It rained again. Erich sighed, not even bothering to cover up as the storm soaked him to the bone.

  This time the precipitation was different. The previous day had high gray clouds that whipped Erich with wind. Now, the sky above him was dark and low, crowding down on Erich like a tunnel even as large, heavy drops splashed down around him.

  Luckily, the rain was still warm enough that he wasn’t at risk of freezing to death anytime soon, especially with the relatively modest breeze. Still, even if Erich’s visibility was a bit better, he couldn’t see much further in the gloom provided by the heavy cloud cover.

  Just ahead of him was an intersection between a pair of the dirt roads that divided the rice fields. A small stone shelter was constructed to the side, and Erich knew that there would be dry wood and a spot for a campfire inside.

  Part of him whispered that he should just give up his search for a couple hours and rest in the enclosure. He could get dry and have some light and warmth while he enjoyed his lunch.

  Of course, that wouldn’t really do anything. He was barely three hours into a scouting expedition and Erich had almost eight more hours until sundown. Taking a break here might be an easy out, but at the same time, it wouldn’t really change anything other than the fact that he was wasting some time. In another hour, he would be soaked and miserable again. A brief respite would be only that, brief.

  Erich sighed, straining his senses as he trudged along one of the raised trails. Lightning forked through the sky, hitting the ground with a blinding flash of light in the distance. A second later, a loud boom rocked through the air with enough force that he was almost pushed back a half step.

  His eyes were glued to the spot where the lightning hit, a purple and white after image etched into his vision. Almost of his own accord, Erich shifted his body, turning left and beginning to walk down one of the other paths in the general direction of the lightning strike.

  In the end it didn’t matter much. So long as he remembered him many fields north he’d walked, it shouldn’t be that hard for Erich to simply backtrack.

  Another flash of light arced toward the ground, and Erich stared at it in wonder. The speed and brutal power of the lightning seemed to flow through him. Suddenly, the armor he was wearing felt lighter. He sped up slightly

  There was something there. Something just at the edge of his perception calling to him. It was like a distant song, half heard and out of reach but as real as the soil under his foot and the water flowing off of his skin.

  Erich took a deep breath. The air was damp and earthy, filled with the scent of moist vegetation. He could almost smell it growing around him even as the glowing after image of the lightning strike drew him inexorably onward.

  In the water nearby, a pair of eyes blinked up at him, Erich’s first garr of the expedition. It didn’t move so he dismissed it, accelerating to a slow jog as he tried to reach… whatever it was before the bright streak in his vision faded away.

  Mud squelched under his feet, threatening Erich’s balance as he jogged onward. Seconds blurred into minutes, and some part of him was starting to come to the realization that he shouldn’t be this enthralled by the lightning strike. The bright afterimage shouldn’t have stuck with him this long.

  Aether thudded in his chest, expanding and contracting along with the beat of his heart. Erich felt more alive than he had since his rebirth in hell. His mana sang, echoing the flashes and booms of the lightning and thunder around him as the storm began to pick up in intensity.

  Another intersection disappeared behind him. Erich felt like he had just started jogging, but that crossroads was about a half mile away from where he started.

  Worry began to fill him. Something was off about the entire situation. He could feel his image stimulating itself and growing as the lighting clogged sky reacted to the outside world, but at the same time, it wasn’t like he was hiding in a cave and safe to explore his internal world.

  Garr were in the water, eyes staring unblinking at him, invisible until they reflected the flashes of light as the storm’s fury vented itself on the rare trees that dotted the countryside. None of them were moving toward him, but Erich could feel their numbers growing even as he drew closer and closer to… whatever it was that he was chasing.

  The sky above him crackled, electricity jumping from cloud to cloud. Erich was close. He could feel it in the way the hair on his arms and the back of his neck was beginning to stand on end.

  Up ahead he could see a shape in the water. It wasn’t a garr, whatever it was, it was far too big for that. As he drew closer, the fragments of his attention that weren’t enraptured by the after image from the lightning strike began to make out more details of the object.

  It was a hemisphere made from mud and sticks. Erich didn’t have to look far to see the structure’s creator. A slick mammal about twelve feet long and six feet at the shoulder was crouched atop it, lips drawn back to expose a mouth full of vicious teeth at a swarm of garr that were clustered around it.

  At least a dozen of the predators were dead, floating lifelessly in the water around the mud pile, but they’d forced a dreadful price from the defender. Its slick fur was slashed open in multiple spots leaking blood that seemed to stream down its side and stain the water around them.

