Standing outside the Black Forest, the night's chill rustling through the long grass was all that could be heard. There was no hum of insects or nature in general, just silence. Perrin thought that it felt like the anticipation of something, but nothing ever happened. The trees towered over him like ancient giants from his worst nightmare. The only word that adequately described their size was colossal.

Something was whispering in his mind. Perrin felt as though he was on a high cliff the longer he gazed at the dark coal bark. The thought of, "what if I jumped," was the only way he could explain it. He wanted to go in there, and the longer he looked, the stronger the urge was.

"Perrin?" Came a voice behind him.

He should just take a peek in the forest, just to see what it was about. It was creepy, sure, but why not. He made it to the edge of the scorched like ground before he found himself facing the big purple eyes of his beautiful companion. He tried to turn back, but his head would not move a centimeter.

He continued to gaze into her purple irises as the rings began to glow with a soft inner light. Perrin blinked. A chilly feeling washed through him. It was soothing and jarring at the same time. It felt as though he'd just woken up with a splash of brisk water.

"What the… Maze why are you holding my face?"

She sighed in relief, then hugged him. It was also an awkward hug since, well, they both had armor on. Her fascinating scent of cherries and limes filled his nose giving, a heady feeling permeating through him. It ended all too soon as Mazikeen pushed him to an arm's length.

"I leave you for five seconds, and you are already trying to get yourself killed."

"I don't know what happened. I remember you walking over to the guards… I wanted to look at the forest up close, you know to see if it was actually black or burnt then… nothing." He looked around to notice that he was now a considerable distance from the memory of his last location. "How did I get here. I could have sworn I was closer."

"Perrin listen to me. Do not go near that forest again. Why do you think the camp is so far away when there is a small field right be side that… Thing. There is something wrong with it. I can feel it's influence now that I'm looking for it, but my mental defense is absolute. You don't have mental defenses that stage two would give you. Even our entire escort is in the mind and soul stage." She pulled away from him, looking away in what he thought might be a shame. "I'm sorry lover. My presence here continues to make its self evident at how big of a disadvantage I've put you in. I wish you would have just left me there."

Perrin needed to nip the budding issue quickly. She was making progress to becoming much more regular and stable. He already regretted his childishness after the arena. He was a grown-ass man and could talk about the issues on his mind. The anger had been so intense, unrealistically so at. He’d never experienced so much anger like that before. He could still feel the aftershocks wanting to rise up and rage at everyone and everything around him. Perrin prided himself at being cool-headed, emotions leaned out, and smooth like a summer pond without wind. It had been why he'd been so good at being under pressure.

He reached for her as she tried to walk away. He put his hand on her shoulder and turned her back to face him. "I don't Maze. I'm grateful that you are with me. Even if I'm at a disadvantage I think it is worth it for your company. I honestly don't know if I could take being here alone. I don't do well being isolated even before this."

It was a very true statement. His life fell to shit when he was isolated. The time after Addison's betrayal, he'd rented a one bedroom apartment. He had gone to a very dark place, and his thoughts had started slipping to dark deeds that could be done to Getty. How he knew he could get away with it and all the tips and tricks he picked up in his time in Special Forces. If a friend hadn't randomly stopped in to distract him, he wasn't sure how far down that rabbit hole he would have gone.

Just because you can do a thing doesn't mean you should. I hated Addison for what she did, but I still love her even now. Love is a real fucker like that. I know she doesn't deserve even an ounce of my feelings for her, but there it is. It makes it worse when you get older and start understanding why people do certain things. Why a woman leaves a man, she loves because he's a gambler or an alcoholic. It's her one life too, and they deserve to be happy. I guess I was more broken during that time than I thought, and she couldn't understand. A moment of weakness later… well, there it is.

"Lets just pretend that it doesn't matter. You are here with me. I want, need, and appreciate your companionship."

Her eyes were brimming with unshed tears, but a smile was wide on her face.

"So do you know what that was exactly?" Perrin waved at the black tree mountain behind him.

"I want to say it was something called a lure. I can't say for sure. I don't even think the lure was actually meant for you. It's very primitive which is probably why I didn't notice it. Its purpose is most likely to catch stray animals. Listen, can you even hear insects around us. The creatures around here have adapted to avoid this place. Still, how you even held out as long as you did is surprising. You must have considerable will power."

