01-Janace vs the Beast

Janace led a camping tour through the mountain forest. The forty adults and children were following her along the designated backpacking tour trail in the scenic park. She had been leading this group for the last week. They camped in designated camp areas where water was available; firewood was picked up from cleared and prepared dead trees. This afternoon she was leading them to the last overnight camp spot, and scenic overlook. In the morning, they would hike to Way Station Five by lunch, where they could catch the monorail and be back to the Main Lodge in time to clean up for dinner.

The weather was nice for mid summer. Janace hiked in the usual insignia embroidered khaki button up shirt with rolled up sleeves, brown insignia patched cap, brown shorts, and leather hiking boots. Janace was slim and still in fighting trim from her younger more impetuous days, and capable of out hiking most of the people she encountered and led through the scenic park hikes she was seasonally employed to lead.

Most of the hikers wore light weight external frame packs with sleeping bags and the few other things the park mandated they carry. Some used internal framed packs. Some few, like Janace, carried smaller multi-day packs that really only had room for the food and the mandated little else, a blanket rolled and tied to the pack, and usually a bit of equipment secured to a belt or vest. Many also carried cameras of assorted kinds.

As she led them up this latest hill Janace felt a magic scan sweep past across the area. Shortly after a psi-scan followed and focused on Janace, then disappeared. These were not totally unheard of, partly as the Park employed some mages and talents. Janace was both, herself. She crested the hill and led the group along the flat of the saddle. Another magic scan crossed again, and Janace felt something she had not felt in some time: a long distance gate locus began to form. These were illegal in the park, save in emergencies. Janace opened her psionic senses and felt malevolence pour out of the gate. She started concentrating on powering her own psionic abilities, and reviewing what magic she had at ready for a fight.

The gate stabilized several meters away, and opened its iris. Janace stopped moving, then turned to the two men of this group who had come to be the unofficial seconds to her on this hike.

“Now is the part of the hike where you all go back over the side of the hill, for your own safety, without panicking.” Janace put a mild psionic push into that comment.

A large harry thing looking like a cross between an ape and a bear stepped through the gate into the clearing. It was bigger and thicker than the largest bear, stood almost like a gorilla but more upright with arms almost as long as Janace was tall, and had black fur with red stripes.

Janace had not seen a Beast in near ten years, if not longer. She knew the last source of them was ten plus years destroyed. She had helped Jochquin destroy it. Beasts did not live long. They had been engineered with a five year span, average. Janace would remember and reason these things later. For now her first objective was her tour group, her second was herself.

The Beast immediately psi-attacked Janace. The first wave knocked her back. The second wave hit her shields. The third wave was defused by an attack going in the other direction. Janace’s attack slammed the Beast and hit its defenses knocking it slightly.

Janace did not have any combat spells on ready use. But lighting a fire didn’t take much. She pointed and cast, and the creatures groin lit up.

It shrieked in the base register as the fire began consuming the hair on its body, until its own magic defenses put the fire out in very a local gale. This gave Janace time to see that most of her tour group was still watching, some even with their camera’s out.

One of the set of spells Janace did have ready was moving large chunks of earth. If nothing else it was useful for making a latrine. She cast and amplified it now making a trench thirty meters to either side, three meters deep, and one wide, and put the moved earth right on the near side of it. This blocked the group from sight and would allow for some back blast deflection.

Janace then grabbed the quick release buckles on her pack and tossed it aside into a bush.

The Beast attacked on all fours in a galloping charge. Janace was not ready to do some serious damage yet. So she did the next best. She ran at and turned sharp at a tree. The Beast stumbled as it turned the corner, but kept coming.

This gave Janace time enough to focus and pointed at the left knee. Her concentration was not yet enough. She sent a psionic pin point through the joint. But it was enough to start. Janace watched as the beast tumbled and agilely rolled back to its feet.

