The new human, the one with the black hair, was still scared of it.

Which was actually good to some extent, it meant she knew who was in charge, but it was also a bit annoying, having her flinch even in her sleep whenever it shifted.

Fortunately, the wolf also did not need as much sleep as its humans.

…It wasn’t sure how it felt about having an extra two humans in its pack. Honestly, it was quite annoyed, even if the sensation of sleeping in a pile was incredibly nostalgic and calming to the more primal parts of its brain.

Dealing with one human was alright, it could handle that. Three was just too much.

Still, it was a bit late by now to reject the new humans, especially now that it had very thoroughly marked them with its scent during their shared nap, so it decided to spend some of its time checking on its symbols while it rested.

You have progressed on your Path.

[Hound of The Keeper] Level 29 → Level 32

-Attributes:

Strength ( +3 )

Speed ( +7 )

Dexterity ( +2 )

Endurance ( +12 )

Perception ( +7 )

Resolve ( +3 )

Intelligence ( +8 )

Soul ( +3 )

Attribute Points Available: 3

…What?

It did not have that many Attribute points. When did it put two in Dexterity and why?

Deciding quickly that its Intelligence would have to wait a bit, despite its large benefits, it quickly put its points in and let the other level-ups flit by its sight, hoping for an explanation, because something about its Attribute point distribution was suddenly confusing.

It wasn’t good at math, but did the numbers the squiggly symbols represented even add up to thirty two Levels?

Speed ( +8 )

Endurance ( +14 )

-[Mana Perception] has Leveled Up. Level 15 → Level 16

-[Mana Manipulation] has Leveled Up. Level 17 → Level 18

-[Echoes of Oblivion] has Leveled Up. Level 22 → Level 23

-[Bloodrush] has Leveled Up. Level 18 → Level 19

-[Logotexnia] has Leveled Up. Level 17 → Level 18

-[Sonic Blast] has Leveled Up. Level 8 → Level 10

-[Danger Sense] has Leveled Up. Level 4 → Level 5

Acquired Skill(s):

[Unearthly Howl] - Level 1

[Spike Shot] - Level 1

It paused, and after a bit of mental squinting, the symbols provided it more information.

[Unearthly Howl]. A Skill with range that had no limit besides how loud it could go, which was a lot if it used [Logotexnia]. Every Level up would make the emotions invoked more potent, with the baseline being the howl it made when going down to pick up its human.

It idly wondered if it could level this high enough to make humans drop dead out of sheer terror. That would be pretty funny, actually, if the Skill wasn’t completely indiscriminate. But best of all, it didn’t have to be near the edge of its mind with fury and panic to make that sound again.

[Spike Shot] was much simpler.

It added a bit of force and accuracy to its shots with its spikes with each level. Nice, but nothing as immensely useful as the first.

Acquired Title:

Unseemly Horror: You are known to thousands, and feared by just as many, however distorted or obscured your visage in their minds. Gain +2 to all Attributes.

Known to thousands…

That was probably not great, even if it was expecting it with how much it abused its lungs and mana reserves that fight to make enough noise to buy time.

It also explained the sudden increase in Attributes that it had been certain it had not put that many points into.

That…

That was an absurd improvement. It had been wondering while falling down, what exactly had just given it that sensation of invincibility, that sudden rush. It was this Title.

Incredible... Then again, how many creatures could do what it did down here? It could think of none. It felt like preening with pride.

With nothing else to do, it turned its mind towards more wide-reaching problems. It needed to find something unique, it needed to hunt something. It couldn’t grow complacent.

First, it spent a solid hour trying to come up with any kind of significant improvement beyond small touches, until it eventually remembered the roof-tumor insect.

More specifically, its hydraulic-powered body, a way of movement that could provide incredible power and speed for little cost, but one that utterly crumbled and became useless at even the smallest leak of inner fluid.

