“Lina, I put your favorites from last time on the table over there,” Huntmaster Ramin said and pointed to a low table within the armory. “Yasmin, come with me and we will get you outfitted too.”

Hugo walked past rows of wooden weapons and saw a pair of daggers, a rapier, and a spear. He strapped the sheathes on for the daggers but didn’t pick up the one for the sword. He didn’t have the training to be halfway competent with it. The huntmaster would know something was wrong if he tried to use it. He looked around the armory for a better replacement.

There weren’t any crossbows, which was frustrating because he had made some ammunition for them last night. He needed to find a different weapon he was familiar with. He had practiced with a club, and those weren’t complicated in the first place. He wandered around the armory while he tried to find one he wanted. None of them seemed like they would fit him.

Initially, he had dismissed the rows of longbows. The recurve bows didn’t look interesting either. But then he saw something interesting. It looked like a shortbow, but it had too many strings. He turned to Ramin and said, “What is this?”

“Now isn’t the time to be trying out new weapons. Just strap on the sword and be done with it,” he said dismissively.

“I think now is the perfect time to try something new. I have been on hunts with the sword, and it didn’t work. I think I need to try something else if I am going to get The Mother’s blessing,” Hugo said.

“We are all friends here, we know that you won’t ever get The Mother’s blessing now. But I suppose you still need to unlock your domain. If you don’t want to do it with the sword, you can try something new, I guess. That is a geared bow. A student of mine, a formation mage, made it for me. It works pretty well, but if it breaks, we have no way of repairing it,” the huntmaster said.

Hugo picked it up and said, “Isn’t that true of any bow we bring with us? If I break any of these, we would have to bring it back to get it repaired and re-strung.”

“Of course I can repair our weapons in the field, I have The Mother’s gift of wood, remember?”

Hugo grunted noncommittally. He didn’t even know what the gift of wood was, let alone that this guy had it. He examined the bow. It was heavier than he expected, but not inconveniently so. There was actually just one bowstring, a wire wound around a pulley on each end. The pulleys were attached to a series of gears along the arms. The bow itself looked like it had been broken and put back together with a mesh metal center. It was weird looking, but Hugo was fascinated.

Huntmaster Ramin walked up to Hugo and looked down at the geared bow with him. He said, “I would say that a young cub like you bringing along such a fragile and wondrous bow would be a waste... But this bow has sat here unused for years. Go ahead and take it. Try not to waste the masterwork of a talented formation mage.”

“Thank you, I will try my best,” Hugo said and tied the bow to his pack and shouldered it.

“Does everyone have what you need?” Ramin said and looked around. He turned to Hugo and said, “You didn’t bring along anything useless this time did you? Perfumes and hair brushes are no use in the forest.”

“No perfumes. Only the necessities,” Hugo said. He didn’t begrudge the man the question because Lina did have perfumes and several kinds of soaps in her camping bag. He had drastically paired down her kit when he was getting ready last night. Luckily her taste in armor was much more practical and he felt safe in the quality leather and wood armor he was wearing.

Yasmin asked if any of them needed instructions with the aphids, but all of them had ridden before. Hugo wasn’t confident in his skills to direct his aphid where he wanted to go, but Yasmin said not to worry about it for now. He would learn as they went and until he had a handle on things, his aphid would just follow the one in front of it.

The huntmaster led the way, with Yasmin then Lina and Parisa brought up the rear. The giant insects really put on the speed once they were out of the trees. With six legs, they were able to smoothly race along the forest floor.

The wind blew in his face as they sped along. Hugo guessed that the aphids were only slightly slower than the mana carts he was used to. They were fast, and the ride was stable even when they went over uneven ground. He wondered why more people didn’t use them.

Soon enough, the four of them were out in the open forest. The majority of the trees out here were regular height, only twenty to thirty feet tall. There were some of the giant grove trees out here, but only one every so often. Hugo guessed that they had been planted there, since the spacing seemed unnatural.

It wasn’t long before they saw their first monsters. A flock of strix had been nesting in a nearby tree and a dozen of them swooped down at once. Hugo scrambled for his bow, but he had some difficulty getting it untied.

By the time he was ready to shoot an arrow, all of the flying monsters were dead. The huntmaster had killed two with a pair of thrown daggers, but the rest were killed by Parisa. She had been traveling at the back of the group, but still reacted fast enough to throw all three spears and four knives to kill off the remaining monsters. Hugo was particularly impressed to see a single spear had taken out three strix.

Either their mounts were very well trained, or incredibly stupid, because the aphids didn’t even twitch during the brief fight. After an hour or two of heading west Yasmin spoke up, “Are we heading anywhere in particular?”

Without looking back, Ramin said, “Yes, there is a hunting ground near the coast I want to visit. It’s about three hours south west of here at the rate we are going. Thank you for bringing the aphids along by the way. We are making excellent time.”

“South?” Parisa said, “You told the First Prince we were heading north to Buhayra Lake.”

He turned in his saddle a little and waved his hands negligently. “I said that in front of the court. Someone is killing royals, we can’t give out our real destination.”

Parisa frowned, but said nothing in reply.

Shortly after that, they were attacked again. It was a trio of dire wolves. Hugo was able to attack this time before they were all dead. He had hooked the geared bow on his saddle so it was easier to get to. The bow was on the right side and a quiver on the left. It was the first time he fired the bow and it shocked him.

