Morgan Mackenzie crouched atop the corpse of a [Rockmaw], carefully applying touches of superheated flame with her fingertips. The last tendrils of flesh and gristle had finally been seared away, allowing her to pry up the large chunk of Mana Crystal that had once protected the neck and upper back of the beast. With its connection to the remnants of the dead beast’s Mana removed, her own Mana was able to take over the massive glass-like plate. Standing back up, she levitated her prize up and away from the defeated [Rockmaw]. Surveying her path downward, she leapt from its back to a part of its hindquarters that wasn’t overly viscera-slickened, then down to the snow-covered ground. She turned and looked back over her erstwhile foe.

Jaws wide enough she could step through their death-gaped arch. A burned and blistered tongue, studded with stones and slick with blood muddied by charred ashes, protruded from the mouth, larger than one of her legs and several times as long. She shuddered; the [Rockmaw] had managed to snare her leg with that long, slimy tongue, and thought it had earned itself a meal before Morgan’s [Runic Chain]-enhanced [Plasma Glaive] sent its own tongue of destruction down its gullet. Superheated tissue and fluids left in its wake had overpressurized the creature, causing its flesh to rupture in a fairly impressive display of red steam and broiled meat, a good portion of which found its exit back through the thing’s mouth. Morgan had once again found herself covered in ick, a distressingly frequent happening that, even now, she hated every bit as much as the first time.

Morgan let the fire within her come to the surface for a few moments, the blood and gore blackening to flakes of ash that blew away in the glacial mountain winds that constantly scoured the landscape. During her early travels in the Wildlands, she had kept to the lower valleys and forested lowlands. The constant sweltering heat of high summer had finally driven her to higher elevations; not because of the temperature, but rather because Wildlands summers were punishingly humid. I like a sauna as much as the next girl, she thought. But not enough to live in one all the time.

So, Morgan had headed west for higher ground. The mountains had proven to be further away than she originally estimated, but she persevered. And what she had found once she climbed and climbed to crest the first mountain ridge after finally reaching it was…

More mountains.

The creatures had grown progressively stronger and more powerful the deeper she travelled into the highlands. Rams that reminded her of bighorn sheep, but the size of a small car, with plated skulls and two pairs of vicious, twisted horns. Enormous bears with ridged skulls and shovel-like claws. Her sole fight so far with one of the latter had ended in a stalemate: the beast dug its way away from her flames, while she hopped off to regenerate an impromptu below-the-knee amputation. She had also crossed the territories of two more packs of [Direwolves], but without a guardian like the Packmother, she had simply whittled them down through attrition until they left her alone.

Her [Frost Resistance] had built up quickly, the nights at higher elevation dipping close to freezing long before she actually came near the snow line. She still enjoyed a hot bath with her loofah companion every handful of days, taking the opportunity to build campsites that were more lavish than her usual accommodations. Such breaks inevitably ended in battle more and more often as she gained levels, though. Her working theory was that as she grew in power, she became more attractive in some way to the various denizens of the primordial landscape. She had gained a level every third or fourth day, it seemed, although after she had reached level thirty it had begun to slow down.

Every level brought more stats, more Intellect, more skills. The key to improving her [Soul Anchor] had turned out to be improving skills with enchantments. She layered more and more wards and defenses around her campsites every night, and practiced new ones whenever she rested. [Runic Core] joined the other markings burned into her skin, interlocking chevrons and triangles bracketing her navel and forming a diamond pattern out of what looked like Celtic knots but with sharp angles instead of rounded braids. The rune stretched from her sternum down to between her legs, and that particular experience had left her whimpering for several hours after it etched itself onto her body. It stored Mana and Stamina, similar to the Mana Well rings Moghren had shown her months before. With the rune currently at its fifth level, it effectively tripled her staying power in combat in all but the most extreme cases.

[Runic Reinforcement] had come next, and despite its invasiveness, had been significantly less painful. It made her flesh and bones stronger, enhancing her ability to take hits. The incoming attacks that made it past her [Spell Parry] and [Runic Armor] did far less damage to her body, and combined with her [Athleticism] she could sprint for hours without worry of the accompanying soreness. The tattoo that had come with the rune ran from the base of her tailbone where it joined with her [Runic Belt], all the way up her spine to blend with the scaled armor etched over her shoulders.