Using the same insect’s expanding slime-veins however, it theorized that it could make some kind of inner layer of that special fat which it could use nerves to shock into expanding and contracting. If it lined the inside of a chitinous limb with that, blocking any cracks and leaks that might occur to the appendages would not be terribly difficult.

Less abstractly, it wanted that roof-tumor’s legs. Or at least two of them on each side.

Not only were they nice for climbing purposes, they were also very pointy, which opened the potential for them being used as weapons as well as climbing aids, which it certainly would not complain about. Its arms and tentacles were only usable right now because the templates had been on constant healing duty during its climb, which had been severely draining on its essence.

It needed to find food. It had yet to make any substantial stockpile, and after making these new limbs, it would be practically dry.

Its current idea came to life just two hours later, a record time for any change it could remember, fast enough for it to be genuinely baffled.

Maybe it had something to do with the fact it upgraded from rats to humans as its main diet? [Devourer] seemed like the type of Skill to care about that, so it could theorize that that was likely the case.

Regardless, as it carefully got off the pile and stealthily hopped away to test its new additions, it quickly stretched and yawned, before clacking its teeth shut in satisfaction.

Then it tried to get a hang of its new limbs. It had already formed muscle memory by tugging them around as it slept, so it could at least move them.

On either side of its lower waist, no longer thin with its new additions around it, sheaths were forced to bulge as hydraulic fluids worked with complicated pressure systems to move the limbs inside, anchored to its inner abdominal and back muscles.

Just underneath the secondary pair of latissimus muscles it had made for its human arms, they came out into the open air, just a few inches above its back legs.

The eyes on its hips and lower chest opened to observe, and it noticed a slight problem.

The middle set of eyes on its body, located just under its ribcage, they had a bit of a rough time seeing things when the new limbs were out and above, acting like umbrellas that blocked half their upper sight.

It would move them up a bit later.

Its eyes carefully examined the limbs, two coming out of either side of its waist for a total of four, leaving it with five limbs on either side of its body.

Impressively enough, having ten limbs plus tails and the tentacle still didn’t make it feel like it was about to trip over any one of them by accident. It could probably operate a hundred limbs without issue, though it was not expecting to ever need or have that many.

The ability to do this was odd and out of place from what it knew of biology and mind-to-muscle connections.

Maybe an effect of the symbols…?

Now that it moved around a bit with them, it realized they also helped with its balance somewhat, as its upper body had a chronic issue of being far heavier than its lower. The limbs helped.

Focusing back on their appearance, it even tilted its head toward them, wiggling them back and forth, up and down.

Three jointed instead of four, unlike the roof-tumor’s. The roof-tumor used its legs to move as well as trap its prey, but the wolf did not want a joint so close to the end of its leg, lest it bend when it was trying to stab into something, so it removed a joint for stabbing and slashing stability.

They were also larger, thinner, and much sharper, meant to be used as surprise weapons. The first two joints were pitch black chitin, but the third was more like a cutting scythe in its shape, similar to the sword the humans sometimes carried. Their cutting edges and tips were an organic mix between hardened chitin and bone, giving them a sickly gray look, while the main body of the scythe-like blade limb was a smooth, solid black.

And just to complement the hydraulics, it had shoved a complex network of several thick tendons along the insides of the limbs, which would allow it to exert far more power than such limbs already had.

Experimentally, it tried to test their range of movement.

It had tried to give them as much as it could, but the system was somewhat rigid out of necessity. When dealing with rigid materials and liquids, it was impressively difficult for it to come up with a way to make things flexible. It had done its best by adding a rotating, locking cylinder on the insectoid base of the limbs made of a combination of interlocking bones like a spine and some organic hinges, and it was time to test it.

So it moved the limbs back and as wide as it could, until the only obstacle to moving them further back were its own hips, and felt no strain.

Then it moved them in a slow clockwise circle, scraping them against the floor as they moved towards its shoulders from below, then straining a little as they moved past and over its head, until they refused to go further towards its spine, simply moving clockwise, locked in a sixty degree angle from its back. Then, they were back to its hips, a full, uninterrupted rotation.

