When the time came to leave, I stood at the front of the column of all our people within the walls. As soon as we were over the walls, Danivra and the Nystiobek would be assuming their larger forms. Wight now though we were waiting for the shield to drop.

We had Wultr scouts on the wall, already in her wolf forms, watching the horizon intently.

The air changed as the shield dropped and we set off. I took immediately into the air. I must have looked some sight as we moved with my cloth nappy on, and the master box of Haulage strapped to my back. It held the last of our food and all of the possessions we could carry with us.

As we cleared the area, portals sprang up behind us. Paladins of justice. There must have been close to a thousand of them. They didn’t attack though, just watched us intently as we fled the area.

It hurt to run like this. I wanted them to pay, but if I hung about to exact that payment, then it was likely those with me would pay a heavy price too. Expensive business revenge.”

As We moved fast and confidently across the scrubland of the northlands. Flying with Sania our eyes roved the horizon constantly looking for threats.

We saw none. For a land so ravaged by war, it was a strange paradox. Everyone was either hiding, dead or besieging some bastion of neutrality.

“I wonder if Justice’s soldiers have told Wind of the Wild what’s happening yet?” Sania said across the bond.

“They won’t have, but that doesn’t matter. He’ll come back tonight, or I’ll go to him.”

“That’s right, you can. That might be for the best anyway,” she replied. “Get a look for how things are, and make a real plan to meet up with them.”

“Yeah, I will. Good shout.”

We continued on in silence until night fall, with no problems. As Wind of the wild didn’t appear in the early evening, I pulled everyone to a halt to explain what I would be doing.

I didn’t actually want to leave them, but I figured in the cover of darkness would be the best time to do so.

Focusing on the Palathi Peaks moving approximately to where I thought I’d met Wind of the Wild for the first time. The location, where his pack lived was apparent immediately. An area of around twenty miles across the highest parts of the mountains were blurry and hard to focus on.

I chose the central most point of the disturbance, and figured this was the protective magic. As I chose to travel there, I just had to hope that I could get in. Otherwise, I would be activating a very quick return trip.

Without further contemplation, I accessed the area and appeared there.

I appeared in the air and began to fall for a brief second before I caught myself. I would have laughed at the ridiculousness of the situation if not for my current predicament.

Infront of me was a shield that I could only see when I activated singularity. It was far clearer now than it ever had been, and I could see Wind of the wilds power woven into the shield along with others. A mix of the grey mountain powers of the Wultr and the green earth powers from the Faeries. Olata’s handy work bolstering the shield on numerous levels. Strands of neuma offering both barriers to the physical and unrecognised Neuma incursions.

Even so, it was a Neuma construct and by using the manipulate aspect of Singularity, I could fashion a cap without disturbing the overall pattern.

I did so, gently parting the symbiotic energies until there was a gap large enough for me to pass through. Once through, I turned to make sure that it had re-closed. It hadn’t, so I carefully reformed the pattern they had created. Satisfied that it was reformed in the order that I’d found it, I made to fly off, then came to a dead stop and looked back. “How in all the fucks did you just do that Clive?” I asked myself suddenly awestruck. I’d just gone into some kind of fugue as I studied the pattern. I shook my head. Level 37 Singularity has some interesting potential to it. Something I would have to look into very soon.

I turned away from the shield to find Wind of the wild standing there staring at me with his piercing yellow eyes in a very unsettling manor.

“Clive.” He said slowly. “How did you do that.”

“God shit I reckon,” I laughed uncomfortably. “It’s coming on isn’t it.”

“Olata came fluttering at me in full speed, pulling to a halt inches away from my face. “Clive! How are you here? How did you get past the shield. Then she hugged my face in an unexpected display of affection.

“I, er, used the singularity, guys. It was pretty amazing actually, but we can talk about that later. I’m here to deliver a message. If you haven’t already heard,”

“Heard what?” Wind asked, still watching me carefully.

“I negotiated with Justice to let us go.”

“They do not have us,” he replied.

I shook my head at his response. “We want to go to Far Reach, right? And they want this place so they can gain a solid foothold to fight Destruction. I suggested that I would kill so many of them at the fort and here, that when Destruction came, they would be swept aside. Or, they could get the fuck out of our way and we would leave the fort and the Peaks for them.”

“Perfect,” Olata said overjoyed.

Wind of the Wild was not similarly enamoured with my plan. “You would have me desert my home for them to walk in uncontested?” he growled.

I arched an eyebrow at him. “I thought the idea was to get you out of here as safely as possible.”

“By destroying those who dare to besiege my home.”

“Alright, Wind. I don’t know what the fuck you want me to say. You think we can fight them all and get away from here by the time Destruction come?”

“I think we will try,” he said in low voice. “Hang on a minute. Turn into Ewan to talk with me will you.”

“Why? Do you feel you can threaten him more effectively than you can me?”

“Er no, but you're being a weird prick and I’m hoping Ewan is a little less… threatening towards me.”

