Emily wakes with a jolt, finding herself lying on the cave floor in a small bubble of light with Oscar croug over her.

  “Are you okay?” he asks worriedly. “You stopped talking, and when I turned my dle on, you were already unscious on the floor.”

  Emily sits up and looks around, rubbing her brow.

  “Yeah, I’m fine, don’t worry about it.” She waves off his while trying to uand what just happened.

  Argh, it feels like I just had five new knowledges crammed into my head at once. I think I o tune down my spatial awareness when I reset: the spatial distortion caused by The Clock is siing.

  She sits up, accepting an offered hand from Oscar to pull herself to her feet.

  “Don’t worry, just actally overloaded my mind while trying to s the nearby caves,” Emily casually lies as the pain in her head finally recedes.

  “Ouch. If you o rest, just let me know. I’m sure Enzo and Ivor wouldn’t mind taking on ara hour each.”

  “I’m fine,” she says dismissively, the state of their campsite.

  The barrier is still set to one way, and from a quick check with infra-sight, she sees most of the camp still half-awake in their sleeping bags.

  I came back just after he joined me. Damn! It’s a shame I couldn’t ge the barrier before everyone was set on edge by the screeg. Looks like we’ll have to deal with a little exhaustion in ht no matter what.

  “You have a way of setting this barrier to block sound both ways, right?” she asks Oscar, already knowing the answer.

  “Yes, but we won’t be able to hear anything approag.”

  “It doesn’t matter. We have two people on each watch. Just send someo every now and then. I don’t think anything’s gonna attack us till our follower has had its fun.”

  Oscar looks unvinced, so Emily points out: “It won’t matter what we hear: nobody will be fit to fight anything if they’re kept up all night.”

  Oscar relutly agrees and they set about resetting the stakes. After finishing aurning to their watch position, Emily sticks her head out of the barrier but ’t hear anything.

  I guess it’s not time for the drip yet.

  She pulls ba and sits down on a rock to wait the creature out. Oscar takes on the role of cheg for sound, and after fifteen minutes, he pulls his head through the barrier and turns to Emily with a look of .

  “I’m not sure if it’s a problem or not, but I hear a dripping that wasn’t there st time.”

  Emily nods, standing from her rock.

  “I’ll go check it out. Wait here.”

  She runs out of the barrier, fidently heading towards the dismembered arm while carefully looking around for the monster. As expected, she sees nothing, and a few seds after arriving at the arm, she hears a call in Oscar’s voice behind her.

  Returning to the barrier, Emily waits just outside in the darkness, not yet letting Oscar know she’s back.

  I have no clue what that thing is, even after all the books I’ve read o studies. I’ll give Oscar some of the details I gathered before resetting and see if he has any clue.

  “Emily?”

  After a few minutes, she hears Dante’s voi the distance, and takes that as her cue to re-ehe barrier. The sed she steps through and into the light, she sees Oscar standing with a glowing magic circle surrounding him.

  “Are you okay?” he asks with slight panic as she steps into view.

  “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  He breathes a sigh of relief as he dismisses his prepared spell.

  “What took you so long? I was starting to get worried.”

  “The motacked me,” Emily answers calmly, walking over and taking her seat.

  “What was it? Is it dead?” Oscar asks eagerly.

  Emily shakes her head, crushing his hopes quickly.

  “I have no clue. I’ve never read about anything even simir before.”

  “Hmm, you give me a brief description? My family has some tomes oures in The Gde and The Crystal Waters that aren’t publicly known in The ant, so I may be able to help.”

  “Sure. It’s humanoid, with grey skin and long limbs, a bit like an oversized grogler. But, it only has two eyes, and its mouth takes up half its face.”

  Oscar frowns as she tinues.

  “Maybe a ghoul?”

  “I don’t think so, it mimic things it heard us say, and its skin is bullet and bde proof.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “Also, it used earth magid rapidly regeed damage when it ate some grogler flesh from the corpse it used to make the drip.”

