Jungle was right. An apt description of the land beyond the ring of dead, scorched, and salted earth that framed the gate for about a hundred or so meters. Towering greenery and rolling landscape completely out of place in the middle of the highlands. Hot, too, and exceptionally humid. Tyr took in a breath of the place. All damp and wet and loud. Birds and animals shrieked, seemingly from every branch up in those trees, overwhelming his senses. It had a charm to it, more green than he'd ever thought possible, but it was so alien. He'd never seen a jungle before... The signature of spira here was so much different than on the other side of the gate.

He was given a bracelet to match his two others. One of silver, one black, and the third and newest addition to his wrists was 'blue steel'. Something he had in great quantities somewhere inside of his dimensional ring. A natural igneous alloy of cronite and iron found rarely in the mountains of the republic. One of the best mana conducting metals found in any quantity in the northern half of the continent. Rare, hence the expense despite being such a small artifact. Enough for him to immediately recognize that he'd been duped. His 'heirloom', the sword he'd wielded once upon a time, was not cronite at all. Just a cheap knockoff, manatite steel with a blueish tint added to it. Cold rolled, water manatite – in all likelihood. Not that it mattered. Another lie in the web his 'father' had woven for him over the years, but Jartor had admitted it eventually in any case. Even with the small amount of cronite present in the artifact he could feel how different it was.

Tyr spat on the ground and stalked into the undergrowth. It was thick. So thick that he brought out one of the shortsword he'd crafted so long ago and began to chop at the greenery with it like a machete. So lush and full of life. This was a natural forest, and that was what unnerved him most. He'd expected a dungeon. A big one, maybe, based on the defenses sat around out – but this was something far out of expectation. A wash of green that seemed to blanket the whole world, another world, one that should not exist. In a way, it was similar to the subterranean depths of Ellemar's tower. If one considered the natural caverns cleaved in twain to introduce a wholly artificial structure. But that place was dead, with only scraps of what remained left behind. This was new, and it was growing.

Trees so thick that in certain places the sun could barely be seen through the canopy, strange and relatively 'natural' looking bugs and animals doing their thing.

I guess I know why they are so cautious of this place. This is incredible... Tyr couldn't help but marvel at it, almost wishing the others were here to see this. Even when he climbed to the top of a tree shooting high above the canopy, he could see no end to it. As far as the eye could see was a hot, moist jungle. Rain forest, with monkeys leaping between branches and birds of vivid hues flapping about and singing as they did. He thought the animals sat nearest him were monkeys, not that he'd ever seen one in person besides the odd trader from Assyria that made their way to Haran. And those were extremely rare. In any case, they left him alone in exchange for an apple, not the 'monsters' he thought he'd see.

Monstrous in a sense, though. He was thanked for his tribute in the form of a rock that slammed into his left eye, leaving him blind for a few minutes while they hooted and pointed at him.

Terrain like this, based on what he'd heard, was what the lands of Agoron looked like. The coastline was mostly high cliffs and desert, but a short distance beyond and it would be forest so thick you could see three meters past your face. And it held true, he certainly couldn't see very far. Just wandering through it all with a dumb look on his face, avoiding any spiders or serpents he saw on his way to... Well, nowhere really, he was just walking.

Tyr was beset by two lesser monsters that he pulped beneath the hammer he'd taken from the dead paladin. There were monsters here. This was a dungeon, he felt it in his bones, or at least very similar to one. As to why it was above ground and so massive, he didn't know. A question he could not answer. Among hundreds or thousands of others, it was frustrating, but he was able to deal with that now. A fresh start – and he'd use it however he'd like. Pending questions be damned, Tyr was going to have as much fun as he could in this strange new world.

–

“Contact. Eighty meters, rapidly closing.”

“How rapidly?”

“Hells, I don't know? You divine it! But fast. On a tear, too. What in the world?” They were tracking a target. A monster. Not human, not 'demihuman' either. The disgusting word they gave to beastkin, dwarves, and all of the like. Whatever else looked like 'them' but wasn't. Yana, the tracker in particular, hated that term. Beastkin was bad enough, but demihuman was too much. First of all, all 'humanoids' were human, hence the term, but 'man' had taken that word and bastardized it in all sorts of ways. Appropriating it for themselves...