“You call me, Wind of the Wild a prick,” The Wolf snarled mentally as he began to grow in size. Within a few seconds he was way bigger than me and looked ready to have snack.

Olata began shouting at him, her hands fell to her sides ready to summon her swords.

“Hold up. Fucking hell Wind. Are we not going through enough? Knock that shit off and change to Ewan for me, please.”

“You think because you beat my shield you are strong enough to beat me? I will shred you to pieces. You are nothing but a child to me!”

I rubbed at my temples unable to believe this was going down.

“Firstly, I have no intention of beating you,” I said putting my hands out placatingly.

“Secondly, honestly, while I have a lot to learn, I actually think I could beat you now, as hard as that might be for you to hear.” I watched him with singularity active and despite his form being powerful it was in fact a construct wrought from Neuma. His natural form was Ewan. This appearance, his size and all, could be unpicked like I had the shield. I wasn’t sure if I had the skill to do it yet, but I could see that it was possible. I also saw the anger radiating from him was an aspect of his wolf form. Which is why I wanted him to revert back to Ewan.

“You genuinely think you could? Despite all you have seen?” he snarled.

I nodded. “Yeah. Weird for me to admit, but with the power of Singularity it’s… both more and less than I could have ever imagined and… how do I explain this?” I said frustrated. Which was rare at my current intelligence level. Wind of the Wild was listening intently.

“You are Ewan, but you have this Wolf Construct entwined with yourself. It’s part of you but also alien to you. It’s incredibly powerful too.”

“I understand that, but what has that to do with anything?”

“Well honestly, for me, it’s the other way around. This is hard to even admit to myself, but…there is the Singularity, and then there is the Clive construct around that.” I paused and rubbed at my head again. “I barely even know what I’m talking about,” I said feeling suddenly exhausted. “But no Ewan, you can’t beat the Singularity. No one on this plane can. All you can do is destroy the construct of Clive. They all think they can beat me. They all think they can play me. But they’re all looking at the construct of Clive. Not even the gods truly understand what Creation is. Once it has fully flourished, there will be…”

I clamped my hand over my mouth to stop speaking as they both looked at me with a mixture of fear and awe.

“Sorry,” I said letting go of my mouth. “I don’t know what the hell happened there.”

“It is okay Clive. A glimpse of something, perhaps. Something we would do well to be on the right side of.” He laughed nervously. “We should perhaps speak of such things once the Singularity is stronger.”

“I agree with that,” Olata said nodding profusely. “Should we discuss Justice leaving now so we can escape?” she asked attempting to pretend she wasn’t as deeply uncomfortable as we all were by my outburst.

“Yes, let’s,” Wind of the wild replied now reduced to normal size. “You will be coming from the north west, which isn’t ideal if Justice are moving West. You can swing around, but that will add more time on to your travel.

“Do you actually trust them?” Olata asked. “As much as I like the plan, will they not just catch up to you from behind wait until we are off the mountain and attempt to crush us?”

“Honestly, I do kinda expect that.”

“Do you have any plans to deal with that?”

I shrugged. “Yeah, try and kill them all.”

Wind of the Wild snapped his Jaws together in a weird clacking slapping sound. “I like that plan.”

“We should have a more detailed plan more for more than just running and killing!” Olata said.

I smiled. “We probably should. At the moment, we’re all under the cosh traveling here and I should get back. But if you can come up with a plan to deal with them double crossing us, then let me know when you have it.”

“We will,” Olata replied. “I will be so much happier when we’re all together.”

Wind of the Wild bowed his head at me a little. “I will study their movements and together, he said, indicating Olata we will devise a plan for their eventual deception.”

“Cool, good to hear.”

“I’ll catch you guys later then. I’ve left the others in a precarious position. I need to get back to them.”

“Wait!” Wind of the wild said. “I raised an eyebrow at him. “You should probably take these back. He disappeared and reappeared in a few seconds carrying a bundle of black cloth in his mouth. He dropped it at my feet, and I picked it up, realising almost immediately what they were.

“You look ridiculous with those sheets wrapped around you like that and your Darkness clothes adapt to fit your size correct?”

“Yeah dude, good thinking,” I said with wide grin. Holding up the hoodie of darkness in front of me. It had been small when he dropped it, but now it was suddenly just big enough to fit me. I pulled it over my head and then told the other two to look away while I took the nappy off and pulled on the miraculously big enough trousers on over my spikey legs.

“Ah damn but it feels good to have clothes on again,” I said pulling up the hood just because I could. It offered a strange comfort. I placed Sania’s clothing into my own void pockets and nodded to my two powerful friends before returning.

I appeared where I had left perhaps an hour earlier submerged in darkness. And I was completely naked.

You damn idiot! I scolded myself. If that wasn’t bad enough, a spate of movement in the near distance caught my attention. Dirty bastards, I muttered. The army of Justice marching behind us.