Chapter One: Hunting Trip

  Dania swallowed the instinctive fear that rose in her throat and shoved it away with a mental snarl.

  It's not my fear, she reminded herself as her breath puffed into a cloud on her exhale. It's an effect of the monster. We must be close. She flexed her fingers, extending her claws, but held herself motionless as the icy breeze cut through the trees that surrounded them. A glance up at the thin slice of night sky showed heavy, pregnant clouds sweeping over the crescent moon, blocking its light.

  Snow is on the way.

  Her mouth went dry, and she felt her shoulders trying to hunch up around her ears as fear swirled in the bottom of her belly. Once more, she willed it away.

  Not mine. Not real.

  "Be ready," she called lowly, her voice carrying a rumbling burr. "Here it comes!"

  The feline growl that underlaid her words was, like her claws, a product of the Lost World Lioness card mantle she'd donned for this hunting trip. To her right, her nephew Jake stood wrapped in shadows, looking a decade older than his just-turned-seventeen years as Nyx's Mantle settled over him.

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  It didn't matter that neither she nor Jake intended to fight. Sometimes, one didn't have a choice. Dania preferred to be prepared.

  "Got eyes on," Amari called out. She, too, was mantled, though Dania couldn't see the small black horns and cat ears she knew hid under Amari's natural Afro hairstyle. Amari's normally honey-brown eyes glowed a dull, smoky red in the forest night, and that gave it away. As did the faint scent of smoke and sulfur that emanated from her general direction.

  On Amari's right, Kendra pushed Joe's wheelchair forward and then stepped out to stand beside the elderly deckbearer. Moonlight glittered off the green scales of Joe's mantle, but Kendra seemed to disappear into the darkness beneath the trees. Even Dania's feline eyes had trouble picking her out. Like Jake's, Kendra's mantle used shadows to protect and hide her.

  The forest floor pulsed in front of them, and Dania had time to draw in a breath before the ground exploded outward, tossing dirty snow, half-rotted leaves, and fragments of twigs into the air as a monster resembling a giant earthworm rose ten above and ahead of the little group.

  "Overwhelming Dread," Dania muttered for Jake's ears. "This'll be a good challenge for them. They should make some levels from it."

  "Watch for the little ones!" Jake called out as the monster heaved. It opened its mouth to spit out six smaller versions of itself, the Dread Burrowers. Each of them was longer than six feet, though only about as big around as Dania's wrist. They were quick, though, and Dania knew from experience that they could be deadly.

  "You've got five minutes until it pukes more out!" Dania called out, though she belatedly remembered that Amari, Joe, and Kendra could read the Overwhelming Dread's card as well as she could. Still, she figured a warning couldn't hurt. "Incapacitate the babies quickly if you can and concentrate your attacks on the big one!"

  three years after the end of SCG. So Jake is seventeen, for your reference.

  As always, thank you so much for reading! I love you all.