There were dozens of tall raptors which ran on their hind legs and were at least the size of camels, and swarming at their feet were what looked like hundreds of much smaller raptors, about knee height, that bobbed their viciously toothed heads as they ran towards our fortifications. Shiana was shooting at the larger ones, but I was suddenly incredibly grateful for the time I had spent preparing my little surprises.

All three of our banded, Cassie, Shiana and Raphael glowed briefly as the death of the megaraptor in front of us registered on their systems, and I suddenly felt almost heavier as my body was flooded with Quintessence from the titanic beast’s death.

Bran, you are now at over 300% of your evolution unlock strength. If you exceed 400%, you may be harmed from backlash from Quintessence overload.

I really don’t have time to deal with it right now, Sweety. If I hit 400%, find an evolution for YOU instead of me to burn some of it off, I need to save quintessence for compressing my core.

I [observed] the creatures, and their detailed descriptions made me glad I was a huge fan of dinosaurs when I was a kid.

Evolved Utahraptor (Dangerous) level 18 equivalent

On Antowyn, utahraptors are still a surviving species in certain hidden parts of the world, as well as other Cretaceous and Jurassic era creatures.

This utahraptor is over a thousand pounds of pure predator. Unlike movies you have seen, utahraptors are not brilliant pack hunters, able to work doorknobs or puzzle out advanced electronics, however, their ruthless viciousness more than makes up for this lack, especially since you do not have a freezer to hide in.

Balaur Bondoc (Cautious) Level 15 equivalent

The balaur bondoc are a smaller, fast-breeding form of raptor that possess two spurs on each foot rather than the one common to most raptors. Also unlike most other raptors, they are squat, extremely muscular, dwarf raptors that are known for bringing down much larger opponents. Almost 40 pounds each, they hunt in large family groups that are capable of tearing to shreds even titanic opponents.

“Those things will have absolutely no trouble jumping up the barricade.” Raphael remarked helpfully, and I nodded and replied, “So I guess we need to make sure that they never even get to it, right?” I looked at him closely and noticed he had put his swords away. In this fight, against human-sized opponents, his staff and claws would be vastly more useful. “Hey slugger, you think you can catch the leading edge with a thrown rock?” I asked.

He nodded, and I pulled out one of my poisonous bombs, attaching an eight-second temporal knot to it and a lump of animation to trigger it. As I put it into his hand, I started chanting, “eight, seven, six, five, four…”

At five he wound up like a pitcher on the Yankee's mound, and at four he cut loose. I should have suspected his timing would be nearly perfect, as a giant yellow-green cloud appeared in the thickest part of the creatures about a foot above the ground, just before it hit a tree. I actually sort of wished I had given him the firebomb, as it would have been a perfect shot for an airburst. I could probably have gotten it almost as far using my sling, but without practicing I couldn’t have hoped for that kind of accuracy.

I set another one for 6 seconds and handed it to him, counting from 6 and pointing to the left of the first cloud. Raphael nodded, and at 3 slung the bomb so it was a bit closer to us. A third bomb, even closer, and the utahraptors came staggering out of the now-dispersing fog. I had no idea of what they were feeling, but the way their heads hung low, and several of them were choking out as they stumbled from the clouds, implied strongly that they were NOT doing well.

Shiana started launching arrows at each large raptor as it came out of the clouds, their slowed movement allowing her to choose her shot, and each one seemed to sprout from a throat or eye. I noticed that Kalika was on the barrier with us now, and with lifted hands, the ground in front of the poisonous clouds, now choked with the bodies of fallen balaurs, started sprouting roots that clung to and slowed the heavy raptors in a broad swath.

I glanced down and noticed Cassie, her dented bronze helmet replaced with the heavily padded scale hood I had made for her to match the armor, was squatting heavily in front of the opening, her large round shield in front of her, the bottom edge braced against the side of her forward foot as she prepared to defend the opening.