  The larger creature’s movements were slow, and Erich thought he could see a tremor in its paws as it struggled to keep itself upright atop its perch. A garr rushed toward it only to retreat when it snapped at the frog thing, but its reactions were too dulled by exhaustion and blood loss to actually catch the attacker.

  Erich meant to freeze, but his feet moved against his will, carrying him closer and closer to where the giant smear of purple and white filled his vision. It wasn’t an after image. There was no doubt about that as he drew closer. Erich couldn’t fully turn his head to look away, but the blob of purple and white light didn’t move with his eyes. Rather it marked a particular place just beneath a tree some fifty yards away. Despite that, it didn’t illuminate anything. There were no shadows cast in the darkness from the tree, and on some instinctive level, Erich knew that he was the only one that could see whatever it was he was approaching.

  He drew closer, walking like he was in a dream. In the rice paddy he could hear the growling and splashing of the fighting animals over the sound of the storm, but he couldn’t rip his attention from the pillar of light that he was approaching. The hair stood up completely straight on the back of Erich’s neck and his arms prickled with goose flesh.

  An electric thrill ran through his body as anticipation stole the moisture from his mouth. There was something here, he could feel it. Maybe not a physical object, but an appointment with destiny itself.

  Erich stopped under the tree. He blinked his eyes. The after image was gone and suddenly the world was plunged back into the gloom of the constant heavy storm.

  In the rice field, the garr fought the creature. It defended its mound, clearly flagging as its wounds mounted.

  Then the whole world went white. Every muscle in Erich’s body froze at once and his mind blanked. Sound hit him like a hammer from the heavens. He couldn’t even hear in his disembodied state, but the eruption of noise sent him flying through the air.

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  His heart stopped. For some reason the thought didn’t worry him. It just seemed as natural as waking in the morning and going to sleep at night for the beating sensation in his chest to suddenly cease.

  For a brief moment he sailed through the rain, weightless and insensible, his mind enraptured by the light and his spasming body.

  Then, Erich hit the water and his senses rushed back to him. Everything hurt and steam was rising from his aching body. It was like his worst days trapped in hell all over again. His body had been pushed beyond its limit but at the same time it was brimming with aether and man.

  He sat up, opening his mouth to draw in a deep gasping breath of air. For a second, his lungs refused his commands and he gasped like a fish. Then mana swelled inside him, pulsing through his body in a healing wave.

  Simultaneously, air rushed into his lungs just as his heart thumped in his chest. Erich rolled over onto his hands and knees, face barely an inch above the surface of the water as he sputtered and retched.

  Erich didn’t even need to look at the path to know that the tree was gone, struck by a great bolt of lighting that turned it into nothing more than splinters and glowing embers. Physically, he hadn’t even been able to consciously see it happen, but his soul was a different story.

  He closed his eyes, but it didn’t make any difference. Erich could see the stroke of lightning with perfect clarity. It forked through the sky, spawning branches that reached grasping toward the ground until finally one of them hit with enough force to turn a fifty year old oak tree into little more than a smoking crater.

  Despite all of that, he was more or less fine. Bruised and shaking off the effects of being hit by a bolt of lightning, but in much better shape than he had any right to be.

  More than that, the aether inside Erich’s image sang. With each passing moment, the lightning seemed to become clearer and brighter. More real.

  The image shifted. Where there had only been one bolt of lightning igniting the forest, now there was a second, one that exactly mirrored the strike that had thrown him into the water. Power thrummed through his body and Erich knew that there was something there. Some knowledge waiting to get out but constrained by his lake of aether.

  Then he opened his eyes again. The moment was gone, but his chest still felt warm as life mana pumped through his system healing the minor burns inflicted by the lightning. Atop the mound, the creature he had first seen had fallen, unable to support itself. Garr clung to it, ripping snoutfuls of hair and meat free as they tried to tear it apart.

  It mewled. A loud mournful cry that cut through the constant static of the rain storm.

  Erich pursed his lips, his right hand reaching down to rest on the hilt of his sword. He didn’t need to save the creature. In fact, he probably couldn’t. Even a quick glance at its wounds was enough for him to confirm that its extensive injuries put it well beyond his reach.

  Still, Erich found himself walking through knee deep water toward it. The garr were his enemy, but it was more than that. There was so much despair in the animal’s final call that he couldn’t help but feel moved.

  His first lunging slash caught the garr by surprise, slicing through the rear haunch of one of the squat creatures as if it was made of nothing more than twigs.

  The garr slumped forward, and Erich rushed past it. The water pulled at his legs, slowing his movement to the point that he could barely use Magma Blossom footwork.

  Luckily, it didn’t really matter. Between the storm and the garr’s preoccupation with finishing off their injured prey, they were hardly paying attention to him. A second slash of his sword left a deep gash in another garr’s back, severing its spine and instantly paralyzing the creature.