  Oscar siders for a few moments before shaking his head while giving Emily a sceptical look.

  “I ’t think of anythiher. How e you’re here alone and pletely unharmed if it was s?”

  “I was able to damage it with bolt. I think it’s weak to fire and lightning, and then it left me alone.”

  “I see. What a strange monster.”

  Emily nods in agreement before falling silent.

  Well, if he knows nothing about it, at least we get to discover a new monster.

  The rest of their watch passes without any problems, and they soon hand over their duty to Fionn and Ivor. Emily spends the night’s meditation formuting pns to hunt the monster and, by dawn, she’s decided how to deal with the ing frontation.

  The day flies by, with no ges from her first time around. They choose the same path wheunnel forks and, as the light iuarts to fade, they pick the same spot for their camp. Emily breaks the pattern by calling the group’s attention to herself.

  “I think the thing following us is going to attack soon.”

  The moment her words are out, the group break out in panicked versation, some believing her and others sceptical.

  “How would you know?” ac asks, his voice den with exhaustion and a hint of spite.

  “Shut up and don’t question your scout,” Emily fires back quickly, sileng his arguments with a fierce gre.

  Turning away from him, she offers a reasoned lie to the rest of the group to vihem she’s telling the truth.

  “Most of you won’t know this, but that screech you heard st night was just the start of it. We made the barrier two way after, so you could get some sleep. And when you did, it kept up its games, trying to draw people away from the group, probably to pick them off, possibly just to mess with us. It set up severed arms iunranearby to make noises, and it imitate people’s voices, making us think someone’s calling for help. You know I’ve been able to se, even before we k was there, and now I feel it ing. Last night was about weakening us. Tonight is about finishing the job.”

  Nervous chatter spreads as information held only by the night watch is revealed. It gets louder and louder until Emily draws her revolver and fires a shot into the ceiling, instantly sileng the group and drawing their fearful attention back to her.

  “I didn’t tell you this just to scare you. I told you so you uand what we’re dealing with. The creature is strohan we are, and probably just as clever. If we’re going to be the oo e out of this alive, we o get our shit together and ha like mages. This is a new monster we’ve never seen before. Don’t fear the unknown, look forward to disseg it to further our knowledge after we kill it.”

  Emily looks over the group, nodding in satisfa as she sees them calming down, greed aement filling their eyes where fear oninated.

  They’re pretty easy to trol. I’m definitely making Oscar do this if I have to reset again though.

  After cheg The Clod seeing she has fifty minutes left till the attack, Emily starts expining the monster’s traits while direg the group into a for her prategy. They settle in, gathered together, with the carriers and healers in the tre of the group, ringed by everyone else in a simir fashion to their marg formation, the main difference being Matteo joining Emily and Da the front, with ac begrudgingly just behind them. They stand together in silence, quietly mung on some rations to help restore their energy, as they wait for their challeo arrive.

  Time crawls by as Emily watches the cave behind them with infra-sight, revolver in hand, and soon spots what she was waiting for. Sloroag from the distance, a familiar hunched form slinks into view.

  “It’s here,” she quietly alerts her group.

  In an instant, a dozen ts start as Emily watches with bated breath as the monster approaches. Then, fifty metres from them, the creature pauses, standing up to its full two metre height and gng around in what Emily assumes to be fusion.

  Why isn’t it ing closer?

  “Where is it?” Dante asks after finishing his spell preparations.

  “It’s fifty metres in front of us. It’s stopped moving.”

  Barriers of wind and water spring to life, surrounding each member of the group individually. They wait for a miheir ay growing in the darkness as Emily silently watches their enemy.

  “Should we attack?” Matteo asks, nervously shuffling from side to side.

  The moment he moves, the monster’s head snaps towards him, and Emily feels a shiver run down her spine as it vanishes from her sight.

  It sees motion.

  “Split!” she screams, jumping away from Matteo.