It looked, though, like Cassie and my part in the fight was almost over, as each arrow resulted in a poisoned, and now dead, great raptor. I handed Raphael one more poison bomb, and he launched it right into a slow group of balaurs that had finally caught up to the utahraptors through the dispersed prior cloud. All three of my companions had glowed again with level-ups, and I realized that they were all 19, or close to their next class specialization and an additional craft or gather skill each.

A few moments later we were in front of a literal sea of dead lizards, and most of us sat down to catch our breath, myself included. “I will tell you what.” I stated, “I will clean up those Utahraptors, and look for special ingredients, but I am NOT going to skin that many damned Balaurs.”

Shiana giggled and then nodded, “I agree. We still have one more boss and Raphael’s downtime. We could be here a week trying to skin and butcher them all. To be fair, you killed them with poison, I don’t think we should even try to collect the meat.”

I nodded slowly, “I think maybe one of them we collect the meat from, just to see if it’s still poisoned. Raphael might enjoy it.” The jaguar in question grinned, massaging the shoulder of his throwing arm.

Kalika just sighed a little, and added, “I am just glad that is over. You were right about your team, Bran, you guys work amazingly well together. I am reasonably certain that this qualifies as a great battle, so if we head to Rabbit Run and someone catches a whiff, I will be able to honestly claim that I was in a great battle. A Mark of honor rather than a mark of failure.”

We got up and stepped off the debris pile we had previously thought of as our fortress and started picking our way through the monsters. Raphael ripped out the throat of one that twitched, but the poison from the bomb must have kept doing damage after the cloud dispersed, because several were dead without even an arrow in them.

A few moments later Shiana joined us and started fishing arrows out of the large corpses. With a loud sigh, I started [observing] the dead creatures for special loot. Because they were animals, except for the fat deposits that could be used to preserve their skins, the special loot that could be cut from their bodies was rather thin. In total, we got 4 small nature cores, and I think the dungeon core had gone with quantity, rather than quality, with the Balaurs.

I sniffed Kalika. “You know, The smell seems to have faded. I think the self-cleaning enchantment on your armor has helped wear it off. A good bath and I doubt anyone will smell anything. I have a really good nose, and I cannot smell it anymore.”

She nodded, “I cannot smell it either over the scent of blood, gore, and guts strewn around here. We will have to test it once we get clean, though. The water around here isn’t good for anything other than animals, but Rabbit Run is barely a day away, and I know of a very good bathhouse that uses volcanic mineral water for bathing and has the best-smelling herbal soaps.”

I groaned, “just rub it in. I feel like I have been run through a bloody wringer.” I chuckled, and we got to work skinning the utahraptors and megaraptor while Shiana started looting the corpses of the balaurs.

The amount of hides and meat even from Shiana’s autoloot was.. overwhelming. More and more of it had to go into my storage, as Cassie’s and Shiana’s limited space was filled up rapidly. All told, we wound up with almost one hundred and 50 hides, already prepared, just from advanced looting. We also got a ton of meat, and I mean that literally, over a ton. It was not poisoned, although I had no idea if it would have been had I butchered the creatures the traditional way.

Kalika watched the process in confusion. “I have seen autolooting before, but… is it normal to get so many hides and so much meat?” She asked.

Shiana shook her head. “Bran cannot autoloot at all. I have very high survival and leatherworking skills, and I can either do it the traditional way or autoloot. Usually, when someone autoloots they only get a tiny fraction of what they would doing it manually, with the assumption that they have no skill and thus would wreck the corpses or screw up trying to tan the hides. Since my skill is high, though, I get a tanned hide off of almost every corpse that has a useful hide, and a much larger portion of the good meat.”

Shiana added, “Of course, the meat you get from autolooting doesn’t have any essence, while the meat you get from butchering is filled with the monster’s actual essence. Usually, the meat I get is called the same thing as pieces from farm animals, like chops, breasts, bacon, hams, or steaks, and can be used interchangeably for that in a cooking recipe, while cutting the meat manually gives you the actual monster’s flavor, which is often way, way better and richer than a generic steak or chop.”