[Spell Resonance] was her latest Living Rune, and it gave her an extra sense for the magics around her. The tattoo presented itself as a gossamer-thin tracing of tiny swirls, only visible when the light reflected as she moved. On the palms of her hands and soles of her feet, it traced the patterns of her fingertips and toes like shiny henna art, and the practical effect was that she could feel magic at greater range and sensitivity: through the air, in water when she swam, and through the earth beneath her feet. If her Intellect had not been expanded many times over since her arrival at the Tree, it would have overwhelmed her mind.

It was thanks to this that Morgan wasn’t caught entirely flat-footed when her next battle found her. A gargantuan creature looking like nothing so much as an armored earthworm -- fittingly, a [Burrowspine Earthwyrm] -- erupted from the ground in a geyser of gravel and dirt where she had been standing scant moments before. She had sensed the Earth magic it used to travel beneath the ground, and tapped her [Acceleration] to clear the area just before a maw full of teeth and spines snapped shut around where she had been.

She turned and loosed a [Plasma Glaive] at it, the superheated mana splashing off of its chitinous armor and causing the air above to waver from its intensity. [Spell Resonance] further allowed her to feel the mana layered throughout its plating, providing more defense than she could quickly burn through.

Lulu, for her part, was undeterred; its boldness and bravery had only grown as it levelled alongside its mistress. Now a respectable level thirty-seven on its own, it had grown to the size of a volleyball, and its abilities had only grown more fearsome to match. No natural armor Morgan had yet faced could stand up to its [Exfoliate] skill, and Lulu seemed eager to show off again.

The scrubby launched itself at the new attacker, and Morgan kept the wyrm’s attention on her with showy blasts from her [Plasma Glaive]. Lulu quickly found -- or made -- a gap in its armor, and the monster went from lunging at the sorceress to contorting and snapping at itself in the span of a moment.

Earth and stone heaved, rising up like a living thing as the beast thrashed, and Morgan was obliged to tap her own [Terrakinesis] to counteract it. A few moments later, Lulu obviously hit something vital -- the worm heaved itself almost entirely out of its burrow in a single spasmodic movement, then shuddered, vomiting an unidentifiable rush of green and brown fluid, narrowly missing Morgan as she scrambled to safety. Already been covered in ick once today! Not again!

Lulu has spawned a brood!

“Hah! That’ll show it!” exclaimed the sorceress as her latest enemy coiled and shook in agonizing death throes. A rather proud Lulu burst back out from between two of the armored plates several paces closer to the head of the beast than the spot it had burrowed in. As the wyrm finally trembled one last time and lay still, the loofah seemed to preen a moment before hopping its way back to Morgan. “I guess your brood has plenty of food right here,” she told the scrubby, giving it an affectionate pat as it made its way back to her shoulder.

The [Rockmaw] and the wyrm had been the most recent of a menagerie of creatures that had objected to Morgan taking over the shallow valley, one which she now gazed down upon with no small bit of satisfaction. It was just about as ideal for making a permanent home as she could have imagined. High enough in elevation that the worst of the summer heat and humidity were lessened, but not so close to the great frozen peaks that she would have to worry. Her [Primal Instinct] made her very wary when she turned her gaze to the snow-capped mountaintops in the distance.

Snow flurries still dusted the valley, blowing down from the higher passes, and a lake fed by glacial streams shone in the midday glare of the sun overhead. That there were only a handful of gaps in the surrounding mountainsides meant she could more easily defend her nascent domain, and work towards a much needed place of safety and refuge to call her own. The passes also provided easy ways for her to descend to the lowlands to hunt and forage, although she planned to try her hand at cultivating some of the tastier kinds of plants she had found in her wanderings. Her Earth magic senses, amplified with [Spell Resonance], informed her that the ground was solid for miles in every direction, meaning she had no restriction on where she could build. The only exceptions were a handful of comparatively small tunnels, akin to the one the wyrm had dug, but Morgan could fill those if they became a problem.

