The Crow wished everything was black, the Owl, that everything was white.

Pre-Fall Poet

“That was relatively easy. We won’t be lucky next time,” Mark announced.

He walked toward the furthest fallen Canid and started picking back the arrows. Peter moved along with him, helping, while Johanna turned to Petra.

“Congratulations,” she half-whispered.

“Fuck, it looks too easy.”

“Remember, you can only stop one at a time. But you’ve got a much bigger range than I ever had, as I guessed.”

“Really?”

“It’s as I told you when you got the parchment. Adept, sorcerer… advanced something. I had the basic sorcerer-level power, you have the advanced version. You stopped that Canid at a long range.”

She looked at the distant corpse.

“It even seems close to my range with the balls of fire. I wonder…”

She fell silent as the two men came back.

“No bounties?” she asked the guardsman, just in case.

“Nope. Not unless they’re a direct threat to Zahl or one of the farmplexes. Otherwise, you’d get all kinds of stupid people trying to go hunt them and getting killed,” Mark replied.

“Congratulations, by the way… Tom? You do know how to use that hammer. It’s probably too risky to engage them in melee rather than pick them with a bow or something, but… well, that works. If they get to us.”

Tom merely shrugged.

“You’re not getting the skins?” Petra asked.

“It would take too much time to skin them properly. And if you’re coming for salvaging, you can probably get better value by volume than Canid skins,” Johanna answered her.

“Unless you know you have customers,” Laura added.

“Which we never had in Valetta. Not that we hunted Canids. Not for profit, anyway.”

“Besides, they stink, notably after,” Peter noted.

Mark laughed at that.

“Okay folk, give me one minute and it’s time to continue.”

Once the guardsman had preventively reassembled his pike and tied it to his pack, Johanna noted he kept the bow ready, although he instructed Petra to release the crossbow string, to keep it supple.

“Now let’s find Georg’s old pathways.”

They were much closer to Fallen Hill when Peter, once again, spotted first what looked like a small trail. The borders of the butte were a chaos of fallen screes and similar almost vertical features, making Johanna wonder how that particular piece of the landscape had begun. It reminded her a bit of the half-hill they’d found in the northern mana barrier zone. Like that piece, it probably had been moved somehow by that Changestorm from some other place, and the side of what was now a plateau had slowly subsided, being gutted by rains and snows.

Or maybe it had been the same place, just pulled up by mana. Who could know?

Maybe we’ll find some hints on top, Johanna mused.

Once they got closer, Mark compared it to his grandfather’s old map.

“Looks like it’s the one Grandpa, Georg and Mickey found, all right. See, two switchbacks, and it gets to the lip.”

“Do we get close to the ruins they saw?” Johanna asked.

“They’re close to the middle of the plateau, but on the other side, I remember grandpa saying. Maybe four miles,” he replied, checking the hand-drawn map.

They stopped when they got close, Mark pointing at an enormous smelly mass on the ground not too far from the path’s start.

“Bosid traces. We need to be careful if that beast decides to get on top behind us and cuts our retreat.”

They started the path. It was easily large enough for two people and covered in all kinds of muddled traces.

“It’s obvious it’s well used,” she pointed to Petra, noticing Mark’s nod.

“Not too many ways to move to the top?” the ex-bartender mused.

“Which makes it dangerous. If we need to run away, that’s probably the only way,” Mark’s answer came.

Then the guardsman swore.

“Where’s Peter? Has anyone seen him?”

“He’s probably checking ahead. Don’t worry,” Johanna replied.

Mark looked up, trying to find the diminutive member of the group. And failing, as Johanna expected.

“Don’t worry, he’s good at that.”

The man grumbled something inaudible, probably some form of “bloody stupid amateurs” or equally worse, Johanna thought. At least the amateur part might be technically correct.

It was those minor times of introspection that sometimes hit her. Insanity, as Petra said. Going from scavengers dodging Changed beasts in ruins to trained fighters with overpowered Talents. She wondered how Catherine felt, after more than three months of her own insanity.

