Niko could feel the essence shift and roil around Ronald, and at first couldn’t help but be confused at what he was feeling. It was as though something large just moved past him, but instead of a normal breeze, the essence was what moved. He trusted that Ronald could control whatever it was he was doing, however, given that his essence control rivaled Niko’s.

“I feel whatever that is,” Skye commented, “What are you doing right now?”

“Oh, that’s nothing.” Ronald shook his head, “I’m just checking my range.”

“Range?” Dachna blinked before quickly stepping away from Ronald until his skin stopped prickling. Niko had already been beyond the radius, but the others quickly joined him and Dachna.

Ronald flexed his internal pattern, and Niko could see it blaze beneath his skin for a split second. Essence condensed around him in a dome of mostly transparent white energy, leaving Ronald frowning. “Mmm… Not quite.”

Without warning, the energy collapsed and reformed, creating a much smaller, but far more opaque construct that resembled a shield. Niko clucked with surprise as it floated beside Ronald, “Oh? You can make constructs?”

Skye translated curiously, and Ronald nodded, “Force constructs, but the stronger I make them the more essence I need, too. This, he gestured to his work, barely takes anything to maintain. And also…” He pulled out his glaive, which flashed white for a split second as he took a stance with it. Ronald looked over at a fallen log, more than ten meters away, and then stabbed out at the wood. A white, superimposed image of his glaive shot forward ahead of his strike, hitting the wood with a sharp, loud ‘crack’ that startled Niko. Fragments of wood spiraled away from the impact site, and Niko noticed immediately that a long gouge now ran the length of the log. Ronald then moved back to a resting position, “I can make three constructs at once, so long as I latch one to an anchor,” at the last part, he hefted his glaive meaningfully, “I think I can do better later, but that’s what I’ve got for now.”

“How much damage can that shield take?” Skye eyed the still-floating barrier beside him.

Ronald looked at Niko with an unasked question, who nodded vigorously, “Can do!” He crowed, before setting his own stance while charging his leg pattern and beak pattern. He launched himself forward explosively and with as much piercing power as he could muster, struck the shield. It gave way partly under the impact, but Niko pulled away with a stunned expression on his face.

“Damn, I tore through Reese’s shield easily with that hit. This thing is pecking tough!” Niko stood up straighter, before charging his foot pattern again. Before anyone could suggest he wait, Niko kicked the shield with his talons out. He felt the barrier crumple oddly under his foot, but it remained functional.

Dachna and Skye whistled at the damage it had withstood appreciatively, the former of which saying, “That is tough. How far can it be from you?”

Ronald opened his mouth before pausing, “Huh… Not entirely sure.” At that, he guided it farther and farther away from him. When it was finally thirty meters away, he grit his teeth with concentration. He managed to push it thirty one before it flickered out of existence.

“Damn, it was fine up until the thirty mark, then just suddenly got ridiculously hard.” Ronald shook his head, “Gave me one heck of a headache, too.”

“Really useful,”Mithel began as she seemed to be searching through her own thoughts, “If we can… Dachna?”

“Yeees?” He answered with a slight amount of wariness.

“Can you empower one of those to draw attention?” Mithel stared at him with excitement building in her eyes.

Excitement which spread in an instant to the rest of the group.

“Oh, that’s dirty! Ronald, can you summon a new one?” Dachna asked, and Niko found himself delighted at the prospect of a barrier that could damn near force someone to pay attention to it.

Ronald snapped his fingers theatrically as another shield blipped into existence, looking near identical to the first.

“Fast summoning, too,” Skye noted, which set Mithel to practically foaming at the mouth as she seemingly realized another tactic.

“Concentrate,” she chastised herself, before watching as Dachna pointed at the shield.

Suddenly white became silver, and the shimmering air of it attracted Niko’s attention like no other. Before he could go down that rabbit-hole, though, Niko clamped his eyes closed, “Yup! That still works.”

“Wow, I think it’s even prettier like this.” Skye said, and from their connection, Niko could second-hand feel the unnatural fascination she had with the barrier.

“Huh, that feels… odd?” Ronald frowned, “I can feel a layer of some kind of essence on the shield. And the attention pulling… thing seems to be stronger.”

Dachna dismissed the ability with a frown, “Really going to need to practice with this one as a group, though. We’ll just be doing as much damage to ourselves as to anyone else at this rate.”

“Can you choose who it affects?” Mithel asked as she rubbed her eyes.

“I think so, but it’s going to take a lot of practice.” Dachna nodded slowly.

“Come to think of it, I never asked you exactly what you can do, Niko.” Ronald turned his attention back over to the Phorus intently, before pausing, “Oh, actually, one last thing. My other ability is… odd. I don’t think I can even use it out of combat.”

