The awakened humper was in bad shape, with bleeding wounds all over its body. It sniffed and dimly roared at Lief and Thorn, taking a single step forward and showing its teeth. Its legs shook.

  “Easy now, easy,” Lief said. He put his hand out in soothing fashion and backed away slowly. Thorn shuffled behind him and to the right, keeping a lane open in case he needed to fire.

  He wondered if he should go ahead and take a shot. The snake was dead, and the humper was heavily wounded. It could still charge them, and it was acting aggressively. He slowly chambered a round and decided to wait and follow Lief’s lead.

  The beast stared at Lief and shuddered. Its eyes were clouded with pain. Lief continued backing away slowly, and the humper sniffed once in the air. It turned back towards the snake and took a single step, but another shudder rippled through its massive frame before its front legs collapsed, falling heavily onto its knees.

  It struggled to rise again, but could only get a single leg up before collapsing. It finally lost its balance, landing heavily on its side.

  Lief walked forward, motioning for Thorn to follow him. He stopped in front of the massive humper and put his hand on its shoulder, focusing for a few seconds.

  “Organs are starting to shut down,” he said with a sigh. “The venom is actually fairly mild, but there’s a lot of it. Combined with the blood loss…”

  Lief stood and shook his head, then pointed at a specific spot on the back of the humper’s head.

  “Weak point in the skull is here,” he said. “The only thing it has left is pain.”

  Thorn didn’t hesitate. He raised his rifle and fired, hitting the exact spot Lief had pointed at. The humper’s labored breathing stilled.

  The two stood for a moment in silence.

  “Well, that got a little bit spicy,” Lief said. Thorn scoffed while he reloaded his rifle and put on the safety.

  “I always thought you were being too cautious, always putting me off of hunting awakened beasts. But this…” Thorn motioned vaguely, words failing him. “This was a lot.”

  “It always is,” Lief said.

  Now that the action was over, Thorn walked over to take a closer look at the beast that had been hell-bent on eating him.

  The awakened snake was at least fifteen, maybe twenty meters long. With its jaw closed, the head was about the same height as Thorn. Its glassy eye was at about Thorn’s eye level, staring back at him unseeing.

  It had alternating dark and light patterned scales. He hadn’t noticed earlier, but a few of the scales on the front of its snout were oddly shaped.

  “Careful there,” Lief said. “Don’t get any of its blood on your skin, if you can avoid it.”

  Thorn looked down at the forest floor, covered with the snake’s sparkling red blood. It had a curious, gold-tinged hue to it that reflected light.

  “Is its blood venomous?” Thorn asked. Thorn had never heard of such a thing, but then again, he hadn’t hunted many awakened beasts. Any awakened beasts, before tonight, to be more precise. Awakened beasts could evolve, pushed to adapt by the quintessence in their blood and bones, but that was not what Lief was concerned about.

  “No,” Lief said. “But if my guess isn’t off, it’s been gorging itself on more than just humper meat.”

  “What? The mushrooms?”

  Lief shook his head.

  “Imperial plums, most likely.”

  “You mean it was hopped up on glitter?” Thorn said incredulously.

  Glitter was the street name of a common drug. The drug, at least in this part of Agrotis. It was highly illegal and incredibly addictive. It was full of enough quintessence to give its users a moderate boost, but its biochemical properties burned that quintessence rapidly, enhancing their strength and making them feel invincible. For a short amount of time.

  “Its eyes are clear,” Thorn said, pointing at the snake. Heavy users of the drug were known to develop reflections in their irises in a rainbow of colors.

  “That’s humans. Different physiology,” Lief replied. “It would explain quite a bit, actually, about what happened here, as well as create a few new problems for us.”

  Thorn looked down again at the blood staining the ground. If that pervasive gold-tinted hue was caused by glitter, or the specific type of plum blossom that was used to create the drug… just how much had the snake consumed?

  “It’s difficult to tell, but this snake is a fairly common pine snake,” Lief said. “Grows up to two meters in length, mildly venomous, and burrows underground. Eats small critters.

  “But it found itself a stash of glitter, or more unfortunately, a few unguarded Imperial plum trees. You may not know this, but before being processed into glitter, the blossoms of the Imperial plum tree are a prized natural resource for awakening beasts. It’s full of quintessence, so when it ate all that up and didn’t explode…”

  “It evolved into an awakened beast,” Thorn finished.

  “And not only that,” Lief continued, “I bet you it kept eating, more and more and couldn’t stop. But then when it ran out of the easy stuff, it was strong. Big. Powerful. And hungry.

  “Too hungry. Crazed, even for a beast. It sought out more and more quintessence. It was too unbalanced and couldn’t stop.”

  “Before you go feeling sorry for the thing,” Thorn said, “Don’t forget that it tried to eat me.”

  “Oh, that’s exactly why I think it tried to go after you. Well, you and your little pumpkin. It had a decent amount stored in it.”

  Thorn frowned before he puzzled it out.

  “It could sense the quintessence, and went for it.”

