Sir Maspers stepped into my field of view, cradling one arm gingerly. "I'll sum up. We had a fight against those creatures. It went well. And then you started humming and walked away into the woods. We tried to follow, but you were moving straight through every thicket and shrub... it was hard to keep up. And when we got close, you just started moving faster. A lot faster, we couldn't even see you, you were running all over, back and forth, moving so fast... And then Nux grabbed you, don't know how. And that's when you started... attacking him. Some sort of magic that burned him but froze him at the same time. He was dying, you were dying, I ... I had to trust an instinct. I stabbed you. Er, in the stomach, and pinned you to the ground. Instantly, you stopped doing whatever that was, and we could hold you. And then, Licard was able to, mostly, bring you back."

  Ah. I got dosed. I hallucinated. I walked away. And then I channeled levin energy to stay away from them, until I got tired enough that Nux could tackle me... and then I tried to kill him. But they saved me. By stabbing me, and grounding the electricity.

  "Shit," I said, sitting up. "And the cloud?"

  Kimothy raised his hand. "So you wouldn't be laying on the forest floor and getting re-infected."

  "Shit, that's smart," I said, groaning. The dream was fading already, but I knew I did not want to talk about it. "Hope I didn't cost us too much time."

  Larianne scoffed. She stlll seemed cool and unruffled. "The whole thing was over in about four minutes."

  Ah. I was hallucinating at high speed. Maybe that's why it feels like it took so long... Huh. Maybe I spent so long in high-speed that I burned off the toxins. - oh, unless I was stumbling into the trees and getting drugged all over again.

  "Well, I guess I owe everyone here a whole heap of apologies," I managed, sliding onto my feet. "That sucked, and you all got kicked around a lot because of me."

  Thumper whacked me on the shoulder. "Shut up. You weren't yourself, and it was obvious. You'd never try to hurt us." I stumbled.

  Tiviti helped steady me. "If you do hurt me, do not apologize. It would only demean us both." Damn she's hardcore.

  Captain Maspers looked at me and at the rest of the expedition. "I think this is the time to stop for a lunch break."

  Kimothy's fog could easily make enough surface and solidity to give us all a place to sit and spread out our things in comfort. I kept the air warmed and circulated, and gave enough cover above to keep small bits of twig or leaf from falling onto us. I'd packed Nux's pack for him, and I had figured that trail mix and beef jerky are universal enough that he'd be fine. He seemed to be.

  Licard gestured with chopsticks. "All right. We're four hours in. And Lady Harigold has given us all an excellent indication why it is that every one of us has to remain constantly vigilant for exposure to the forest. Are we all agreed that we don't want to go through anything like that again?"

  I did not blush. I was embarrassed, I cringed, I was self-conscious. But I was not blushing while everyone pretended not to glance at me after I had gone magically unhinged and started tasing people with my hands at super-speed.

  They needed to tackle me, grapple me, stab, and heal me to get me to snap out of it enough that I wasn't fighting them anymore. That's a lot.

  We sat around munching, but all of us were still keeping an eye on the forest. In just a few hours we had built up a habit of watchfulness. Monkeys making forays against our flanks, two assaults from centaurs, and the looming threats of the skywhales... there was a lot here to keep us on edge. Licard had added water from his canteen to some noodles and was happily eating them cold, Sir Maspers had some kind of travel-bread that did not look any fun to eat, at all. Thumper seemed to be working her way through a jar of pickled eggs, which is horrifying, and Tiviti was using the red-hot blade of her sword to grill some strips of meat that I've been asked not to ask questions about, probably because it's also horrifying. Quarl had a baked hand-pie wrapped in wax paper, and I had a cold-cut sandwich in wax paper for myself.

  And while we were stopped, Quarl had gone to his bag and pulled out a metal spile and walked to a likely-looking tree. He tapped the metal against the wood and listened, then used the butt of his crossbow to hammer the spout into the smooth wood until it started dripping sap. He hooked a small bottle underneath it and went back to his lunch. That had been one of his conditions for coming along: a chance to sample the poisons of this forest in their rawest form. I can see how these toxins would be valuable to a clan of assassins.

