I have my own mount, and there were two others here before the fences came down. They'll be in the woods, I'd wager.”

“We better get after them.”

“Any of you ever ride before?”

Bach volunteers, “I have.”

“I can, also,” says Ellie, squinting.

“We should stay,” Uri says, “I don't think it's safe for you to go riding a strange horse in the woods right now.”

“You're right.” She takes his hand. “I probably need to lay down. Head is killing me.”

“Alright then,” Ostby says, indicating Ava and Bach, “you two are with me.”

Ostby navigates the forest like one of its resident creatures. He prowls, peering around tree trunks and picking up tracks Ava concludes must be written in invisible ink.

But then she looks around at the soft golden glow of the various harvestable flora she can now automatically identify and she wonders if perhaps his tracking ability functions the same way.

The first horse is located in no time. A palomino with fur like golden velvet. The poor beast is scared and spooked – she's gone through an ordeal same as everyone else. Bach sneaks up from the side but she turns and kicks for his face, barely missing as he twists away.

“Whoah-ho there!” he laughs, “don't go rearranging my mug. I'm plenty pretty as-is.”

Ostby eases in and loops his arm under the palomino's neck. He scratches her mane and strokes her breast. Next he whispers in her ear and she bows her head so he can slip a rope over. After that she comes along without any more resistance.

“You have quite a way,” Ava notes.

“She's a good girl.” Ostby smiles and pats the horse upon the rump, handing the lead over to Ava. “Now to locate her partner.”

The second horse takes longer to track down. When they finally find him he is cornered by a pair of huge, lanky, gray-furred wolves. Bach takes a few loping steps forward like he's intent on wrestling both wolves by himself but Ostby puts a hand out to stop him.

“Allow me,” he says.

Without hesitation he fires off a quick shot from his bow. The arrow thwips into the dirt between the wolves.

“You missed,” Bach scoffs.

“Not if I only was aiming for their attention,” says Ostby.

And it works. The wolves abandon their pursuit of the stallion to instead turn on him. The pair prowl forward with their fangs bared, ropes of drool hanging from their jaws. Ostby drops his bow on the forest floor and walks toward them empty-handed.

“You're crazier than you seem at first,” says Bach, ”you know that?”

But Ostby just keeps walking. He raises one hand and mutters something and:

Path of the Beaststalker? Ava wonders, what does that mean?

Suddenly the wolves are at war with each other. They thrash and snarl and the fur flies. And they ignore the humans altogether.

Ostby strolls right past them – hushing and soothing the stallion. He loops a length of rope around the horse's neck and leads him away.