“Neil?” Cassie asked. “Shouldn’t you be looking into the Revenant?”

  Neil shrugged in response. “Not much to do. Everyone who needs to be is aware of it, but we can’t do much until we can track it down again, which will probably be when it tries to meet up with us.”

  “So you decided to come and babysit us while you wait?” I finished.

  Neil grinned. “I prefer to think of it as spending time with new friends, but yes. Now come on, we’ll get you signed up.”

  He swept his arm towards the door he had just come from and stood there, staring expectantly at us. Cassie and I shared a look before wandering out.

  “Now,” Neil started as we began down the hall. “Normally you would need to find a quest of the Board, make sure you could to it and then sign up. If it’s on the board then either no one else is on it or it’s been a while and the first group isn’t back yet. Of course, you won’t be doing that this time because I’ve already got a job set up under my name.”

  Neil lead us out of the back room and into the front of the Guild, which was far emptier than it had been when we first visited. There was a different receptionist too, and old woman who seemed incredibly caught up in a newspaper.

  “Just over here,” Neil gestured towards the receptionist. “Gladys, glad to see you. I’ve got a couple of applicants here. Newbies, they’re with me.”

  Gladys looked up slowly from her newspaper, upset to have been disturbed from her reading. However, her expression brightened when she saw who was talking to her. “’Course, hon. Just give me a sec, will you?”

  “All the time in the world, Gladys,” Neil replied as the receptionist rifled under her desk, eventually bringing out a sheet of paper that was absolutely filled with writing.

  “Names?” Gladys asked. I was about to answer when Neil spoke for us. “Julianne Weaver and Cassandra Vaughn. First quest for both of them, too.”

  After a few seconds of writing Gladys put the paper into a little tray on the side of her desk. “All done. Off you pop now.”

  “Thanks so much, Gladys. Tell Steve he’s a lucky man for me, will you?” Neil said with a polite chuckle.

  Gladys laughed. “Oh, he knows alright. See you, Neil.”

  Neil simply waved and started of before the doors. After a moment we followed, saying nothing until we were out of the building.

  “What was that?” I asked as we stepped out the doors.

  Neil glanced at me as we walked. “What do you mean?”

  “I thought we would at least learn what our quest would be before we were signed up for it.” I said.

  Cassie jumped in. “We didn’t even get to say our own names!”

  Neil held his hands up. “Woah, woah. Listen, I’ll explain on the way there. We’ll be walking for most of the day though, so we aren’t exactly wanting for time.”

  “Fine,” Cassie and I relented. We fell into silence for a short while, which gave me a bit of time to reflect.

  I was… disappointed, in a way. After having the beginning of my Changing in the Arena, I had expected things to be more different, but they weren’t. The world felt much like it had before. At a stretch it was a little strange to hear the ambient noise of the waves again, since there hadn’t really been much in the Arena.

  “Lia,” Cassie leaned in and whispered. “When are you going to…” she waved at my body.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Your uh… your skin is still moving. Like it was inside, I mean.”

  I looked at an arm and sure enough, my skin had retained it’s pink and teal colouration from before. The cloudy teal colour was shifting a lot more calmly than before though, like a sedate flowing river rather than dangerous rapids.

  “Oh, right.” It had been a while since my skin hadn’t looked like that, so I had kind of just gotten used to it. I glanced up and saw that a few people were looking at us strangely. Most people were just getting on with their days though, which was something.

  I reverted back to Lia Prime, watching as my skin returned to its usual shade. At least, I was supposed to. However, nothing actually changed. I tried again to the same result.

  The next time I tried manually converting my skin to its regular colouration, which did work. It distinctly had that feel to me of an addition, which was strange. Wearing my normal skin felt more like when I added claws to my hands than when I reverted back to normal.

  The thing was, when I swapped back to Lia Prime I wasn’t technically making changes so much as I was reasserting my sense of self and letting my weird magic instincts do the actual changing. Since that was the case, Lia Prime having fey-skin had a lot of implications.

  In any case, I was fully capable of keeping my appearance consistent. Okay, I was mostly capable of it, so long as I didn’t get too distracted. Regardless, I could still look like a regular person when needed.

  “Hold on,” I said as I turned to Neil. “Why didn’t you say anything? I didn’t look like that when we met.”

  Neil gave me a sheepish grin. “Ren said you were starting your Changing in there. I’ve learned from experience that sometimes it’s best not to comment on how people end up when that happens.”

  “Right, well comment on it with me. I have a hard enough time staying consistent without people hiding things from me.” I shot a look at Cassie, who had already learned this lesson.

  Neil shrugged. “Sure.”

  We continued walking in silence for some time. “Hey, you do know we’re waiting for you to explain what we’re off to do, right?” Cassie finally pointed out to Neil.

  He looked embarrassed. “Oh, sure. Well, buckle in then. We have a journey ahead of us, both figuratively and literally.”

  -----------------------------

  As it turned out, our quest was a little more complicated than just ‘kill monster here’. Well, we were going somewhere and killing monsters, but there were layers.

