As fast as the wagon moved, in two days of travel the Tower hadn't got much closer.

  It had been a nicer journey than he expected. From the comfort of his seat, he could barely hear the wheels bump over the degraded roads, or feel the sway as the wagon struggled to remain upright over ravaged terrain. The food was alright and he could barely smell the sweat. The only problem is that it was dreadfully quiet.

  Usually, he would expect the five other passengers to pick up the slack or go insane, but no social creatures resided here. Trying to start a conversation with any of the other hares was like waving a hand in the face of some rabid animal, and the bundle of clothes had outright snarled the only time he spoke in their direction. At least Garces—the Stone Skin with the gorgeous mustache—was willing to give him a fifth of his time, the rest spent sleeping or contemplating.

  There was Handres too, in a sense. They didn't ride with them nor answered beyond platitudes, but if you strained your hearing enough you could always pick up that same ceaseless hum, refrains repeated over and over again, occasionally reordered with no rhyme or reason he understood.

  No, they didn't talk to them as much as he had expected. What they did do often though was stop the trip dead. Why? no clue. Case in point:

  "Necessities stop!" Their head popped down from above as the wagon slowed down. "Remember , stay close to our big friend up front at all times, and if you hear it starting to scream, scramble back inside!"

  "A-again?!" éliol, as the fancy hare had identified himself to the other hares yesterday, said. "It has not been five hours since our last stop, how are getting to Cilifus at this speed?"

  "It's been five hours and thirty four minutes, in fact! Besides, I just realized I have some things to do around these parts."

  "More important than fulfilling your Guild duties?"

  Handres pulled back and disappeared, leaving them to bask in his absence.

  "...Fine!" éliol stood up and crossed his arms. "Might as well, if you are so intent in shirking your responsibilities! Vante, you coming as well?"

  Vante was the dark skinned hare with the shovel, always held like they were ready to cave a skull at the drop of a hat. Even then, the name had taken fancy éliol a night's worth of bragging and cajoling to learn, and might have been made up to sooth the annoyance.

  Either way, Vante never acted alone. They had a small argument with their sickly partner before they could give an answer. Poor thing, by this point their voice had grown so soft Francies could barely understand even from this close, but Vante seemed to get the gist of it, carefully helping them to their feet.

  The living bundle of clothes didn't make so much as twitch, and he sure wasn't going to bother that one, so he turned to Garces instead. "Feel like stretching your legs or something?"

  Garces groaned. Fitting for a guy his build, he had a voice like boulders grinding each other to dust. "That would be very pleasant."

  Hopping out felt like stepping into another world, as he was hit by the chill, the humidity, and the stench all in a single punch. Handres has brought them to the side of a small clearing, or rather a large hole dug from the spider-web of the surrounding woods, now a rain filled pond peppered with rotting stumps and mounds of dirt.

  As if the stink of stagnant water wasn't enough, something had died nearby, by the edge of the pond. Quadruped and large, plucked furless, ripped side to side but with some darkening meat still rotting against exposed ribs, cloying the air with carrion.

  "Yeesh," Francies said, holding his spear tight. No way a meal that rich went untouched out here without a good reason."Does Handres not have a nose or something?"

  "Only this much is quite ambient these days," Garces said. For a man the size of a hill, he had surprisingly soft footsteps. "I would not be surprised if Mon Handres was simply accustomed."

  Francies frowned. He didn't know where to start, that Garces had used Mon, an honorific so prissy and archaic he had never heard it used unironically, on a carriage coach, or all the rest. "Not to disagree, but where are you from again?"

  "Logono's Stop, relatively near your Lateno, bordering the Pacas Bogs."

  "Yah, I assumed."

  Garces grunted. "Despite its reputation, I can assure you there are worse smelling places than the Bog readily found nearby."

  "Cool. Hope I never find them!"

  Francies was of the mind to get as far from the carcass as possible, but Garces halted in his tracks, glancing upwards and away.

  In the distance, the Tower was still only a dark line, a shallow cut splitting the horizon in halves, but he was getting better, faster at spotting it. The call helped a lot. It never became stronger, but was clearer by the day.

  "Unbelievable," Garces said.

  "Pardon?" Francies said.

  "That I would ever be so close to the Sin of Levelas. Do you not think so?"

  "I think we should go piss, maybe."

  But he didn't move. Instead, he raised a hand to his lips, tips of fingers less than a nails length away as he started a prayer under his breath. "Cold and grand Lodon, blind and vast Lodon, I beg you, may your wisdom deliver us, and ours not wind us astray." He exhaled, then pointed his fingers towards the ground.