In any case... Thirty three monsters had been left behind, butchered near beyond recognition, some stomped flat so as to leave their remains as little more than puddles on the ground. Disemboweled and rotting under the sun, all of them. Whoever had done this clearly had no concept of cleaning up after their kill. No attempt to harvest them at all, it had to be a monster. “Eyes!” She hissed into her communication amulet. “Eyes! Eight o'clock.”

“Tiyanak?”

“No way a tiyanak could do such a thing. Nechrael, maybe. Or an awakened chimera.”

“In a jungle environment? Too warm for your typical undead. Chimera, maybe, but we haven't seen any 'cores since the changing. I doubt it, their ilk like to show off, you know that. Probably would've tried to shift themselves and trick us first.”

“You're certainly not wrong. Share your feed, please.”

Yana did as she was asked, sending her point of view to the others who followed some distance away in the rear. Whatever was capable of independently ravaging an entire pack of juvenile terrormaw was not something to be trifled with.

“What in the world?” Girshan's breath of awe was plain audible over the connection. They were here mostly to observe, but making money where they could was common sense. This place was dangerous, incredibly so. One of the more dangerous environs in the last few years to be generated by an astral rift, and few teams were operating due to that fact. First they'd scout, clean out what areas they could before the guilds came in to flatten the jungle and make it safe for passage. “It looks human...”

“It's not.” Jura replied. “That is a monster, and I'd bet my collar on it. Look at how it moves... Fucking creepy, if you ask me.”

“Eyes on the prize.” Yana scolded them. “If there's an awakened monster in the vicinity, we need to report it. This is the first instance of a higher, possibly awakened predator. It's killing for the fun of it, not to feed. I've used every artifact I know and it keeps running whenever I activate them, but its not human. Whatever it is, the scanners are unable to identify it.”

“Orders?” Someone asked. Xavier, she thought, but it was hard to tell with the garbled state of the communicator. After the last conflict, they'd lost half the team and been forced to take new blood into their ranks, younger than he should be but it was what it was. As he said it, a minor leshen burst from the undergrowth and attacked their quarry, allowing them to wait and observe. 'Leshen' was a broad category of plant monster. Some were part beast, others were not. This one was green and hulking, covered in moss and various growths common in the jungle. Enough to camouflage it, and it struck their target with ferocity, rising up from the flowering ferns and bellowing at it. The human shaped monster grappled with it for a brief moment, taking thorny roots in its flesh before slamming a hammer into its head rapidly. Enough to break the skull that served as its animating factor – killing it. Not before losing an arm, though. Torn off at the shoulder during the scuffle.

Almost comically, it stumbled around awkwardly for a while, grabbing its fallen arm and wagging it in a 'wave' towards the monsters corpse. After that, it threw the detached limb at the leshen and laughed aloud. Kicking it several times to... Assert dominance?

Girshan's voice was heard through the line again. “Let's go! Now's our chance to... Wait! Belay that, I--”

“What in Ursa's name...?” Yana shuddered, watching on in awe.

Before their very eyes, the creature approached its severed limb. Spraying a torrent of blood from the grisly wound, it seemed unconcerned with the injury. Too unconcerned, collecting the appendage and letting the torn stump rest at it shoulder. With a worm-like writhing of detached muscle, the arm reattached itself to the main body. Slowing the bleeding before stemming it entirely. A writhing mass of red muscular tissue burst from the space where the arm should be, squirming until it connected with the limb, setting it in place with a visceral crack loud enough to attract another monster. This time, a ridge gorilla. With the creature charging dumbly into battle and not doing much more than set its thick skull in a perfect path for the same hammer as before.

It took a bit more punishment than the leshen, but the thing riding it down and braining it seemed totally unconcerned with injury. Even as it's legs were flattened and torso jellied, it just kept swinging. This time, it didn't mock its down prey, spending a few moment to stare at it... Sadly? It was hard to tell, armor shrouded its features. In any case, it was probably undead based on its behavior.

“I...” That was definitely Xavier, Yana could recognize him now, closer this time. Not a veteran, but a newbie foisted on them by the master of their dominus to supplement their number. She'd known the kid ever since he'd been a toddler, growing faster than any creature had a right to. Now he was an adult, in appearance, but not so in behavior or experience. “I've never seen anything like that. Meta haemonculi?”

“Too independent. From what little I can see of it, there's emotion, it mocked its prey and laughed. That's how you know.” Yana replied.

“Then what is it?”

