“Whatever you do you cannot tell any of the Pyoxien about their nest beast,” said Azurumene.

“We should at least tell them.” Ang gestures to Thramuny and Druvyranya flying next to them engaged in their own conversation.

“We especially can’t tell them. I’d hate to upset Thramuny,” said Vlux.

“They’ll find out eventually,” said Ang.

“Give me some time. I may be able to come up with some alternative. Honestly, we need to rethink our whole nest beast system,” said Azurumene. “We rely too heavily on using one type of companion, and most have fallen ill.”

“But Rungii can cure them.”

“Ang, you can’t use Rungii to consume the malignancy on a dead body, reanimate it with a chimera worm, and call that a cure,” said Vlux.

“I told you it was an accident, Rungii was helping, but she already had it real bad. She went crazy, hit her head and fell. But her remaining eggs should be clear of the disease.”

“That’s at least one bit of good news. The Pyoxien can continue their soul mating rituals for now,” said Azurumene.

“Ang, why did you go into that cave? After your encounter with that tree, you should have walked back toward us. You know Kiliyi was worried about you.”

“I know I just, Dungii could detect that Tial-Meh was in trouble and we had to help.”

“Meep meep.”

“And the wyvern riders just let you pass?” said Azurumene.

“No, we had to trick them to get in.”

“We’ll talk about this later, we should land soon. Kiliyi says we’re close.”

“I’ll get their attention.” Azurumene produced a small bit of sparkly sand, and threw it into the air. Eio guided the reanimated Tial-Meh to the ground, Druvyranya followed. After flying over the Prism Peaks the land became an open savannah. Few large trees dotted the terrain, and expansive herds of horned, antlered, and tusked beasts filled the vast plains. They landed next to a tree just slightly taller than the great dragon.

“Is he here?” Asked Thramuny. Kiliyi crawled to a spot under the tree and dug up her crumpled exoskeleton.

“He found the carapace but he couldn’t have gotten too far. We should be able to track him in this open plain,” said Vlux.

Azurumene changed to his full Saberfang form, and he and Euyene began inspecting the area. After they sniffed around for a few minutes, Azurumene changed his head back and said. “It smells like there was more than one person here, and they seem to have split off in a few directions.”

“Then we need to work fast,” said Vlux. “Eio can you turn Tial-Meh invisible?” The great dragon disappeared and reappeared. “Excellent, stay invisible and scan the skies. Drumya can you turn full Vyranya.” Gradually, red scales creeped over his dark skin. Vyranya’s head emerged from the nap, and absorbed Drumya’s head. “Well done, Thramuny you’re going to fly with him, a wyvern and its rider shouldn’t attract too much attention. Remember to use that hair piece to communicate with me if either of you spot anything. Azurumene were going to search out there on foot. Dungii, I’ll need you to stay here and keep scanning the area in case they come back. If we don’t find our query within the hour, then we will all meet up at this tree. Euyene, Ang, Kiliyi, stay here with Dungii.”

“My, she’s good at this. I just have one thing to add,” said Azurumene. He changed back to his original form and reached his hand into the air. A large and predominantly blue parrot flew to him, on its back two gray spiders. “These are two of my informants. This spider is real, while this one is an exoskeleton, hopefully you can use it in the same way you use Kiliyi’s.”

“Wait is that one of my sisters.”

“Your sisters?” questioned Azurumene.

“That’s one of Kiliyi’s daughters, her exoskeleton should work the same as hers. She also adopted this preteen.”

“I see, I know a few of these beauties. Shockingly intelligent spiders. They leave me messages using special symbols. The parrot also knows the symbols and can say what they mean.” The spider jumped off the parrot and quickly drew a rune on the tree.

“Four men, five men.” said the parrot. “We saw four men here.”

“Which is it, four or five?” asked Thramuny.

“Their great at gathering information, just not perfect at relaying it.” said Azurumene.