  Apparently, we were headed to a little settlement on the outside of Meria called Durren to track down and hunt some Observers. The catch came in finding them, since they were great at hiding.

  The way Neil described it, Observers were these little psionic squid guys that fed on emotions, and there were really two types of them. Each individual Observer focused on a specific emotion, and the first type consumed it. For example, an Observer that was focused on wrath would strip the very anger from a person.

  The second type worked in tandem with the first to exacerbate emotions, turning tiny slights into fits of rage and miniature achievements in celebration worthy feats. Combined, they had a fairly disruptive effect on just about everything around them, and as such were categorised as ‘pests’. However, they were more dangerous than a lot of pests tended to be.

  Neil gave us the run down of an incident where a mining town had stockpiled them to eat all of their negative emotions. Supposedly it had worked for a while, but they had ultimately ended up over feeding them, which lead to them escaping and trapping the miners for weeks to generate more emotions.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  As such, people were prohibited from keeping too many around, so they needed to be managed. However, it was important to keep in mind that some people might end up hiding them to feed on their negative emotions, since apparently it could get somewhat addictive being immune to stress.

  Our trip to Durren was packed with little anecdotes from Neil about his first few quests, as well as tips from him to us.

  “Make sure to research whatever it is you’re hunting. Preparation keeps you alive.”

  “Even if whatever you’re looking for is small, it can still be dangerous.”

  “If a monster is cute, that’s probably a defence mechanism.”

  He seemingly never ran out of these snippets of advice, and by the time we reached Durren I was relieved that he finally had something else to say.

  “Alright, girls. From this point on, I am not here. You guys need to find the Observers and eliminate them on your own. I will simply keeping watch. Got it?”

  “Yep.”

  “Sure.”

  At our affirmation he simply nodded and mimed locking his mouth with a key. I turned to Cassie. “So, how are we doing this?”

  “Split up?” She asked. “We probably want to cover as much ground as possible.”

  I looked into the settlement, which was honestly more of a series of shacks built around a lumber yard. All in all, we really didn’t have too much ground to cover, so we could potentially be done quickly if we split up. After all, Neil had said that Observers tended to come in packs of three to ten. “Sure. I’ll take the right side, I guess. Race you?”

  I received a quick nod, which was all it took to begin one of the only scavenger hunts to end in multiple deaths.

  I remembered Neil mentioning that Observers were so good at hiding because they naturally clouded your perception: essentially, they made you think that they weren’t there, even if they were.

  With that in mind, I decided that the best course of action was to look for people who were behaving strangely, which fortunately didn’t take long at all.

  Near the edge of the settlement there were two guys working working one of those two-person saws, the ones where there was a person on each end and they would work in tandem to cut a big piece of wood. However, they weren’t really working all that well together.

  The first guy, who I decided to name Blue because his shirt had a blue stain, was working furiously. He was really powering through the wood, like it had done something to personally insult him. On the other end of the spectrum his comrade, who I mentally named Not Blue because his shirt was clean, was completely calm. He didn’t seem bothered by his colleague’s mood, or by their work, or by much of anything else.

  There was definitely something going on, so I walked up to them. Fortunately I was saved the agony of opening a dialogue by Blue, who must have noticed me walk up.

  “What do you want,” he ground out. His voice was harsh and his sawing never wavered, if anything becoming even more aggressive.

  “I uh, have a few questions. For you and your colleague,” I said.

  The man turned to me, brow furrowed and jaw clenched. “I’m sure you do, but we’re busy. Right George?”

  George turned to me and shrugged, continuing his half-hearted sawing. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what had been taken from him, but it was clearly something fairly important.

  Blue was not happy with his friend’s answer. “Really George? This again? Come on man, you have to back me up in these situations!”

  I decided to interrupt before things got worse. “Alright, I’m just going to go ahead and ask. When exactly did you start feeling so… passionate about things?”

  Blue turned back to me. “None of your business. I’m fine!”

  George managed a weak chuckle, but still said nothing. George turned around with murder in his eyes. “What’s so funny, pal? You think I’m not fine?”

  George didn’t respond, just looking at me. “Coupla hours ago,” he said. His voice was soft and flat, like he could barely be bothered to say the words.

  “Hey, asshole. I’m talking to you,” Blue growled. He finally put down the saw, which put the strain on George. Rather than try and hold it up he just followed his friend’s example and dropped it with a clatter.

  Looking at Blue I reckoned that I didn’t have long before things got violent, so I sped up my questions. “Was it just while you were here?”

  George just nodded, remaining where he was despite the now furious Blue making his way around the platform that had been supporting the wood they were meant to be sawing.

  “Thank you, George. Be well now,” I added, before heading away from the pair. Hopefully they would sort it out, but it wasn’t really my problem. Besides, the best way to help them was to deal with the Observers.

  The fact that Blue’s anger had been affected meant that It was probably a larger one, since anger was a more powerful emotion than something like stress. Combined with whatever was happening with George, I had a feeling that this town had been under the influence of the Observers for a while.

