Thirstfall - Memory of a Returnee

I keep the Horizon’s hood down until I reach the palace’s side wing, and only before crossing the last door do I pull it up.

The Horizon Cowl closes around my head and neck. The leather with its dark scales loses some of its shine under the corridor light, breaking the shape of my face inside the shadow. It doesn’t make me invisible. It just forces someone to look longer to place who’s passing.

After making the ranking, a few seconds could be enough to decide whether a conversation starts or a weapon comes out first. That’s the street rule for catching the unwary newcomers who land on the list.

I open the HUD as I head down the outer passage.

[OXI: 2,452/2,500]

The reserve is full.

I check the Horizon. Durability tied to the reserve, nothing compromised. Kraken stays available in the inventory, Eventide right below it, then the LDPs and the rest of the consumables.

I also do what should always be done before leaving a protected area: I stop under the entry arch and look over the courtyard.

Two side accesses. Azurea guards in visible positions. A carriage waits near the south gate, three groups of visitors walk toward the main hall, and a man on his own pretends to read a sign near the fountain. He looks at the hood but shows no recognition.

Nothing follows my first steps.

Only then do I leave the palace.

I take smaller streets to the Academy, avoiding the areas where public screens play yesterday’s news. Even so, I catch my alias twice. A frozen image from the arena shows Duvilin above the field, the bow drawn and the arrow gathering light in front of him. My body appears below, small next to the manifestation.

The name Uncle Den runs along the bottom band.

I’m glad the hood hides my expression.

The Academy’s central station sits in a long structure of blue stone, built between the training buildings and the platforms connecting Azure Prime to other regions. Trains run through the lower levels. The internal trams leave from a raised platform on the other side of the hall.

All I have to do is cross.

The first train pulls in before I reach the route board.

The sound arrives through the floor. A low vibration, then the friction of the wheels and the shift of air as the train slows. The doors line up with the platform with a precision my body recognizes before my head does.

I stop well back from the safety line.

The train is blue, full of windows and passengers. Nothing white. No emptiness on the other side of the glass. No count crossing the windows up to two hundred fifty-five.

Even so, my fingers close inside the glove.

The memory surfaces anyway—Lola on the roof of the locomotive, small against the wind, Lullaby strapped to her body as the Engineer pushed on. I’d already understood I could throw her to the last car. I also knew that if I did, I wouldn’t have time to follow her.

The decision hadn’t taken courage.

There just wasn’t another one I was willing to accept.

’Why did you do it, Lola?’

The train doors open. People get off, others get on, and the departure signal sounds above the platform.

There’s no Lola.

No Lost Ark waiting at the end of the line.

Even so, I follow every door until they all shut.

"You’re blocking the way."

Freya’s voice comes from my left.

I step aside before a woman cadet carrying a box has to work around the two of us. Freya stands a few paces off, in light winter gear, the kind you’d wear to hunt. The scythe stays in the inventory, but thin layers of ice sheath her boots and forearms.

She looks like she came ready to fight.

"Are you following me?" I ask.

"I’m going to the fields."

"Same route, same time."

Freya looks at the board above the platform.

"The Academy has a station. People end up running into each other in it."

"A convenient coincidence."

She turns her eyes back to me. The irritation comes first, then a slight discomfort as she realizes I don’t buy her explanation.

"I saw the ranking update," she says. "I figured you’d try to get experience before someone found you."

"So you came to keep me from dying."

"I came to check whether you plan to do something stupid."

"The result looks the same."

Freya cuts her eyes to the rails.

The jab was enough. I don’t need to turn every line of hers into a contest, especially after the way our last conversation ended.

The train leaves, taking part of the hall’s vibration with it. I keep watching the last cars until they disappear into the tunnel.

Freya follows my gaze.

"Did something happen here?"

"More than one thing."

She waits for the rest. When she sees I won’t go on, she doesn’t ask.

That surprises me more than it should.

We head to the upper platform. A sign marks the academic tram lines, separated from the rail routes by a wide staircase and two turnstiles. Ours will pass the east-sector dormitories, laboratories, the hospital, and the hunting fields.

While we wait, she picks the conversation back up.