  One of the amphibians turned to face him just in time to catch another swing from Erich’s sword, shattering its skull and killing it instantly.

  Another garr jetted through the water toward him, all of their awkwardness and ungainly movement when they waddled about on land gone as it darted smoothly at his thighs. Erich, took a labored step back, buying himself just enough distance to chop downward with his sword on the animal’s neck.

  It died, body convulsing around its sword and freezing the weapon in place for a fraction of a second.

  A final garr swam around the edge of the mound of earth, lunging for Erich the moment it laid eyes on him.

  There wasn’t time for him to reposition or use the sword lodged in his opponent’s neck, so Erich abandoned it. His right hand darted out grabbing the garr’s long muzzle around the base and pressing down before it could open its jaws.

  The garr thrashed violently, trying to free itself even as Erich’s left hand came around, hammering down on the top of its head with all of his mana reinforced strength. His blow didn’t kill the creature, but it stopped moving for a moment, clearly concussed by his strike.

  Erich took that opportunity to grasp it around the neck with his left hand and drag it out of the water, throwing the creature back first into the mound of dirt and sticks next to its victim.

  The garr’s stubby legs kicked ineffectually in the air as it tried to right itself, but that took time it didn’t have. Erich planted a foot on the back of the corpse his sword was lodged in, jerking it free before he stabbed the blade deep into his incapacitated victim’s torso. It struggled for a second before shuddering and going still.

  Erich took a deep breath before stepping back. The water around him was filled with the corpses of garr, many of them savaged by the injured animal in front of him.

  Now that he was close he could see it for what it was, a giant version of the otters and muskrats that lived in the ponds and streams around his home back on Hollendil. It looked back up at him with hopeful eyes, but there was no doubt in Erich’s mind. The wounds covering the poor animal were too deep. In spots, he could even see the dull white of bone where the garr had all but ripped their way completely through the otter.

  It mewled pitifully at him, leaning toward Erich. He took another step backward. The otter was big enough to be a threat and it was badly injured. It might not be as fast or strong as before, but wounds like that could make even the most well mannered domestic pet erratic.

  The otter made another pitiful noise before rolling over onto its side. Erich’s gaze was immediately drawn to its gaping wounds and exposed ribs before movement pulled his eyes away from the injured animal and toward a much smaller shape atop the mound of mud and stick.

  Another otter, barely a fifth the size of the huge creature that was drawing labored and rattling breaths, had been sheltered beneath the bigger creature’s form. It let out an anxious chittering squeak before crawling up next to the other creature, nuzzling against it.

  The injured otter mewled a second time, once again pushing its head in Erich’s general direction before inclining its head toward the smaller animal. He felt something in his gut sink.

  “Is that your child?” He asked hesitantly, instantly feeling foolish for questioning an animal.

  Surprisingly, it seemed to understand, squeaking back at him before leaning down and gently locking its teeth into the loose skin and fur around the back of the smaller otter’s neck. Tenderly, it lifted its young up and once again extended its head toward Erich.

  The smaller otter began squeaking repeatedly, a sharp and plaintive sound that tore at his heart strings. It struggled in the jaws of its parent, but despite the larger otter’s injuries and weakness, it wouldn’t let go.

  Erich stepped toward the two of them, his teeth worrying at his lower lip as he tried to make up his mind. Finally, he banished his indecision, sheathing his sword and taking another step forward before accepting the smaller otter into his arms.

  It was still the size of a large child, and without Erich’s mana enhanced body there wasn’t any way that he would’ve been able to hold the struggling animal still. He clutched it firmly yet gently to his chest, watching carefully as the bigger otter slumped back to the mound of dirt and sticks that it had been laying on.

  “Do you want me to keep your child safe?” he asked. “Is that what this was all about?”

  The animal looked up at him and mewled softly. Even as Erich watched, he could see the light leaving its eyes, but the otter seemed strangely at peace now that its final task was complete.

  Then its body went still slumping bonelessly as the last bits of tension that had been holding its head and neck upright slipped away. The smaller otter in Erich’s arms began chirping mournfully burying its head into the side of his neck as its struggles ceased.

  “I’m sorry,” he said awkwardly, unsure of how to deal with the situation. Hesitantly he ran a hand through its fur, petting the otter like it was a dog.

  “I’m not your Mom or Dad, but-” he cut himself off as the sad chirps grew even louder. The otter was shaking in his arms.

  “Sorry,” Erich mumbled lamely. “Let’s get you back to Madla. There are garr about and the storms are no place for a child.”