Thirstfall - Memory of a Returnee

The gland pulses between my hands.

The blue-gold liquid shifts inside the membrane every time I change the angle, forming small filaments that seem to search for a way out. Even separated from the body, the structure still reacts to its surroundings.

Freya keeps looking at the silent band of the forest.

"Thinking the same thing I am?" I ask.

She turns her eyes back to the gland.

"I’m thinking nobody with any sense should rupture that here."

"Then we’re thinking the same thing."

I store the organ in my inventory so it won’t rupture inside the Horizon, where I can still reach it fast without an accident.

Freya breathes out through her nose.

"You’re going to use that thing to draw the Reef Stalker."

"I am."

"We just killed eleven Rank C monsters without a real fight. You’ve got to be at ninety-nine percent already. We could leave, find any smaller creature, and finish this without calling a predator that specializes in ambushes."

I open the HUD.

[OXI: 2,104/2,500]

[Rank D — Experience: 99.8%]

The Horizon is still intact. Kraken is still coated in the brackish water, and the eye on the pommel tracks the forest with more attention than before. Freya spent OXI during the kills, but none of them demanded Permafrost at any real scale. Her breathing is steady, and the scythe doesn’t shake in her hands.

We could fight.

"A smaller creature might not give two tenths," I say. "And no other Magnatos should show up in this sector for a few days."

"That doesn’t make the idea any better."

"When you face a Tide-Fallen, you’ll want to be waking up to a few Reef Stalkers just to warm up."

The line comes out before I think about how it would sound.

Freya narrows her eyes.

"A Tide-Fallen?"

I push a few flowers off the last Magnatos’s carapace and study the ground under the body.

"Let’s go."

"What’s a Tide-Fallen?"

"We don’t need to get into that now."

She stays put for another second.

"You do this on purpose."

"Not this time."

I start walking toward the silent band we’ve avoided since we entered the grove.

Freya catches up after a few steps. She’s still irritated, but she doesn’t ask again. The gland would be useless in the clearing. There are bodies everywhere, ice inside the carapaces, and enough chemical signals to draw any predator nearby. There are also open routes in every direction.

I want terrain that limits the Reef Stalker.

The first trees already grow close together. Further on, the roots rise from the ground and form narrow corridors, forcing any large creature to choose where to advance. Water pools in shallow depressions, laying a surface over the mud that can betray footsteps.

It’s better than the clearing, but it’s not enough yet.

Freya walks beside me for a while before she speaks.

"What happened with the Magnatos doesn’t prove you lived the future."

I keep my eyes on the trees.

"I know."

"You could have found that behavior recently. Maybe you came across another group, saw the call, and worked out how it functioned."

"I’ve never used the hunting fields before today."

She slows.

"You could have come in through another entrance."

"Check my Academy records. My name has never been logged at any field."

Freya goes quiet. She knows that entering a field logs the registration automatically, keyed to the user’s energy signature.

That information doesn’t prove a regression. Someone could have told me. I could have found records that weren’t public yet, or pulled the knowledge from some blueprinted memory.

Every explanation demands another explanation.

Freya knows it.

"There are still other possibilities," she says.

"There are."

"A tech blueprint could have shown you an old hunt."

"It could."

"Duvilin might know creatures you’ve never faced and told you about them."

"Maybe."

She looks at me sideways.

"You’re not going to argue?"

"I already told you the truth. I can’t make you believe it."

The answer seems to bother her more than another attempt to convince her would have.

Freya passes a root and has to lower the scythe so the blade won’t catch on the branches.

"I’m coming with you because you were right about the Pincers."

"Yes. You said it—’temporary trust.’"

"Don’t ruin it."

I keep walking.

The forest closes in around us.

The canopy forms a thick layer, letting the light of the ocean sky through in bluish bands. Drops gathered on the leaves fall at uneven intervals, hitting roots, pools, and plates of fungus stuck to the trunks.

There’s life everywhere.

Insects scrape at the inside of the wood. Small creatures move under the foliage, opening paths that vanish right after. Some bird hidden in the canopy lets out a low, repeating call, answered by another farther off.

The smell has changed too.

The clearing carried salt, carapace, and crushed vegetation. In here, the air is colder, full of fungus, standing water, and matter breaking down. Every breath leaves a damp taste in the mouth.

I slow my pace.

The wind comes from behind, carrying our smell into the depths of the woods. That favors the gland, but it also lets any predator ahead pick us out before it appears.

I stop beside a wide tree.

I open the HUD again.

[OXI: 2,091/2,500]

Small drop. Just survival. Refilling now could make the flow of energy draw the Reef Stalker, so I hold off.

I look at Freya.

"Cut back the ice."

She looks at the guards on her arms and boots.

"Why?"

