Chapter 63

It took them twenty minutes to reach the curve of land where they planned on crossing the echidna’s territory. Adrian, on his map, could see that it was pinched in on both sides, making it substantially shorter than everywhere else. The only issue was that it was deep into the hills, part of the great dividing range. There was nothing particularly intimidating about the earth side of the separating line. It was hilly, not mountainous, but nor had it at any point been civilised with the ground being too steep and inaccessible to bother. Lots of trees and then open ground where the bedrock showed through the almost non-existent dirt.

“You need to be systemic,” Kiyoko told him.

“I have a map,” Adrian interrupted her. “This is where we start. The narrowest point.”

“Do you need?”

“I can do the mathematics, too. I don’t think you can direct me further. I just need to explore. Yes, staying within five kilometres of your camp, here,” Adrian said in exasperation at the look in Kiyoko’s eyes. When she was nervous, she tended to go full-scale mothering. “I just pray there’s something suitable.”

“Twenty square kilometres and hilly country,” Kiyoko told him. “You might not find anywhere perfectly optimal, but there will be something more than adequate out there.”

They walked to that obvious line where the alien landscape had been summoned, or more likely switched with the earth one. The poor trees and animals from Earth were probably teleported somewhere strange. Adrian imagined they were all dead. How could they survive on an alien world with plants evolved over millions of years in the Alpha physics environment? Unless, of course, they got mutated and boosted in power as severely as the echidna had. If that happened, the other world was in for a shock. Adrian smiled, thinking of tiger snakes taking over another world, or cockatoos. Those birds were annoying pre-event. He couldn’t imagine what souped-up versions would display.

“You need to set camp so I know where I can go.”

Kiyoko pointed. “Up there.”

They walked in silence to the crest of the hill and looked down. It was a good spot, they could see the dividing line clearly. It was different here. Near Seymour, it had been flat and the earth perfectly matched. Apparently, flat area meeting flat area allowed the two to align flawlessly. Here it was near mountain versus mountain and in places eight-metre-high purple cliffs rose, and elsewhere Adrian deduced there was a similar precarious drop from earth onto echidna territory. Adrian wondered what that would be like. Maybe like the sides of roads that wound up mountains, limestone rock walls of washed out yellow, orange, red and brown.

Adrian pulled out the teleport plate and put it down. He had two receiver plates to teleport to and four transmission plates to teleport from. It was sufficient redundancy that he could afford to treat them as single use. At least, if the echidna was charging him.

“You’ll sense it when it comes. Don’t, pause, act immediately?” Kiyoko appeared overly concerned.

“Yes.” Adrian smiled gently. “I remember.”

“Sneak in. Try not to step on any grass.”

“Yes, we’ve gone over this three times.”

“Remember your range,” she continued nodding at his teleport plate. “If you getting close to the limit, I’ll remind you.” She touched her communication. “But…”

“Personal responsibility. I know. I won’t forget.”

Kiyoko smiled. “Yes, the necklaces can be corrupted or intercepted. My warnings might not reach you.”

“I’ll be fine.” In his Mind, Adrian spread out the map. He became a dot on it and he drew a line four and a half kilometres away to give him a buffer. Providing he kept referring to the map, then he would not get in trouble. “And no shadow step or flying,” he said more to prevent her fussing than to remind himself. Flying was off-limit because the down draft would disturb the grass and would be like setting off a car alarm. The echidna would know instantly. Shadow step was different. It was possible that the plants could not pick up the magic. Unfortunately, Kiyoko, or more precisely the system just did not know. Since there was doubt, it was best not to risk it. After all, the first attempt, when it was surprised was the one most likely to succeed. If they failed once, then they would trek through the mountains.

Adrian jogged off, choosing to start at the closest point. The flora was strange and disconcerting. Blues and purples instead of greens. There were also a lot of flowers and the trees were closer to giant grass stalks.

No fungus anywhere, and despite the large amount of mana, there were no expert or above materials. He kept expecting to sense a master-level ingredient, but it just did not happen. It was possible the echidna ate them whenever they appeared.

The landscape was not as hilly as they had hoped. He was searching for a tight ravine which he could lead the echidna into. Yet the land remained rolling hills.