  Watching awkwardly, Francies tried to recall his more devout days. Lodon was one of the Pure Ones, that much everyone knew, and they better represented... Mountains? Deserts? Just too much to keep straight in single hare brain. South Lateno had always been more about Mamogon anyway.

  "Francesto." Garces approached, the passed him, towards the trees neighboring the filthy pond. 'We have not exchanged more than idle talk so far, yet would you allow me a question of more intimate nature?"

  He followed close behind. "Call me Francies and I'll consider it."

  "Please, permit me this respect. Being overtly familiar makes for unpleasant behavior."

  "Can't say I see much respect in the full name treatment, pal. Don't usually get called that unless things are about to get ugly."

  Garces stepped into the bushes. He stepped away, knowing Stone Skins tended to have quite different notions of propriety. "Very well. Francies, then."

  "See? Much better." He kept an ear out, waiting for the shoe to drop, suspecting the silence. Everything was too quiet here, even the lone buzzing of fly wings tentative and short, afraid of attention. "So, intimate question. How intimate we speaking?"

  "Intimate may have been the wrong word choice. Personal? Close to heart? No, I preferred the connotations of the first."

  "I think you're getting lost in the weeds now. You don't need to ask me anything if you don't want to, like you said we're practically strangers."

  He finished his business, overheard Garces finish his, and still nothing came for their necks. A sign of good luck? Maybe whatever left the carcass had already got what it was looking for, or didn't think they made for interesting prey.

  Walking back to the road, he found Garces frowning, or at least with a slight crease of his brows. Finding Francies, he seemed to half-cringe for a fraction of a moment before inhaling his chest full and speaking with the gravitas of a priest on the pulpit: "Francies, what are you leaving behind in this journey?"

  "Oh, that's it?" he said. "Nothing, I guess."

  "Nothing? I meant in a general sense. No heirlooms too cumbersome for the road, no family to lament your departure, no living friends you grief never seeing again, nothing at all?" Garces asked.

  "Nope. Didn't know folks too well and didn't own much. Guess there was my house, but if somebody took all that trash I left behind for themselves it would frankly be a weight off my shoulders."

  He gave him a long, measuring look. "I see. Sorry If I bring a sensitive subject."

  "Not sensitive at all." He shrugged. It mostly wasn't, anyway. "But I take that's not what you wanted to hear?"

  Garces walked, stopped, glanced around while Francies watched. He seemed torn between returning to the wagon and wandering off into the woods, expression slowly becoming thunderous.

  "I suppose... there isn't any harm in discussing it anymore. I tried to obscure my Invitation," he finally said, "but I underestimated the changes and was discovered early. Instead, then, I decided to endure the temptation, to turn this curse around into a tool for the sake of my compatriots and family."

  "Did it change you that much? When I got mine, it didn't feel too different than having a good day that didn't end."

  "You seem young. I am forty six, with aches and old wounds to show. When I returned to my labor with the health of a strapping lad at the cusp of adulthood, others noticed. That was when the rumors started"

  "Gossips. Terrible people, ain't them?" Francies looked away.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Garces grunted. "Gossip of my person I could survive, it was my family who concerned me. Once suspicions became unavoidable, those I once relied on began to spread unsavory stories about us. My partner, our son, I... my secreted hurt them much."

  "Then you left and got snatched by Handres?"

  "I should have. As I said, I was intent on turning the situation around, to use the Sin of Levelas for the good of our people and the Old Faith, it's not unheard of! Think of the Flagellants, who aware of their cursed existence dedicate their lives to protecting our cities and temples."

  Francies nodded, keeping his mouth shut. He didn't have much positive to say about those zealots.

  "But the faithful fear us. I understand why. But as suspicion turned to loathing, I wish that fear was focused only on me, but my touch became corrosive. Doors closed to friends who did not decry me, relatives were forced to pretend they never met me, and even my own child, a made man and exemplary member of the community, was forced out of his own home under the threat of violence."

  "Damn. That sounds... pretty extreme." Good thing South Lateno didn't care that much. édipos was hated because édipos was édipos, but if he ever decided to go back he couldn't imagine the village would feel more than passing curiosity, if he didn't decide to be another tyrant that is. "Knew the church took the whole Invitation thing kind of hard, but that's taking rivalry a bit far."

  A third grunt turned into a brief chuckle. "Rivalry! Say, does your home not follow the True Faith? Perhaps you are Unorthodox?"