With a happily wurbling loofah on her shoulder, Morgan began to make her way around the outer edges of the valley. The crystal piece she had taken from the [Rockmaw] floated along next to her, and she worked it with her [Gem Sculpt] as she went, flattening it down and repairing the cracks and battle damage before separating it out into fist-sized gemstones. Every thirty or forty paces she flattened a circular patch of dirt with [Terrakinesis], inscribing an enhanced [Mana Link] enchantment and one for [Spatial Reinforcement]. She seated one gemstone in the center of each patch, a brief pulse of purple light glowing for a moment to indicate the activation of the enchantments. A third of the way around the valley she ran out of crystals from the armor piece, and began to pull more of them out of her [Runic Belt] storage spaces.

Lesser creatures like [Murdersquirrels] and the like had not bothered her for weeks, and she grinned with wry satisfaction as she sensed those sorts of residents of the valley avoiding her presence. Just as her growing power attracted stronger foes, weaker creatures fearfully scurried away from her path. The [Nightstride Panther] continued to evade her senses despite her gains in levels and abilities. She had seen it from time to time, claiming the parts of her hunts she didn’t eat herself. The gigantic feline had not seemed fond of the cooler climate as she went further up the mountains, however. Morgan had last seen the cat heading north towards a lower region several days earlier, but was sure she would see it again when she left the high valley to look for food.

It took her the entire day to circle the valley, even when taking advantage of her [Acceleration] skills to shorten the trip. Over a hundred linked enchantment nodes stood out in her mind, expanding the reach of her [Terrakinesis] to a range she had never before attempted. It was very close to her limits for using multiple enchantments at once, and only possible thanks to her vastly improved Intellect.

“I have to set the foundation before I can really make anything worthwhile,” she said out loud to Lulu as she placed the purbling loofah on a nearby boulder. Slowly, she pushed her mana out through the linked crystals and their stabilized emplacements. At the same time she reached below her feet, letting the Mana creep out to gently take control of the stone and dirt. [Spell Resonance] fed her a constant stream of information. There were thick, ropey veins of quartz threaded throughout, with tiny seeds of mana crystals waiting to be grown; slabs of heavy granite that acted as mana sinks, unworkable until they had absorbed a certain amount of mana; and various layers of different rocks, clay, shale, and sand, all of which Morgan could sense in exacting detail.

Taking a few deep breaths to center herself, she withdrew the last Mana Crystals from within her spatial storage runes. An even dozen rods of perfectly formed violet crystal floated around her, each a spike three feet in length and barely wider than her wrist. The hexagonal spars tapered to needle-thin tips, and were the purest and densest forms of crystal she had yet created. Their perfectly flawless nature enhanced their ability to store mana, each one able to store easily triple the amount she could hold. They floated around her in a circle, and she could feel the gentle warmth they radiated even with her eyes closed against the brightness the energy within them gave off.

The first skill that Morgan had spent an Enhancement point on, before any others, had been [Spell Surge]. Others had come later, but that one had been the skill she chose to wait until mastery and test out. Her investment had paid significant dividends; the mastered skill had just about doubled the effective power she could wield. She had no way to make exact measurements, not for such things as how much fire she could make or how much earth she could move. The enhanced amplification of the skill turned her flames from a candle to a raging bonfire.

What it did to her [Terrakinesis], Morgan did not yet have words for.

Drawing on the stored Mana from all twelve floating crystals, and from her reserves in her [Runic Core], Morgan reached out through the many enchantment nodes she had ringed the valley with.

Then, she activated [Spell Surge].

With a rush of power that spread throughout the valley, washing over everyone and everything within its expanse and for leagues beyond, Morgan set about her work.

_______________________________________________

 

For the third morning in a row, Terisa Aras finished her patrol around the Expedition camps. For the third morning in a row, there was nothing to report. Harrying a dozen different disparate groups from a dozen different nations or tribal groups into one cohesive formation was never an easy task, not any year since she had begun leading the yearly trip into the wilds. Unlike previous years, this expedition had not been attacked on the first day; at least, not by anything strong enough to give trouble to the several hundred members of the group, each above level fifty. The lack of attention from the denizens of the region disturbed her for more reasons than one.

