The small otter sniffed the bowl of rice and wrinkled its muzzle, looking up first at Erich and then Allthier with visible disgust. The cinderborn shook his head, chuckling lightly.

  “That confirms it,” Allthier said, reaching into his pouch to pull out a strip of rock har jerky. The otter’s eyes lit up at the sight of the meat. “What you’ve got here is a juvenile war otter.”

  “They aren’t that common this far inland,” he continued, feeding the jerky to the suddenly excited mammal, “but that doesn’t mean that a warren isn’t unheard of. They’re consummate carnivores and there isn’t all that much for them to eat around here. Usually you find war otters on the bigger rivers and lakes closer to the ocean, but it isn’t impossible to find them being bred by a local noble. Outside of horses, war otters are probably the most favored mount by warriors on Tempest and it wouldn’t be that strange for a domestically bred otter to escape captivity.”

  “Mounts?” Erich asked, looking at the otter as it perched on its hind legs on the mess hall table, feeding itself the jerky that it had stolen from Allthier. “I suppose its parent was barely big enough to ride, but it was hardly as tall or quick as a horse.”

  The otter paused its chewing, slumping slightly and letting out a mournful squeak.

  “Stop that,” Allthier hissed, putting a hand on Erich’s bicep. “One of the reasons people use war otters as mounts and companions over horses is their intelligence. She can understand everything you’re saying.”

  “Oh,” Erich mumbled, suddenly feeling guilty. “I’m sorry about that. I didn’t mean to bring up any bad memories.”

  It chirped quietly, cocking its head to the side and leaning forward to sniff Erich’s hand before hunching over and returning to its jerky.

  “Anyway,” Allthier replied, “she seems pretty taken with you. War otters make good companions and you have a bit of a hike in front of you. If you take care of her, she’ll take care of you.”

  “The first step in that process is meat,” he said with a nod toward the jerky the otter was chewing on. “You’re going to need meat to feed the little girl, but meat people can eat is rare and expensive in these parts. Garr are theoretically edible, but it takes a skilled chef or salt to prepare their meat. There aren’t any chefs on that level in Madla and salt is incredibly expensive away from the ocean. Luckily, otters have a bit stronger stomachs than we do.”

  “She should be able to eat garr,” Allthier continued. “The main problem will be storing meat. Without salt, it’s going to go bad and you’re going to find yourself out hunting again. With enough bits, you can buy meat wherever you go, but taking on a war otter means committing yourself to feeding it and that isn’t a small investment of time and resources on your part.”

  Erich’s mind immediately went back to the moment when the adult otter had presented him with its young, practically begging him to take the juvenile. There were reasons to take the animal with him and there were reasons to cut it loose here and now, but both sides hardly mattered. The look in the grown otters’ eyes would haunt him every night if he abandoned it here.

  “So I need to start collecting the garr I kill?” Erich asked, reaching up to scratch the stubble starting to grow in on the sides of his face. “I think I can manage that. I’m sure I’ll have to kill a lot more of the frog alligator things. I might as well put their corpses to good use.”

  Derl walked over to their table, a bowl of rice in his hands and a yawn twisting his face. He slumped down before looking blearily at the three of them, his eyes barely glowing.

  “I guess I didn’t imagine the otter,” he mumbled, reaching up to rub his face and eyes with the heel of his hand. “I thought that was something I dreamt.”

  Erich frowned at the cinderborn, but it was Allthier that spoke.

  “You look like crap Derl. Rough night?”

  “You could say that,” Derl replied, shoving a spoonful of rice into his mouth. “We didn’t have a garr attack, but there were enough of them swimming around the town walls that the militia wanted me to be awake and ready just in case something happened. They left this morning, but I swear that I didn’t get more than an hour of sleep at a time. I’m about ready to keel over on my feet, but there are already more sightings so here I am, enjoying a breakfast of rice and rice.”

  “How is the scouting going anyway?” He asked, face still practically buried in his rice. “Please tell me you’ve found the garr den. The sooner we can get them cleaned out, the sooner I’ll be able to get a proper night’s rest.”

  “I saw a lot more to the north,” Erich replied. “They got more numerous the further I went, and I might have been wrong, but I detoured west and it seemed like they were becoming even more common. That’s where I found the otter.”

  Derl looked up at him, eyes flickering in the cinderborn equivalent of a blink.

  “That’s great news,” he said, dark lips twisting up into a smile. “If the den is to the northwest, it’s just a matter of you finding the right grid so that the two of us can clear it. It’s only drizzling out today, so it’s a perfect day for scouting. With any luck, you’ll find the nest today and we can eliminate it tomorrow.”