  “That would explain it, I think,” Lief said. “No offense, but you’re not going to be a threat to it. The humper was, or should have been, a quicker, tastier meal. But it left it for something else? And what was that?”

  “Are you trying to say you’re poor and got no quints?” Thorn grumbled. “Why didn’t it go after you, if that was the case? You’re at a high level! I saw you pull that move, dropping out of the tree to land on that snake’s head like you were squashing a cockroach.”

  “Imbuing my machete like that isn’t cheap,” Lief said, then tapped his poncho. “And neither is the active shielding. Not perfect, but it not only makes me invisible on the visual and infrared spectrum, but also does a decent job of shielding the weight of whatever quintessence I am holding or might have bound.”

  Thorn sighed.

  “So… does that mean we went through all of this for nothing?”

  “Time to find out, I reckon,” Lief said. “I’ll pull the humper over here, and you can start working on it. Just suit up and be careful not to splash yourself. Lot of venom still in that beast.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  “I’ll work on the snake. Between venom-soaked blood or glitter-soaked blood… I’m thinking the venom is going to be safer for you.”

  Lief wasn’t wrong.

  “We need to work fast, but don’t get sloppy.”

  The massive humper probably weighed over a thousand kilograms and was difficult even for Lief to drag over the rough ground. But after he pulled it down the ridge and away from the bloody ground surrounding the snake’s corpse, Thorn was ready to start butchering.

  He had suited up as best he could, with a dirty smock, face mask, and gloves. They weren’t disposable, but after this, Thorn would probably ditch them. This was a quick and dirty bisection, not so much a butchering. Thorn used a portable chainsaw, only about a foot long, to dig into the humper, making rough cuts to look for a core.

  There were a few common places: at the base of the skull or spine; the center of the thoracic cavity, next to the heart; and lower in the abdominal cavity, close to the liver.

  Thorn tried the spinal location first, but no luck. Then he sawed through a few ribs and thrust his hand into the chest cavity, but couldn’t find a core near the heart. He had saved opening the guts for last, since they smelled horribly, but there he was finally lucky he found a dense, brown stone the size of his fist.

  The core was heavy and glistened with a dull sheen.

  “Got one!” Thorn yelled out to Lief, holding it up.

  A dark blur swooped down from Thorn’s left. He saw it out of the corner of his eye, and immediately ducked, hitting the ground flat.

  A frustrated caw echoed through the forest as the crow that had been stalking them missed grabbing the core from Thorn’s hands.

  “I should have shot that bird,” Thorn muttered, eyeing his rifle propped up on a tree root several paces away. It didn’t matter; the bird was long gone, disappeared once more into the night.

  “Nice,” Lief called out, his voice muffled. “I’m still working on mine. This snakeskin is surprisingly tough, and doesn’t seem to have any negative impacts from the glitter. I can’t make anything with it, but I knew a few Ranchers back in the day that could have.”

  Thorn walked over to watch.

  Lief was using a hunting knife and very gingerly and carefully pulling off sections of the snake’s skin.

  “Any core?” Thorn asked.

  “Yeah, but it’s weird. There’re cracks and holes in it. Probably not going to be worth much, but some of these parts are worth harvesting. There are scars all over the body though; this snake has been in a lot of fights.”

  “It’ll be good to harvest whatever we can.” Thorn considered for a moment, then said, “Can you hold on to the humper’s core?”

  “Ah yes, that’s probably for the best.” Lief paused long enough in his dissection of the snake to reach out and take the core from Thorn.

  “What can I do to help?” Thorn asked.

  “You can start carrying some of this back to the truck. And bring back some buckets, if you have any. We should take some samples back with us.”

  “Of the snake’s blood?”

  “Yep.”

  “And are we… selling the blood?” There were a lot of glitter addicts in Aba.

  “Don’t worry,” Lief said. “I promise you I’m not getting us into the drug trade by the side door. Exact opposite of that, actually.”

  Reassured, Thorn grabbed a bundle of snakeskin, settling it on his shoulder.

  “What about the venom?” he asked. “You said that the venom was fairly mild, but quantity is its own quality. It might be useful for creating an antivenom.”

  Selling anything to a Medic, Doctor, or clinician was usually worth its weight in quints.

  “Good call. We can probably milk a bucket or two out of its fangs,” Lief said.

  Thorn thought about what Lief had not said as he set off for his truck. He didn’t know the range that an awakened beast like that snake had. It could be hundreds of kilometers, possibly, but it had still found those Imperial plum blossoms somewhere in this area.

  That meant a glitter farm. Maybe Lief was right and the snake had gobbled it all up… or maybe it hadn’t.

  He could think of a few factions that might pay for knowledge of this snake and what it had been snacking on. Depending on who Lief talked to, he might need some hard evidence: thus the blood sample. There was the local government in Aba, a council of different Guilds’ representatives, but it wasn’t likely they would care too much (or pay much), since the glitter farm would be out of their jurisdiction.