Their reach was not great, unfortunately, barely able to reach a foot away from its snout from their positions, because no matter how much space it gave the sheath that hid their immense bulk around its waist and stomach, there just wasn’t enough room to make them bigger without making them a detriment.

Then it tried to mimic combat movements.

They were easy.

Backhanded slashes audibly whistled and cracked through the air with explosive power, and when it would bunch the limbs up along its waist and stab forward with them, they had enough power in the movement that when they reached their max range, it felt its whole body move a little as the limbs tugged its waist forward.

Climbing…

Well, it didn’t have anything to climb up right now, and it was going to slide down using its claws, so it left that for later. They were flexible enough to help, it didn’t need to test that.

Satisfied, it went to put them back into their sheaths.

It was surprisingly infuriating.

The sheath had no muscle, just being a pocket of lubricants and shock-absorbing scar tissue from the spearhead shark, and so while the legs folded effortlessly into a compact shape, wiggling them back into the pouch-like sheath on its stomach was difficult.

Not because it was cautious of poking a hole into its pouch or stomach or anything, it was way too tough to be able to hurt itself like that without its [Devourer] empowered teeth, even if it tried. It just couldn’t quite wiggle them back into the very specific position it had grown them into, which was the only way to make them fit.

It took ten minutes to finally get it right, and by then, it was barely containing its snarls of frustration.

It mentally noted to move the eyes under its ribs up a little and make the pouch a little stretchier, then turned around.

The black-haired human, ‘Katherine’, was staring at it, wide eyed.

It chuffed in acknowledgement. ‘Katherine’ slumped back down on the floor with a strange wheeze, and curled back into a ball, the scent of her fear still present in the breeze.

She’d grow out of it like ‘Emreeil’ did, it wasn’t terribly concerned.

Now, to hunt.

It wasn’t going to sit around and guard its pack all the time. It had goals, and it was smart enough to realize that they would only slow it down in many environments and the like, slow its growth sometimes. So it wasn’t going to play guard dog. If they couldn’t handle themselves, they’d just have to learn how to do it, and if they got in trouble, the wolf would just run to help them.

It was dangerous, yes, and they could die in the future from this, which it did not want to happen, but that was just life. It could take the risk of losing them if it meant they would grow enough to where it didn’t have to worry about it, and its own growth wouldn’t be stunted by their presence.

It wasn’t quite what it was hoping for, but being practical about it, there was no way it could both traverse the human nest and hunt prey with humans on its back. It would make it too heavy, make it tire much faster, and would just be overall useless, because it didn’t need its pack to hunt for food. So it could leave them somewhere, hunt, and go back real quick. It was a good way to operate until it found a place to use as its own nest.

Preferably somewhere close to the burning rivers, away from the humans.

It moved to the edge, hooked its nails to it as it swung its body over the side, and carefully slid down the massive tower’s darkest wall.

It was so incredibly hungry, it had no idea how it hadn’t noticed until now. Perhaps too busy changing itself.

It killed so many humans and didn’t even get to eat a single one, because it wanted to rush away before more humans arrived to make everything more difficult, like how it ended up being captured by the burning rivers the last time it made such a racket.

It was a little frustrated about letting so much meat go to waste.

It spotted a working human lift beside the bridge, heading straight down, which meant it could go as deep down as that thing went, and have an easy way of getting back up when it decided to roll up the other way.

So, despite its trepidation, it slid down to the bridge’s railing, then slunk over the railing, careful not to let any human see it, crept down a complex, multi-layered cage of metal rods on the outer part of the bridge, and slid down the giant pillars of metal supporting the ridiculously oversized structure.

It was glad it did so, because it ended up seeing something it hadn’t seen much of before now.

Water.

Not clear water, and it was still tainted by a few creatures it could recognize from down by the burning rivers, but it was currently looking down at a stream of water several feet deep, and surprisingly not hissing with toxic chemicals.

