PreCursive

  “Are…you sure?” I asked Grey hesitantly.

  Grey rolled his eyes from his p the driver’s benext to me. “Yes, Nathan,” He said patiently. “As I’ve told you, driving a wagon isn’t hard. The horses do most of the work.”

  I made an irritated noise, drawing the attention of Fade sitting iween us. “I’m not talking about driving the damn wagon. I’m talking about being the face, Grey. You really wao be the one doing the talking if we run into people?”

  Grey let his left hand fall on Fade’s head and start scratg his ears. Fade leaned in, panting. “It will be fine, Nathan. I may not have bee, but Azarus did tell me about your little performan the court of Prince Elysael. I’m sure you have the Ag ability to present a believable front.”

  After Grey’s mission statement ba Hollow Hill, we had all piled into and onto the wagon. Grey had asked me to join him up on the driver's bench at the time, but he had been the oo lead us out of the town. We didn’t actually get much attention on the way out, despite the most famous member of our party sitting in pin sight. I guess it was uandable, though. We weren’t trying to be fshy this time, unlike whe here. All of us had ged out of our fine bd silver clothes that denoted us as members of Grey’s ente. Instead, we were deliberately dressing down.

  I was ba my handmade leathers, sans the cloak, with a spiffiraw hat on my head courtesy of Grey. He was wearing a nondescript brown robe as well as araw hat to ceal his fad distinct eyes. Most people hadn’t even looked twice at us, on our way out of the town. Holy, I wasn’t surprised. Grey mostly looked like an average bald-headed old man, when you couldn’t get a good look at him.

  Behind me in the , I could hear low versation from our panions. Couldn’t tell you what it was about, though. They weren’t sitting close enough for me to tell.

  I s Grey’s words, accepting the reins of the wagon gingerly from him. The horses didn’t stutter at all, ung who held them. “Yeah, and I bet it doesn’t hurt that I’m just a regur-looking human guy. I’m guessing that Loyalist patrols would get extra curious if they saw any of those guys,” I jerked a thumb over my shoulder at the . “Up here. Especially our Sculpted friends.”

  Grey huffed a shh and nodded. “Indeed. It would cause quite a ruckus.”

  We psed into silence for a moment, simply watg the tryside pass us by. The noise of the cart trundling along the dirt road, the muffled versation behind us, and the sounds of nature around us…

  It was holy pretty nice. I sighed peacefully, letting my worries about what I’d found in the bunker rest for a moment. You know, I could see the appeal of being a traveling trader like Gren, up here in the driver's seat. I reached over to scratch Fade’s ears myself, leading to him ying his furry little head in my p.

  Grey watched our iion idly. He broke the silence. “An odd creature, your Fade,” He mused. “In all my years, I t the number of times I’ve seen Spirit Wolves on one hand.”

  I made a curious noise in my throat. “What were they like?”

  “In a word, mysterious,” My mentor said, cupping his in his hand. “They primarily live in the deep woods, and only truly appear as guardians for the helpless. In my st few enters with them, they demonstrated some frankly odd abilities and a level of insight that was dht uny. They grow quite rge, you know. As rge as these horses,” He the absolutely massive workhorses pulling on. Grey smiled at my incredulous stare. “Oh, indeed. It could be decades before young Fade reaches that size, however. You don’t quite have to worry about your potential Familiar eating you out of house and home just yet.”

  I made a mental the ‘decades’ thing. I guess I didn’t o worry about Fade dying of old age anytime soon. I raised my eyebrow at Grey. “Familiar? What, that’s a thing?”

  “Fi, yes,” Grey me. “It’s not the most on practice, and it’ll be some time before you gh the bonding process. Both because you’re not quite a Magi yet, and because of how young Fade is.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I rolled my eyes at Grey. “You’ve told me before. I o reach the first ‘Breakpoint’,” I sarcastically made air quotes. “In order to actually bee a Magi. When is that again?”

  “Level one hundred,” Grey said, unphased. I imagine he’d gotten worse from students over the years. “At that point, you’ll be able to undergo the process to gee your own Mana. It will entirely repce your Stamina on your Status. Ially, what level are you now?”

  “Thirty-four,” I told him, idly petting Fade. My pup winced when my hand rahe small bumps on his head, just before his ears. My brow furrowed. “Do you know what these are?” I asked Grey, ed. “Holy, when I found him I thought he’d run head first in the portal stone or something.”

  Grey choked on a ugh at my words. “Those…those aren’t injuries, Nathan,” He got out. “Those are his horns.”

  My eyebrows shot up in surprise. I leaned in closer to ihe bumps more closely. Carefully, I brushed the fur back from them. Underh, the skin looked very thin and a bit irritated. “Horns,” I said wly. “Is that what a Spirit Wolf is then? A horned wolf?”

  Grey calmed down, still smiling at me. “That’s part of what a Spirit Wolf is,” He corrected me. “I think young Fade is getting to the age where his first set of horns is ing in. He’ll likely be ky about it. I know I would be, if I had horns suddenly started pushing through the skin of my forehead.”

