A true hunter could lie in wait for days for its prey to appear. The role of a hunter and prey is easily flipped if the prey is aware the hunter is nearby.

~Cernunnos, Lord of the Wild Things

“Nice try,” Crow muttered. The woman before him was definitely not Mara. In fact, Crow wasn’t even sure it was human. With the Constellation, there was no way he could make that kind of mistake.

He summoned his arrow back and waited. As the body fell forward and morphed into a pile of foliage. With the plant-like body revealed, the bright red blood turned into a green viscous fluid. Crow recognized it but didn’t want to believe it.

“A Changeling?” Crow whispered to himself and looked around nervously.

Changelings were one of the most sinister types of Rootless. Many legends claimed they could change into anything, but he knew that was baseless. Within the lore hidden away in the False Dawn Workshop were several books that refuted this. Changelings could only take on the shape of something living, or that was once alive, but Crow wasn’t sure why that was. The only thing he could come up with was the morphing process only occurred with something organic. Further, it needed to touch the thing it wanted to become.

The legends got one thing right, a Changeling almost always destroyed the thing it wanted to mimic. He could still sense Mara, so he knew she was still alive, but something was odd about that. How did this creature take her appearance if it needed to come in contact with her?

Inspecting the body, he pressed his finger into the fibrous material that made up its body. Trichomes, the hair-like strands that covered the being, rippled as this touch. In that brief moment, the illusion of Mara appeared once more. He knew from the books he read that these hairs helped sell the illusion. They could harden, produce smells, even break off, giving the appearance of being damaged.

Under Father Oak’s influence, he helped locate the Rootless for the Druid Order to hunt down. But he was especially wary and vicious towards these beasts. So much so that the northern continent hadn’t seen a Changeling in at least a thousand years. They’d practically faded into myth.

Going forward, he just couldn’t trust anything organic. The scary part was that these Changelings could hold their appearance indefinitely and subsist on mana alone. It was a monumental tack to trick one out of hiding unless it was ready to reveal itself—usually when they were about to assassinate a target. These monsters were the spies and assassins of the Rootless, but they lacked fighting prowess. Their plant-like bodies were weak to fire and physical damage, so they relied on their two greatest strengths—morphing and patience.

As long as one remained diligent, even someone like Crow, who didn’t currently have a Shield, could easily kill a dozen or so by himself. Powerful cultivators have been brought down by these things because Changelings only struck when their target was vulnerable.

They were precisely the type of beast he’d expect the Coyote to use. The question was, why did it take Mara’s appearance, and what had it planned to do? Not that Crow didn’t understand this was a challenge, but that his understanding of Changelings made them out to be cowardly creatures. This isn’t how they’d typically behave. Then again, it probably didn’t expect Crow would shoot it without giving it a chance to even talk.

He reached the next set of stairs leading upward without another issue. This time, he remained on high alert when he ascended to the next floor. The room had plenty of décor and could have been some kind of guard station. Crow focused on the only item big enough to be a Changeling.

Thunk!

Crow’s arrow struck the table in the center of the room. Wood splinters exploded from the point of impact, but the wood slivers made no sound as they hit the ground. The table collapsed seconds later and morphed back into its humanoid shape.

Summoning his arrow back to hand, he scanned the shelf to his right but didn’t shoot. It was large enough to be a Changeling and made of wood, but Crow felt the frame was a bit strange. He walked over to it and shifted his bow to his other hand so he could punch it. The wood cracked, but it was the hollow thunk that grabbed his attention. Searching the sides and top, he eventually found a catch, and once released, the entire shelf opened outward.

The room beyond had an old desk with dozens of books scattered across the top of it. In Crow’s paranoid state, he wanted to shoot the desk full of holes, but the intricately carved wood caused him to hold back. Crow had never seen a wood of this type before, which intrigued him. It also convinced him that it wasn’t a Changeling.

Since the desk wouldn’t attack him, he scooped all the books into his Vortex Pin after quickly scanning them. Over half of them were about botany and plant-based beasts. There was even a slim book on Rootless, which Crow took a minute to read from cover to cover.

Other than a bestiary of Rootless types that Crow had never heard of, the rest of it was common knowledge, with one slight change. The book stated that not all Rootless were once human, and procreation was possible using plant-like methods. The thought sent a chill down Crow’s spine. If Changelings could ‘seed’ themselves—he didn’t even want to think about how terrifying that thought was. And while dangerous, Changelings weren’t even at the top of the Rootless food chain.