  I’d taken a brief look into them in our bestiary on the walk here when Neil had veered off topic, and supposedly they started off a bit benign. When they were young they had about as much effect on your emotions as a single glass of wine, and they only targeted a single person. As they aged and fed, they got larger and hungrier, eventually focusing someone’s emotions to a fine point. Only the very strongest of a group can target more than one person at once, however.

  I decided to take a stroll around the area that Blue and George had been working in. I wasn’t really sure what I was looking for, more just hoping that I would notice if something tried to mess with my perception.

  After several minutes of listening to Blue berate George while I paced, I finally noticed something out of place. Right on top of a pile of uncut logs I got a faint sense of vitae, despite the fact that nothing was there. I tried to focus on it, but the moment I did it vanished.

  I couldn’t tell if it was a fluke or not, so I continued my patrol. Sure enough, the vitae was back, and once again the moment I paid too much attention to it. Frustrated, I stood there and made sure to focus elsewhere. After about a minute of standing still, staring intensely at the floor and feeling foolish, the vitae returned.

  This time I made sure not to focus on it. It was faint and out of focus, like trying to see something in my peripheral vision. After another minute of triangulating I managed to narrow it down to an approximate spot on the logs.

  Now that I was pretty sure that I had the creature’s location, I reached for my sword. Slowly, I drew the sharp blade from the sheath at my hip, doing my best to remain casual as I did so. I wasn’t sure how much an Observer understood about human behaviour, but I didn’t want to spook it with a sharp piece of metal.

  With my sword in hand, I slowly raised it until the point was facing about where I though the Observer was. As I did so, my mind began to flood with doubt. All I had really done was wander randomly and suddenly I found it? That didn’t make any sense.

  No, I was probably wrong. In fact, there was no point in even trying to find it. It was known for being good at hiding, after all. I was being foolish to think I could find such an elusive creature by pacing for a couple of minutes. My blade wavered in my hand.

  Hold on, why wouldn’t I try though? I mean, the only thing that gets damaged is some wood, so I may as well.

  There was no point, though. All I would accomplish was blunting my blade for when I actually had something to stab. I should just call off the search, it wasn’t like I could ever find all of them anyway, especially if I’d had so much trouble with just one.

  ...What about if I tried stabbing a few feet from the log.

  That seemed like a much better idea. I mean, there still wasn’t anything there, but I didn’t feel like it was a complete waste of energy like if I struck around where the vitae was leading me. After all, I never kne-

  I stabbed the log.

  I may not be the most optimistic person ever, but I liked to think I would at least take a shot at something like this. However, I had such an overwhelming feeling of doubt about the idea of striking one specific place on the log that it looped back around into making me suspicious again.

  The moment I thrust my sword toward the log I felt movement. For a moment I saw a vague shimmer before my blade met the wood. Only, there wasn’t just wood there. After a brief moment of resistance my sword pierced the soft hide of a small, squid-like creature that had been clinging to the log with a wet squelch.

  It looked a bit like a squid with only two exceptionally thick arms, each covered in suckers. Its head was also a bit engorged, which made its eyes bug out of its head. Its skin was rubbery and coloured a light pastel pink, except for the bit that I had stabbed which was quickly stained red.

  However, I had more important things to do than look at a dead squid, no matter how cute it had turned out to be. Specifically, the second vitae signature I felt moving swiftly away from me. Apparently I had been feeling two sources of vitae and not noticed, due to both how similar they were and the distortion that I was working through.

  Whatever it was doing to disrupt me didn’t seem to be as effective while it was moving however, because not only could I briefly sense it’s vitae before it moved out of range but I could see it shimmering as it crawled away. It was surprisingly fast for what was basically a squid.

  Unfortunately, I was faster. Not even bothering to take the time to pull my sword from the wood, I vaulted the logs and gave chase. While I gained ground I shifted my fingers into claws, tipping the ends with small hooks to make sure it couldn’t get away.

  The little creature seemed to have a destination in mind, however. It kept making sudden turns and travelling under small objects to shake me off. Fortunately the lumber yard was a pretty wide open space, so there was only so many places it could go.

  I briefly paused when it scrambled inside of one of the shacks that were littered around the settlement. I turned back to the side of the area that Cassie was meant to be searching, wondering if I should go and help her. She didn’t have my senses, after all. Just at that moment I heard the unmistakable crack of thunder. She would be alright without me. Besides, this wouldn’t take long once I could corner the thing.

  Bursting into the door I saw the Observer just sitting still in the centre of the floor, completely without its camouflaged. It was bigger than the one I had killed, but still only a little larger than my head. It really was cute in a strange way, all big eyes and small arms. This one was grey rather than pink though, and its eyes were slit vertically rather than horizontally.

  Suddenly I heard the door shut behind me. I turned to see another Observer. It was notably bigger than the others I had seen. Its skin was an inky black and it’s eyes were horizontal like the one I had killed. I turned again to see a third, fourth and fifth Observer now calmly sitting by their friend.

  Ah. This might be a problem.