The current expedition had not yet been tested. Every year, new aspirants joined the expedition, and every year they failed to heed the warnings given by those more experienced with the wilds. Adventurers all, some even veterans of war; they joined the expedition when the pass cleared, and returned, humbled, with the first winter snows chasing their heels back over the pass. At least, if they survived. The Wildlands showed no mercy for those who engaged in hubris. Terisa did not worry overmuch about the veterans; they were survivors one and all. Rather, her concern lay with the relatively low-levelled Worldwalker. One person lacking experience and levels would have been bad enough, but the woman’s presence had attracted a bevy of attention from different sources both good and bad.

Several different nations and more than one guild consortium had sent envoys trying to coax Dana away from the dwarves of Thun’Kadrass. Their impressions must have been that she could be bought or otherwise bribed into selling otherworlder knowledge, the various polities acting as if she worked for the Thun out of some sense of obligation or debt. Terisa knew it to be far from the truth, having spent time around the Worldwalker. It was obvious to the huntress that Dana worked for Dana and nobody else, her bargains with the Thane of Thun’Kadrass notwithstanding. But the envoys could not be convinced, and tagged along with the expedition as it made its way into the wilds.

Normally -- if any expedition could be considered normal -- the presence of so many high-levelled classers and their accompanying gear and supplies, both magical and mundane, would have attracted several extremely powerful and high-levelled beasts by the first or second day. That, or a horde of smaller monsters stampeding to get out of the way of something larger. So far they had barely encountered enough monsters to feed themselves, something which was generally not a problem on the first day of any given year’s expedition.

Terisa made her way between two fortified encampments, following her nose towards her own tent next to the Worldwalker’s “mobile workshop,” as the otherworlder called the massive triple-carriage monstrosity on wheels that moved itself without a beast of burden to pull it. The huntress had seen wheeled golems before, but nothing on a scale approaching that of what the strange engineer had built.

The engineer -- if that was truly what Dana was; she hadn’t said, and Terisa was too polite to ask -- was only just rolling out of the hatch on the side of the rear-most section of her workshop, appearing to sit in a wheelchair. As the woman rolled towards the steps down from the elevated vehicle, the wheels smoothly changed shape, reconfiguring themselves into a set of legs in a display so smooth that Dana hardly missed a step.

“What is that totally awesome smell?!” asked the Worldwalker as she approached the same cookfire that Terisa had just stepped up to.

“Rockmaw strips and razorquail eggs,” replied the burly mass of hair and muscle standing over the fire. The voice was gravelly and rough, and the huge cook did not elaborate further. The words were practically growled, escaping from behind upper and lower canines, so long they barely avoided being called tusks, that protruded from his jaws -- evidence of his part-beastkin heritage. Several strips of meat and a half dozen eggs sizzled happily in a cast iron pan over five feet across, laid over a bed of coals. Dana backed up a half-step at the man’s grumpy tone, and looked as if she were about to say something confrontational herself.

“Don’t mind him, he’s always like this,” Terisa told the Worldwalker. “Foz doesn’t talk much, he just likes to cook. There’s kaffen too.” The huntress followed word with action, hooking a mug off the side of a pack sitting close to the fire and filling it from the kettle hanging over one side of the coals.

The Worldwalker copied the huntress, procuring a cup of her own from a compartment on her suit. Her suit shifted from two legs to four and the woman’s height dropped by over a foot as she leaned back as if sitting in a comfortable chair. “That’s even better than coffee from my world,” said Dana after taking a sip. “More kick, but it does remind me of the bitter brews we lived off of on deployment.”

Scouting type classers made their way between the campsites, some heading out for their watch while others returned. Terisa sipped her kaffen and enjoyed the quiet of the early morning for several minutes, until Foz began flipping meat onto a platter.

“Food,” grunted the giant of a man, setting the platter on top of a section of a log cut to usable height for a table. “Eat.” He glanced off towards the east, sniffing the air. “Fight today, probably.”