  "W-we're as Orthodox as can be these days. We even have a World's Church chapel and everything."

  "I'm afraid that was not a very Orthodox conclusion to arrive at, but I did not mean to judge. So long as we are all one under the great Apodon, the Father-Mother from their holy shell emanated, and the Pure Ones from their womb conceived, we remain brothers in spirit regardless of our particular methods of worship." Garces actually ventured a smile, tiny and stiff.

  Francies nodded, giving a sheepish pearly of his own, more than happy with leaving the conversation to die.

  But without talking, there really wasn't much to do around here. Worry himself needlessly on some invisible danger that went on break that day, get a bite without disturbing that barking pile of rags, draw on dry soil with the butt of his spear, until Handres returned and got his beetle moving.

  The beetle. Their big friend up front. Maybe he could prod it a little? Yesterday he had examined it from up close a couple times, and he still couldn't make heads or tails on what it was or how it worked. Handres pretty much just ordered it around, yet Francies could outright prick its legs with a blade—lightly, from a safe distance—and not get the slightest reaction.

  Or he could take it easy. Garces seemed more than happy leaning back and waiting in ponderous silence, so why couldn't him? He had the impression he didn't have half as much to digest, but opportunities for peace and quiet were always transient.

  Alas, Case in point:

  His ears twitched. From the edges of his hearing the rustling of vegetation, the low whine of a wounded animal, galloping away from danger on a limp.

  Francies gripped his spear with both hands. "Say, Garces, you have any experience with hunting?"

  From the same direction, stranger sounds: Gurgled panting, the shearing of weeds with sharp instruments, hard stomping and repeated thudding.

  "None. I have helped frighten beasts off neighbor's properties, but never pursued further than their fences."

  "Think you can hold yourself against one, push comes to shove?" Francies turned towards the chase. Whatever laid out there was coming their way.

  "...Are we in danger?"

  "Gonna take that as a no. I'll be right back, if you hear me scream I suggest you go back inside."

  Without waiting another word, he slinked off. Ears high, body low, eyes scanning the ground for the quietest spots to step through then upfront, wary of what other problems he could wake up by being careless.

  Usually, Francis wouldn't interfere. Nature was nature since before the Tormenta covered the sky, and predators needed to kill to survive. So let them kill! If needs be, he could wait for it to exhaust itself hunting, sweep in, and return with two bodies in tow. A potential threat removed, dinner secured if the meat was good for it, trade goods aplenty for tomorrow, go home early and enjoy your spoils.

  The issue was his gut. He could swear he had heard that distressed cub whine somewhere before, and now that the possibility stuck to mind he couldn't leave them be.

  Not thirty meters into the woods and he saw another pair of long ears peeking from a gorge, heard fingernails claw the earth for purchase. A couple hops and éliol's handsome, mud caked face surged as he crawled into flat land again, a lumbering shape climbing behind far too quickly for comfort.

  "F-Far Kingdom Hare!" éliol's eyes were glistening with tears, an once beautiful cream suit now blotched with dirt and blood, dozens of small cuts revealing bruises underneath.

  "I don't know where that is!" he said, foregoing stealth and sprinting.

  He had a second to glimpse the beast, a bloated sagging caterpillar of grayish skin folds with a gaping maw far too close to the snob, before he they clashed. Ungainly, it swerved at the last moment, a certain jab to the throat piercing spongy, muscular torso instead.

  He braced himself, twisting his weapon as the creature sunk itself to its lugs. It squealed, quivered with pain, yet didn't give up on its prey, clamping on air behind his kicking feet. Legs like drooping trunks dragged Francies, the friction of dry ground meaningless against amazing musculature and sickle claws. That it only cut itself deeper seemed of no great consequence.

  But again, it was ungainly, too heavy for its own good, struggling to lift its fat skull from the ground and give proper chase, so he knew what to do. Taking a step to the side, he stabbed again at its flank, putting his own body's weight into the blow, shoving it to the ground.

  He wished he had the time to stop and give a proper look, to get a proper aim. Laid, the beast was a blob, no feature beyond struggling feet and howling mouth discernible under fat and naked hide. He pulled back, poked, twisted, then again, then again, then again, trying to slice through any vulnerable part of the neck.

  When its eye turned, he froze. The flap of a loose brow had flipped, revealing a dry berry with far too much sclera for the pinprick milky pupil. Could it even see? He felt the stare, carrying a fury so sheer it made his nape pop with goosebumps. He lunged for it.

