The Highnds, harsh and hard as they could be, definitely had a beauty to them as well.

  From above, I saw little pockets that were softer and brighter. Tiny grottos like the one we’d visited briefly, river valleys, waterfalls... the softer pces were mostly associated with water. The stone was banded and often had caves—some of them up high enough that they’d be hard even for a jotun to reach. It was tempting to investigate, there might be something amazing in them, but I had a goal.

  I saw pairs and trios of farms, and small mining camps, and an occasional vilge or town that, like Brightridge and White Springs, was built on multiple tiers.

  And, after maybe an hour or so of flight, when I hadn’t seen people at all for a while, I spotted a canyon with a narrow river running through it. Sharp contrast to the dull rock were green gardens. Dominating the space was a rge stone structure with smaller ones clustered around it.

  I nded on the edge of the canyon and crouched down to survey the situation.

  It was not a sloppy or improvised building in any way.

  In fact, it was absolutely spectacur.

  Multiple colours of stone had been used to give it subtle and even stripes. Even the ste on the roof was neatly striped. Corners had been rounded, giving it a suggestion of the Grassnds cob houses. It was built up off the ground on stone pilings, like it was from the Shallows, leaving a solid half a meter underneath that might actually be useful during post-snowstorm runoffs. The windows were symmetrical and the silvery metalwork over them delicate abstract patterns. I saw a rge gssed-in sunroom like Zanshe’s, but also a long deep porch made of wood that had been carved into intricate designs matching the windows. Again, all the corners were precisely rounded.

  I really would not have expected that from Zombie Boy.

  At one side, with gss and metal offering a protected walkway to the porch, I saw a portable house. Hadn’t the history suggested he’d added his workbenches to that? Maybe they were still there.

  There were greenhouses too, more traditionally-squared gss structures with more basic metal mesh protecting it, and... was that a barn? Attached to a corral with... goats? And a pair of huge bck-tan-and-white long-haired dogs?

  I really had no idea what to make of that.

  It all would have been quietly idyllic, if it weren’t for the fact that I could see a jotun and a lmid working in two of the gardens and they were, even from here, zombies. That emptiness, moving mechanically and without concern for self or distraction, was unmistakable.

  That, I could make sense of.

  I dropped off the cliff and down into the canyon, switched to my centaur form, and called up Purification Rain over the gardens.

  It took only a minute or so for both of them to colpse.

  By the time they did, I’d already moved and repeated it, to make certain I got every single zombie, which turned out to be a total of three more doing other jobs.

  By then, a male jotun, one with skin like dull brass and very dark pewter hair, emerged from inside the portable house.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” he bellowed.

  “What I do. Help people.”

  Unsurprisingly, he charged at me.

  I sidestepped and swung towards the house. “If you have more inside, call them out and I’ll do them one at a time instead of just calling up a Rain in your house. Which is lovely, by the way. You’re really artistic. Shame you won’t focus on that instead of on being the world’s second-biggest asshole.”

  “Stay the fuck out of my house!”

  When he grabbed my arm on his elegant wooden porch, I used my other hand to switch to my new form.

  Turns out, I was stronger than a jotun: I seized his wrists and shoved him against the wall with them pinned on either side of his head. It didn’t hurt that my wings instinctively spread just enough to give me more power pushing forward.

  “Fuck. How did you get dragon? That is so totally not fair!”

  “Maybe it’s a reward for good behaviour. Or maybe it was just practical, since it comes with some really handy search-and-rescue skills. I really don’t care. What does matter is that I am not especially happy about being kidnapped, assaulted, and left to wander around underground injured and with no resources where I could definitely have died.”

  “Seriously? You’re still pissed about that? If you died, you’d just respawn in the nearest Quincunx site you’ve been to. You would’ve been in the Grassnds one.”

  “Hiriously funny joke. I might never stop ughing. Yes, I am pissed about that! You failed to mention the bit about dying.”

  “You’d know that if you’d actually done the tutorial. In the caves you wouldn’t have believed me any more than you believe me about the Axis.”

  “Well... okay, that’s true.” Maybe I was missing something important?

  “You know what was not in those caves? Mosslings. Like the opossum that was tracking you and about to drop down in that pool with you while you were totally paying zero attention! You are fucking stupid and careless and arrogant and I am fucking sick of chasing you to have a conversation everyone else is happy to have at the first opportunity!”

  I gnced back. “Call off the dogs. I really, really do not want them hurt. They don’t deserve it.”