"A little thing known as Selection followed by a vacation called SEREs training. Both will do wonders for establishing mental fortitude and truly understanding what pain tolerance actually is.” He said with a chuckle.

"I don't know what those are but I'm glad that they helped you. I fear if I hadn't returned a moment sooner then you would be in there."

"I still broke though. I would have been in there if you hadn't grabbed me. This magic anima stuff is not feeling very awesome right now."

"Yes. Its why those who start ascending should not be around non-magical planes. Mortals become no more than babes. It's one of several reasons the first war was fought."

"I've actually been wondering about that. This whole elaborate crap hole was designed for me to go and help fight a war. What war? Why should I fight in it? I really don't care what everyone wants me to do. This is my life. If I had thought up this freak show then I would have at least left a book or whatever to let me know… I don't know. Why I should even try. My goal right now is to just get out of this place in one piece. I never agreed to fight a war for anyone." He looked at Mazikeen questionably.

"It's complicated and simple at the same time. The right to rule. The other side does have there points else I would have never even considered changing over. I know it's frustrating but it's a topic best left for another time. I'm pretty sure you said you wanted to fight monsters not talk about philosophical reasons why to groups oppose each other."

"You are absolutely correct Maze. I don't like it at all and want answers now, but after having my brain fucked with once again; I just want to swing Gertha at something squishy."

*********

"Maze, dammit, these things are NOT squishy." He yelled as Gertha chipped off a piece of carapace from the monkey-faced crab that was trying to kill him.

"Would you like to swap?" She shot back.

Perrin finally got the upper hand on the strange thing when it swiped down with its claws, and he sidestepped the strike. He swung Gertha down in the same maneuver splitting the forehead of the creature. Looking towards the voice's owner. Mazikeen was fighting a wolf with an antelope head. The size of the beast was comparable to a Clydesdale. Not for the first time, he thought this place was seriously messed up. The talons on that thing were ridiculously long, and the head was just stupid. It was like someone typed in a code to randomly generate these things.

Regardless he most certainly did not want to fight the wolf alone. No, these small fry monkey crabs were just fine. They were as ugly as sin. The crab part was lobster red, which made no sense given they were in a green field. The head that looked exactly like an angry baboon was not pleasant. They only came up to about his chest. His head was the only spot on him that posed any real danger to him. The armor he received from Toggi was good at its job. He had taken a blow straight to the chest that he was sure should have caved it in, but it just felt like a swat with a plastic bat. They could ring your bell if you got hit just right, but it mostly just stung.

His next victim crawled over its companion and struck out at him while his head was turned. He dodged out of the way of the thing swung Gertha at its head, creating another corpse for the pile.

Perrin found to his delight that the hood of his cloak was more unique than he'd realized. It did more than hide his face in the darkness. It happen to be tricked out with some type of night vision. It made the world look black and white, but it was quite clear. He could see for about fifteen meters out, then it sort of teetered off. When he asked Mazikeen about it, she said he lacked the anima to get the armor's full benefits. Perrin would need to ask her about the armor when they got back.

A much larger monkey crab came into his cloaks range. This one was closer to the size of the wolfalope. "Oh, Maze I think maybe this is the boss of this mob. I might need a little help over here."

"Perrin, I'm a little busy right now. This thing just won't die. I've rip the things heart out three times, and relieved it of it's head. They just grow back." She looked over at the crab coming his way. "You should probably be able to kill that thing. If it gets to hairy I'll step in."

Perrin wasn't so sure about that. He was confident that something would be getting handled, mostly likely involving him and large crab claws. He was also running out of gas. These little ones were pretty easy to kill, but there had been a lot of them. The act of fighting for twenty minutes straight was no easy task.

It's definitely not like it is in the movies, that's for sure, and octagon fighters makes it look easy. If I hadn't been such a cardio freak before this, I'm pretty sure I would have been done ten minutes ago.

Hoping to catch a second wind, he moved towards the large lobster colored monster. This one was much faster than its less variant, which Perrin found out as it shot forward, swatting him in the side. He went tumbling assholes to elbows across the ground a good 5 meters away.