  I curved both air and water to bring clean drinking water for everyone, and we washed up as best we could before it was time to move on.

  An hour later Quarl was calling me up to point out an extremely large troop of nailmonkeys waiting ahead of us, lurking, ready to surround us and attack from above. "They've been getting bolder," he said. "Each time I steer us around, they circle ahead and try again, but with more of them each time. We're going to keep losing time like this."

  I knew that the time did not actually matter, but I considered. I examined the ambush, with the eyes of the owl and the cursor of my Status menu. In my hand, a massive bone I had found on the ground. Thick and dense, the size of my forearm, but shaped like a shinbone. I thwapped it against my palm, thoughtfully, as I considered the odds. The troop was up to Strength 21, and they were definitely getting worse each time. Even with all nine of us, we probably could not take them on in a fair fight, and they had no intention of giving us a fair fight. Fortunately, I'm better at cheating than they are.

  "Kimothy?"

  "Natalie?"

  "I need a hard fog, I'm going to use Target Two on these these guys."

  "Shit," he said, and started calling up a lot of fog.

  Thumper leaned over my shoulder. "What's Target Two? It sounds exciting."

  I tucked the shinbone into my backpack and started with the singularity. A hundred yards away the monkeys screeched angrily at the whirling vacuum that sucked at the air and created an annoying wind right in their midst. They were monsters but they were simple-minded, and their response to most things that annoyed them was to scream at it, and most things they could not eat annoyed them.

  So I've got my air-packed reality-warping black hole, right in their midst. Then, the trick is to conjure a surrounding steel orb and cancel the singularity at the same time.

  BLAAAAANG!

  There was a cacophony of screaming monsters, and a massive crashing. These were not shrieks of threat and annoyance, this was the screams of massacred beasts. Monkeys falling off of tree limbs, limbs falling off of trees, limbs falling off of monkeys, and some entire trees falling down. With a creak and groan, two tall timbers tipped over to crack down in a massive spray of dead twigs and shards of bark spraying like grenades. I had just released a giant fragmentation bomb right in their midst, and the whole forest seemed to be shaking.

  "Should be fine now, Kimothy, thank you."

  He released the mist, and a few shards of paper-thin razor-edged steel drifted to the ground. I dispelled the metal, and all that was left was devastated trees, slaughtered primates, and a troop of nailmonkeys fleeing deeper into the forest to recruit more of their evil-minded kin.

  [ XP : 1/70 ]

  Just 69 to go. Nice.

  Thumper stared in astonished rapture. "That is Target Two?" I think she's crushing.

  "Yep." I tried not to sound too smug.

  We could see four trees sawn off at different heights, and others that were stripped of all branches. Small scraps of wood were fluttering down.

  To Licard's annoyance, we all needed to be detoxed after that stunt, there was too much sawdust in the air and we were breathing it. I used my warm-air bubble to screen out particulates, and after that we were fine. The nailmonkeys tried a few more times to jump us, but between the alertness of our scouts and the airbursts I could fire off at long range, they never got the nerve to approach.

  And after that point, not much else approached either. The detonations were loud and they carried for a long way across the winter-stripped jungle. Anything out there knew exactly where we were, but they also knew we had attacks that took out dozens of monkeys, and a half-dozen trees, all at the same time.

  Tiviti was enthusiastically telling Larianne all about how my explosions worked underwater, and how much more deadly they were there. Licard was listening in and he looked a little ill. Funny, he's the experienced adventurer and a healer, I'd think he'd be the least squeamish of us all. We swapped the stations, Quarl had been on main scouting for too long and he could get exhausted and lose his attention without realizing it, so Sir Maspers was on point now.

  And so he was the one that spotted it first. He froze, dropped to one knee, signaling the rest of us to come up to him and get low.

  "It's Fortu," he said, pointing through the trees. "Heading right for us."

  "The mancatcher?" Larianne said. "What's he doing back here? He was ahead of us."

  "What's he doing?" Thumper asked, craning to see.