A psionic blast hit Janace. It blew her cap off, freeing her ginger hair, and tumbled Janace as she tried to dodge. Janace stopped her tumble, kneeling, and pointed. She cast the spell from memory, rather than from ready access, and had to draw on her inner energy. Three small magic darts shot from around her hand and hit the Beasts head tumbling it forward over itself.

As Janace got to her feet her hair began to stand on end, looking like a red dandelion.

The Beast, seeing Janace standing and growing in apparent size, smashed its fists on the ground and sent a blast into the ground turning the hard pack dirt between them to dry mush.

Janace felt her footing start to give as the dirt softened, and she quickly stepped onto a buried boulder. As she did this, Janace started to get her concentration level to where she wanted it. She watched as the appearance of the world changed, and she started to visually perceive the auras of everything; the trees, the plants, the people beyond the barrier she had made, even the Beast. She could see/sense its layered psionic shields, and one magic one.

Tactically, her first task was to shatter its concentration and thereby lower its shields. Then she could really get dangerous to it.

Janace saw a blast form and it threw a wave at her. Unlike prior attacks, this was very fast, and it smashed Janace’s own outer shields and would have blown her from the boulder if she had not quickly redirected the direction of the force.

She countered with magically grabbing a nearby dead-fall tree and propelling it branches first like a large barbed spear at the Beast. Most of the tree crumbled to twigs in its passage and impact on the Beast’s shields, but a few larger branches got through, wrapping around as bits caught and hooked on the shield edges, other branches, and so on. Then the main trunk hit and pushed the Beast along and shoved the still connected limbs in, impaling it.

As it roared in pain, Janace realized that for all its power and physical intimidation, this was a young, novice Beast. It wasn’t going to live to be old or experienced. Janace pushed her concentration up and started gathering power from the world around her.

The Beast took her pause in attacking it to try to physically attack on its own. It got to its feet and tried to brush the branches off like so many thorns, but Janace had driven them in well. It charged at her anyway, a giant harry pin cushion. Janace was ready.

A magic shield wall slammed the Beast to a stop and held it in place a full stride from Janace. The sudden stop shattered its concentration and shields. Then a strong psionic blast that made all of Janace’s hair stand straight out emanated from her and hit the immobile creature, and burst every cell in its body, boiling it’s liquid to vapor as the wave passed through it. In moments it was so much dust on the air, with chunks of branches thrown back and around a good distance away.

Janace then received its strongest attack. No longer having a physical body to hold, the magic wall no longer restrained it. Psionically it blasted her down to her body level shields again, trying to do to her what she had done to it. She also felt the psionic equivalent of it swiping at her with clawed paws as big as her head. The physical manifestation was of red welts trailing across her from shoulder to thigh in both diagonals, front and back.

Janace’s physical integrity maintained, she dropped the previous magic wall, and she ducked a third swipe as she plunged a fist sized ball of energy into its center, right below it’s forth chakra swirl.

Janace then turned, crouched, and restored her psionic and magic shields as the psi-bomb detonated disbursing the astral form of the Beast, effectively banishing its spirit from this world.

The concussion was not much, physically not more than a fire cracker. Psionically it was a fragmentation grenade that left a shielded person with a headache. Magically there was not effect from the psionic doings, but the spells intrinsic to the Beast collapsed as it was destroyed, and expended their released energy like a large sky-rocket.

As things subsided, Janace stood up and surveyed the situation.

She had noticed earlier that one of the attacks had blown her clothes clean off her, probably one of the times when her shields had been collapsed to her body/skin level. She had put it aside then to deal with finishing the fight. Not that the shirt and shorts had been much good as protection in this fight. What was mildly upsetting was that her boots had also been destroyed.

She psionically scanned for and sensed that her whole tour group was moving away under the guidance of the two men, though some hearing that the noise of the fight had stopped were beginning to turn back.