Adrian frowned and kept going. More giant grass, then what looked like lily pads. There were around thirty of them. Each three to four metres wide. It was also the only spot so far where sunlight reached the ground unbroken. The sun shone on the blue-green broad leaves and they radiated energy. Identification did not name them, but they gave off a sense that they might move. Adrian decided not to get too close, but he studied them for a little longer. It wasn’t for curiosity, it was just the need to know your enemy and all that.

The pads could definitely move, and fast. It was another ambusher predator. That was all the information he needed to back cautiously away. He first explored the edge, only venturing a couple of hundred metres into the strange landscape. It felt safer knowing that friendly ground was only a dozen shadow steps away. Finding nothing, he cut deeper towards the centre. Every step he was paranoid about stepping on the grass accidentally. He was often forced to retreat to avoid a section where the grass was packed so tightly that he would need to step on it to pass. Purple dirt only, he reminded himself. No mistakes. They had one chance.

Adrian stood, letting Ambusher’s Fade do the work to rest his mind briefly. The grass forest was unsettling. The colours were wrong, plants kept swaying even when there was no wind and there were no animals and no insects. He considered that. Thinking back over the whole time he had been in the territory there had been no creatures, not a solitary mosquito and with his sensing domain even on passive he would have noticed if anything was present.

While the lack of life was disturbing, it wasn’t a reason to discontinue the plan. They had already known the landscape was going to be alien. Hell, he had known the entire chunk of land had come from a different world. He was not sure why the absence of insects disturbed him so much. Animals sure, he could imagine the echidna driving them all off, but insects? Why?

He looked more suspiciously at the trees. It was approaching winter so there were fewer flies than usual but he was only a kilometre and half from a territory teeming with bugs, so some of them should have migrated into this area. Something was clearly killing them, and Adrian had failed to sense what. In fact, the only thing that had triggered his danger sense were the lily pads. He doubted whatever those were would be interested in snacking on something as small as an insect.

The realisation that there were no other animals out there made him feel like he now had an additional target painted on his back. Adrian stopped and checked his map. There had not even been anything that was begrudgingly suitable. He was only about two kilometres deep, so there was the capacity to explore further. It was simple enough to rotate and head in the desired direction, but less than a minute later, he was forced to stop. The flora had altered. Previously, the grass had been in clumps with almost as much area without plants as there were with. That had changed. Instead of clumps, the grass grew everywhere, evenly over the landscape. Adrian bent down to examine the setup. Every inch a new piece of grass grew. It covered the area, there were no dirt patches that were suitable to step on. Adrian retreated and checked different pathways to travel deeper into the echidna territory, but the same result greeted him each time. There was a natural barrier that completely stymied him.

If he stepped on plants, with the linked nature of everything, the echidna would likely know immediately and Adrian wasn’t willing to gamble that he would be ignored. No animals and he was kilometres deep. With a shrug, he decided to complete his reconnaissance of the two kilometres strip of border that he had access to. Hopefully, there would be something useable.

Don’t be lazy.

Just because the apparent barrier had existed for a hundred metres did not mean that it was everywhere. He tracked the shift in the ground cover, hoping that at some point it would fade to nothing, but it was not to be. The secondary change or defence, or whatever it was, appeared everywhere he looked. Adrian checked his map and frowned.

The whole thing was clearly unnatural. Two point four kilometres from the earth boundary there was a change in flora. It was a precise relationship. Either the alien territory had grown this barrier since its transition to earth, or it represented the true start of the alien terrain and had driven the insertion into the earth. Adrian knew it was one of these options because on his map there was a stretch of earth that poked deep into the alien territory, a random quirk of the landscape that was fifty metres wide and two hundred metres deep. That geography was reflected by the new type of grass. It was a perfect mirror.

Adrian frowned. He would have to assume that the relationship would continue forever. That meant he should change his scouting method to be closer to the edge of the territory where it was easier to move. This close to thicker grass he had to place his feet so carefully that it was slow moving.

His boss monster warning magic blared.

The echidna was there, right on the tip of his range.

He had the teleportation plate out instantly and prepared his Mind for when he needed to use it.

Wait for the green tendrils .

If he had been discovered, he might as well wait and extract as much information as possible from the encounter.

The echidna was moving fast but not coming directly at him. In fact, it was not even closing in on him anymore. It was just travelling from one area of its territory to another and bisecting his identification sphere.