“I get that feeling, too,” agreed the huntress. “Only made it two days without a fight one time before, over ten years ago. Never seen an expedition make it three without being challenged by something big.”

“The rockmaw didn’t count?” blurted Dana. “I gained two levels from killing that thing, and Kojeg had already hacked one of its legs off!”

Terisa ignored the woman in favor of devouring several strips of seared meat from said [Rockmaw], daintily using her fingertips to avoid getting the juices on her enchanted tunic.

“Little rockmaw,” growled Foz in response. “Baby, almost. Good meat though.” He followed up his brief statement by devouring several strips of the meat in one bite, then grabbing another.

“We’ll get you some tyrannorabbits when we reach the lower plains, Foz.” The huntress turned to Dana. “He makes excellent rabbit stew.”

“You say ‘tyrannorabbits’ like I’m supposed to know what that is,” Dana complained. “You have no idea what kind of imagery that name brings me.”

“I’m sure you’ll still be surprised. And I hope you’re ready for a fight. I haven’t seen any signs of anything big yet, but I’ve learned to trust my instincts out here.”

“Always ready,” rumbled the oversized breakfast cook, sharpening a massive cleaver with a smooth stone while the two women ate in relative silence.

“So how does a cook end up with the expedition group?” asked Dana.

 

Terisa’s gaze snapped to the engineer, her jaw dropping open as she laughed. “Foz ain’t a cook! He’s a [Bloodaxe Berserker]!”

“Just like to cook!” the man rumbled with a grin. “Nobody told me no. Wife likes it too!”

“Yup,” continued Terisa. “He couldn’t cook a thing when I married him, but people aren’t stuck with just their class skills. Some take longer to learn, but nobody tells a level sixty berserker they can’t when the man tries his hand at it.”

Dana looked back and forth between Terisa and Foz, her expression cycling between shock, awe, and utter disbelief. “You,” she gaped like a fish out of water. “Him! He’s like eight feet tall! You’re barely past five foot! He--he’s five times your size!”

“I like big strong men, what can I say?”

The Worldwalker shook her head, chiding herself. “I didn’t realize, heh.”

Foz raised his head suddenly, sniffing at the air. Even with her higher levels, Terisa’s senses did not compare to those with beast heritage in their blood. The alarm was raised through the camp, the sounds of shouting breaking through the early morning, and the huntress knew that the Wildlands had finally decided to test the expedition’s mettle.

“Can you smell them?” she asked her husband, voice low and urgent.

“Many. Different. Rockmaw, Stonebear, Gamgarra.” His growled responses came as low rumbles, the berserker shrugging himself to his feet and shaking out his arms. “...They’re afraid,” he noted.

“What’s a Gamgarra?” asked Dana.

“It’s what the tribes call an elder wyvern,” said Terisa. “Like a drake, but without wings and even bigger. And something has this one afraid.”

“Not one,” growled Foz as the ground began to shake. “Many.”

Terisa was already pulling pouches out of her pack and clipping them to her gear, adding several enchanted quivers with storage enhancements to her not-insignificant arsenal. Althenea thrummed at her back, sensing the excitement and danger approaching.

“Do you need me to sound an alarm?” The Worldwalker’s suit had went back to its bipedal mode, but gems glowed at the woman’s hips and in the middle of the armor plated chest.

“Everyone knows already,” replied the huntress as spells began to explode to the east and south of the campsites. “If they’re spread out we can take them, probably.” The unmistakable thunder of dwarven cannon joined the cacophony of artillery spells.

Her Berserker husband interrupted with a resounding “No. Stampede.” He bent down to the wagon he shared with her, and stood back up holding two axes, the broad crescent blades almost as tall as Terisa herself. He held them as if they were cleavers in his ursine hands, and threw his head back and roared.

Anyone who had somehow managed to sleep through the shouts, spells, and cannonfire in the vicinity was rudely awakened by the resonating echoes of the sound. Foz’s roar carried a weight that was physical, dampening fires and shaking wagons and people both.