Janace’s hair settled down as she relaxed her psi powers. She strode over to the bush where she had dropped her bag, and dug her spare shirt and shorts out of it. It would not due to have the kiddies see her in her all-together, and disheveled. The red marks that crisscrossed her body would begin to fade as she next slept, and would be gone quickly.

Not having expected to need any spare undergarments Janace had to make due, tying her spare shirt up exposing her midriff, and striped middle, front and back; and nothing under her shorts, or for her feet. She would just have to toughen her feet to take the last miles of this trail, or see if anyone had spare footwear that might fit her.

Janace surveyed the battle field again. She noticed that the trench-barrier had a few spots where some impact had compressed the dirt, and one where debris from the shattered tree littered the mound. Janace reversed the spell, and put the dirt back where it had come from. The surrounding forest had been scared some, and there was the soft spot that had been dug across part of it. The rest of the shattered tree was scattered about; on inspection, Janace saw that she had done a good job of even blowing the Beast’s blood from the branches that had impaled it. Everything here would heal.

By evening, most of her tour group had reassembled. Some four refused to rejoin directly, for fear of another attack. A few others had produced medium caliber ‘predator and varmint repellant’ from concealed spots in their packs, and openly wore these on their hips.

Aside from the welts and modified shirt, Janace had one other change that startled those who did not know her well. Those who did know her well knew that when she used her psionic powers particularly, but it also bled over to her magic use, her hair would stand up on end, pooling out. As such, when she was in a fight she had a hair-raising experience, and it could be expected to go bad for the other guy. If she was not having a hair-raising experience, it would go worse for the other person, as that meant she was giving it her full attention. Janace had learned young that her hair was a kind of record of her recent power use. The longer and more power she used, the brighter her hair would turn; the color change would start at the roots and work along the length. Though her hair did not grow faster, the color would push along the length, like rings on wood. When younger and an active adventurer, Janace’s hair would show a riot of rings of color on its length.

With her ginger hair down between her shoulders, her hair had its first major color change in some time, with the finger width or so at her scalp a brighter color than the rest. This was on display as her hat had also been shredded.

As Janace though about the fight, and considered the possible ramifications, she wondered briefly how striped her hair was due to get, and in what time frame.

The next day, she brought her group in to Way Station Five and reported. Her direct boss here at the station initially did not believe Janace, until she stood up, turned her back and dropped her shirt from her shoulders to show her whole upper back, and the angry welts that still crisscrossed it, partially aggravated by having had to wear her pack over top.

“Tim, nothing in this forest leaves marks like this.” Janace pulled her shirt back over her shoulders and tied it back together. Then she turned back to face him, putting her hands on his desk and leaning over at him.

“I was its target. I’ve defeated these before. I expect I will have to again, and I have friends that I need to warn. I’m leaving. This was my last hike here.” Janace simply said this as there was not need to get excited about it.

“Leaving? You signed a contract…” Tim started

Janace interrupted. “That didn’t cover Beasts; but does allow for dismissal, if the Guide endangers Patrons. By my experience that is exactly what I am now.”

Janace became aware that Tim was trying not to look down her shirt, and stood up. “I’m going to go back to the Main Lodge, clean up, and clean out my locker. I will be telling them what I have just told you.”

She turned and strode out, before he could say more. Janace was still barefoot, as no one had anything spare that fit her. Nor had she found anything to wrap her feet. So she went into the gift shop and purchased the least expensive sandals that fit her and then taking her bag she boarded the outbound monorail to the Main Lodge. Two other guides were on the train, and she spoke briefly with them about her experience, and warned them about magic and psi-scans.

At the Main Lodge, Janace went to the Office and there reported and again what happened, and resigned effective her clearing out her locker. She also said that they could deposit her pay as per usual. After washing, putting on some comfortable clothes, clearing her locker and saying goodbye to a few other people, Janace was on the Shuttle Bus out to the closest city by night fall.