Crow felt it was essential to figure out how the Rootless were formed. While he knew they were once human, he wasn’t sure what caused their change, and he felt it was knowledge that the Druid Order suppressed. It wasn’t so pressing that he would stop everything to find out, but he made sure to put it in his mental to-do list.

After scouring the room, he found a ring. It was a simple thing carved out of the same wood used to make the desk. Where a jewel might have set was the etching of a leafless tree. Turning it upside down, he realized the roots mirrored the branches, so he did not know which side was the right side up.

Regardless, he placed it into his Vortex Pin. He wasn’t about to risk putting it on and gaining another curse. One was enough for him.

On a whim, he attempted to shove the desk into his Soulscape. Primarily because of its uniqueness. The entire process nearly depleted his Source, and going through the soul fire darkened some of the wood, but in the end, he managed it. Lily flew around him as he dragged the thing into the cave-dwelling where Nin slept. Some of the rooms he carved into this place he used for storage, and this particular room, he had shaped bookshelves into the stone walls.

The desk added a nice touch to his study.

Lily pointed at it, and Crow shrugged with a grin. He realized that his Soulscape was kind of boring. With the two women living in here, he needed to provide some stuff for them to do. So he pulled the books from his Vortex Pin into his Soulscape and placed them on the shelves.

Technically, he didn’t need the books anymore, but having a place for others to use and do some of their own reading or research was a good thing.

“You can use any of the books here, and I’ll bring more in as I get them. If you want something, let me know. Soon I’ll start ascending Tur Briste, and you two should be able to come out more often. So you won’t have to hide out here much anymore.”

Lily nodded and smiled. Then pointed at her mostly naked body and mimed with her tiny hands that she wanted clothes.

“They don’t make clothes in your size…”

She shook her head and then drew a square in the sky and used her fingers like a pair of scissors.

“Oh, a sewing kit and fabric? Alright, that I can keep an eye out for, but gotta get back. Don’t want to die.”

Crow’s divided consciousness returned. He didn’t entirely leave himself vulnerable. After clearing out the hidden room, he went to the next floor and found himself in a bedroom. There were too many potential threats, so he ran for the next set of stairs and then peered back. Nothing had moved, but after surveying the room, he didn’t care if he missed a treasure.

The bed alone could hide a dozen Changelings. He knew he was overly paranoid but didn’t care. The next room was another bedroom, but something destroyed this one long ago. All that was left of the bed were wooden scraps left behind. None of the wooden furniture looked large enough to be a Changeling. Still, since they had powerful illusion abilities, he didn’t let his guard down. Even a dead Changeling’s magic didn’t fully dissipate, so he couldn’t underestimate their ability to surprise him.

Honestly, he wasn’t even sure what this challenge was about. He understood he needed to get to the top, and others were not far behind him. Only, he didn’t know if these rooms had any purpose. After checking through the debris, he found nothing out of the ordinary. Not even any Changelings. Several floors later, he entered a library, only there were no books left. Just hundreds of empty shelves, which is where things became tricky.

There were no stairs upward, but above the shelves that went as high as ten meters, a railing surrounded the room. After scoring the wood with his arrow, he started climbing. The shelves were sturdy enough, but he chose to climb where there was a divide between the frames. He hoped it was safer and more durable closer to where the shelves anchored to the sides.

Although he had to put away his bow, he kept his soul-linked arrow clenched between his teeth. A few meters off the ground, he heard a tremendous racket below. Crow looked down to see one of the bald-headed Vodun climb out of the wreckage of a shelf and looking back toward the stairs he just ascended. At first, he overlooked Crow because he performed some gestures and the white tattoos on his blue skin glowed.

Afterward, several shelves exploded.

“Knock it off, you idiot!” Crow shouted down as his current perch started to shake and sway. “The shelves are the only way out.”

The Vodun, upon seeing Crow, smiled sinisterly. His hands started moving, and his tattoos glowed once more.

Crow jumped to gain height faster. Thinking about it, he realized he probably should have gone back down. Now Crow was more vulnerable than ever. He could only grit his teeth and climb upward erratically and hope the bastard missed.

The Hex Vodun screamed out, and Crow sensed a disturbance in the mana around him. All he could do was grip the shelf tightly and pray for a miracle.