“Stay alive!” she ordered, watching the woman’s chair reconfigure again as she hurriedly wheeled herself back into her workshop and sealed the hatch behind her. Even if she wanted to, Terisa couldn’t watch out for one person in the face of the stampede. With no hope of killing all of the oncoming monsters, the expedition’s survival hinged on convincing it to change direction. She had hoped for a couple of single monsters, a few easy kills to forge their will; as it stood, the entire caravan would face mortal danger in this crucible.

She followed her husband, Foz, who used his nose as much as his ears and eyes to make his way past the dwarven encampment and the beastkin campsite to where an emplacement of cannon had been set as a perimeter defense. Several dead rockmaw littered the meadow before them, and the trees in the distance shook as more approached. Nessara stood in a glowing circle with three other mages, each with their staff raised to the sky for a group casting.

“Scouts came back just ahead of the rockmaw,” Kojeg informed Terisa. “They’re running this way, and some stonebear, chased by some elder wyverns.”

“Not chased,” snarled Foz. “Gamgarra are terrified, don’t know why. Something bigger is out there.”

“I don’t know what would scare an entire family of ‘em,” replied the dwarf while his brethren reloaded the cannons. “But we need to turn the charge before they come up this side of the valley pass. It’s a whole herd of rockmaw, and dozens of stonebear. I know it be matin’ season, but I never seen a group this big before.”

“I haven’t either,” replied Terisa as the cannons barked in unison, the acrid scent of the alchemical powder stinging her nose. “But old Mageema, that half-wolf shamaness who led the expedition before me, she told me some things. This could be a migration year. But it’s too early in the season!”

“Dunno what that is,” Foz growled, spinning his axes. The berserker had to wind himself up to take full advantage of his class, and would not truly come into his own until blood flew.

Nessara and her companion mages finished their working of Mana, and a massive sphere of light and flame arced up over the meadow just as several dozen more rockmaw burst through the trees. The fireball was over ten paces wide, and it impacted over thirty paces from the leading monster almost half a mile away. Despite the distance, and despite their innate magical resistances, the front rank of charging beasts were incinerated, and the ones behind them ran around the smoking ruin left by the spell. The mages wasted no time, immediately resuming their spellcraft after downing mana potions. The glowing circles around them began to pulse once again as they gathered power.

More adventurers were joining the line now, and a pair of feline beastkin scouts came darting out of the trees a hundred paces to the right of the crater. Terisa wasn’t sure what tribe they were from, not that it mattered to her; but some tribes didn’t get along at all. They crossed the meadow with bestial swiftness, stopping near Foz to salute the larger man. “We diverted two of the stonebears, but there’s at least another two hundred rockmaw coming up the valley,” one said while the other recovered from the sprint. At least these two don’t dislike the Ursara, she thought to herself.

“Where’s Dana?!” shouted Kojeg as the cannon roared again. “The lass built summat be perfect for a situation like this.”

“What could she build that can turn a stampede?!” retorted the huntress as she raised her bow, sending several arrows into another small pack of rockmaw that stumbled through the trees. Each arrow struck a monster in the head as if a giant hammer had crushed their skulls, dropping a half a dozen beasts in a heartbeat. “Once they knock enough of those trees down to get a good run, they’ll all be coming this way!”

“She don’t think like we do!” responded the dwarf. “That woman has the most terrifying mind I’ve ever witnessed! If you ever saw her workshop--”

Terisa didn’t have time to respond before a new, completely foreign sound swelled into being, swallowing the rumbling of the oncoming horde. It was a long, mournful wail, a howling siren that grew to such a peak that Terisa had to clap her hands to her ears. She may have screamed; she couldn’t hear herself. It seemed to come from the direction of the rest of the camp, but it was so unimaginably loud that it was hard to tell. It died away, but as Terisa cautiously lowered her hands, it rose once again. Once more it fell and rose, only to finally die away into silence. Stunned, Terisa gawked at Kojeg.

“That be her,” said Kojeg flatly, twisting his fingers in his ears. “I suggest everyone without the urge to be turned ta’ paste just step back a wee bit.”

New earthshaking rumbles joined what she could feel from the approaching horde of monsters. The impact of metal on metal reverberated throughout the camp, drowning out the monsters’ cries. The sound began to remind her of gnomish metalwork, but writ several times louder.