"Reef Stalkers pick up shifts in temperature and energy. Leave a cold trail or an OXI one, and it’ll know where we are before we use the gland."

Freya pulls back part of the ice. The plates recede until only a thin layer remains over the vital areas.

"And where are you planning to draw it?"

I point to a passage ahead. Two tall roots form side walls, and a shallow pool covers almost the whole span between them.

"If it comes in there, the water gives away the movement. The roots limit the sideways leaps."

"And if it’s above us?"

I look at the canopy.

"Then we have a different problem."

Freya doesn’t like the answer.

We move on.

I find the first sign soon after.

A band of smooth bark crosses the trunk of a tree. There are no scratches, no paw marks. The surface just looks new, its color slightly different from the wood around it.

I bring Kraken close without touching.

The color changes.

It’s something small. An almost organic motion under the outer layer, followed by a slow return to the original tone.

"Chromatophores," I say.

Freya comes closer.

"Part of its skin got stuck here?"

"Residue. It brushed past."

She studies the tree, then the space between the trunks.

"How long ago?"

I touch the mud near the root.

There’s no clear print. Only a wide depression where the water hasn’t finished sliding back.

"Not long. Hard to say exactly."

From there on, the grove gets quieter.

The insects stay active on both sides, but a soundless line runs down the center of the passage. Small animals avoid that band, even without any visible barrier.

Kraken’s eye opens wider.

The sword tracks something to our right.

I turn my head.

Nothing.

Only leaves, fungus, and a column of light coming down between the trees.

We keep going.

A shallow pool appears between two roots. The surface should be still. The wind doesn’t reach that spot, and no drop has fallen for a few seconds.

Even so, a small wave crosses the edge.

Something passed close.

Freya sees it.

"You sure we need to rupture the gland?"

I study the ground around us.

"I’m starting to think we don’t."

She brings the scythe in against her body.

"It’s already here."

I don’t answer.

The Magnatos pollen rose above the canopy. Eleven creatures gathered in one clearing, then vanished one by one. For a predator used to trailing the herd, that would be enough to investigate.

Maybe the Reef Stalker arrived before the last kills.

Maybe it watched.

The gland in the pouch stops being bait and becomes a tool to control a creature that has already chosen us.

We advance more slowly.

I find the remains of a kill among the roots. A smaller carapace is split open near the center, no signs of a struggle spread across the spot. The animal was taken before it understood it was in danger and dragged into the shadow.

No sound comes from the canopy.

Freya looks at me.

"You’ve faced a Reef Stalker before."

"Several times."

"Did you win?"

The memory of Lost Ark comes back easily. Boris thrown, the forked jaw, the predator changing color between one attack and the next. People stronger than me trying to hold a formation that could fall apart with a single mistake.

"I survived."

She catches the difference.

"How many people were with you?"

"More than we have now."

Freya tightens her grip on the scythe.

"And you decided to go looking for another one."

"Hard work is what puts food on the table."

"You say that like the effort makes the decision sensible."

"It makes the decision necessary."

She plainly disagrees. Even so, she stays with me.

The roots grow higher, forcing us down a narrow passage. Broad leaves touch my hood and drag water across the Horizon. The sound of the drops seems louder in that corridor, repeating from several points at once.

I notice Kraken’s eye turn upward again.

I stop.

I follow the movement of the eye on the pommel.

A leaf bends near the canopy.

There’s no wind.

The vegetation settles back into place slowly, revealing nothing behind it.

Freya notices my attention and whispers.

"See something?"

"Movement."

"Where?"

I point with my eyes alone.

She searches for a few seconds, but the forest offers no shape at all.

We push on.

The gland pulses against my side with every step. I keep my hand close, ready to rupture it if I have to force the predator to pick a direction.

The woods seem to breathe around us.

There are moments when the color of a trunk darkens with no change in the light. In others, a run of drops stops falling over a small area before it continues further along.

The Reef Stalker doesn’t need to stay still.

It can follow our movements through the trees, shifting its skin to carry the color of the leaves, the branches, and the shadows.

I know the method.

That doesn’t mean I can see it.

Freya takes the front when the passage drops low. Her endurance and the reach of the scythe would let her clear space if something attacked from the ground. I stay two steps back, watching the sides and the vegetation above.

A drop lands on her shoulder.

Freya doesn’t react right away.

The substance runs down the guard, thick and clear over the ice. It forms a thread between her shoulder and a leaf, stretching and slow to break.

She touches it with two fingers.

I look up.

The other drops keep falling around us.

None of them cross the space directly above Freya.

Something is blocking the water.

Kraken’s eye opens all the way.

The color of the leaves above her separates slowly.

A forked jaw begins to emerge between the branches.

"Damn it—get down!"

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