It took a moment to consider something as it hung from the metal pillar supporting the bridge above, one that cut the river in two before it joined back together. It tilted its head, glanced to either side of the gaping, V-shaped chasm that this hundred foot wide river of sorts was within.

A lot of windows, too many to count. An almost equal number of short walkways welded onto buildings that seemed to barely manage to hang over the river too, and it wondered if it could make them all tumble down to their death with a few select snips of its claws.

It didn’t have any particular reason to ponder the thought besides amusement, really. If killing thirty attacking humans hadn't given it more than one Levels, it wasn't sure it would ever be worth it to kill hundreds of random ones in their sleep just for a couple of Levels, either.

It eyed the water again, eyed the jumpy green creature that was usually found by the burning rivers, a weird croaky ball of flesh. It idly watched the bits of glowing moss, the small, dark shapes beneath the water as they followed the calm, barely moving stream, the uneven rock and metal plates around the river eventually cutting off about two hundred feet away to plummet onto a lower level, the water following in a lazy drop as it overflowed from the artificial dam trying to keep it in place.

It was likely that these were the waters that got mixed in with the trash later on to fill the burning rivers.

It stared at a dark shape near the bottom of the slowly moving river, small enough to be trivial, and after one final glance at the surrounding windows and walkways on either side, made its claws cut at full capacity, kicking off the pillar and using its human arms to push itself off, diving head-first into the waters as it closed its ears with the inner cartilage block it had made a long time ago.

It wasn’t sure what it was expecting when it dove in head first, but enjoyment was not exactly in the list of options.

The sudden silence, both from closing its ears and the water muffling the usual clamor of the human nest, was very calming. The water was rather freezing, but considering how used to overheating it was, it would take this any day.

It took a moment to just let itself go with the river’s flow and sink down, only kicking and paddling with its arms enough to not get swept away by it, its eyes all wide open and passively scanning the river’s insides.

It had never swam for leisure before, usually just racing across a burning river as something giant and green chased it, or back when it lost its human and had to fight the giant spearhead thing.

And the water was… surprisingly clean. It could see stuff for almost twenty feet before the muck and dirt began obscuring things.

When a few drops got through its tightly clenched jaws, it realized another bizarre thing.

The water was absurdly salty.

Were its eyes not protected by those densened protective membranes, it would likely sting a lot.

This was really nice.

And with its Endurance and hyper-oxygenated blood, it could probably stay under the water for something like ten or fifteen minutes before needing to breathe.

So that was what it did, even daring to close its eyes in short bursts, feeling weightless, worriless, at peace. It used its tails and tentacles to scrub all of the matted blood off as well, oddly enjoying the feeling of being clean.

It was still hungry, but the rest of the soothing emotions helped numb that, or at least postpone its urgent tugs.

When its chest began to feel tight, it prepared to go above the water, before remembering the shapes it had seen below the water.

It could still catch glimpses of them, but they seemed to be actively avoiding it.

It wanted to take things from them, see what they might have to offer, but it wasn’t exactly a perfect swimmer, it couldn’t light them on fire, it couldn’t sneak nor feel them in the water beyond vague impressions, and they were not sluggish either, bursting into motion randomly with jerky, undulating motions that had them speeding through the water like it wasn't even there.

The oddest thing was that from the glimpses of them it caught, they looked like… giant, oddly shaped worms with fins, while some others looked like a giant worm with a dozen faintly luminescent blue tentacles coming out of their back. The latter seemed much more interesting.

Still, this situation made the wolf realize that underwater, it was at its weakest. It really had to hunt some water creatures down.

So it decided to try something.

It couldn’t inhale air down here, but it rose as close to the surface as it could, and gathered the air it had in its lungs, before mentally straining with the command to hold, to remain cohesive, trying to somehow push that into its Skill.