I nodded to Kalika, “I used monster meat for those Gyros we had last night. It is almost a rule that if it is edible, the more essence and more powerful a creature is the better it tastes. Maybe the extra energy tells your taste buds that it is better for them or something? All I know is that I have a huge amount of monster meat stored in my storage space right now, and the whole thing is almost exclusively devoted to leather and meat at this point.” I laughed, “Could you imagine me, or anyone, trying to actually CARRY all the meat and leather we have collected?”

Kalika nodded slowly. “So, you have, quite possibly, thousands or hundreds of thousands of gold pieces worth of monster ingredients stored in your… magical storage right now?”

I shrugged. “I don’t have any idea. I mean, I am local, so it’s not like I need to send it back to another world or anything. No one is going to sell me a castle, or want to live next to me in a house, or want to do business with me if I owned a shop, so I don’t need a location, I get all the food and stuff I need out here in the wilderness. All I really need towns for is to unload and pick up a few supplies, and to try to track down information.”

The meat from the utahraptors we had killed was poisoned, according to my [observe], or at least it was packed with quintessence and poison essence. It was far less poison essence than a small core, however, so I wound up butchering two of the creatures in hopes that it would allow me and my teammates to build up poison resistance without risking death. Since it didn’t mention what sort of poison it was, I had high hopes that the essence itself was not very dangerous in small doses or blended with quintessence. In large doses, like the amount that the raptors had absorbed from my bomb, it was deadly.

Raphael asked me, “What kind of information are you trying to track down?”

We had fought together, joked together, eaten together, and made dick jokes together, but he was wearing a band. “Let’s just say that the bands you are wearing are more and less than you think they are. This world is both more and less than you think it is, and everything here is not...what the developers claim. I intend to find out how I wound up here, and I know that there is some necromancer bastard in Sindaenaway that has murdered at least two of us and stuck us here, at least seventy light-years away from our home. Me, and a young lady named Lily. I aim to find out what they are doing and put a stop to it if I can, as well as find out if they can make me human again.”

Raphael nodded slowly, and said, “I get what you are saying, and I can tell you that to the best of my knowledge your suspicions are correct. Have you seen Neo’s movie?”

I nodded, and he continued, “I can tell you without a doubt that there is no way in a million years you could look at a leaf and see scrolling symbols because that’s not what this place is.” he seemed to be choosing his words carefully. “My people can see and feel the magic, and it is magic, not code. I am not sure where you got the seventy light-years from, but when I take a break I will ask my family how much I can tell you. Your magic is very strange, and not tied to the system very strongly, and I have hopes that one day you and I can meet face to face.”

Kalika made waving motions and changed the subject quickly. She had some idea of what was going on, and started up with, “necromancers are banned in Sindaenaway, as are experiments involving living souls or the creation of undead, by the ancient pact. The individual guilds are happy to follow the mage council’s direction and set up bounties on Winnowrills based on claims that we are raiding, but even the mages are not stupid enough to violate the pact directly and risk war.”

“The ongoing raiding is a tragedy for the young warriors of both sides, but the mages of Sindaenaway are mortal. They know that in the deep Winnowrill, with enough reasons, the Druids could direct the forest to EAT Sindaenaway, to kill everything and not leave a single stone standing atop another stone. Enslaving non-humans, placing living spirits inside of dead bodies with necromantic rituals, creating other undead, consorting with devils or demons, or creating abominations directly violates the pact between the Rhydian king and the Winnowrill, and invites the forces of chaos into the city. If the mages of Sindaenaway are doing that, we must let the Druid’s council in Rabbit Run know.”

I nodded, and that met with my own goals, although the feeling of getting pushed around by fate was still crowding me a bit. I would need to talk to Mnemosyne a bit more about what might have happened, and start planning out what sort of upgrades my party might need post level 20. I had a lot of fun making armor, and now that I was in a position to appreciate it, I intended to put my creativity to use making a new set for Shiana that protected her and also allowed her to use her appearance as a weapon.

I finally realized why Shiana had looked familiar the first time I had seen her. She could have been the live-action version of that well-endowed elf from the cover of those MMORPG games that had been popular last year, Evercrack.

For now, though, we ate some rations, not wanting to mess with our current food buffs, and had a dungeon boss to deal with.