  It moved. Writhed, rather, mounds of meat roiling into waves as his killing blow sheared through its forehead and glanced off its frontal bone. He jumped, stumbling back as the bite came, a hand's length away from leaving him a tibia lighter. For a beast of its bulk, it lifted its weight with surprising efficiency, unaware or uncaring of the profuse bleeding and spilling fat.

  It charged, and he hopped aside, hoping to push it again, but it kept with his trick. He thrust, and again it met him with the dome of its skull. Was it genuinely insane? Mercifully, it was too slow to actually chase a wittier hare, and so long as he had that advantage, he could play keep away, wait until it bled out.

  Or so he thought, until the creature itself pounced.

  Clever beast. Francies had to admit he was caught completely unaware. His only grace was that he had never taken his dearest from the thing for an instant. Reflex kicked in, jaws unhinging towards his chest, blade cleaving through skin, snagging tendons. His eyes met molars of wildly inconsistent sizes, his death in carrion breath.

  A slightly looser grip, and gone would be his only weapon. Gloved, sweaty hands skid centimeters down the handle, and he saw himself being dismembered. If anything had caught his foot while he rushed back with the momentum, he would have tripped, and whichever chunk of flesh it took first would make it a toss who exsanguinated first.

  Days like these made him thankful for his time in the forest. Circumstances like these made believers of the unaware, when luck lined so neatly it was only logical somebody on the great beyond had to be watching out for you.

  But honestly he had just kept an eye on the cat and the other on the beef. Stayed aware of every root and every fault, kept cool, and now that it fell with its legs sprawled, the upper hand was his again. He had just to turn the right angle, pin it down, and—

  Wrath rained from the heavens.

  His mind was blank. The sounds of annihilation lasted a second yet reverberated to infinity inside his mind. The Pure Ones spake and thus the monstrosity he fought became as ooze. Or just its head?

  He whipped brain matter from his brow with tingling fingers. His trousers looked like a butcher's fit. He looked up to the Tormenta, searching for hints the sky had parted to drop salvation. Bereft of any, he looked down to the awkwardly crouched, equally gore matted Garces, who had suddenly materialized with a red painted rock in hand.

  "Huh," Francies said, noticing a third person staring at the scene in muted shock. "Di' éliol call you for backup?"

  Garces frowned. "Did you not see me? I followed right behind you. Apologies if I intruded too late, but it seemed to be preparing for something."

  "Huh. Ah' got ya' measure right, then."

  "Excuse me?"

  Francies cleaned his throat. "I-I mean, anybody ever said you'd make a great hunter?"

  "No?"

  "Because you would! Best of the best, if you work to get your Guest Ranks up!" A third voice piped up, and it sure wasn't the dirty hare in the back.

  Handres was a couple meters away from the burst blob's rear, though they looked like they had emerged from its caved-in skull. Red from tip to tip, with glistening wet crimson and pink and yellow clumps best not thought too deeply about peppering their outfit.

  "We match! But maybe we shouldn't?" Handres clapped their hands once. The pieces dried and fell one by one, while the blood splatters crawled under their vest. On their mask, splatters were drunk to drops were drunk to nothing. "Good fighting there, Guests to be! I would be on the edge of my seat, if I had anywhere to clean to rest!"

  "You were watching?" Francies frowned.

  "Sure was!"

  "Didn't you say you would lay your life if ours was in danger?"

  "And I would!"

  His ears twitched. He pointed to éliol. "Well, where were you, then?"

  "Watching, like I said. You both look mostly alright!"

  Because he acted fast. If he hadn't? If he didn't get to the snob before this—hog? So the details told him—thing had shredded through his flank, or his spine?

  Handres turned around, unconcerned. "Alright, I hope you enjoyed your minute of freedom, cause we're about to get back on the road, and my oh my, would I not like hearing about full bladders in the middle of the way! Just kidding, I'd love to take it slow, folks are always complaining about these parts but I think they are quite beautiful if you—"

  Francies looked to the supremely awkward Garces, wiping a hand on his trousers and only smudging the grime around, to the still deathly shaken éliol, watching the cooling body like it was about to rise up for another go. Nobody seemed inclined to complain.

  So he shrugged, and let go. What did he know about that weirdo to call them out? Maybe they had some occult Invitation trick that could pull éliol out of those jaws in the nick of time. Maybe they were a liar. Did it make a difference at this point?

  So long as they got them there Handres could fail in whichever way, Francies was willing to forgive them.

  So long as they got them there.