That drew everyone’s attention back to Ronald.

“It should act like a buff, but… I don’t know exactly what it’s going to do?” He frowned, “When I made it, I was kind of… out of my mind in a way?”

“Meaning?” asked Skye with a quirked eyebrow.

“I don’t really remember what the last bit of things was like. It’s a little murky in my mind.” Niko listened to Ronald’s explanation with a great deal of doubt on his face. Hopefully, whatever ability it was wouldn’t be dangerous. But, if nothing else, that’s why they were out here and not in the Elderwood.

After unsuccessfully trying to dig more possible information out of Ronald regarding his other pattern, the group turned their attention back to Niko. He’d explained his patterns somewhat previously, but now he went into greater depth. His eyesight pattern gave him his mastery over sensing essence, as well as just greater visual acuity. The pattern that ran the length of his beak and then trailed off into the rest of his body predominantly focused on sharpening his beak along with a general increase in physical ability. His leg pattern did that partly as well, but it was complex in its own way, giving both explosive power, speed, and the ability to dampen his passing through an area to normal senses.

His final pattern had been the hardest by far to create, but the results spoke for themselves.

Dachna whistled, “I didn’t realize that was one pattern. I thought you had two mobility based patterns.”

“How do you even have three!?” Mithel exclaimed, “I feel cheated!”

Ronald, on the other hand, only looked on with amazement, “Wait, have you had this the entire time?”

The Wyldwalkers all looked to their bird member with acute focus. Niko briefly considered saying that he only had the entire set from adulthood onwards, but he stopped himself. Lying over something that frankly didn’t matter seemed, to him, in poor taste.

“Yeah, I’ve always had these. Well, at least for longer than you guys have known me.” Niko answered, “I don’t know if I can make more, I’ve been holding off because I don’t even know what else I might need.”

“Wait, can you even get another yet? You’re not…” Mithel trailed off as she thought about it more, “Actually, you had three patterns at tier one, maybe you can have more before tier four.”

The conversation shifted briefly to suggestions on what Niko could potentially go for, but they quickly refocused their efforts to figuring out what could do with what they had now. After all, they didn’t even know if Niko could have another pattern in the first place, so it would be best to spend their time practicing with what they did have.

Moving through the forest undetected was easy for Skye, Dachna, and Niko, but the Wyldwalkers quickly realized that Mithel and Ronald had no such luck. Though, in Ronald's case he was at least now wearing a far less noisy set of armor than his old, more eclectic set of plate and leather that the group had struggled with when they were last in these parts. Stella had made him what looked like lighter leather armor, but had the durability of tier two plate armor. According to her, the set would still be pretty effective for Ronald even into tier three. It was, however, still very stiff and did not allow him as much freedom of movement as Dachna, Skye, Mithel, or Niko had.

Niko himself was actually outfitted in armor as well, but it was mostly unobtrusive, a sort of tabard of hardened leather decorated with feather-patterns that ran the length of his chest and under his body. His ribs were likewise protected by a few loose bands, but the leather left plenty of space for him to move around without constraining him too tightly.

Each of the other three wore even lighter armor than Ronald and Niko, though Skye was something of a medium build. Granted, her barkskin was armor in and of itself, so even if she was lightly armored, Niko expected that she could take a great deal more damage than most of the rest of the team.

All of that was to say, even in lighter armor, Ronald was still not a very quiet traveler.

Niko slowed his steps as he began to refocus himself. It was like slipping into a well-worn pair of shoes, comfortable and familiar, as he began to feel the forest around himself. After so long in the city, Niko was exceedingly happy to be able to stretch his legs and further practice his hunting. He’d felt himself slipping slightly, though certainly he’d learned how to fight better while he was training. There was just something missing from all that, an itch unscratched, that he now had the opportunity to satisfy.

Niko was filled with a need to find prey, to hunt.

He briefly noted the position of the Wyldwalkers around him and began to filter out the smells and sounds he could perceive from them. Dachna and Skye were nearly silent, but the other two were audible from quite a ways off. He felt briefly irritated by how clumsy they were, but he tried not to fault them. In the first place, they weren’t hunters, they didn’t know the ways of the forest like he did. He supposed Skye did, and perhaps Dachna, albeit his jungle was of the manmade variety, perhaps the streets he’d grown up in were worse than Niko knew.

‘More excess thoughts,’ Niko quieted his mind, ‘Focus on the here, the now. Find the trails.’

As he moved forward quicker, Skye sent him a slight prod through their connection, but he quickly sent one back with the intent that filled him, the drive for the hunt. He heard her footsteps slow at the contact, before she fell back in line slightly farther back. Niko didn’t pay direct attention to what she was doing beyond noting that she was making hand signs at Dachna and then falling back enough to communicate with Ronald and Mithel.