“The way she builds golems! She doesn’t see ‘em as separate things! Modular, she calls it,” yelled the dwarf over the noise as he led her and Foz back from the line of cannon that faced the forest’s edge. “Never seen the like,” he continued as they ran. His explanation was cut short as the ground heaved from a massive impact, nearly throwing Terisa to the ground. Then another. And another.

Six jointed insectoid legs bore Dana’s workshop, or what used to be her workshop, into the clearing. Each impact shook the ground as though a giant were treading the earth. Terisa could recognize parts of the rear sections of the workshop in the legs, as well as the bristling weaponry of foreign design that studded the foremost section.

Plates shifted and gears turned with an almost organic smoothness. A leg tore itself free from the ground, earth falling away as it rose, then slammed down again. On the front of the machine, two plates slid aside, making room for twin cylinders to protrude. It reminded Terisa somewhat of a spider’s jaw. That is, until they began to spin – slowly at first, growing faster and faster until they were screaming.

The first of the main herd of rockmaws broke through the treeline on the opposite end of the meadow.

And then, the Worldwalker’s creation spat death and devastation at a rate that boggled the mind. Her class skills and enhancements allowed her to see that the cylinders – which were themselves made of smaller cylinders – were spewing bits of metal so fast that she could barely distinguish one from the next. Pieces of what she was sure was brass rained down in a continuous stream from somewhere on the machine’s belly, pattering off the rock and earth. One bounced over to her, and she reached down to examine it. At its base, it was nearly as thick as her wrist, but tapered to a smaller opening at the far end.

The cannons and their effluence cut down trees, rockmaws, and stonebears alike with an ease that seemed almost casual. Though no single strike would have felled one of the monsters – in fact, most of the expedition could have survived a few hits unless they were well-placed – the strikes did not come singly, but in a continuous hailstorm, littering the ground with blood, flesh, and corpses, chewed to pieces as the awesome machine swept its beam of death from one side of the killing field to the other.

But still, the Worldwalker was not done. For nearly sixty seconds, her machine spat its death across the field, and only then did it slow, the red-hot barrels steaming as the rain of brass came to an end.

The field lay barren, and far quieter than it had been mere minutes before. But then, the trees exploded, giving birth to a pair of Gamgarra, the elder wyverns. They had been at the rear of the stampede, and now their path was laid clear.

Terisa raised her bow, mana swirling along her arms as she prepared another [Celestial Shot], another heavensplitter – but Dana was quicker on the draw. Two of the machine’s great legs split apart, panels opening to reveal pulsating Mana Crystals, already beginning to pull Mana from the air around them in a current Terisa could easily feel.

Another cylinder thrust forward from the innards of the machine, between the still-cooling cannons. This cylinder was a single piece, and covered in concentric circles of runes. These began to contra-rotate, faster and faster until they blurred into solid bands.

Then, a hum that was so loud it couldn’t be called a hum, a crack of thunder, and a solid beam of cerulean light leapt from the barrel to the lead wyvern – and emerged from the other side of its head. It flashed again, and its mate fell as well.

The field went silent as the grave. Nobody spoke; nobody could speak. Everyone stood slackjawed, struck dumb by the devastation a single woman had wrought.

Over a hundred monsters, in moments! the huntress thought. And no common monsters, either, these are all-- Horror overtook her, and she turned, but too late.

The massive walker lurched to the side as a flash of golden light shone forth from inside; Dana had gained a level. More flashes signalled more levels, and the walker staggered as if under some unimaginable onslaught before pitching to the ground, its legs collapsing as golden flashes continued to rise.

“Kojeg!” Terisa shouted as she bounded towards the machine. “What’re her autos?”

“Dunno!” the dwarf shouted back. “Never asked, but she gets stronger every time, so at least one to strength!”

“Dammit,” she cursed, leaping onto the machine’s head. “She’s hyperleveling! We have to get her out or she’ll starve to death before waking up!”