  Erich nodded, putting his spoon down into his empty wooden bowl. It had only been a couple of days but already the bland taste of rice with nothing else was starting to wear on him. He couldn’t even begin to imagine how monotonous it must be for Derl and the farmers.

  “With any luck,” Erich agreed. “I suppose I should probably get a start on the day. If it isn’t raining heavily yet, I should make use of the extra visibility while it lasts.”

  He stood up only to be stopped by agitated chittering from the otter. It had finished eating its jerky and it was standing up on its hind legs and staring anxiously at Erich. He looked over his shoulder, but there was no one behind him.

  “It looks like you’re not going to get out of here without bringing her along,” Allthier said with a chuckle. “Also, you should come up with a name for her while you’re out. Calling her ‘the otter’ or ‘little girl’ is strange, and it looks like you’re stuck with her so you might as well make it official.”

  About an hour later, Erich was trudging through the drizzle, the otter clinging to her back by digging its claws into her chainmail.

  “Frederick the Destroyer?” He asked, drawing an angry hiss from the otter.

  “Mountain? Rampager? Quicksilver? Corsair? Primus?” None of Erich’s other choices drew a reaction, but that wasn’t good enough. The otter might not actively hate them, but he wanted to find a name that his new companion would actually enjoy.

  “I really don’t know what you expect from me,” he grumbled. “I’m not really good at naming things. If you leave this up to me, you’ll end up with something completely bland and normal. It’s not like you want me to call you ‘Michelle’ or something.”

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  The otter chirped happily, shoving the top of its head into the side of his neck.

  “Huh,” Erich remarked, reaching up to tousle his wet and bedraggled hair. “Michelle. I guess that works. I suppose Allthier did keep calling you a girl.”

  Once again, she trilled cheerfully at Erich.

  “I guess that’s settled then,” he replied, raking his eyes across the rice fields. “Your name is Michelle. I guess I’ll get you a collar and a name tag or something once we get to the next town. I doubt there will be any artisans that can accommodate us in Madla.”

  Michelle responded with a happy chirp

  “I guess that’s a plan then,” Erich responded, trying his hardest not to feel ridiculous about the entire situation. Talking to an otter made him feel a bit silly regardless, but talking to a huge otter that clung to his back like a pack? That was an entirely different level of bizarre.

  She rested her head on his shoulder, whiskers brushing up against his cheek. Erich did his best to not flinch away from the sensation. Part of him couldn’t help but think of the sharp needle-like teeth that were only a couple inches away from his jugular, but that effort was made much easier by how undeniably cute the otter was.

  He sighed, pausing to pull the map out of his pack and check his location. Last time he’d gone mostly north and a little bit west. This time, he’d travel even further west. There had been plenty of garr on the last trip, so exploring that area further seemed like a good idea if he was going to track down the animals’ nest.

  After reorienting himself, Erich began moving again, squinting through the light rain to look for an upcoming tree marked on the map. The tree itself wasn’t that important, but Erich planned on using it as a landmark to halt his northward travel and change his heading.

  About twenty minutes later, Michelle stirred on his back, clambering up so that her front paws were on his shoulder. Erich staggered slightly. Advancing to the second tier had greatly improved his strength, enough that the otter draped over his neck wasn’t crushing him, but at the same time, carrying the unusually heavy animal was a bit taxing.

  “I think we’re doing this wrong,” Erich said dryly. “Allthier and Derl said that I’m supposed to be riding on your back, not the other way around.”

  Michelle ignored him, her head held high next to the side of his face. With a faint chuffing sound she sniffed the damp air.

  Her nose twitched slightly, whiskers brushing against Erich’s cheek as she leaned forward. Michelle’s head swung back and forth as if she were looking for something

  The otter growled, a low sound deep in her throat as she bared needle-like teeth at the rice fields around them. Honestly? The sound was much more cute than threatening. If Michelle were big enough for Erich to ride, it probably would’ve made his hair stand on end, but it was hard to take the otter seriously when she was barely bigger than a ten year old child.

  A pair of eyes popped up above the surface of the water. Seconds later, another pair appeared next to it.

  Gently, Erich took Michelle off of his shoulder, setting the otter on the dirt road as he slowly drew his sword, not wanting to startle the growing number of garr that were revealing themselves in the water. The garr wouldn’t attack unless they felt confident in their numbers, but any hope of escaping without a fight disappeared around the time that the sixth set of eyes blinked into existence.

  Erich took a deep breath, clearing his mind of distractions as he set his feet.