He was undetected.

He wiped the sweat off his brow. The monster exited his sensing range.

His heart stopped beating so aggressively. Thank god he had not run. Currently, he was undiscovered, but if he had used the teleport plate, then it would know, and if it was smart, it would patrol the area the fly had teleported away from. Adrian wasn’t confident about completing his mission under those circumstances.

The teleportation plate was gripped tight in his hand. He had been sure that he was going to have to use it. This far inside its territory he would not even consider trying to run.

No need. It was a false alarm. He slipped the plate back into his bag of holding.

It was good that it had come so close he told himself internally. The echidna’s brief presence was significant because it reminded him of how dangerous this exploration was, not that it was needed. The absence of animal and insect life was continually grating on him and served as a continual alarm.

Adrian kept going and the further east he got the more mountainous the terrain became. Finally, he stumbled over what he was searching for. It wasn’t a rain-scoured depression he had expected, something carved out of the landscape by a rushing river. Instead, it looked like a giant staff had slammed into the ground. It had left an indentation, with a slight angle, but that imagined weapon had been huge, even greater than the wyrm. That furrow it had left was thirty across, almost two hundred long and, by the end, almost forty metres deep. Absolutely symmetric.

It was perfect.

Better than he had dared to hope for. It was so close to ideal that he wasn’t help but wonder if the system had known in advance?

Nope.

The system had known nothing about the echidna or else Kiyoko would not have pulled that stunt on the first day.

Or maybe yes.

Maybe the system had known nothing about the echidna but had known about the landscape. Had models of the geometry of these purple areas.

It did not matter. They had their ambush point.

Adrian headed back to report. There was more to do.

When he finally saw the glimpse of green ahead of him, Adrian felt relief flood him. The blues and purples had a very distinctive alien beauty, but that became oppressive quickly. Then ten metres further on he felt the insects. He should have paid attention earlier, but there was a clear line where the earth grass ended and so did the insects.

There was nothing killing them, instead it was some sort of repellent field that kept the bugs away.

That made Adrian feel better. If the grass trees had been the ones doing the killing, then he would have to question what other knowledge he was missing.

His feet walked over the scraggly green grass, and he released a massive sigh of relief. Once he was four metres clear of the dividing line, he blasted off the ground, flying directly to the hill where presumably Jules and Kiyoko still waited. It took him over two minutes to reach them.

When he arrived, Jules and Kiyoko were sitting on the ground playing cards.

“That was perfect,” Kiyoko told him. “But the job’s not done, time for stage.”

“Are you sure you’re not getting me to do busy work because the game is not finished?”

“Yes.”

Jules threw the cards down. “She cheats. She always knows what my hand is.”

“Not deliberately,” Kiyoko protested. “It’s not my fault that my class means I know what cards are coming.”

“It…”

“Why do I need to go back?” Adrian interrupted with a small smile. It was clear that they had already had the argument several times before.

“It isn’t that bad,” Jules told him. “Kiyoko is so bad at cards that I have been winning half the time.”

“Forty percent,” Kiyoko corrected.

“Who’s the teenager here?” Adrian said in frustration.

The oracle smiled at him. That cagey wise expression in her eyes. The one old people had that let them get away with anything. “Just having some fun. Regarding going back, I need you to explore beyond the grass barrier.”

Adrian’s throat went dry. That would almost certainly mean he would meet the echidna. Which was probably the point before they attempted the ambush. Adrian needed to get a feel for its tricks and how fast it moved. After all, that was vitally important to the plan. “Okay.”

“Just get close. I will tell you when to move.” There was an awkward pause. “Nod if you heard me.”

Adrian nodded. “It’ll take me about half an hour to get out.”

Kiyoko picked up the cards and started dealing. “That’s fine. If it comes for you before I’ve said run, then use the teleporter to escape.”

Jules did a little finger wave at Kiyoko. “Now, you can turn off your oracle skill to make it fair.”

“We tried that and you beat me too easily. And.” She waved at Adrian like it was important “Earlier you said that it was independent.”

“Did I, dear? I must be getting forgetful.”

Jules looked up at the sky in exasperation. “Why me?”

Kiyoko winked at him. Laughing inside, he turned to carry out the next bit of their planning.

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