“They're good enough, have them fly near us, that way if they spot anything they can communicate directly with me. We’ll have her exoskeleton stay here with you Kiliyi, if anything happens, you can get the message to me right away. Is everyone ready, let’s move.” They split up into their assigned groupings and started searching. Vlux and Azurumene in full tiger form ran for a few minutes to get out of earshot.

“Hey Vlux about your dwarf friend,” started Azurumene, his voice resonating in Vlux’s mind.

“You noticed didn’t you? That’s why I wanted to pair up with you. I don’t think Ang lied, but he certainly isn’t telling the whole truth. Something else happened in that cave.”

“Do you think he may have killed Tial-Meh on purpose?”

“No way, Ang would never do that. Besides, the only thing he has with enough power to harm a being like Tial-Meh would be his axe, and we saw him use its power to create that wall. An ability like that would take at least a couple of days to recharge.”

“Yes, that was fabulously impressive. He’s very young and blissfully unaware of what he accomplished back there. Their probably building a shrine to him as we speak.”

“He’s too good for his own good. I also wanted to know your thoughts on Drumya’s condition. He seems to have transformation skills like you, but as you stated previously, Vyranya has not completely merged with Drumya. I feel that may be a problem later.”

“You’re correct, they cannot remain like that forever. Either Drumya successfully assimilates Vyranya’s soul into himself, or they will slowly burn away from the inside out.”

“How did it work for you?”

“I was born with a gaping hole in my being. They say the only reason I survived is because on my way out I fractured off a piece of my mother’s soul and took it for myself.”

“How did you do that as a baby? Fracturing a soul requires a huge amount of energy, and it’s difficult to do without outright destroying the soul completely.”

“In the process of giving birth a mother’s soul becomes very brittle. If the child has a strong will to live, they can end up taking a piece of their mother's soul on the way out.”

“What happened to your mom?”

“She died, and I should have followed. Lucky for me, my father had passed away some time before my birth, leaving his soulmate tiger alone. He willingly gave himself to save me and in the process turned me into a druid.”

“So your soul is actually part female, and part tiger. That explains so much.”

“Tell me about it. What about you? Elucidators rarely make it to adulthood. I’ve delivered many babies, and the ones I’ve diagnosed as Elucidators are usually stillborn or die very young.”

“Yeah, I’m probably the oldest Elucidator ever. I was really fortunate. When I was born two sisters with incredible magic, just happened to be passing thru. My parents took me to them and begged them for help. They carefully traced these markings over my Imdrina channels. It stabilized my condition, but my parents were very protective of me; they didn’t let me go out or do anything. My sister taught me how to manipulate perception and gave me books so I could pretend like I was in some far off land. She didn’t anticipate how good I would get at it. I started fooling them into thinking I was home, as I snuck out of the house. Were they ever mad when they found out.”

“Are your parents still around?”

“No, my dad died in his bed a few years ago, and my mom shortly after that. Before she went, she told me to make every day I have count, cause you never know when death will come. I told her death has always been by my side, and I don’t fear her. Now I can die happy. Coming here, to the Land Behind the Sea, it’s what I’ve always wanted.”

“Is it everything you dreamed of?”

“Everything and more. This place is invorgating, challenging, a constant rush, way more alive than Devdedek”

“I’ve heard of Devdedek. It’s been on a decline since a faction of humans invaded a few decades ago.”

“Yeah, the Koru-Ation, that’s also why I came here. To gather strong allies to help fight the back before it’s too late for Brexcen, or me.

“I’m sure you still have many years to come. Once we have a moment, would you mind if I studied your markings? Perhaps I can learn to save those babies.”

“My markings are a bit crud. I know another Elucidator who has more refined markings. You should study his. You can come back to Brexcen with us and I’ll introduce you.”

“That sounds lovely. Wait, I think I sense them. They're hiding somewhere amongst that herd.”