Janace’s psi-senses were more alert than she had needed them in years. As the bus traveled, she took the time to refresh her memory of combat spells and psi-abilities. She had wanted to make several calls immediately, but did not own a porta-com just now, and the models offered at the Park were too expensive. As was the callout service. So she would get one in the city, and hope until then that her friends would be harder to find than she was; or weren’t targets yet.

02-Introducing Jochquin

Jochquin had been mildly surprised to receive Janace’s call. He was currently halfway around the world from her. She had explained that she called him because she could not find contact data for Carl, Yori, or Brian, and hoped that He might have it.

Then she had told him of the Beast.

Jochquin was able to tell Janace of a town that he thought Carl and Yori had settled in, where they had set up house. Also that they had deliberately changed their contact data identities; so he had respected their privacy and not looked for them. Brian, Yori’s brother, had also hidden under a new identity, and so was unknown in location.

After the business of the call was completed, Janace and Jochquin had then spent a bit of time catching up on events and arranged to meet in two weeks time. This gave then each time to finish with current activities and travel to where they would meet.

Two days later, Jochquin was in the field; he was part of a platoon in hides surrounding a small town. They had tracked a local gang through the local militia. Individually, the gang members could and were dealt with. As a group… That was where the mercenaries, including Jochquin, came in. They were hired to supplement the militia.

Jochquin was currently a grenadier; this time out he carried an almost-sniper-quality battle rifle with a belt-fed 30mm grenade launcher on a bipod mount. With the video scope, he could aim either weapon to the far edge of its true ballistic range, so long as nothing got in the way of his field of vision. And the team recorded what was seen by each scope, so long as they were turned on.

From his position, Jochquin’s job was to disable any of the gang’s vehicles that traveled the road he guarded, and then disable any Mage’s or Talent’s as they appeared. Jochquin’s fire-team partner was a Sniper by training. On previous trips they had worked well together. Each of them spotting for the other. Jochquin did not know Gong’s true name, just as he did not tell them his own. But they did know that they could trust each other. As a team, just the two of them could take a convoy apart in fewer minuets than the convoy had vehicles. Jochquin would attack the materiel and Gong the personnel.

Gong had one other attribute, he was a low-level Talent; he could detect and generally sense, but that was the admitted extent of his abilities. Jochquin had worked with prior Talents, so Gong was just another guy so far a Jochquin was concerned. A few others in the platoon were a bit defensive toward Talents, so they usually stayed clear of Gong personally; professionally he was theirs, so they would stand up for him.

The other fire-team in their squad was a mortar crew. Usually Gong was their spotter; sometimes Jochquin was; either could and did spot for them in a fight. They all worked well together.

Today they watched the north-south road out of the little farm town they had been hired to help. Jochquin and Gong had built their covered hide below the irrigation canal bank that all but ringed the town, and looked across the grain field that sat on the east of the road. Their mortar crew was in a pit behind the irrigation canal on the west of the road. Both fire teams had additional hides and foxholes in scramble distance. Also they could see across the fields across the entire north of the town, from east horizon to west.

Gong nudged Jochquin awake from a nap. “They are coming.”

Jochquin rolled over from his side onto his belly, secured his helmet and took a drink from his tube by his mouth. The Combat Water helped him wake up. He turned his helmet’s electronics from Sleep to Combat mode and powered up his weapon. The helmet’s HUD in the mask lit up.

Gong spoke over the comm-circuit. “This is Team One. I sense two dozen men and women in four trucks. No magic as yet.”

Right now, all data and communications were relayed by fiber-line, instead of any kind of EM-Transmission.

The other teams guarding the other approaches to the town checked in. Off to Jochquin’s right by the stream and across the other food-fields was Team Two. They guarded a road out of town the exited from the northeast corner and turned immediately east-west. The other road out of the village was at the southwest corner, guarded by Team Three. To the south were more food fields. The west and northwest were currently stock fields. Teams Four, Five and Six waited in a house in the town, and replaced another team on rotation of every few hours. They also had a second mortar set up to fire.

