We may be thankful that the shallows are inimical to the depths.

Vortigern Stone, Angel Basin Salvage Unit 1 (circa 2057)

The terrain might have been easier now, but the road was becoming a bit worse. Some Ancient pavement, barely repaired, with half-filled potholes in places. It looked like the road was not regularly maintained.

“That’s the Springs Narrows, people,” Captain Devereaux yelled. “The road is safe, obviously, but if you look around, the vegetation changes abruptly on both sides. The gap between mana zones is less than a mile wide at its shortest point, and it should take us a day to cross before the safe area widens. Sooo… if you don’t want for us to camp there, better not slack.”

“Fills you with confidence,” Peter snorted.

Tom merely shrugged, as the four trudged along the rest of the column.

The hillsides looked more or less normal at first, but the changes in vegetation that the soldier had warned about became quickly visible as they advanced. The pine trees on top of the hills… turned. Changing from dark green to an almost blueish black, growing taller too. Normal trees still dominated, but the presence of the Changed trees gave the sides of the Gap a sinister edge.

“Never been that close to true mana pockets,” Johanna said.

“No. The vegetation in the ruins isn’t that different,” Peter said.

Johanna was looking at the south side of the gap when Tom at her side suddenly stiffened. She looked at him and saw he was peering in the same direction she had.

“Spotted anything?” she asked.

“Don’t know… it’s like I think there’s something there.”

“Yes, it’s spooky, isn’t it?”

“More than that. I feel like there’s something coming.”

She looked again but saw nothing.

“You’re sure, Tom?”

“Yea. It’s like…” he stopped.

“… it’s like when we fought the Lepuses. Some tried to attack me from the side, but whenever they did, I somehow knew it.”

Johanna blinked in surprise.

“More obvious now that there’s nothing around. It’s like there’s a Lepus running at me that I can’t see,” he said.

“My god, you got another ability?”

“Probably already had, even with the first colony. Useful in a big melee like it was. But here…”

She instantly started to speed up toward the head of the column. The adjutant was riding there at his usual pace, accompanied by the captain. Both men were discussing something as she reached them.

“Adjutant?”

He turned back toward her, surprised.

“Yes, Mrs. Milton?”

“Something to the south.”

“Well, yes. We’re close to the beginning of the mana zones on both sides…”

“Not that. Tom says something is coming. At us.”

Adjutant Agnello squinted at her.

“He can tell that?”

“I do,” the man said as he came up to Johanna, still looking south.

Captain Deveraux was skeptical.

“Are you sure? If that’s just being spooked…”

A loud crash answered him, and the captain’s head snapped to the south. A handful of the blue-black pine trees shook briefly, but visibly on the hillside.

“Okay.”

The captain’s voice rose to a near-shout.

“Hostile, south. Get rea…”

Trees shook and something came out of the forested zone, a hundred yards from the road. The figure rose to almost the height of a big man, like Tom. Long, with a short snout, and a crown of huge quills spiking toward its back. And, even from afar, immense eyes of a deep green, like precious stones.

Johanna had never seen its like. It was as if someone had crossed a boar with a bull, and turned its fur into hardpoints.

Moore couldn’t believe his eyes when the monster came out of the woods.

Level 12 Peak Unnatural Amphex. SHIT! That looks like a boss!

Half of the soldiers had frozen on the spot. Then cries from the levies began, and Johanna didn’t have to turn her head to know that panic was sweeping across the column.

The monster moved out of the wood, unnaturally fast on too-short legs, casting its green eyes at the humans spread in front of it. Then it emitted a squeal.

It wasn’t like the sounds of the Lepus colony. The cry was much deeper, almost bone-rattling. Then the sound ended, just as Captain Devereaux shouted, “Deep Changed! Spears! FORMATION! Get out those crossbows!”

The monster looked at the massed humans, searching… before his eyes focused on something just to Johanna’s right. She shuddered briefly because those unnatural green eyes looked a bit too much like a human rather than a beast. Almost human, not quite, and that created a queasy sensation. She turned her head to see what the monster was looking at before realizing that Laura was next to her.

She snapped her head back to the monster as it started moving toward her friend. She was sure Laura was trying to use her gaze to intimidate the monster, as she had on the Lepuses back in Anasta…, and that the beast knew it, somehow.