Then it waited until it caught a glimpse of one of the glowy sea-worms lazily drifting about, and before the thing could suddenly burst into motion and vanish back into the murk, it pushed out.

The semi-vacuum left behind by the air exiting its lungs was filled by water before it could actually snap its jaws shut, and it hurriedly burst out of the surface, hacking and coughing water out of its lungs, the salt highly unpleasant, almost drying its insides.

It tasted terrible, too. Like salt and brine and smoke and a bit of chemical aftertaste.

Still, through the coughing fit, one so intense it felt its eyes water with actual tears, it forced itself to keep the eyes on its lower body open, giving it a stable visual of both below and above water, so it got a good look at how the air bubble exploded far before it was intending it to, almost ten feet short of the water-worm.

Despite that, it could see the worm’s limp body float up to the surface through the small cloud of dust the explosion kicked up, slowly, its blue-tinted tentacles glowing as they limply twitched.

It had no idea why. Was it stunned? Did debris smack it on the head? Did the wolf rupture its eardrums?

Not willing to let the prey escape because of a mild annoyance, it continued coughing its throat raw as it used its tails and four arms to paddle forward like an arrow towards it, and in mere seconds, it could see it through the top of the water, still twitching, now much more lively.

The tentacle in its back came out, and speared through it with its bony tip.

Its prey jerked, and the wolf suddenly choked as electricity raced through the water-worm’s corpse, racing up its tentacle and down into its back, a bizarre, horrible sensation, not quite pain but just a constant stream of unpredictable muscle spasms that had it moving normally one moment then randomly swinging its tentacle and twisting its back in strange ways.

Seeing the thing begin to slip from the blade, it waited until a spasm passed, and flicked it onto one of the stone walkways lining the river, then went back to coughing the remnants of salty water out of its lungs.

It clawed its way up the stone flanking it, and spent another five or so minutes coughing and chuffing water out of its lungs as it observed the bizarre creature, limp on the ground.

There wasn’t much light down here, and it was also not clear light, so it couldn’t tell if the thing was some kind of odd brown color, or just pink mixing with the yellow light glinting off its strange skin.

It was vaguely shaped like a teardrop with a fin at the end of its tail, with an actual mouth and four beady eyes of varying sizes on its head. The most interesting part, of course, was the few dozen squishy tentacles coming out of its back like branches, still glowing a soft blue in their middles and writhing under the force of their own electricity, tiny arcing sparks appearing between the branches with a faint buzzing sound.

If this thing had electricity, then it also had some way of being immune to electricity.

It inwardly felt a tad annoyed for its [Electricity Resistance] likely becoming redundant after it was done incorporating whatever things this bizarre thing had in its body, but it was a fairly unreasonable emotion that it wasn't exactly sure why it felt.

And just to be sure it could get this thing’s biology properly even after the slight intelligence loss that came with getting rid of that symbol on its skull, it waited until it could stop coughing enough to swallow, ate the whole thing in two spasming swallows that were actually surprisingly tasty and savory, and then it dove back into the river to grab a couple more.

Hunting for essence could wait a little, even if it felt like human brains were getting increasingly easier to understand.

Besides, it wasn’t like its pack could get down from there on their own. They wouldn’t be going anywhere.

“Wake up.” A voice called, accompanied by a none-too-gentle shove against her ribs with what felt like the toe of a boot.

She was jerking awake and rolling onto her back in an instant, never relaxed enough to sink into deep sleep.

The golem eye flicked to life, mana gathering at her fingertips.

A man was looming over her wearing a buttoned leather coat and black pants, his head nothing but a metal plate with three numbers on it with three half-melted metal protrusions not unlike horns framing his head.

Before she could even process his presence or how the fuck he always seemed to know where they were and where they would be, the man spoke again.

“You said you wanted to turn, right? I’ve got everything you need, and far more besides. I believe it’s time we had a normal conversation. You have questions, I’ve got answers. Wake your friend up, gather your wits. The wolf is coming up, I’ll wait for him to start.” He said, then backed up a dozen steps, still staring right at them, arms limp at his sides.