Not messing around, he rolled away from his landing spot just in time to avoid a two claw pounce. He jumped to his feet and went for the thing's back leg where it connected to its outer shell. Ramming Gertha home in its soft fleshy joint. The baboon's head scream, which made him want to pee. Angry baboon screaming was scary as fuck after all.

Pulling Gertha back before the thing could turn on him, Perrin dodge out of the reach of the spinning thing's claw swipe. Trying to capitalize on the opening, he went in for a head chop, but the thing batted Gertha away before he could connect. The monkey crab boss was enraged now as it kept rushing him. It was all he could do to keep out of the things reach. It kept pouring forward and swiping. Every so often, it would try to pounce on him with a double claw hammer. He felt like he found the monster's rhythm, and on the next pounce, he struck the right front leg joint at the shell. That one slowed the monster down considerably. He slowly wore the thing down, managing to get another front leg and one of its claw arms.

Finally gettin the opening he needed, Gertha slide into the things skull. It was a good thing, too, because his arms and leg were numb. His breathing was ragged, and his blood felt like acid. If anything else came out to fight, there was no way he would be able to handle it. Perrin dismissed his blade and put his hands behind his head, trying to catch his breath and slow his heart rate. Several pings went off after the thing died, but he couldn't be bothered to look at them while he was trying to hold his stomach contents in.

Mazikeen appeared beside him and clapped him on the back. "Good job lover. I didn't have to help you at all."

In a voice in between heaves, he said, "It would have been nice… to have a little help. That thing… almost got me more than once. Fuuuuck I'm out of shape. What were you doing over there? Just playing with the damn thing."

"I was letting you "Kill shit" as you asked. You clearly didn't need me. You fought well lover. Your swordsmanship leaves much to be desired, but overall you lasted much longer than I thought you would."

Idiot woman let me fight until I almost threw up. Gods, I still might. I haven't had to go so hard in years.

"Well next time lets not let "Lover Kill shit" completely by himself. I have mortal endurance where you are the energized bunny I know.”

"Oh lover, your endurance is impressive. It will be more than enough." She smirked at him as she rubbed her hand done his chest.

"You're incorrigible Maze. Come on lets get lover back so he can lay down and maybe sleep for a year or two. I don't want to wait on something else to come." He said in exhaustion.

She wrapped him up in something, and she took off bounding towards the camp.

"Can't you fly? I'm pretty sure you were in the sky when we were in the arena."

"I can but the power comes with my path. As I have said I don't use it unless I have to."

"Oh so I guess I won't be flying anytime soon then?"

She laughed and shook her head, "Not anytime soon. It's possible to do it before a path but I never bothered to learn. Those techniques came after the Ways were built so I never found the need. My path gave me the power enough to fly, so why learn something inferior. I just recently puzzled out my problem so I hadn't actually thought about the handicap it placed on me until now. I can move really fast. If something actually called for me to fly then I would probably need my path to handle it even if I detest the thing."

Mazikeen dropped Perrin down right outside the camp, and they walked the rest of the way in. He waved to one of the guards on watch and kept moving towards the small shack that he still thought looked like a shitter. Getting closer to the thing, an unbelievably foul stench seemed to be getting stronger with every step. It smelled like rancid cat urine and egg farts.

"Good gods what the hell is that smell?" He said, gaging a little.

She chortled, "You don't think this thing actually looks like a primitive bathroom do you? It can look however I desire. I put that smell up to keep them from poking around it. They couldn't get in without me, but no reason to chance it." Mazikeen waved her hand, and the smell instantly dissipated.

"You could have warned me. That was awful."

"Effective is what I would call it, " she snickered.

They walked into the shrunk, and Perrin changed out his armor in his inventory. Walking over to the chair sitting in the corner of the room, he fell into its softness. He was beyond exhausted. The fighting had been way more than he bargained for. He could tell that he was going to be really sore in the morning, most likely. All he wanted to do was sleep, but he knew he needed to speak with Mazikeen. Not to mention his notifications that kept vying for his attention.

Mazikeen was preparing some type of drink with an odd contraption he'd thought looked more like a chemistry set. He decided while she working on whatever it was, he'd get tonight's prizes. Getting a little shock of motivation to see his gains, he mentally prodding his notifications.