When they continued following after him, Niko took that as tacit understanding that they would follow him in the hunt. ‘Good, then, let’s see what we can find.’ Satisfied, Niko slipped lower to the ground, the stealth side of his pattern drinking deeply of his essence. On reflex, he began to control it more directly, infusing it with just the slightest touch of his desire to be unseen and unheard.

The effect wasn’t dramatic, but Niko couldn’t especially hear his own footsteps, besides. He would spare only enough attention to work on his more directed control, the rest would be for the hunt at hand. The forest was rich with life, and the leaves all around them were rustling from a combination of wind and smaller creatures that Niko would have called squirrels, if not for the subtle differences that made them look not quite like what he was used to. Rodents, bugs, and other much smaller birds were everywhere.

None registered his passing, but they did react a bit to Dachna when he was upon them. Even so, they were nearly unnoticeable in the grand scheme of things. Niko wasn’t interested in any of them, though, and pushed onwards, hoping to find something worthwhile to hunt. Perhaps some Ironback Badgers, maybe they could even range a bit further afield and find something new?

Niko briefly felt a flicker of guilt at his desire to hunt, but quashed it readily. Some beasts were intelligent, yes, but that didn’t mean all beasts were reasonable. In the first place, hunting one another for essence was something he’d discovered was not only perfectly acceptable, but expected as a matter of course.

For several minutes, the Wyldwalkers followed after Niko, Skye and Dachna working to ensure they never lost sight of the Phorus. They were getting better at moving soundlessly as they went, and after thirty minutes, Niko found himself approving of how much they were trying.

However, that was not to be confused with approving of how well they were actually doing. Ronald and Mithel were awful still, but the thought counted. It was partly his job to make sure that they were far enough away from anything that could be hunted that he could stop them in time.

There was just one problem…

‘Where the peck is everything?’ Niko was beginning to feel a sense of alarm in the back of his head as he moved deeper and deeper into the forest. ‘It feels like there’s a storm cloud coming in, but there’s… nothing.’ The thought troubled him, and the more he swept his environment with his senses, the more Niko felt like there was a sense of tension in the air.

Niko passed where his nest was, not taking a detour towards it. He couldn’t explain why, just that something seemed… off.

Skye moved forward and towards Niko, who slowed his steps to let her gain on him. He was curious if she could feel something off as well, though whether that would set him at ease or not was uncertain.

“Something’s wrong out here,” Skye didn’t mince words, and he noted that the half elf seemed to be passively drawing on the forest's power. Bark spread across her skin, but didn’t form gauntlets just yet. He wondered if she even realized she was doing it, but before he could say anything, she asked, “Do you feel it?”

Niko nodded, “Something’s different. I’m trying to find anything worth hunting out here, but even the smaller creatures are becoming scarce.”

Skye nodded, “I noticed, too. What do you think? Turn back, or do more checking?”

With a frown, Niko glanced deeper into the forest, before shaking his head, “I’m not the navigational leader, that’s your job. But, I know I’d kick myself in the clucking head if we missed something important.”

Skye nodded, before gesturing back at the rest of the team. It didn’t take them long to catch up, double timing it after their druid signed them that they were clear. She let them know what she and Niko had been feeling.

Dachna nodded along, “I have noticed fewer critters are around to get annoyed at me sneaking up on them as we go.”

The others grinned at that for a moment before they returned to being serious. “I say we check things out. Niko can keep in the lead, but Dachna can you trail with them in case something tries to sneak up on us from the back?” Skye glanced to the rogue as she asked her question.

“Definitely,” Dachna nodded, “If we find anything, are we fighting or fleeing?”

Skye pulled hair behind her ear and looked at Niko thoughtfully before she shook her head, “We back off if we find something. Unless Niko judges it as an imminent threat, but otherwise we’ll just scout the area out and report in. And, to be clear… We don’t strictly need to do this much. We probably have enough clout to be able to make a report based off of just feeling off. So, if anyone disagrees, this is the time.”

The others didn’t need to contemplate the question. Ronald stated, “We do it right. Find confirmation of some kind.” Nods of agreement went around at that, and Niko turned his attention to Skye.

“Alright, lead the way, Niko.” She said, before reminding him, “Remember, if you find something, try to back off first. We don’t want a fight on our hands without information.”

Niko snorted, “I may be a bird made for battle, but that doesn’t make me a complete battle fanatic. Trust me, I’ll back off if we find something.”

Skye smiled as Niko turned and led the way deeper into the Evergreen.