  "Mostly running and yelling," Quarl said, speaking at the one that had the highest Awareness skill out of us all.

  "Yelling?" Thumper asked. "Yelling what?"

  But by now he was close enough that I could faintly, faintly hear him. Awareness skill seems to increase the range of hearing. So Thumper could not hear anything, but I was getting the first few threads of "lock the target, bait the line, spread the net, catch the man, lock the target, bait the line, spread the net- "

  "I'm sure you can guess," I said. "All right, he's on his way, I guess we get ready to receive him. He's moving way too purposefully to be an accident, he's spotted us and he's coming right to us."

  When he came crashing out of the foliage, the nine of us were lined up. Not quite a fighting-line, and not quite a reception line either. Ready to talk. Ready to slit his weasand, whatever we need to do.

  Fortu stood panting, and chanting, heaving for air and letting out a steady stream of mancatcher mantra. He stared at us as if strangers. "It's joy," he said, breaking his own hymns. "Joy tears us apart. Love is meaningless. It's not easy. Think it through. Cautious, complying. Now quiet be calm be still be... "

  "Captain, can you make sense of it?" I asked.

  "Not... really."

  "Nux, give me your best."

  Nux rolled his eyes. "I swear to god if he's got a full sink when we hit the dinner rush I will lose my fucking mind."

  "Good talk," I said. "Mister Fortu? Can we help you?"

  His eyes snapped to me. "Can I hate you?"

  "I'd rather you didn't," I said.

  "That's a good start," he said. shivering now, and almost falling over. "I'm looking for this man..."

  "Does he have the mark of a genius?" I prompted.

  He twitched, spasmed. I noticed that his legs were painted entirely black, and the massive steel hook he carried was dripping with blood. He's had an exciting day since we saw him last. Also, he was deeply bruised, and covered in sweat, and I think he's lost about ten pounds since that morning.

  And he stared around at all of us. "How do you do it?" he said. "How does kindness thrive? Do I like that? No! I cannot kill it, I must fear!"

  Fortu the mancatcher turned, and sprinted back through the winter-starved jungle. We watched him go, unimpressed. Larianne spoke first. "What a very odd man."

  "Lock the target, bait the line, spread the net-" was the sounds disappearing into the distance.

  Sir Maspers cleared his throat. "We should move on." He glanced back at me. "Which direction is it again?"

  I shrugged. "The one you pick is going to be the correct one. Just move forward in good faith and it will work out."

  He shrugged, and headed in a direction halfway between the way that Fortu had come from, and the way he had gone. We trooped forward, and all was quiet until dinner time. We sat, and I curved earth to start warming the ground beneath us, as well as the air around us. People started setting out bedrolls and dinner rations, my sorcery scourged away every plant in the area, clearing us a safe space for camping.

  "What are the odds we make it through the night without having to defend ourselves," Licard asked, shaking out his blankets to fluff them.

  "Zero," I said frankly. "Nailmonkeys will be tracking us, and they'll make an ambush around midnight. I'll be on watch and I'll scare them off. None of you should even need to leave your blankets, but it is going to be incredibly loud, sorry. So try to get some good sleep. When a bunch of explosions that sound like the end of the world all go off around midnight, that's the plan working. So, try not to get freaked out by it."

  Kimothy looked at me skeptically. "You can't think that will work, right? That you can just tell us not to be freaked out?"

  "Sounds fine to me," Tiviti said. She shrugged, "What's so hard? Be aware that there will be loud noises."

  Well, as it turns out that's really hard for most people. Even after an exhausting day of walking, hiking, fighting, stress, vigilance, and uncomfortable chill, few of these people were ready to fall asleep right away. I warmed the ground under us almost to an uncomfortable level, as deep as I could- it took an hour to do, earth is not conducive to warmth- and hoped it would keep through the night. I raised the air temperature to something balmy warm, with a whipping shell of wind around that deflected any small objects falling or windblown.

  Then I spread the padded layer of bedding, wrapped myself in a blanket, and fell asleep instantly.

  Quarl snickered. "And she said she would keep watch."