“I've no idea, but we need to kill it. Now, before it evolves further, it has to be young.” It was then that she froze in her tracks, a cold chill shaking Yana at her core. It saw her. Aware of the observation, bursting from its position and arriving mere inches from her face, hammer clenched tightly in his fist and eyes as cold and blue as the northern seas. She'd give him no opportunity to swing. He'd moved incredibly fast, but it was no magic. She was fairly close, what concerned her was how she was detected at all.

Yana swung her bladed pendulum up to strike him in the chin. All she could see were the deep blue eyes set within them, sheathed in steel as it was, with a long flowing tabard of steel blue wrapped tightly around his chest and loose toward the legs. Hard, fast, and unpredictable, but so was the weapon she used. Two kilos of enchanted steel fastened to a similarly enchanted chain hanging from the pommel of a shortsword. It had a tendency to surprise her opponent, monster or otherwise, and this target was no different.

“Well... I guess that wasn't so hard.” She breathed with no small relief into the team chat. “Oddly squishy considering all of the damage it managed to inflict throughout the jungle.”

“What do you think it is?” Girshan asked in response. He was close now, close enough to catch its scent, finding that he didn't recognize it at all. It smelled of human, but only on the trapping around its skin. Everything else smelled like... Steel? That cold, pleasant odor of lapping powder being laid on a pauldron or sword. A very inhuman smell. Humans smelled like leather. There was no better way to put it. Their skin was what he always seemed to smell the most. Like the skin of a pig. Get them wet, and it was almost unbearable. But this one smelled clean. With the faint undertones of cedar oil.

“Oh hells!” Yana exclaimed, dropping back into a combat stance and leaping away from her quarry. She was so sure that she'd swung hard enough to cave in its face, but it rose – groaning and wobbly at the knees. Her hackles rose along with it, from the clicking sounds of bones and ligaments resetting themselves. A new environment meant new monsters, and she hadn't been around long enough to experience a jungle astral space until recent events had come to pass. But her gut told her she was well aware of what this thing was, hoping she was wrong. “It's back up! I need help!”

She dashed away, seeing Girshan emerging from the undergrowth at her flank to engage the enemy.

–

Tyr's head rung like a bell. The beastkin currently targeting him wasn't large at all. Lithe body contrasted by the force her exotic weapon was capable of producing. Moving at a lightning speed as she whipped the pendulum around her. Cutting the air with a whistling noise that stung at his ears when it came too close. And it did, a lot. It moved in such a random pattern that he could hardly track it even through the spira. Fortunately, there was an inherent disadvantage to using a weapon like that.

As interesting a concept as a blade riveted to a swinging chain was, she couldn't move much beyond her center of gravity. Tyr didn't have to watch the crescent bladed weight at the end of it, only the arc. And he did, rolling from the ground groggy and moving to a point far enough away that she couldn't accurately strike at him.

Still, her skill with the chained blades was incredible. One moment it would be flying far past his face before whipping back and ratting off his pauldron. Striking him like a viper, she was certainly impressive. They'd been following him for hours through the jungle. No matter how fast he ran, they'd always catch up, and watch. Waiting for their moment, most likely. More ill advised assassins, not paladins, not too many cat-girls among their number. Well, none, technically. He thought...

Just as he got his measure of the beastkin woman facing him, another figure burst from the glades edge. Wide of shoulders and bulky, a bit smaller than Ajax but much more agility showcased in his movement. If Ajax was a tiger, this was a panther, black of hair and well used to hiding in the shadowy nooks between the trees. Of most concern was the fact that Tyr couldn't smell him at all. Shrouded as they were in cloaks, no sign of their affiliation or adventurer rank could be seen – but it didn't really matter. They'd come for it, and he was having too much fun to let them take him away.

Tyr woke to the song, throwing his hammer with all the force he could muster at a third target coming through the jungle. Grinning widely beneath the faceplate of his helmet, a sickening crack and squelching followed by a breathless groan. Drawing two of the defective short swords that he'd kept since his days as an apprentice runesmith, he met the male beastkin charging him. Clashing together, grappling with one another close enough to prevent the female from aiding her companion.

Tyr whirled and dodged, ducking under wide swings of the mans claws. Dashing to the beat of his internal rhythm to find the balance and rake the panther, his swords dragging against his exposed flank in tandem. Not dead, but he was out for now, slamming a fist into the ground and covering himself with some protective barrier that prevented Tyr from going for the killing blow. Barely a second passed before the female was back on him, shouting something. Through the ringing in his head, he couldn't understand her, translation power or not.