She hissed out a sigh as she flicked the golem eye off and rolled over onto her front, clumsily pushing herself upright with her left hand. Then she shook Katherine, vigorously.

Much like her, Katherine startled up, awake and alert, pushing herself up and hurriedly glancing around. Her eyes stuck to the man, wide eyed, before flicking to her with a questioning look.

“Sewer guy.” She explained, lips pursed, and Kat’s eyes widened as she hurriedly scrambled upright, keeping a wary eye on the man as Scruffy croaked awake.

Ten minutes of awkward silence passed until said man tilted his head, before abruptly walking to the edge, and leaning over to look down.

The wolf’s presence lit up in her mind, a mere couple dozen feet between them, exactly where the creepy bastard was looking, tense and caught off-guard.

The man turned to her, before backing away from the lip of the tower.

Through the colorless lens of the golem eye, she watched her friend’s furry head peek over the top, brows furrowed and ears pulled back, staring at them and the man in what she could guess was a look of confusion.

She gave him a half-hearted wave.

He tilted his head at the gesture, then like a snake, crept up the edge, paws wreathed in smoky darkness and chest touching the floor, ready to bolt or fight at a moment’s notice.

Her eye moved back to the man, and for the first time, she actually read the numbers on his faceplate.

Kat’s explanations of how the civil war started rushed back to her mind, and she gasped in realization. The man’s head turned to her, just an inch, not close enough to be looking at her but enough to know she had his attention.

“You’re from that, that team. Seven-Six-Two. You’re an… Adventurer terrorist?” She blurted out in disbelief and genuine confusion, before inwardly cringing at her almost accusatory wording.

She had thought he might have been an Adventurer back then, but by now, she was expecting him to be some secretive assassin crime lord or something.

“Yes. My name is Ghoul. Both Adventurer name and real name. Though my team in the Guild has been little more than a way to taunt our enemies, and gather funds back when we needed them. I wouldn’t say our calling is… Adventuring.” He calmly said with carefully placed disdain for the notion.

Before she could mouth off another question, the man gave off the impression that he was suddenly completely ignoring them, and fully turned towards the wolf’s tense form, one that grew even tenser.

She could see his skin bulge and crawl as things shifted beneath the fur, lumps and edges, spikes softly scraping against each other as they moved.

“Your friend is far smarter than he should be, but to his core, he’s still a beast. Don’t interfere with the peace offering.” The man softly said, before casually crouching and reaching into his coat. The wolf’s nostrils flared.

He took out a strange cube with a button that he pressed, and then, a gigantic spider’s limb, taller than a human by a good margin, appeared in the air and dropped to the floor with a metallic clang-thud so loud that it was abundantly clear the limb was much heavier than a person.

She gaped at the sheer fucking size of the thing, dreading to imagine how large whatever monster he’d torn that out of must have been.

Then with a casual flick of his finger, Ghoul sent the whole thing sliding across the flat top of the tower, until it slid to a halt right in front of the wolf.

Yellow eyes flicked down to the limb, then up to the man. Narrowed.

Then slowly, he began to sniff the limb, clear distaste appearing in the way his nose scrunched, yet regardless, he bit down and began crunching through the chitin, eyes still nailed to the man, but significantly more relaxed in its posture.

Ghoul rose up again, and put his arms behind his back.

She was kind of surprised that that worked, and she wasn’t sure why, either.

“Why the… peace offering?” She asked tentatively.

“Curiosity and practicality. I want to see if a wolf can gleam anything out of a vampire’s leg, and he was still scared of me due to our first meeting.” He talked as if he was about to continue, before he snapped his jaw shut, and his head jerked to Katherine.

The wolf paused too, raising his head to stare at Katherine as well.

