There are Deep Changed, and there are The Deep Changed.

Van Ronkas, America’s Mapping Society

The weather was bad again, but not too far gone. Johanna still wished at times for the cold immunity of Elena, as the temperature was above freezing, but just so. Snowflakes were falling, although they melted immediately on the ground, making everything soggy. And slowing them.

The Ancient road was godsent. It even looked pristine, the kind of black covering called asphalt that remained in lots of places in the ruins. But those had never looked that good. Here, even the roots of the tree that lined it twisted rather than dig under it and break it. And wonders – it went east-southeast, just where they were heading towards.

The drawback, of course, was that it lacked any cover from trees. So, the snowflakes fell on them and still made the road slick. But they still made better time than walking across soggy earth in the forest.

Tom pointed in the distance. Johanna squinted, then shuddered.

The silhouette in the distance looked twice the size of a bull ox. But rather than a fur cover, it had a mottled white… carapace. Like one of those river crabs, but elongated. It also had too many legs for an insect or even a spider… and a giant tail, hovering behind it, with a bulbous tip and a spike that looked like a weapon of war.

And it was slowly coming their way. And she could see faint wisps of manalight rising from – or sinking in – its carapace, like some whisps of colorless light. Not entirely like magic being used, more like an artifact’s presence.

RUN! Moore wanted to scream, uselessly.

The figure coming was the stuff of nightmares before you even saw the System label. He’d thought the weird hedgehog was a boss. He’d thought the oversized last mouse in the dungeon had been a fitting boss, but he had been wrong.

The albino scorpion coming was designated as a Level 19 Supreme Energized Scorpid.

He could guess by now what the labeling was building to. A skill designator. The more elaborate, the more skills available to the monster. A theme designator. This monster was probably mixing lightning and other things. And, as an afterthought, the species’ type.

He was pretty sure the scorpion’s tail could be used to devastating effect even without even requiring a System-backed skill. This boss had a pointed spike that looked like it could skewer even Tom… and good luck healing trauma if the tail spike remained embedded in his torso. Or whatever poison was bound to be there.

Okay, that’s too much like some game spectacle, but the point stands.

Good. Hide, he thought as he noticed the four scrambling to the side of the road.

As he spotted the slowly crawling Scorpid continuing, he saw a pair of weirdly shaped stretched black triangles briefly hovering above it, just before the team rushed under what looked like a concrete overhang and he lost sight of the monster.

Shadow Wings

Requires: Authority 27/Strength 23/Agility 21/Level 16

Effective: N × Authority + Level (adds mana)

Passive: You suffer (Eff)% less damage from falling.

Active: You have space-time shear wings, suitable for flying up to (Eff×10) feet above ground.

Active cost: 1 mana per (Eff) seconds

Earth Shaper

AUT 17/AGI 16/Lvl 5

N=2

Fast Fixer

EMP 17/STR 16/Lvl 5

N=1

Shaper

AUT 16/Lvl 1

N=1

Tyrant Fixer

EMP 17/AUT 16/Lvl 5

N=1

It’s not directly combat-related, but fuck it. Don’t need to see the combat ones.

Johanna scrambled under the overhang, the others following her lead. The small stream had barely any kind of flow, but the Ancients – assuming this was the proper place for the road, and not something scrambled by a Changestorm – still had built a bridge over it.

The four huddled there.

“If I can see it drawing mana, like an artifact, it’s way, way more dangerous than that Murid,” she briefly explained.

There was confidence, like in that weirdly altered Ancient location, and incorrect confidence, like now. They might have grown in power, but she wasn’t sure they could tackle that kind of Changed beast.

And her faith in the Skeleton providing had its limits.

Peter whispered, “I’m going to check.”

She almost said no. But he had all the advantages his position gave him.

“Be careful. That shit’s obviously very powerful. And we don’t know what truly Changed can do against you.”

Her childhood friend shrugged as his wife squeezed his hand.

In the worst case, they would either run… or fight in desperation.

Maybe the monster wouldn’t like being shoved in its carapace a magical sword held by someone who always hit the right spots, with a flame burning over it. So, she nodded and watched as Peter turned uninteresting, before slipping out from under the bridge. As usual, once she missed keeping track of him, he was gone, and she couldn’t find him.

While waiting, she distracted herself by checking the bridge. Like many of the Ancient constructs, it was a kind of faked stone, the so-called concrete universally used by them. Gritty, but unnatural. The modern version worked almost as well, even if it was rarely used, at least in Valetta, and even less around it.

What was funny is that people – Ancients, presumably – had carved stuff in it. There were abstract symbols, like a four-lobed clover over what looked like a jagged triangle. Names. A pair of heart-shaped figures with arrows that wouldn’t have looked out of place on the timbers of Anasta’s palisade. Even a few sentences, like “Roark was here”. Then she realized that the carvings ended abruptly at the edge of the concrete, leaving even one letter cut in half.

She was startled as Peter touched her shoulder.

“Beast’s passed over the bridge, and is heading the way we came from.”

Johanna breathed more easily.

“We wait some more, then we go again.”

“Thanks,” she added belatedly.

Peter merely shrugged.

Eight more days in the wilderness, their backpacks becoming lighter and lighter as the packed rations were going. By now, Johanna was thoroughly sick of the army rations. They might keep very well, but at least scavenger’s meals were more varied.