Then she flexed her mind muscle, and the Changed beast slowed, then stopped. It gingerly raised his legs one by one, as if wondering what had befallen it, and she briefly wondered how smart the beast could be. Then the creature resumed moving… albeit far more slowly.

Stolen novel; please report.

Some part of her briefly realized it was able to ignore partially her ability, as she kept her eyes focused on it. Somehow, it was powerful enough to keep walking. How had Devereaux called it? Deep Changed. Some creature that had soaked in heavy mana for who knew how long.

We can just delay it.

Tom was suddenly at her side, having pulled the sizable smithy hammer he’d purchased just before their last delve into the ruins. Nobody had bothered to take it from him, but she immediately put her hand on his arm, trying not to break eye target on the monster.

“Soldiers. It’s their job, they know how to deal with it,” she quickly whispered.

As if to confirm the point, a whistling sound came, and three bolts passed from behind, hitting the massive target. But two glanced on the spiky fur, and only one managed to hit the beast, who barely flinched at the pinprick.

“RELOAD! Valch, Gello, where is your crossbow???” she heard the sergeant yell.

Then she spotted the manalight, spreading from the neck of the beast, as most of its spiky quills started to shine. Not with manalight, she immediately realized, but more like metal, as if the quills had turned into deadly blades. She almost shouted to warn about the change, but it was perfectly visible anyway.

The beast arrived at where a dozen soldiers had made a wall of spears, and stopped just before, uncannily aware of the threat. The now-metallic quills at his neck and his back flexed, becoming even more blade-like. Rather than try to rush the barrier, the beast opened its maw, revealing a row of sharp teeth that looked more like a carnivore than a boar, and breathed.

From the depth of the maw, Johanna had barely time to see manalight before a sickly yellowish cloud of particles spread out. Most of the soldiers started coughing almost instantly, and the wall of spears wavered. She caught a whiff of the breath and felt a spike run through her nose, deep into her skull like an instant headache. She stumbled and Laura’s hand grasped her arm, steadying her.

The headache instantly cleared. Johanna’s head whipped to look at her friend, who looked confused.

“You removed that breath poison…” Johanna said.

Laura’s eyes widened, realizing that yet another ability had been granted to her. One that was immediately useful.

They both turned to look at the fight. More soldiers were rushing to restore the defensive formation, but the monster didn’t seem inclined to wait. It rushed over the spears, aiming toward a group of frozen levies. One weakened soldier rose its spear, striking at the flank. The beast stopped and shook itself, dislodging the irritant, and turned its massive head toward the soldier.

Before it could attack, a pair of soldiers reached, pushing their spears forward. The creature flinched at the steel in front of it.

Johanna gasped as she spotted manalight again, spreading across the beast. She realized another ability was coming into play.

How many magics does this thing have?

The flesh blurred. Shadows spread around, the skin turning briefly transparent. In a second, the creature looked like shadows in the shape of a monster. Johanna could have sworn she could see its bones through the skin, amidst disturbing shapes that might have been organs. The only thing that looked very solid were the metal-looking quills adorning its collar.

More crossbow bolts sang by, but they barely hit, sinking into the shadow before falling out of the shadowed flesh. Two more soldiers arrived by her, pushing spears to try to get at it, but she could see the spearheads now barely bothered the beast. Instead, it stomped, and the solid-looking hoof crashed on the leg of a soldier laying on the ground, still hacking and coughing.

“They’re failing,” Johanna realized.

The only thing that was keeping the attack in check, she thought, was that both Laura and she were applying their slowing effects, Laura trying to hamper and distract the beast from attacking, while she was slowing its movement on the ground. She hoped briefly that she had more success than the partial rooting result she had managed so far.

“It’s like tar,” one of the soldiers yelled.

Then she realized Laura had moved, trying to reach the soldier whose leg had been mangled and pull him out from the danger.

“No!” Johanna yelled.

The beast noticed her and turned its head. With the shadow effects rippling across its skull, its eyes looked like shining marbles in bony holes rather than proper eyes. But there was no mistaking its gaze.

Laura slammed her hand on the leg, and manalight flowed from the hand as the member twisted visibly, straightening. She immediately backpedaled, while Johanna tried to keep it rooted. The soldier lay unmoving feeling stunned, before scrambling from under the beast's rising hoof.

Then a figure slammed at the side of the beast, and Johanna recognized Tom and his hammer.