It took her a moment to brush past the shock of hearing that that giant spider leg belonged to a vampire to realize what Ghoul had just said, and she couldn’t help the sharp, involuntary inhale that it triggered as she turned to her right.

Katherine was still as a statue, not even breathing, eyes wide and slowly trailing over every inch of the wolf that stared back at her with a tilted head and a confused squint.

Kat’s eyes slowly slid to the floor, staring through it with a thousand yard stare. She could almost hear the puzzle pieces clicking together in her friend’s mind, and all she could do was rush to think of a way to salvage this.

“You… realization. You said a… realization would come. That- that thing is a wolf?” Katherine breathed out, before something like a wheeze left her. “That’s a wolf. That- it had spider legs this morning. It doesn’t now. It- it’s a wolf. How- wh-where, what-?” Katherine fumbled, her gauntlets rising to her clutch at her hair.

With a grimace, she stepped to her side, choosing to ignore Ghoul for the moment, and with her one arm, she grabbed Kat’s left forearm and tugged it down, finally getting her eyes to focus and turn to her.

“Kat. Yes. He’s a wolf. I was hoping to tell you once you got a bit more used to what he’s like. He’s a wolf, and I don’t know if history is wrong or if it’s all bullshit, I don’t know if they really turned Crimen into a desert, I don’t know if they can birth another wolf every day, I don’t know where the fuck he came from or what he’s doing here with us and why he’s not a psychotic red-eyed monster or whatever, but he is not what those old mythology and ancient history books say, and he sure as hell isn’t a mindless killing machine. Think. He saved me, like fifteen times by now. He saved us. He fucking slept on us like a blanket, and he was concerned for you being all weird and sick. So calm down. Okay? Please?” She asked, and despite the faint embarrassment she felt at having to do this in front of an audience, the faint worry that she might have come off as too rough, she felt like she had to do it now.

Kat gaped at her for a moment before her brows furrowed.

“Em, it's a wolf, he- it might like you, or, or whatever, but it's a- a fucking wolf, the longer you keep him around like it's some pet the more likely it is it's going to snap at you and shred you to the bone-”

“Well good thing that he’s not my pet and that I’m very firmly trying my best to not even try to control him in any manner specifically to avoid that outcome.” She forced through, raising her voice but not quite yelling, and Kat just opened and closed her mouth for a moment, before glancing at the wolf then back to her.

“It's still a wolf, Em! It's already killed like sixty people, people are going to notice and then we’re going to get caught and burned in a pyre-!”

She grabbed her by the collar, and yanked her forward, her lips pulled into a determined frown.

“Let them notice, then! I don’t care if the kingdom and the Dungeon itself decides we need to fucking die, Kat, I’m not running away from this. I owe him my life twenty times over, and I owe him even more because even if I'd never gone on that fucking cleanup quest, I’d probably have tried to run from my masters and gotten my leg tendons snipped so I couldn’t try again, and then I’d have blown my fucking brains out with my own spell!” She yelled, chest heaving.

“So what if it’s us against the world then?! Fine, fuck it, whatever! We either fight or die, it’s not like it’s any different, just harder! And I’d… do the same for you in a heartbeat if you were the monster.” She finished, voice lowering with every word, energy leaving her as suddenly as it came to her.

Kat stared at her, eyes going from her face to her eye, full of turmoil. Then she closed them and heaved out a soul-deep sigh.

“I-I can’t even get mad because you warned me like fifty times about what I was getting into, in the vaguest way possible…” Kat whispered, voice choked with frustration, then grabbed her wrist, ripped it off her chest without an ounce of effort, and tugged her forward into a brief hug.

They separated, and she took a deep breath as she turned, feeling more than a little embarrassed over Ghoul’s presence during a moment that felt like it should have been private.

"Okay, fine. Fine. Just... okay. I'll just suck it up. I'll get used to it." Katherine mumbled, and Emhreeil smiled at her under the metal mask covering her face.

"Thank you." She warmly whispered.