"Your ranking... well... you’re exposed," she says.

"That was Veric’s conclusion."

"I’m not just talking about the Rank. Your name, the Silver Fang, and what happened in the arena are all tied together on the same screen. People are going to dig up everything they can find."

"That’s why I need to advance today."

Freya’s expression closes as she looks at the tram platform we’re waiting on.

"A Pincer Magnatos isn’t a creature for a Rank D to hunt alone."

"Good thing you decided to go to the same field by coincidence."

A faint flush reaches her face, though her expression stays firm.

"I didn’t decide to help you."

"Of course."

"Dryden..."

"I’m just respecting your version."

The tram still hasn’t arrived. A few students wait further along, talking near an OXI refill machine. Nobody seems to have matched my hood to the face on the ranking.

Freya rests a hand on the railing.

"I still don’t believe what you told me."

The change in her voice pulls the last of the humor out of the conversation and catches me off guard.

"I know."

"Your ability works with memories. There are explanations that make more sense than being reborn in the past."

"I know that too."

"And I still think you picked the worst possible moment to say it."

"On that, we agree."

She studies me, maybe waiting for an attempt to convince her. I don’t offer one.

The truth had already done enough damage in that room. Repeating it inside a station wouldn’t make it any easier to accept.

"Even so," Freya goes on, "I’ll trust you during the hunt."

"During the hunt."

"Just until we’re back."

I tilt my head.

"Trust that expires the moment the trip does?"

Freya shuts her eyes for a moment.

"Don’t make me change my mind before the tram gets here."

The car appears on the raised track soon after.

It’s two small cars, sides open above the waist, a roof held up by metal bars. No sealed doors, no benches lined up in a closed corridor. The tram slows with a light creak and stops in front of the platform.

We get on.

The route runs through the Academy, slow enough for me to see each curve before I reach it. We pass courtyards where students drill formations, workshops venting steam, and buildings covered in containment runes. The car stops often, taking on groups of cadets and dropping others near specific sectors.

The unease from the station eases as long as the tracks stay visible up ahead.

Freya notices but says nothing.

We get off at Hunting Field 17.

A reinforced wooden sign marks the place as [Low Tide Grove.] The area is meant for Rank C students, instructors, and authorized teams. A staffer checks Freya’s registration and gives me a longer look.

Freya taps her chest, as if to say, He’s with me.

He waves us through.

On the other side of the gate, I open the HUD once more.

[OXI: 2,442/2,500]

I close and open my hands, test the range in my shoulders, and adjust the seat of the Horizon over my chest. Kraken’s still available. Eventide too. Two LDPs on quick access, OXI Candies in the secondary compartment.

Then I read the area.

The entry road ends after a hundred and twenty feet. There’s an observation tower to the west, partly hidden by the canopy, and a blue barrier marks the field’s limits well past the trees. Two runic signs stay active by the gate. One says the monster population is within the controlled limit. The other reports that three teams and one instructor logged entry that morning.

Four groups, no exact positions.

The wind comes from the northeast, carrying the smell of brackish water, damp shells, and something mineral. The forest sounds stay normal near the entrance. Insects in the roots, birds hidden above, and distant impacts that could be pincers closing on wood.

No alarm.

No call for help.

"Done?" Freya asks, bored with how careful I’m being.

"Now we can go in."

"Do you always do this?"

"And I check again after a fight."

She looks over the grove.

"This area’s controlled."

"Controlled means the Academy knows roughly how many monsters spawn here and built a barrier to keep more from getting in and out. It doesn’t mean anyone will come in time if a Reef Stalker opens your throat."

Her hand drifts toward the spot where the scythe would be summoned.

"I’ve hunted here a while and never seen one... There are Reef Stalkers here?"

"Sometimes."

"You picked an area with territorial Rank C monsters and camouflaged predators to get four percent."

"You’re not an instructor, and you hunt here too, and you didn’t even know that?"

Freya looks at me.

"I’m Rank C."

"That’s one of the reasons I didn’t complain when you decided to follow me."

She lets out a breath and steps into the forest.

