It was like Ozzie was back in the classroom, and they told him all about the different hazards here in the area, all of the tips and tricks for a new hunter. Though granted, most of them were just common sense. “Don't go swimming out into a flat.” “Stay in the boat” “Don't sit around and listen to a sting crab scream.” Even after both Emil and Ozzy had explained to them that Ozzy had at least an inkling of what he was doing. They continued on with the deluge of basic information.

  “Guys, I'm telling you, I already gave him a gist of the basics.” Emil said.

  “You're terrible at explaining things. If it had been anyone else, even if it had been Norman, we wouldn't have had to tell him all this. With you as his only teacher, he's in danger of doing something stupidly dangerous.” Patrick said, ignoring the glares he was getting from Emil.

  “Honestly, a refresher's good.” Ozzy relented, and hiding a grin said.” Plus you were pretty terrible at explaining things.” Ozzie confirmed, nodding along with Patrick's words.

  “Well you've been alive this whole time, haven't you? Couldn't have been that bad of a teacher.” Emil huffed, crossing his arms and leaning back against the mana box.

  “You handed me a rat core and made it sound like it was some vast object of power. You didn't even tell me anything about it until after I’d absorbed it and passed out.” Ozzy responded.

  “Wait, that's why you have a rat core? I thought you were just using whatever you could get your hands on.” Patrick said, a delighted grin crossing his face as he found new ammunition to target Emil with.

  “I mean, kind of? I didn't really know what I was doing though. Had I known I might have still done it, but I definitely would have been able to make a much more informed decision about it.” Ozzy explained, grinning as he watched Emil roll his eyes.

  “Oh come on, you've gotten good abilities from that core. It's not like you're suffering because of it. I'm new to this whole guiding a stranger from a different world thing. In fact, you should all be thanking me for what a great job I’ve done with him. Just look at how impressive my little apprentice is.” Emil said, reaching over to tussle Ozzy’s hair only for Ozzy to bat his hand away, his eyes wide.

  “Apprentice? That's what we're going with?” Ozzy asked sarcastically, choking down his anxiety as Emil slipped and outright called him a stranger from another world. Somehow, no one seemed to notice.

  “The rat ability is pretty interesting.” Lars said interrupting them and speaking for the first time that morning with a shrug.

  “What rat ability?” Myla asked, also finally deciding to join in.

  “Look who decided to join the conversation.” Patrick said sarcastically to the two previously silent hunters.

  Pointedly ignoring Patrick, Myla asked again, “Which one? You have a couple unlocked already, don’t you?” She said, her voice was high and she spoke with a tiny bit of accent that made her draw out some of the consonant sounds.

  “The one that makes him turn into a rat. It heals him too.” Lars butted in cutting Ozzy off and explained it to Myla.

  “You can turn into a rat? Like an actual rat, a little one?” She asked excitedly

  Ozzy sighed and activated the ability, feeling himself slip into the familiar furry form of a rat. On the bright side, he was no longer shoved into the bench with Patrick and actually had a good bit more space. But, as Myla and Lars leaned in, that space was quickly taken up.

  Initially he had planned to keep the ability as under his hat as possible but faced with a team who might be responsible for saving his life if he screwed up he figured it'd be better to at least share the basics with them. Lars at least already knew the basics and Ozzy doubted he was the type to really go spreading any rumors. He was a little nervous about sharing with Myla though.

  “Awe, he can!” Myla gushed. “I used to have a little pet rat, he looked just like you!”

  “If you want to you can borrow him for a bit, you’ll just have to ask Liza first. She’s kind of attached to him.” Emil said flatly and Myla went red as the other two hunters began to laugh.

  She spat a curse out at Emil which only made the other two hunters laugh louder as she turned to smack Emil on the arm. Freeing up just enough space for Ozzy to slip back into human form.

  “You chose a poor teacher.” She harrumphed at Ozzy.

  “Believe me when I say I had no choice, you'll just have to blame the cosmos.” Ozzy said.

  Their laughter and joking was interrupted when Patrick held up a silencing hand. There was no mirth or playfulness in the motion; it was a command, one that they obeyed without question. As silence fell around the dinghy Patrick lifted his head up into the air as if he could smell or taste something more in the dingy air currents.

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  Lowering his head Patrick looked back down at them with a frown. As everyone waited for him to say something, he looked pensively off into the distance, his brow furrowing as he tried to come to a conclusion over the dilemma he'd yet to share.

  “You gonna clue us in or just let us sit here and scratch our butts?” Emil asked, breaking the silence and drawing a frown from Patrick.

  “You're not going to like it.” Patrick said with a shrug. “We've got matriarchs. At least two, maybe more, I can't tell from this far off.”

  “Why wouldn't I like that? They're just big rats.” Emil asked his eyebrows knitting together in confusion.

  “Norman told me that after your last run-in with a matriarch on that fishing expedition that you’ve been having a hard time with rats.” Patrick said gently, completely serious.