It had not taken them long to figure out the Artifact gloves. Whoever used them barely needed to drink. Why gloves would let you skip drinking was a mystery, though. Unfortunately, they couldn’t simply rotate the gloves and skip on finding clean water to refill the canteens – you needed to keep the gloves on to reduce your thirst. It was still useful, so Johanna kept them on all the time. Peter, of course, gave the gloves the name of Thirst, just to be contrary.

The eastern part of the mana zone was more populated. They kept seeing beasts all around. Some obvious Changed ones, some that looked more normal.

They’d fought a couple of Canids. Obviously a mated pair, the she-wolf still visibly sporting nipples even in this late November. There was no trace of any smaller Canids, but the two Changed fought with abandon.

And burned after she blasted them with a fireball as soon as Tom and Peter had been out of the way.

There had been a pack of Lepus. Almost as numerous as the ones they fought months ago on the road between Valetta and Anasta. This time, no one got gored as they methodically dispatched the beasts.

Two Felids had stumbled upon them and ran away as soon as she’d brought up her flame. The feline Changed beasts seemed to be the smartest of the lot, almost immediately realizing they were outmatched.

But suddenly the trees changed. Johanna had grown accustomed to the incredibly tall trees, whose main variation was how high the branches and leaves started. And, across some kind of invisible border, the trees turned into short pines with dark needles that still looked like normal trees.

“Looks like we’ve reached the edge,” she said.

“Finally.”

“It’s been a long, long time.”

“We’re still not out. We need to find that road that was on the map, then one of the towns,” she warned.

“I hope their inns have showers.”

“They better be,” Tom confirmed.

Even if the tree mix had not changed, Moore could have guessed the “mana zone” ended there. The regeneration rate had been steadily falling, and as they stepped out of the tall stripped trees into what looked more like an ordinary pine forest, Tom’s regeneration – which had been his go-to check, due to the highest regeneration stat from Strength – had finally matched back the nominal score.

Now that they were out, the opportunities for XP were drying out. There might be some things to fight, but probably not on the order of the last non-fight, where a level 8 basic Felid had run away from the team as soon as they got ready to fight. So, it was time to finish the level’s plan.

Peter had always been the one leading the leveling and everything, but this time, he was the main beneficiary of the global pool XP. Tom got a whopping 105XP to top him, but 1670 global XP later, everyone got the planned skill for that 6th level.

Johanna was now at 16 Empathy, with a Steam Breath. So far, she had not figured she could spray scalding steam, but it was only a matter of time. Unfortunately, the visible skills in Strength and Agility were underwhelming so far.

Going to wait if level 8 has something good. Hopefully, it’s both.

Tom finally got a defensive skill to go with 16 DEX. Block was, based on the description, a skill against close-ranged weapons, although Moore hoped it worked against “natural” weapons like those of the Changed bestiary. Descriptions without a serious wiki to check the exact details of something were a pain in the no-longer-existing lower regions.

And finally, Peter got the much-delayed Forced Attacks. Moore did not know if it would interact with the artifact sword and its Eversharp. In the best case, the artifact sword would cut deeper. And if it didn’t, well, it applied to the off-hand – or main-hand, since Peter for some reason seemed to prefer to transfer the sword to his off-hand, and then fight with a dagger-slash-knife in his right hand.

As for Laura, there was no point in investing anything in her build. Sure, he had enough available that he could boost Perception right now and raise her mana regeneration in anticipation of the next level, but an extra 2 points per hour were not going to matter much at this current point.

You’re going to be the pioneer to expand the horizon to level 8, Moore thought, not-smiling.

The pine forest, for all of its mundanity, was almost as miserable as the mana-infused forest had been. Trailing rains dampening everything were the same, whether they got filtered by Changed trees or ordinary ones.

The good thing was that you had some small game around, and they could chance hunting it. Laura had maintained she was certain they could risk eating stuff from the mana zone, and she’d be able to clear any consequences, but although she’d been tempted, Johanna had nixed the idea. If it failed, it could fail catastrophically, and they would have been too far away from civilization.

After a few tries, she quickly abandoned the idea of launching fireballs at squirrels or unchanged hares. The mix of burned fur and charred meat was not entirely inedible, but close. It was slower, but far better to have Peter sneak in next to the unsuspecting beast, at which point he skewered the prey with a knife at point-blank range. Once properly skinned, they made a much welcome addition to the dwindling army rations.

As often, Tom was the one to point out something. The forest was very sparse at this point, but what was notable was the packed earth running across it.

“Road. Civilization, at last,” he announced.

Johanna negotiated the twist in the road and spotted the carriage a few hundred yards in front of them.

“Hopefully, that means we should make it soon,” Laura immediately noted.

They walked more briskly. The carriage, upon closer inspection, was driven by oxen rather than donkeys, but that was okay. Two men were seated on top, but she could guess the beasts of burden were driving themselves. It was usually the case for such trains.

Tom pulled his fingers and whistled, warning the team of the presence of additional travelers.

The two turned heads, and Johanna wondered briefly why they seemed slightly familiar. Then one dropped a wooden cube, and the two groups simultaneously exclaimed “Wait a minute, aren’t you…”