“...Good speech. Your dedication and loyalty to a monster is actually what made me decide to suggest what I am about to. But, to move this forward, come here, elf.” Ghoul cut in, and the cube clicked again in his hand, his other hand extending forward.

A thick leather-bound book dropped into his hand, and she approached with a frown, feeling the wolf’s gaze bore into her back as it tensed, the faint feeling of threat making [Pack Hunter] feed her information.

“It’s Emhreeil.” She said as she reached forward and took the book, finding it to be far lighter than it should be. No markings, no descriptions.

She wiggled her thumb under the front cover, and swung it open. The first page was covered in glowing runic markings within a small circle. Below the circle, on the bottom of the page, the words ‘PLACE HAND ON RUNE FOCUS’ flashed with red light, and above the circle at the top of the page, the book’s name glowed faint purple.

Telepathic Bond Soul Magic, Memory-Shift Spellbook: Verified By Archmage Teineal Arienmi.

She read it once, twice, thrice.

Her jaw slackened as she slowly shifted the eye to gaze up at Ghoul.

“It is hard to properly communicate with the wolf when it can’t understand me, or its own pack, for that matter. In exchange for this spellbook, that I trust you know the function of, you will make telepathic bonds for everyone present here. Then, I’ll tell you in detail why I’m bothering with your group, and why I am being so exceedingly generous.”

She moved her jaw, nothing came out.

She tried again.

“T-This… books like this are- are worth more than a manor.” She croaked out, staggering back a step, and hurriedly snapping the book into her storage ring.

“Pocket change.” Ghoul responded, and she could only let out a disbelieving laugh-wheeze.

“Holy shit. What the fuck do you want us for that’s worth this much?” She asked, wondering what insanity he wanted to propose.

“...I don't like repeating myself, and we'll have to explain this to the wolf too. But, fine. To give you the bare bones of it, I want you to be our peers. Our allies, but not our subordinates. We need equals. Not for fighting the war, or whatever else you’re thinking, but for two goals. Destroying the Tillenhall family, and their allies. We can handle the main event ourselves, if barely. But I do not have anyone to trust the second to, and judging by the fact the ones hunting you four are the same Tillenhall allies that have to be destroyed, at least in the third floor, our interests align. There is more, of course, but I cannot share that. Technically, all I need you to do, is exactly what you’ve been doing, but more. Keep living, keep fighting, keep growing, until you can stand by our side. The only difference is that I want you to be our closest ally, in the near and far future, instead of nameless nobodies prowling the darkness. You probably have wondered why I am helping you all so much. It’s because loyalty to people and creatures like us-” Ghoul gestured to the wolf with his chin.

“-,as thick as steel and twice as unbending like yours, is nigh impossible to find, and so is a wolf. Especially one that is sane, smart, and able to be reasoned with.” He took a step back, and gestured to the ring with one of his hands.

“So put your hand on that rune, and make us a bond so we can include your… team leader, I suppose, into this discussion. Do note that beasts do not think with spoken words though, and try to get used to thinking like a monster or an animal, or else the bond will be useless and incomprehensible.” Ghoul said, without an ounce of deceit, in a near-perfect monotone.

She took a minute to digest everything, in disbelief over it all, but with everything that had happened recently, the mere month or two that had passed which felt like years, it was not the biggest surprise, neither the most impossible thing she’d had to accept.

And the chance to be able to get out of this odd limbo of theirs, with the wolf leading but being unable to actually communicate to them and vice versa, they had a chance of fixing that here, even if it would take a bit of getting used to, if Ghoul was to be believed.

She squared her shoulders.

The book flashed back into her hand, still open.

A repulsion field came to life beneath it, holding it in place as she put her hand on the rune circle, sending a small pulse of mana through it. The paper withered under her burned skin.

Her mind cracked open like an egg, and through the cracks of its shell, a thousand pages of information rushed in, her world melting into symbols and the faint taste of purple as hands clamped down on her shoulders to stabilize her.

-

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