  Everyos to her words quickly, separating from their tightly bunched group. However, Matteo isn’t so lucky. Almost in sync with Emily’s cry, the ground below him erupts as a grey blur shoots up, ripping open his stoma one ssh and spilling his bowels to the floor.

  Emily tumbles out of her panicked escape, quickly bringing herself back to her feet as she raises her revolver and charges it full of maa. The monster leaps on ac the moment Matteo’s corpse hits the floor, and Emily fires a shot into its back. The bullet sinks into its spine, but the beast simply cries in pain and rips ac’s throat out with its teeth.

  Light suddenly fills the cave as Fionn and Nora both throw glowing golden balls into the air. A few of the mages flinch, their eyes struggling to quickly adjust to the ge in light, but the monster is ued, tearing through Ivor as Emily tracks it and fires another shot, into its leg this time. It stumbles slightly, but once again ignores her to tinue ripping people apart.

  Damn it, I won’t be able to do enough damage to kill it like this.

  Tossing her revolver aside, Emily starts casting bolt, watg as more of her teammates are torn to pieces.

  Why isn’t it attag me? I’m the only one who’s dealt damage so far, and it was definitely getting annoyed by attacks and targeting the attackers st time.

  A few magical projectiles fly at the creature as she casts, and Emily watches as it shrugs them off with a barely irritated snarl. Two more mages die in the seds it takes for Emily to cast her spell, their defensive barriers barely slowing down the monster’s cws. The water barrier around Emily vanishes as Bel dies, but she ig and releases her attack. As the scorg light burns some of the creature’s grey skin bck, Emily notices a ge in behaviour.

  Its head snaps round to face her as it drops its st kill, a monstrous grin pstered on its face. It leaps towards Emily, and she ducks us cws while raising her own to its passing stomach. A maa-charged pop apanies a bde extending and trag a thin line along the creature’s skin. It nds and turns on its heel, leaping at her once again, this time aiming its cws towards her feet. Emily sidesteps the swipe, sending her boot into the monster’s head while activating the weight-increasing entment.

  She hears a heavy thud as her foot ects, but the monster’s head glows brown in anticipation, and it only flinches as the heavy hit nds. Emily deactivates the entment as she leaps back to avoid another cwed swipe, bringing her hands up and sending another bolt into her assaint. Her bolt hits it at the same time as a burst of fmes flies past her, smashing into the creature a split-sed after her spell.

  The monster is engulfed in smoke and fire, and Emily takes a moment to gnce over her shoulder, seeing Daanding with his signature mad grin. Unfortunately, his happiness is short-lived, as an enraged shriek sounds behind Emily. Her head whips back around to where she sees the monster hunched over with lightly scorched skin, coated in the glow of earth mana.

  Shit, that barely even hurt it.

  The monster sinks into the ground before any more attad, and Emily begins looking around the group with infra-sight. She spots the creature as it emerges from the ground behind Dante, leaping up with a snarl. Dante avoids death by diving to the side, but the creature severs his left arm from his body at the shoulder.

  He cries out in pain, falling to the floor and clutg his bleeding stump.

  I’m gonna have to reset anyway, so I’ll send you off with a bang, buddy.

  Taking a deep breath and slowly releasing it, Emily reaches for her bandolier, ripping off a mana grenade. While she charges the grenade full of maa and starts its tdown to detonation, she reaches for The Clock with the other hand. The monster grabs Dante by the throat, lifting him up to eye level and slowly squeezing the life out of him with sadistic glee.

  Emily flings the crag orb of explosives at the creature as she presses the button on The Clod activates her protective earrings. Time starts to slow as a thundering boom fills the cave, burning shrapnel fills the spad cuts into rod mages alike. Several shards fly past Emily, and os her iomach like a punch, bringing searing pain.

  She winces as time freezes, and the st sight she sees as her movement halts is the monster gring at her, Dante’s corpse blown to pieces in its hand, and its arm discoloured by blood and burns.

  Well, at least it did some damage.

  Pain and information overwhelm her as Emily is once again flung backwards in time.