The hilltop was about three hundred yards above the plains, she guessed. They made slow progress along the highly irregular path, which alternatively sloped up, plateaued, shrank, and enlarged. Despite all, it was far better than trying to climb the ravines and deal with screes.

Almost without warning, they reached the top. The abrupt sides got replaced by a flat terrain that looked like someone had taken the plains and simply pushed them up. And Peter was seated on a large root from a bent tree that had been all but invisible from the path. He waved lazily.

“Nothing?” Johanna asked.

“Rabbits. Normal-sized ones, not Lepuses,” he answered.

She laughed, attracting an irritated gaze from Mark. The man turned back to Peter.

“I hope you know what you’re doing, but I’d rather you didn’t do that. Separating is risky.”

While they were taking a break after the climb, Johanna surveyed the plateau on which they were standing now. Flat, but unlike the plains, full of all sorts of trees, not enough to make a full-fledged forest, but definitively more than random growth on plains. Bushes abounded, with grass that was starting to poke out between lingering snow banks. And, of course, the ubiquitous purple dandelions were all over the place.

“Not easy to spot hostile beasts, unless they’re big,” she noted.

“True,” Mark answered from behind.

“Is that our objective,” she asked, pointing in the distance.

Mark squinted, before shaking his head.

“Maybe. Looks like some tower? If the ruins are tall enough, we might see from that far.”

“Meaning they’re more or less intact, then.”

He looked at her, before nodding.

“Might be.”

The terrain put Johanna to the edge, in a way that the mana zone of last fall had not. In a way, it had a bit more visibility than the forested area they’d trekked across, but the mix of heavy bush clumps, bare trees, and the overall vegetation did not help. She could see much further, but not truly spot things much closer.

“The trees look strange,” she finally admitted to Mark.

“Noticed too. I think they would look even weirder if they had their leaves already. No pines. No evergreens whatsoever.”

“Even in the northern barrier…” she started.

“You’ve really been there?” Mark asked.

“Last fall. We needed to cross some terrain quickly, and didn’t have time to go around through normal roads.”

“And you thought it was better to risk that?”

“There are periods where it’s more dangerous. We found a few Changed beasts, but not that many.”

She could see Mark still thought of her as overblowing her feats.

If only he knew…

“CAW!”

The gigantic Corvid flew slowly downward toward them, almost gliding. But as it crossed an invisible range, its gaze snapped immediately toward an important target.

Laura, Johanna realized. She must have immediately applied her gaze, and equally obviously, the corvid had noticed the source of the unnatural discomfort. Johanna didn’t hesitate and raised her hand, trying to distract the monstrous bird.

Mark saw the fireball shooting into the sky and his head reflexively tracked the source, causing him to frown when he spotted her hand aimed up.

Masks off, Johanna thought. A second fireball launched as the first dissipated, the Corvid having just barely dodged it. In response, manalight played off the entire flyer’s span, with more mana focusing on its claws and head.

“It’s got magic active,” she called out.

Mark’s training took over and he shot an arrow at the incoming target. But unlike Johanna’s unerring fireballs, this one veered off, as if a gust of wind from its wings had pushed it out.

The giant crow-like bird paused, flapping its oversized wings to remain stationary for a moment before it opened its beak.

The next thing Johanna realized was that she was holding her hands to her head’s side. The Corvid’s shout still resonated in her head, making it almost impossible to… think. Then she ducked, by reflex, as she realized the bird was already almost upon her.

She escaped the raking claws, barely, and felt the almost physical cold coming from them. She shivered, wishing once again for the immunity to cold that water, mists, or ice sorcerers had. Instead, she lit up her hand, keeping it as close as she could without burning her clothing.

The Corvid was already banking, flapping, and turning for another pass. She spotted arrow and crossbow bolts, but the projectiles turned aside, the arrow almost hitting before it veered off somehow.

Johanna realized that the fireballs refused to come from her flaming hand. She dropped her newer knife – more of a dagger at this size – and aimed instead, launching another ball of fire. Unlike the mundane projectiles, the ball flew true, but barely scored on its wingtip, filling her with confusion.