  Larianne was examining her nails. "She is. I've heard her and her roommate talk about this- she's never actually asleep or unaware. She can partially hibernate, like this, but she can still hear and see us, even with her eyes shut. And, most importantly, she can still cast her spells somewhat. I'm not clear on all of that."

  I tugged one arm out from under my blanket, and clumsily had it point at Larianne, as if indicating what she had said, and then aimed a thumbs-up towards Quarl, and tucked my hand back away.

  "Fuck, that looks eerie," Kimothy said, staring at me. "So, she's sleepwalking?"

  "You may wish it was that simple," Sir Maspers said with a scoff. "But I'm sworn to secrecy on this matter."

  Larianne was still looking at me dubiously, but whatever. With the mana channels in my soul itself, I cast out the spell to curve air so I could keep the protection and comfort all night, and help them all sleep as well as possible. I cast to conjure steel, and the void itself. And my fourth and final mana... I held that in reserve. That was for after.

  The seven of them sat around talking for a little longer. Nobody invited Nux to discuss, and the only thing he said unprovoked was "tend your meat-water, the big board wants to make it rain". Nobody knew what to say to that, so as usual he went without stimulating conversation. Instead he sat in the fading light and he sketched, diagrammed, and planned. I could not see much of it from where I was.

  Kimothy suggested getting a light, or something, and Tiviti carefully explained how much more dangerous that would be, and Licard concurred. Sir Maspers did not look happy about it. Back where they thought I could not hear them, he and Quarl and Thumper made plans to split up the night and stand watches, "just in case" I was not as aware as I was supposed to be. I really did look very deeply asleep.

  I brushed the three of them with a playful wind, surprising them. But, even chagrined, they did not abandon their plan to stand watch.

  So, I could only hope they would not be too tired in the morning.

  Everyone else fell asleep whether they were ready or not, the day had been truly exhausting. The thought of monsters in the woods certainly disturbed some dreams- Tiviti woke up every fifteen minutes, sat up, looked around carefully, and then went back to sleep. Kimothy kicked in his sleep, and woke up gasping three times as if the monsters were in his dreams.

  And near the darkest of the night, I watched the nailmonkeys creeping in, slowly. And with conjured steel, I began weaving wires through the trees. My limit for conjured steel is its mass, and wire has little. I used sharp-edged filaments and stretched them across low-hanging branches, tree boles, and bare scabby shrubs. Stumps were woven to deadfalls, and the whole area became crisscrossed with sharp slicing fibers.

  I hoped the monkeys had bad night vision and would cut themselves up, thinning their ranks a bit. They did not- they spotted my work immediately in the clouded starlight, as if their sight in the dark was just as good as my soul's itself. They went up the trees and made their way inward, closing in. It was creepy how stealthily they could move like that, with slow careful leaps from branch to branch, barely disturbing the foliage. Also creepy to see what looks like those adorable Japanese snow monkeys, but with sword-like claws on either forepaw. I got a better look the closer they got.

  One of them hit a wall of hardened air in the middle of a leap, and dropped straight down instead of hitting the next branch. With a shriek, the creature tumbled down through the air, and hit the webwork of taut razorwire like an egg through an egg slicer. The monkey was in a dozen pieces when it hit the ground. This was the signal, and with a concerted scream they leaped forward, pouncing, lunging, leaping-

  The frontmost was was sucked directly into a singularity that immediately decompressed, exploding atomized monkey in an expanding sphere. And then airbursts were going off, singularities hidden among them, kept silent by the work of curving wind. Shockwaves battered the monsters from every side, smashing limbs and stunning their malignant brains, and flinging them to die on the unyielding ground below or the bladed traplines strung above it.

  My party members startled upright, yelling and surprised by the noise. They reached for weapons or just stared around, but the air was full of dead monsters and noise.

  And then it was over. I got rid of the steel wires. and left only the monkeys that survived to run away.

  Tiviti looked around, nodding. "Exactly like she said," she declared, and then lay back down.

  Nobody else was quite so nonchalant, but bit by bit they did relax afterwards. Tomorrow we find the village.