  “I’m gonna kill that fish talking weirdo. Who else did he tell?” Emil asked.

  A slow raising of hands deepened Emil’s frown. His anger culminating as Ozzy, though not having heard about it from Norman, decided to get in on the fun and raise his own hand.

  “At least half the district knows at this point, mate. I'm sorry.” Lars said, extending out a comforting hand.

  “Whatever, I’ll throw him overboard once we get back. Where are these matriarchs Patrick?” Emil asked, doing his best to get the annoyance out of his voice and system. His best wasn’t all that good.

  ***

  They moved like ghosts, slipping out of the open and sunny waterways as they followed Patrick’s guidance into densely packed more forested version of the swampland they’d just been in. Eventually meaning they had to leave the dinghy behind as it was too big to fit in any one of their dimensional bags.

  Making their way through the swamp, Ozzy was surprised to find that most of them seemed to be a little unsteady on their feet, as though they'd never really fought in this kind of territory before. For Ozzy, it was much like being in Alaska during the thaw: muddy, messy, and with plenty of dense foliage to push through.

  Quickly Ozzy realized that it was because they were not at all used to fighting on the soil. In fact, they had either spent their lives walking on the hard, solid ground of Myreluck or on the softly rocking boats that brought them out into this swamp. 90% of the time, if they were out in the mud and slumped on like this, it was because something had gone seriously wrong. Had the Firelight District been more involved in hunting, this might not have been the case. As things were, Ozzy was probably the only one who could make any sort of distance running through the mud without subsequently eating it.

  It was awkward as Ozzie, the youngest hunter by far, had to be the one to take point and help them up and out of the mud after more than several times Emil, Patrick, and Myla ate it just walking, trying to get out of a mud pit or just catching a root. Thankfully, Lars was much more sure-footed than the other three. That did not mean he was at all comfortable walking through the muck. Only that he'd learned to pick his feet high enough up out of the mud to avoid falling as much as the others.

  Despite the assistance he was offering, he was mostly just catching bad looks. By the tenth time Emil had eaten it in the mud, it was growing rather hard not to laugh. Emil was seemingly even worse at walking through the mud than Patrick and Myla were combined. He was covered head-to-toe in mud, with not a single part of him escaping being covered in the brown muck. There was mud in his ears, down in his shoes, there was probably even mud in his underwear.

  On leaving the boat, Patrick had insisted on silence and would only allow anyone to speak if they raised their hand and everyone stopped so that they could hear them at just above a whisper. After the 20th or so time that Emil had eaten it, Ozzy opted to raise his hand and give the group a few pointers.

  “You have to lift your feet up, if you try to power through the mud, you’re going to catch something and fall over.” He said, explaining his point by demonstrating how his boot got caught as he tried to push it under where he knew a tree root was hidden. “You see the different patches of green?” Ozzy asked, pointing out several different patches of grass and weeds. “Anything that has roots will have more structure to keep you up out of the mud and clean.

  It was awkward teaching grown adults something that should probably have been obvious, but he was no stranger to being a moron and so he gave them the benefit of the doubt. After all, everyone besides Emil had been slowly improving.

  ***

  They continued walking through the swamp for several minutes. All silent except for the squelches and occasional angry mutterings coming from Emil’s side of the group. The air had changed, however. Before it had been smelling as the swamp normally did musky, humid, and somewhat briny. Now had it taken on a notably putrid scent, like the smell of a poorly cleaned chicken coop, and piled excrement.

  Patrick lifted his hand into the air, pausing the group as he pulled them all into a huddle. Whispering quietly to all of them, he said, “There are four of them, plus all of the railings. Couple hundred feet away tops.” He said quickly.

  Gripping the heavy form of one of his rifle rounds Ozzy felt as his heart rate began to quicken. It was a familiar sensation that he stepped into, and with some alarm, he realized that he was growing used to the feeling. Used to the feeling that he was going into an environment where he was going to kill and potentially be killed himself. Without realizing it, he was slipping back into the old mindset he'd had in Iraq. Pushing those thoughts to the back of his mind, he took a deep breath, letting the feeling of the rounds in his pockets bring him to a calming present.

  Since they started their trek on land, he'd been slowly summoning rifle rounds. It was starting to become a sort of ritual he did before fights. Since he didn't really have a way to stock up on them during combat, he had to make sure he had enough going in. He hoped that 4 would be enough for this fight, though he might be able to summon another one or two by the time they made that far given the group’s current snail’s pace.

  As they closed the distance between them and the matriarchs, the smell grew even worse, growing from a lingering annoyance to a nearly sensory overloading stench. It was like if smelling salts had been given to the god of all things smelly and he’d put his own putrid twist on them.

  It was how they knew they were getting close, and once the smell got so bad Ozzy’s eyes began to water the other hunters began to draw and summon their weapons. They were here.