The Low Tide Grove grows over dark soil, cut through by pools of salt water and roots that rise from the ground in wide arches. Some form passages tall enough to walk under. Others close off the path and force us over raised stretches of bark.

The trees have thick trunks, wrapped in a bluish layer that glows where the light reaches. Broad leaves hold water in small hollows, and every gust scatters cold drops across the ground.

The empty shells of smaller animals cling to the branches. Some have been split open. Others stay whole, abandoned after a natural molt.

The Pincer Magnatos aren’t predators.

They spend most of the day feeding on saline roots and young trees. That’s when there aren’t humans nearby for them to devour.

In years to come, some instructors would work out the feeding schedules, the routes used by isolated individuals, and the right way to lure them with vibrations in the soil. Wealthy students would pay to step in at the end of each fight, join the kill, and take experience from a Rank C creature under control.

The Magnatos Circuit would run for months before the Academy pretended to be surprised finding it.

I don’t need the whole operation. Just one individual off from the group and enough experience to finish my bar.

Kraken materializes in my hand.

The eye on the pommel opens, watching the forest.

Freya summons the scythe. The haft runs through her hand until it reaches full length, and a thin layer of ice creeps along the curved blade.

We move without talking.

I find the first marks after fifteen minutes. A root has been cut near the ground, leaving a smooth, wet surface. Further on, a trunk is crushed between two different heights. The wood split open into thick fibers, no tooth marks.

’Pincer Magnatos.’

I kneel and touch the mud.

The paw depressions still hold murky water. Recent.

Freya stays beside me, watching the trail.

"Just one?"

"Looks like it."

"’Looks like it’ isn’t good enough."

"That’s why we’re not attacking yet."

I stand and study the trees.

The forest keeps making sound, but there’s a silent band to our right. Not a wide one. Maybe sixty feet between two raised roots. No insects, no leaf movement, no bird call.

I point at the area.

Freya follows the gesture.

"Reef Stalker?"

"Could be a recent passage."

She spreads a thin layer of ice over the nearby ground, just enough to reveal any weight pressing on the surface. Nothing moves.

We keep to the opposite side.

The Magnatos trail grows clearer. Small shrubs have been torn out by the roots. Fragments of dark carapace stay stuck in the mud, and a stronger salt smell spreads between the trees.

Then we hear the impact.

A deep crack, followed by the sound of wood being twisted.

Freya stops.

I raise a hand for silence.

Another impact comes from ahead.

We move slowly until a wide root opens a view onto a flooded clearing.

The Pincer Magnatos is at the center.

The creature is the size of a small house and stands on four thick, bear-like legs. Black fur grows between plates of carapace covering the joints, gathering mud, leaves, and small fungi in the places where one surface meets another.

A crab shell forms the main body. It’s low, wide, and irregular, covered in moss and shells that stay stuck to its back as it moves. Some plants have rooted inside the cracks in the carapace, turning part of the back into a small extension of the forest itself.

The front limbs are two mismatched pincers.

The larger one has thick plates, an inner surface built to crush. The other is long and serrated, opening and closing around the roots of a young tree. Each motion cuts the wood with a clean sound.

The head stays tucked under the front edge of the shell.

A short snout, covered in wet fur, emerges between four vertical plates that open separately to pull roots to the mouth. Broad teeth grind bark and earth at once.

A row of black eyes runs across the front of the carapace.

Some watch the food. Others track different parts of the clearing. None of them has to turn with the head.

Under the fur of the neck, bluish gills open and close. The sound is like something straining to breathe through water pooled in a tube.

The serrated pincer tears out a whole root.

The creature brings it to its mouth and starts to chew.

One of the eyes moves our way.

Then another.

The shift runs down the row until all of them face us.

The Magnatos stops eating.

The plants on the shell tremble as the plates rise. Blue steam escapes through the gills, spreading a strong smell of salt and wet meat across the clearing.

It doesn’t seem to see us as food right now.

We’re two creatures inside the area where it chose to eat, and that’s worse.

Freya sets her feet and clears room for the scythe.

I settle Kraken between both hands.

The Pincer Magnatos closes the larger pincer around the young tree.

The trunk bursts into fragments.

Then the creature lowers its shell and charges, all of it turned to blind rage.

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