Three more arrived. Female orc by the green hue of her skin, an archer. Some other humanoid, likely a kijin based on the horns, otherwise unidentifiable due to the tight black linens obscuring his frame and face. As well as scrawny telurian with skin the color of red clay, wielding an iron staff wreathed in pale yellow runes. Swinging it around in an arc, Tyr prepared himself to receive whatever spell came. An obvious mage archetype, whereas the others all opted to use some form of melee weapon or another. His mind whirred, calculating as he followed the song through the steel assaulting him on the end of the woman's chain. Calculations that would prove to be a wasted effort.

“By writ of nature's passage, let my allies be cured, to rise and fight with vigor, rejuvenation!”

If he'd taken the time to truly observe, he'd have noticed the light magic plain and present in the casting performed by the telurian. Faint greenish light sprung from the staff, enveloping the beastkin Tyr had just downed. A triple cast, and an impressive one. A spell to cleanse and stop the bleeding, another to heal the wounds outright, and a third to enchant. Part conjuration, part enchantment – but Tyr was no expert. Regardless, it was certainly the kind of spellwork that would make your average mage blush.

“Blur!” The panther shouted, rising immediately and cornering Tyr in an impossibly fast streak across the ground. Tyr could feel his aura, but was nowhere near possessive of the reflexes to avoid the approach entirely. This time, the beastkin left nothing to chance, arming himself appropriately in both a heavy suit of armor and two bearded axes. Steel met steel as Tyr was hammered with such ferocity as to drop to one knee. He'd bet all of the gold in his dimensional ring that not a single man he knew could overcome that force – save Samson. At least normal 'men', the beastkin's strength was tyrannical. First forcing him onto one knee, and then punting him like a blitzball, sending him somersaulting through the air some twenty meters away.

Ready enough, Tyr softened himself for the blow with water infusion, pushing his spellbreakers to capacity and quickly exchanging that for a fusion of air and fire. Power and speed that served to enhance one another, forgoing the addition of earth – putting it all into offense. But he had to go fast and hard if he wanted to get out of this in one piece. Unfortunately, once again, that seemed to be another exercise in futility.

Their initial approach had been clumsy and rushed. Charging in with abandon, and nearly dying for it. But together, as a team, was where their talents shined. Communicating swiftly, they adjusted their strategy effortlessly and flew into action – adopting a formation to contain him. An arrow from the orcish woman took his arm off, blasting it away at the elbow and setting a burning necrotic rot in his flesh – taking the shortsword with it.

Both beastkin harried him, corralling him from each flank as the kijin dragged the mask covering his face off, inserting a shard of shimmering metal into his mouth. Chewing it as if such a thing was normal, his frame began to warp and change until his humanoid figure became sharp and rigid from head to toe. No more cloth covering him, this time. He was all metal, sprinting across the glade on bladed legs, a cry of battle come from a lipless mouth.

Tyr would turn to meet the panther, only to see him pulled away by a lasso of mana and harassed from the rear courtesy of the woman's pendulum. Turn to face her, and sword arms of glistening alloy would tear into his flank. Treating him like some kind of beast, picking and prodding at him in the way wolves would with their prey. He hated it, feeling trapped and quarried, but couldn't help but be impressed by their incredible teamwork.

His left arm was gone, then his right. Breathing deep, he exhaled a gout of flame that took the panther full in the face and sent him howling in pain. Next, he dropped his air infusion magic and went full tilt with the fire. Burning as hot and viciously as he could. Allowing the allomancer to gouge a deep rent in his neck. Enough to kill any normal man, but Tyr was anything but. Flipping through the air, he used what anima was available to him without the spellbreakers to clamp down on his flesh, throwing super-heated blood into the face of the healer that had come into range to heal the panther. Not enough to kill, but enough to send him rolling in the dirt screaming, scrabbling for a healing potion.

“Cursed blood!” The orcish woman yelled, followed by the beastkin with the pendulum. “Newborn vampire! Consume your runes!”

“...Vampire? I'm not a--” So confused was Tyr at the bizarre claim that he missed the final participant of the fight. An actual mage and the man he had briefly taken out with the thrown hammer. How strange life was, a swarm of blades forged from the very air itself dicing him like an onion. Just as had Curtis done all those years ago.