  “Yeah, fine, at least we agree on that.” He heaved an enormously dramatic sigh. “Will you let go if I switch to felid? Then they’ll stop being upset. You trashed my zombies anyway and that was all I had. It takes a while to collect them and they don’t st long.”

  That was also unexpected.

  Cautiously, I released his wrists.

  The next shock was that he didn’t move his hands at all. He simply changed from a jotun who was at my eye level to a rge-for-the-species all-bck felid in bck leather. I mean, I still towered over him in this form, but I had yet to see a felid that tall or powerfully-built.

  “It’s okay,” he said reassuringly to the dogs, sitting on the polished carved wooden bench against the wall. “Nothing’s wrong. Go on back to chasing each other around. Nothing to worry about.”

  They seemed disinclined to leave, and more inclined to approach me cautiously to sniff at me. I crouched and folded my wings tightly, offering each a hand. They let me give them a brief moment of petting, at least, before they flopped on the ground at his feet.

  “They really love you,” I said, as one leaned against his knee so he could pet it.

  “I’m kind of alone. They’re good company. And I will protect them.”

  “You don’t need to from me. I don’t hurt animals.”

  Wait. I knew there were mossling animals. Had I ever heard of a zombie animal?

  “Yeah. I heard you pissed off the bitch queen over a cat and an otter.”

  “How did you know about that?” I straightened and leaned on the railing.

  “She sent me a message and wanted me to team up with her. She was mad that you could cure a new infection and kill off an old one. Old news for me by then. And there is nothing in the world that would ever make me work with her.” The sudden rage in his voice startled me.

  “She’s about to be a whole lot more upset.”

  “Oh, yeah? Why this time?”

  “Find a new hobby. We figured out the combination that lets healers unmake zombies and mosslings. They’re going to start working towards that real fast, guaranteed.”

  “Seriously? Well, being able to explore the world through avatars just got even harder. But it’ll be worse for her.”

  That was not the reaction I expected.

  “And my felid alchemist formus came up with one for a Purification potion. It’ll act like the Rain I just did, on contact. It’s advanced, not expert. They’re going to be everywhere as fast as they can manage it. Every warden, every traveller. The instructions are already out there, there’s no stopping it now.”

  “You totally nerfed that ability.” He sounded more exasperated than angry. “But it’ll be fun watching the bitch queen lose her mind. She’s gonna come after you. She thinks she’s a goddess. You just made yourself the, what’s the word...” He frowned. “Can’t remember, it’s been a long time. Ultimate evil god.”

  “Satan? Antichrist?”

  “Something like that. All men are evil. Bet she doesn’t think much of your pervy queer back-and-forth thing. She’s not gonna let you get to the Axis. She’ll take out your whole little isekai harem there and hold them hostage to stop you. I can’t make you into a zombie. Life and death work different for newcomers. But mosslings are alive and she can infect you.”

  “How do you know that?” But the answer was appallingly obvious. “Oh hell. My friend found histories of a jotun builder that I’m betting was you, and then they suddenly stop. You had a run-in with her. And you hate her just as much as anyone else who’s been hurt by her does.”

  He stood up abruptly and walked down the porch, finally stopping with his back to me. “Do whatever the fuck you want. I give up. You’ve made it plenty clear that you aren’t going to listen and you figure you don’t need help or information. If you’re stupid enough to ignore everything I’m telling you and go to the Axis anyway, then whatever, that’s your problem. I’ll even leave your harem alone if any of them happen to die. It doesn’t matter anyway, because you crossed her and she’s not going to let you get there. Go away. I’ve got things to do.”

  I nodded and stepped away from the railing. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to hit something that hurts. I wasn’t expecting to put those pieces together. I was going to tell you that you belong in the Wurmheights as another challenge for anyone reckless enough to go there, not out in the rest of the world with people who just want to live. I might have been wrong. These people love having beautiful creative things to admire, and they absolutely would adore buildings like this. If the bottom’s about to drop out of the zombie trade, maybe you should consider going back to building, and get yourself and those sweet pups there out of the ass end of nowhere.”

  He didn’t answer.

  I wasn’t actually sure how to fly off ft ground yet.

  So I left on foot, and walked, lost in thought and munching absently on four travel bars in quick succession before I felt satisfied. When I found a pce I could jump off, I did. Today’s in-flight tune was apparently Bob Marley’s ‘Three Little Birds,’ which was upbeat enough to distract me from my confusion.

  A quick Find Person on Serru, and I had a direction. I’d be back with my friends in no time.