“I’ll use my own transformation.” Vlux jumped off and found a soft patch of soil recently trodden on by large antelope. She drew her rune and said the incantation, changing herself into a red fox. Together they moved through the herd carefully scouting for their prey, when out of the corner of her eye she saw a bipedal form dart behind an antelope. She creeped low to the grass, barely visible. Azurumene observed her behavior and took a position not too far behind. She extended her senses. The signature she detected was different, but similar to the man they encountered before the Triphu stampede came in. Then a dart whizzed past, and she saw two grassy figures take off running. She gave chase with Azurumene right behind. The figures jumped on the mammals who bucked and panicked. The whole herd reacted. Causing complete chaos, with beasts running in all different directions. Vlux avoided their hooves while trying to keep the figures in sight. She abandoned her fox form and jumped on a deer. She saw the grassy figures jumping from creature to creature.

“I’ll get him,” came Thramuny’s voice over the ACORN. She and Vyranya swooped in. The man blew a dart. Thramuny deflected with a palm blast. She threw boa. The nimble man jumped to another antelope. Boa ensnared the wrong query. She recalled her weapon and continued to pursue as the man slyly evaded them.

“Go that way you stupid deer,” said Vlux. The herbivore would not listen and continued to run in the wrong direction. Azurumene came up next to her, and she jumped from the deer to the tiger, barely catching his fur. He turned and jumped over several antelope in pursuit. Pointing Splinter at the figure, she fired a direct volley. The thorns pierced him, but were pushed back out. “My weapons don’t work against their soul symbiosis.”

“I have an idea, call down the parrot.” Vlux raised her hand, and the parrot landed on Azurumene and laid a sparkling egg.

“What am I supposed to do with this?”

“Throw it at him.” Vlux picked up the egg and threw it at the man. A cloud of glitter swirled around him, his mount bucked and fell over. The man scrambled to his feet and continued fleeing. Suddenly, the imposing figure of Tial-Meh appeared. Wings fully extended, her mighty presence struck fear into the herd. They froze, allowing Azurumene to pounce and pin the man. Slashing him with his midnight dust coated claws and the man fell into a deep slumber. Thramuny and Drumya walked over with the other man slung over Drumya’s shoulder, bound by Boa.

“He was very difficult to catch,” said Thramuny.

“Yeah, this one gave us a lot of trouble, too. Looks like this is the same one that tried to ambush us in the jungle. Too bad you had to put him to sleep, how long before he wakes up?”

“I have morning powder as well, we can wake him up anytime once we properly secure him.” He raised his hand to call down the parrot and spider. Who got to work wrapping gold silk around the men. Once properly secured, Vlux prepared to interrogate them when the parrot started saying.

“Trouble trouble, we're in trouble.”

“Who’s in trouble?” asked Vlux. The parrot flew down, and the spider landed on Vlux’s head. “Darn it Ang, why can’t you stay out of trouble.”

“What’s happened?” asked Azurumene.

“Kiliyi says they got surrounded and are being taken somewhere, then the connection got cut off.”

“It must be the other men, maybe we shouldn’t have left them back there,” said Thramuny.”

“I thought they would be safe as long as Kiliyi and Euyene were with them. C’mon we have to get to them.”

“Wait Vlux, if we just rush over there we’ll likely get surrounded ourselves.” said Azurumene.

“We have Tial-Meh and Eio, let’s load these guys on and fly under Eio’s invisibility field. We can catch them by surprise and use their own men as bargaining chips if we have to.”

Drumya picked up both men up and everyone climbed aboard Tial-Meh, they flew back to the tree but saw no one there. A thick mist clung around the tree. They landed and cautiously climbed off the dragons back. Scanning their surroundings they found no signs of a struggle, or their friends. Suddenly, large glowing chains descended from the sky, restraining Tial-Meh. Bola restraints wrapped around each of them. They fell to the ground as the mist cleared, revealing their captors. Greatly outnumbered, they had no chance of escape.