The draw was easy and he almost thought that it had been broken in some way. When he let go, it shot forward with a crack. The mechanism must have some way of greatly enhancing the speed of the arrows. The first arrow went wide since he hadn’t expected that kind of power. He was prepared for the second one, and that arrow went through the dire wolf’s shoulder and almost out the other side. Very impressive for a wooden arrow.

That had been the last of the three monsters to die, and they stopped so Parisa could harvest the mana stones. With expert butchery, she quickly extracted the three stones. Hugo noted that they had flesh and blood bodies, so that meant that they were probably outside of the reach of the shimmer mountain. These aphids were deceptively fast.

“I am getting a bit worried about how few attacks there have been,” Parisa said, “This section of the forest should be more populated.”

“I noticed it as well, probably some rare spawn in the area. Not too many monsters hunt other monsters. Might be a drake but I haven’t smelled any smoke on the wind. Probably something like a gloomstalker. I have seen an onyx spawn here once or twice over the years, we better pray that isn’t it. Either way, we will be extra careful when we stop for the night.

Just after lunch, they saw something that made the huntmaster derail his plans. It was a tribble. They killed the small furred monster as soon as they saw it, but Ramin was sure there were more. They all dismounted and they started tracking down the rest of the tribble herd.

“Why are we hunting down these monsters? Do they often have mana stones?” Yasmin whispered.

“You can talk normal, tribbles have terrible hearing,” Ramin said, “And no, tribbles never have mana stones. Whenever they gain enough mana to solidify a stone, they split into two tribbles instead. They are the worst kind of tier one trash.”

“Then why are we taking the time to track them down?” Yasmin said.

Hugo knew this one from his previous life, so he spoke up in the hopes it would convince the huntmaster he was Lina. “Tribbles are like a plague. It is an unspoken rule that hunters and harvesters always need to fully eradicate them wherever they are found. They never stop multiplying when they have access to mana. If just one of them eats a mana shard, the next morning there will be two hundred of them. Almost any monster or animal of the forest can kill a single tribble, but few can fight off hundreds of them at once. Enough of them could easily sweep through the entire forest. We can’t allow these tribbles to breed out of control. We have to kill them now.”

Ramin looked back at Hugo and nodded once. Then he turned his attention back to a set of tracks only he could see. They walked through the forest for some time, on high alert for the pernicious monsters.

About a half hour later he turned to the rest of them and said, “I hear something ahead, the rest of you mount up and climb that grove tree there. Tribbles can climb just fine, but it will help you make sure you aren’t surrounded. I need to find out what is making that noise.”

Once the three of them mounted up, he turned and blended into the forest. Hugo was left wondering if it was some kind of riese magic or if the man was just very talented.

Waiting around for Ramin to get back was a bit boring. They knew they had to be quiet so they didn’t catch the attention of whatever was making noise up ahead. So they sat on one of the branches of the grove tree in silence. Eventually, the huntmaster reappeared at the base of the tree and they rode the aphids down to meet him.

“Parisa, I am going to need your help. I hate to leave the kids alone like this, but I don’t think we have a choice,” Ramin said.

Parisa hopped off her aphid and said, “What did you find?”

“Two valleys over, there is a snakeskin hydra. The tribbles found her and I think they might win if we don’t thin the herd first. It’s a big hydra, but there are a lot of tribbles in the valley. We can’t allow them to eat a grandcryst, or Mother forbid, a mana core,” Ramin said.

“Damn,” Parisa said. She turned to the pack on her aphid and started getting out more weapons.

The huntmaster turned to Yasmin and Hugo and said, “You girls stay here. Take the aphids to the top of the tree. If we don’t return by sundown, head straight home. Tell them about the tribbles and the fact that they might have gotten access to a grandcryst.”

Yasmin looked terrified, but Hugo said, “Take me with you. I want to help. Killing tribbles isn’t hard and you need all the help you can get. You know me. You know I will be effective by your side.”

Huntmaster Ramin seemed surprised by the offer, “Your father would literally kill me if he found out. As in actually dead and fed to The Mother.”

“Yes, but this is important. Tribbles with access to a mana core could mean the end of everyone. You know I am skillful enough to be of use. I am offering my help and my silence,” Hugo said.

It was clear that Ramin wanted to get angry at her, but he eventually just said, “Alright. I guess it is better to take you along than to let you sneak after. Just keep your mouth shut. And Yasmin, as far as you know, she never left your side.”

“Yes, sir,” Yasmin said, her eyes wide. She led the aphids back up the giant tree.

The three of them set off into the forest. Parisa and Ramin quietly discussed the situation and the layout of the land. They came up with a plan of action and a role for the young girl quietly walking with them. As they walked into the valley, they saw and heard the enormous hydra in the middle of the valley. It was surrounded by a sea of tribbles.

The monsters didn’t see the trio of riese enter the valley and get into position. Once everyone was ready, the huntmaster strung his recurve bow. He shot a single arrow in a high arch towards the tribbles. With a gesture, the wooden arrow multiplied. Another gesture made those arrows multiply until there were more than a hundred arrows falling from the sky. Almost every arrow took out a tribble in a wide circle.

Ramin slumped to the side, the magic obviously taking a lot out of him. Perhaps a fourth of the tribbles turned towards the riese, hoping for easier prey.

Hugo immediately regretted volunteering. There were more than a thousand tribbles heading their way now.