  An explosion of sound and water heralded the start of the fight.

  Two of the garr launched themselves into the air at the same time. Erich’s feet kicked off of the dirt, sending him into a lunge toward one of his two assailants even as his sword traced a glowing arc through the air.

  His blade seemed to glow with its own internal light as it hacked through the air, mana burning up and down its length as Erich slashed it through the flying garr.

  The second garr zipped past him, oversized jaws snapping at Erich as his lunge pulled him barely out of its reach. Another four of the animals scrambled up the side of the dirt embankment only for a growling Michelle to pounce on one, sending the two of them tumbling and biting down the side of the path and back into the water of the rice field.

  Before the other four could react, Erich spun in place, sending a spray of the garr’s companion’s blood through the air and painting their faces and snouts. They blinked, drawing back a half-step, and that half-step gave Erich the time he needed to charge.

  Barely a half second later he was among them, sword hacking down to snap the neck of the first predator only to flick back and parry the snout of a second garr. Meat and muscle surged in the corner of Erich’s eye, sending him scrambling back as another garr lunged toward him.

  Mana flowed out of his image, filling Erich’s arms and legs with warmth and energy as his sword blurred through the air. It chopped downward, slashing through the skull of another garr and unleashing a small surge of aether.

  Another garr tried to charge him from behind, but Erich reacted more on instinct than anything else, spinning around to kick the creature in its snout and stopping it short.

  His feet slid through the wet dirt as he danced backward, sword flashing to keep the garr at bay. In the water below Michelle splashed and growled as she tussled with her opponent, red blood slowly staining the pond around her.

  Erich could feel the aether swelling in his image. It was close. The fire, the trees, the lightning, and the stars above, all of them felt realer than they ever had before. Somehow they felt even realer than the world outside his body, as if they were waiting for one last thing to push them over the edge.

  A garr jumped from the ground toward him, and Erich took a half step to the side, his sword moving almost on its own as it left a deep, fatal gash in the creature’s neck.

  The surviving garr slowed their advance. Evidently losing most of their number in about five seconds was enough to give even a newborn predator pause.

  Erich didn’t give them a chance to rethink their strategy. He dashed forward, running even more mana through his body as he followed the movements that days of practicing Magma Blossom had burned into his muscles.

  The sword chopped downward, hitting the slimy back of one garr before wrenching itself free in a spray of blood. The animal next to it croaked in fear, trying to scurry to the side only for Erich’s follow up slash to leave a deep cut in its flank.

  He kicked the injured creature even as its companions fled for the water. Erich’s toe hooked under the bottom of the low slung animal, and with a grunt he managed to flip it onto its back.

  Its feet kicked helplessly in the air as it twisted its back, trying to right itself, but Erich was too fast. He stabbed downward, finishing the thrashing monster in one heavy blow.

  More aether flowed into him and he exhaled, letting the adrenaline drain from his system as he turned to survey the bodies that surrounded him. The garr didn’t quite represent enough aether to put him over the edge and into the third tier, but he could feel himself growing closer and closer.

  The air on the surface might not contain as much aether as the atmosphere on the bridge or in hell, but the constant combat was doing wonders for him. Not only was he learning to adapt the forms of Magma Blossom from a practice tool into a weapon for actual combat, each garr represented months of casual aether accumulation.

  He had been battling the vermin for days now, his body absorbing more and more energy until it was like he’d spent a year or so on the bridge. Given the efficiency with which his new image accommodated the influx of energy, the difference was like night and day.

  Erich was far from invincible, but mana thrummed through his body healing the bruises and cuts that he had earned in his brief scuffle even as it erased any stiffness in his muscles and any need for sleep. He was an entirely different man than the one that had left Burrwood. Erich still had a long way to go, but for the first time, he finally felt like he was on the right track, even if he didn’t entirely know what would be at the end of his journey.

  A splash from the water sent Erich back into the first stance of Magma Blossom, his sword at ready for whatever monster was about to burst forth. Instead, Michelle surfaced, a happy twinkle in her eyes as she struggled to drag the corpse of the garr she had killed, its body almost the same size as the otter itself, up the embankment to the road where Erich was standing.

  He smiled before sheathing his sword and skidding partway down the dirt hillside. Erich reached down, grabbing the dead garr by its rear legs and pulling them out of the water as he helped Michelle carry her prize.

  “Allthier said you’d want meat,” Erich remarked with a chuckle. “I suppose it makes sense that you’d want to start with your first solo kill. Come on, I’ll help you get this to one of the way points so we can gut it and get it ready for you to eat.”