The beast staggered. Tom raised his hand again, and slammed the hammer at the side, aiming at the head. The quills flexed, and one grazed the hand, sliding along the hammer and handle. Blood spurted and Tom fell back, managing to keep his grip on the weapon.

The beast breathed again. Another sickly cloud spread and Tom started to cough, raising his left hand to his head in pain.

The two – no, three now – soldiers at Johanna pushed their spears, trying to distract and hit the beast. Then she realized that one of the soldiers was actually Peter. He’d picked a discarded spear and was trying to aim to a vulnerable point, to distract the monster from Laura. Then another spear joined them, and she noticed that Franz was trying to help as well. But the spearpoints didn’t catch properly, their pinprick barely registering.

“I know where to hit. But it’s like poking mud,” Peter said.

Johanna suddenly had an idea.

“Let me help,” she said, putting her hand on Peter’s spear.

The blade lighted up, fire burning.

“Go.”

Peter pushed the spear, her hand keeping her touch on the weapon. The flaming spearpoint ran into the shadows, and the beast howled, the bone-rattling squeal rising again. It shook its head, and the spear slipped from Peter’s grasp, falling on the ground, its blade immediately extinguished.

Johanna reached with her left hand for a soldier’s spear, and his own blade lit up in turn. The soldier looked briefly at her, before pushing the flaming spear into the beast, who yowled again.

Flesh solidified. The flaming weapons had been enough to break the monster’s concentration, the beastly equivalent of Johanna’s mental flex on her abilities.

She spotted Tom, back on his feet, Laura just behind him. Despite the blood running across his arm, he stepped fast into the beast, bringing his hammer. The beast yowled again and turned, just as three soldiers speared it.

One of the spears ran into one of the emerald orbs that were its eyes and the beast shuddered. Then Tom slammed his hammer again, the spear shifting in the eye socket, and the beast suddenly fell.

A massive whiff of shit spread out, almost as obnoxious as the yellow breath, but Johanna did breathe more easily. Franz, next to her, dropped his spear and turned, shivering. Then she realized from the stain on his trousers that her neighbor had probably lost it during the fight.

“The Lord be thanked, these things almost never come out of the deep mana zones,” she heard from behind.

She turned toward Adjutant Agnello.

“No kidding,” she said.

“We might have outlasted it. These things have massive abilities, all of them, but they eventually run out of mana. We’d have suffered heavy losses… if it were not for you. That flaming trick with others’ spears.”

“I had never tried it before.”

“Well, it worked. Thank you, Mrs. Milton. I look forward to seeing how much you will turn our fight against the tribes.”

The Adjutant turned back toward Captain Devereaux.

“Get back all the levies. We don’t want to stay in the Narrows any longer we need.”

Thank whatever God rules here, they had an army to help.

Although that probably cut deeply into the XP, that was a secondary consideration. It wasn’t a game, and XP was worthless if you died. 1201 experience per person in that fight was well earned, no matter how hard it was.

The mutated hedgehog had been insanely hard to kill. A true boss battle, as much as this reality offered. And it had used advanced skills, pretty much as that Canid back after he awakened. More skills, and bigger ones.

Sorting by tiers – the amount of XP you needed to remove the skill if you wanted to – brought the insane skills the monster had used in that battle. It was easy, not only they were the only skills above his current horizon of level 5 – besides the Eversharp he’d gotten from the sword – but the description matched the effects.

Metal Spikes might be called a basic spell, a simple Strength-based spell at level 7, but there was no denying it did fit the hedgehog-like creature. Moore had no idea how that skill might translate for a person. Turn their hair into metal spikes, maybe.

Spore Breath was next. That was the attack he’d seen in action. A level 8 Authority/Perception spell, it was pretty much a massive toxic debuff designed more to weaken and debilitate rather than outright kill.

But the icing on the cake was the insanely named Fleshless.

Fleshless

Requires: Authority 21/Strength 20/Perception 19/Level 11

Effective: N × Strength + Level (adds mana)

Passive: Adds (Eff) stamina

Active: Temporarily transform flesh and organs into shadows. Attacks by slashing and piercing weapons are (Eff vs STR)×5% less efficient.

Active cost: 1 mana per (Eff) seconds

Duelist

AGI 17/STR 16/EMP 16/Lvl 4

N=2

Guardian

STR 16/PER 16/Lvl 2

N=1

Shaper

AUT 16/Lvl 1

N=1

The very next thought that came to Moore was, can it appear as an item?