Don’t tell me, it is also a fire crow and immune?

The oversized bird looked furious about her and was coming back.

Then she spotted Mark running, spear aimed up. He’d abandoned attempts at shooting with his bow, given that the arrows kept missing. He raised the spear and managed to graze the underside of a wing. The Corvid twitched and his claw raked the face of the guardsman as the beast turned back up.

Johanna expected Laura to blink to him, but she didn’t. Her friend probably knew the wound was not dangerous. The Corvid turned sharply and aimed straight for Johanna again, and she readied a new fireball. As if it knew, the giant black bird veered off and she realized suddenly he was aiming at Laura again.

He almost hit her. At the last second, Laura vanished, reappearing next to Mark, who was holding a hand to his cheek, looking deathly pale. The Corvid braked and flapped in place, taken by surprise by the disappearance of his target.

That was its first and last mistake. Before it reoriented, a flashing figure came, hammer raised, and Tom hit. The hammer almost missed, but only almost. The wing broke under the shock, and the beast fell to the ground. Tom raised the hammer again, but the Corvid screamed again. Johanna blinked, realizing that Tom had stopped his attack.

The beast tried to move and launch himself, but he failed, his taloned feet remaining glued on the ground. Johanna realized that Petra had managed to lock the bird. Before the beast recovered from the surprise, Tom’s hammer fell finally, and the Corvid’s head hit the ground with a finality that announced the end of the fight.

Moore had learned not to over-stress during those fights. Although he had expected trouble, as soon as he’d spotted the regeneration percentage starting to increase as they climbed the pathway until it stabilized at 30% once on the plateau.

The Level 13 Supreme Storm Corvid was a decent opponent, he guessed. Too bad – for the Corvid, that is – that it did not have a real ranged attack. Once close to the ground, it was done.

And worth a big chunk of XP, of course. If any further attack happened and maimed someone permanently, he would have enough with that attack’s XP to make an emergency allocation to Laura for Regrow.

The skills used by the boss beast brought a few non-whistles and metaphorical head scratching. The name suggested four skills, of which at least three used had now popped into his knowledge base due to their base high tier.

Investiture of Ice (tier 26)

Requires: Empathy 23/Authority 21/Level 13

Effective: N × Empathy + Level (adds mana)

Passive: Grant bodily immunity to cold, down to (100-5×Eff) °F

Active: Project your cold (Eff) inches from your feet while reducing all fire effects by (Eff×12) °F.

Active cost: 1 mana per (Eff) seconds

Water Shaper

AGI 17/ STR 16/EMP 16/Lvl 4

N=3

Shaper

AUT 16/Lvl 1

N=2

Domain of the Skies (tier 18)

Requires: Authority 21/Strength 19/Level 9

Effective: N × Strength + Level (adds mana)

Passive: You weigh (Eff)% less for your own actions

Active: Ranged projectiles have (Eff vs PER)×3% chance of missing.

Active cost: 1 mana per (Eff) seconds

Duelist

AGI 17/ STR 16/EMP 16/Lvl 4

N=1

Shaper

AUT 16/Lvl 1

N=1

Fascination (tier 17)

Requires: Authority 20/Empathy 20/Level 8

Effective: N × Authority + Level (adds mana)

Passive: Enhance your effective Perception by (Eff/8) for skill checks

Active: Target pays attention only to you (Eff vs PER)% of the time.

Active cost: 1 mana per (Eff) seconds

Tyrant Fixer

EMP 17/AUT 16/Lvl 5

N=3

Fixer

EMP 16/Lvl 1

N=2

Duelist

AGI 17/ STR 16/EMP 16/Lvl 4

N=1

Mana Shaper

AUT 16/Lvl 1

N=1

Fascination looked like a crock of shit, given that it seemed a primary Fixer skill. As if healers needed a taunting skill.

But Investiture of Ice? A cold skill giving immunity to fire – although as an active rather than passive?

Higher levels are starting to look… interesting.