  The Agrarian Guild was at the top of the list for potential paying customers; they were the most opposed faction to the glitter trade. Depending on how much Lief could figure out, including the possible location of the glitter farm, he could sell that information to a rival gang. Or back to the owners of the farm as blackmail.

  Thorn knew better than to traffic in that kind of trade himself. The difference between hunting a humper and hunting an awakened beast was about the same as the difference between selling sausages out of the back of his truck and selling information on the black market.

  He had enough trouble just trying to keep other people from parking in his parking spot. He trusted Lief to get them both a good deal as well as not do anything too risky, but it still rankled a bit, depending on his friend so much.

  On the truck, he didn’t have any buckets, but he did have some spare food containers and sealable bags they could use. After a number of trips back and forth, they had filled Thorn’s truck with scales and other harvested parts from the snake and humper, as well as their blood and venom.

  The sun had risen by the time they had processed as much as they could. They left the corpses where they lay; the scavengers were already circling when they left. It would have been better to bury the body of the snake, at least, or drag it into a ravine, but it was too big, even for Lief.

  Lief was in good spirits on the long drive back to the city, especially when his drones found a humper out and about on the road ahead of them. They skinned and quartered the animal and hung it off the side of the truck, since the interior was completely packed top to bottom already. They usually brought back many more than one, but at least they would have something to offer to Cook.

  Thorn was in much less of a jovial mood than Lief.

  “What’s the matter?” Lief asked. Thorn hadn’t been laughing at any of his ribald jokes. Thorn always laughed at his jokes. “We should get a good payday; don’t worry about that. I know you lost a lot of quints too. We’ll make those back and more with this beast core, not to mention the other stuff we harvested.”

  “That’s good to hear,” Thorn said, running his hand over his eyes. “Sorry, I’m just tired.”

  That was true. He’d barely slept the last few days, and when he hadn’t been walking through the woods all day, he’d been trying not to be eaten by a crazed beast hopped up on glitter.

  “Pfft. You’re young, you’re not allowed to be tired yet,” Lief scoffed. “You could keep going for a few more days. Besides, I know you too well.”

  “I don’t know,” Thorn said, avoiding Lief’s gaze and fixing his eyes on the road. They were entering the pass in the mountains, a sheer drop on their left and a cliff on their right.

  “I guess…I wish I was a little more helpful,” he finally said.

  “Oh,” Lief said, then laughed. “Well, it’s true, you’re a bit of a scrub.”

  Thorn’s hands tightened on the steering wheel and he shot Lief a dark look.

  “Thanks, buddy,” Thorn said.

  “Now, now, let me finish,” Lief said. “You got no levels, no skills or abilities in a System you can’t level up and honestly have no clue what it specializes in, either.

  “And you’re running around with me, a level 13 Warden, taking hits from awakened beasts.”

  Thorn hadn’t known his friend was at that high of a level. Somehow, he felt even worse.

  “Here’s the thing, though,” Lief continued, and his voice grew serious. “I’ve worked with a bunch of people over the course of my life, all different kinds of Systems, you name it. Some higher, many lower, a few with truly impressive System-given abilities.

  “You think that move, dropping off of the tree branch and imbuing my machete was slick?” Lief shook his head, lost in thought for a moment.

  “There have been others, stumbling onto my plots, sidling in on my hunting spot. I chased them all off. Do you know why I decided to hunt with you, instead of running you off?”

  “Because you felt sorry for me?” Thorn felt pathetic as he said it.

  “No,” Lief said dismissively. “I feel sorry for the fact you can’t seem to get laid, but that’s a different story.” He cracked a grin and punched Thorn lightly on the shoulder.

  “There’s three things I want you to know, and then you can get back to your little pity party if you’d like.

  “First, you pay attention to the details. It is such a rare thing… I’ve trained many hunters, other Wardens mostly. So many end up with the bad habit of relying on their Systems and ignoring the fundamentals. Looking, seeing, and understanding without the answer given to them in their heads-up display.

  “Who first noticed that awakened snake, using some sort of quintessence ability to hide itself and sneak through the ground? Was it the guy with the drones and sensor suite? Your System? Or the kid on the ground paying attention?”

  “Well…” Thorn was going to say it was actually the stupid bird that had been cawing at him that had noticed it first, but he realized that Lief was just asking him a rhetorical question.

  “Secondly, you make good decisions. You don’t hesitate, and you act,” Lief continued. “I don’t know how to train that. I can’t teach it. I don’t know if anyone can, honestly.

  “You can have the best System with the most levels and I won’t hunt with you if you can’t act under pressure. You’ll get one or both of us killed.”

  Thorn snorted at that.

  “And lastly… you make a decent pot of caf.”

  “I appreciate you keeping me around,” he finally said with a grimace. “But if you’re gonna lie to make me feel better, at least make it reasonable. There is absolutely nothing decent about that instant caf.”

  “Yeah, it’s pretty bad, isn’t it?”

  They both chuckled.

  The weight on Thorn’s mind lifted a bit after that, and he even laughed at a few of Lief’s jokes on the drive back.