  I moved my petting down to Fade’s bastead and Grey’s words. “Yeah,” I murmured. “I’ll see if I whip up a pain-relieving cream or something for him ter. I know we brought some Alchemy ingredients and a few recipe books with us.”

  “An excellent idea,” Grey said leisurely, leaning ba the driver’s bench to watch the horizon.

  We psed into a fortable sile that.

  Yeah, I thought to myself, one hand on the reigns and the other petting my wolf.

  Driving a caravan wasn’t too bad.

  ……………………………………..

  From what Grey told me, it would take us about a week to reach the coast. From there, it would take us a few more days of travel to reach Marrowmist. Grey wa to be the two of us up on the bench whenever we were underway, in order to minimize risk. Acc to him, you never knew what kind of spies could be lurking in a bush or something. That didn’t mean I only had my mentor to speak to for the week, though. There was a small tch behind the bench to let us speak to the octs of the . Other than that though, it was mostly peacefully watg the tryside go by.

  Mostly.

  Later that day, we actually had a monster charge the wagon. That sure as hell hadn’t happened during the trip to Hollow Hill. Maybe because the caravan had been se it had deterred them?

  Anyway, the monster pretty much looked like a giant, fucked up groundhog. The actual attack retty sad, actually. As we’d been trundling down the dirt road, Fade sat up from his nap on the bend started barking at the horizon. Following his gaze, I watched as the monster emerged from over the top of a hill, charging down at us.

  From over a mile away.

  Nonplussed, I gnced over at Grey on my right. He was staring back at me with an amused smile. The older ma his arm in the dire of the chargi in a graure.

  “It must be young, otherwise a Dirtgnawer would have set an ambush for us,” He told me. “By all means, engage in some target practice.”

  I rolled my eyes at him slowed the wagon with a snap of my reigns. O had stopped, I stood up on the bench. Raising my arm and pointing a finger gun at the monster, I closed oo try and steady my aim. Lining up my ‘shot’, I started pelting the monster with Poisonthorn Shot’s.

  My first few missed, as it was still a bit far out. But the thorns themselves actually did reach that far. I hadn’t actually known how far my thorn skill could shoot.

  .

  Eventually, though, I did mao hit the ‘Dirtgnawer’, causing it to stumble. Now that it had stopped moving, it was much easier to hit. It only took two more direct hits with my thorns for the moo puff into a greasy cloud of Miasma.

  I huffed a small ugh, shaking my head. How anticlimactic. I guess that was why fighting at range was so preferable.

  With a yip, Fade hopped down from the bend raced over to where the monster had died. I blinked as I watched my wolf dig around at the patch of dirt, befrabbing something in his mouth. Fade bounded back over to the wagon and jumped back up on the bench. ched in his teeth was the small chip of a monster core that the Dirtgnawer had dropped oh, no bigger than a finger nail. The pup dropped it on the bench with a tinkling noise and stood over it, panting.

  I raised an eyebrow at the young wolf. “Thanks, I guess,” I said to him, amused. Reag down to pick it up, I noticed that Fade’s eyes tio track the core pinched between my fingers. He had a hungry look in his lupine gaze.

  Flig my gaze between the core and Fade, I made an exasperated noise. “If you wa, why did y it over to me?”

  Fade just pa me, gazing trag the core. I rolled my eyes and tossed the core to him. Fade she gem out of the air like it was a dog treat and gulped it down in one go. He panted happily for a moment, before ying back down on the bend promptly taking a nap.

  I shook my head and said back down, to the backdrop of Grey ughing. As I ig up the reigns, I heard the slot behind the drivers bench open. Azarus’s voice drifted out of it. “Oi, why did we stop? Is somethin’ wrong?”

  I she reigns, prompting the horses to get baderway. I rolled my eyes uo my dwarven friend. “Don’t worry about it.”

  ……………………………………..

  This cycle repeated itself for the few days. Unlike during the caravan trip to Hollow Hill, we didn’t stop when the sun started to set. We didn’t ime to set up a massive camp to aodate the needs of over a hundred people, after all. No, we kept driving well into the night, and typically only stopped sometime after midnight.

  I’d beeing used to telling time in a world with no easily accessible clocks.

  Wait. Couldn’t I make one myself?

  Adding it to the list.

  Speaking of crafting, some of us were getting a little bit of work done during our downtime. I know Azarus and I were. I actually mao get a prototype of something I was w on done during those hours. None of us needed much sleep, even though it was nice. I think the only reason that we didn’t drive for longer was so we could rest and care for the horses. They seemed to be holding up okay uhe strain, to my untrained eye.

  Some of us chose to use the bunks in the , while some seemed fine just fine sleeping uhe stars. Venix didn’t seem like he was sleeping after all. He told us matter-of-factly that he would be c all guard shifts ht, and would take care of anything that approached.

  It was ohird day of travel that something ged for us.

  We entered a Loyalist patrol.