She tugged, then heaved at the armor, to no avail. The Worldwalker had clearly built her machine to be a tank, but it would also become her grave if she Terisa couldn’t get it open. Kojeg swung his hammer with a mighty shout, trying to open a hole, but it was Foz who ultimately brought the solution.

Or, rather, was the solution. The excitement and the sight of blood had given him the opportunity to finally tap into his berserker’s rage, and he exercised it against the side of the machine, his great axes shearing away at its structure with each strike. It wasn’t long before he had opened a big enough path for Terisa to reach the fallen engineer.

“Food, Foz! Go get more, meat and drink!” Before her eyes, she could see Dana’s body wasting away, growing more gaunt as she expended caloric reserves she did not have. Terisa didn’t understand the mechanisms holding Dana into her seat, but she didn't need to understand in order to destroy. She tore cables, bent back metal braces, and ripped away woven straps in order to pull the unconscious Worldwalker out of the cupped seat from which she had controlled the machine.

The woman’s spinal graft had released the linking tendrils when the woman fell unconscious, and she knew she’d owe Dana an apology after cutting free the plumbing connectors that the woman had so shyly explained after their first meeting’s awkward questions. She didn’t know how many times the girl had just levelled, but as she watched, the girl’s skin pulled tight against her bones. Gently pulling her from the seat once all the various connectors and strange metal workings were out of the way, she wrapped the girl in her cloak and gingerly carried her back out of the machine to set her on the ground. She’s light, Terisa thought worriedly, far too light.

“Here’s some stamina potions,” offered Nessara as she approached with the other mages. “That’ll stave off the worst of it. She had to have gained at least a dozen levels, probably more.”

Kojeg and Foz were already returning, the dwarf with a small cask on one shoulder and her husband with an armload of still-bloody steaks. Terisa managed to get one of the stamina potions down Dana’s throat, but the Worldwalker wasn’t out of danger by any measure. The woman sputtered, waking up to clutch at the bottle and drain the rest of the potion. Terisa handed her another as Nessara used fire magic to sear small bite-sized chunks of meat before handing them to the girl. Quality was less of a concern than just getting it cooked enough that the woman wouldn’t throw it back up.

After finally recovering enough strength to feed herself, Dana broke down in tears, curling up in Terisa’s robe. “I had no idea,” she groaned. “Levelling never hurt before!”

“Too much of anything hurts, lass,” Kojeg replied softly.

After wolfing down several more fist-sized chunks of meat, she managed to ask, "Did I stop the stampede?"

“Aye, ye did that and more,” replied the dwarf.

“I broke it,” growled Foz, pointing at the mobile walker with one axe. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” replied the Worldwalker. Her expression went from pained to sudden mirth. “Is he always like that?” she asked Terisa, unable to stop herself from laughing. The huntress, relieved that she didn’t have a dead Worldwalker on her hands, joined in her laughter. Soon everyone present was stifling chuckles except for Foz. He simply grunted and ate another piece of meat.

They sat around her, watchful of the wildlands, and she continued to eat and recover. Their revelry was interrupted once more, however, by the mage Nessara crying out, clutching her head and falling to her knees.

The other mages still standing by the ritual circle had likewise collapsed, and Terisa stared in utter confusion.

“Nothing in the Wildlands can do this!” one moaned.

“It’s not the Wildlands,” Nessara groaned through clenched teeth. “Someone is working a ritual, or a Greater Spellworking.”

Terisa felt it then as well, a low pulsing in the earth beneath them. Nessara and the other mages were beginning to recover, but still seemed on the verge of collapse at any moment. “What is it? I can sense Earth magic…”

“Yes, it’s Earth, alright,” Nessara responded shakily. “And some Fire, and Lightning too. Every mage in the expedition felt that, and I bet the shamans at Thun’Kadrass are shitting gold bricks right now.”

“I don’t understand,” Terisa said, shaking her head.

“I’ve visited the Great Forge myself, you know, over ten years ago. Whoever is doing whatever they’re doing is channeling more Earth Mana than the Great Forge. It’s quite literally enough to move a mountain.”

They stood and Dana sat, looking out to the east, wondering who could manage such a feat in a place where there were supposedly no people at all.

And the magic kept pulsing until long after nightfall.