Now with Gong’s call all the others came on.

“Which road, Gong?” The Leader called back.

“North Road,” Gong answered.

One of the spotters on the town called. “I see their dust. Out at the ranch beyond the town edge. They are turning in. Call it about two minuets.”

Everyone waited.

Gong rechecked the load on his large caliber rifle. A sabot round; like hitting the target with a nail at mach two. The nail had a HEAT nose, an armor penetrating copper jet on the point. He would be first to fire, stopping the convoy in the arranged kill box.

Jochquin could see the first truck now. They approached single file on the two lane road. From this position, they were at almost a thirty degree angle from straight on. Jochquin verified his scope and trigger were set for the grenade launcher. The weapon had one trigger that toggled flawlessly between two sets of clockwork, to fire either weapon, simultaneously toggling the output of the scope to match.

Gong tensed. “A magic scan just swept past. A wide focus one.”

They waited as the trucks came closer.

Someone from Team Three called. “What’s…? A Gate Locus. Middle of the Cow Field.”

The Leader responded. “Stay focused. Team Three watch the gate. The rest stay on plan. Gong, at your convenience.”

Jochquin peripherally noticed Gong to his right relax, and aim, a green dot appearing in the scope. His rifle sounded.

Jochquin saw the distortion of Gong’s shot travel through the air from his right to the front truck’s nose and make a small hole in the grill just beside the green dot’s center. A moment later the engine blew parts and sparks against the body from within and spit fluid and junk down to the road.

To either side were fenced fields that the locals had asked the merc’s refrain from damaging if possible. This meant keeping the trucks on the road, and not too messy. As it slowed down, the second truck in line bumped into the first, and pushed it along, with some evident care.

“Pit One, Fire.” The leader called.

A mortar shell shortly landed right in front of the trucks making a hole large enough to swallow the first truck. The resultant smoke and dust swallowed the second. The third truck slammed on its breaks as did the forth.

“What is that…Those?” This was the voice from Team Three again.

“Pit One, Fire for containment. Grenadiers, take your trucks. What do you have Three?” The Leader kept with the plan, before turning to the distraction.

Jochquin was already focusing on the third truck and put a grenade into both driver side wheel wells, from his oblique angle on it. This had the effect of rocking it onto its side before slamming back down on useless wheels.

Three continued. “They are big, bigger than men. Hairy. Count Four furry, Two more look like shiny muscle suits.”

“I see them.” This was the second in command. “Looks like the Gate is closing. What are they?”

Jochquin heard the conversation, but paid more attention to the third truck, as the occupants got themselves together, and out the far side. A second mortar shell landed behind the convoy, just out of Jochquin’s field of focus.

“I don’t think they are friendly. They are moving toward the Convoy.” The second continued.

“Reinforcements?” The leader asked.

“Look at that. They are fast, once they get going.” This was Three again.

Jochquin only saw movement from the left side of his view then it disappeared behind the trucks and smoke. He dialed back, widening his view, and cursed.

“Oh, Shit. Drop them! They are hostiles.” Jochquin adjusted his aim to the closest head and fired a grenade at the Monster in silver armor. The explosion hit its shields, and knocked the thing over.

“Come again? Who Fired?” The leader demanded.

“Joch fired. Those things are hostile to all sides. The silver ones have shields. The striped ones are Talents. Drop ‘e all fast.” Jochquin slid his selector to his rifle, and watched his scope adjust then lit up a black and red striped head with a green dot and fired as a second green dot joined his.

Gong fired moments after Jochquin.

Jochquin’s standard rifle bullet hit the Beast’s psi-shields, breaking them, moments ahead of Gong’s sabot. The middle half of the head vaporized and the body fell from sight.

“They are slaughtering the gang.” Three called again. From his position he could see the other side of the trucks from where Jochquin could.

“Team Three, fire for effect. Team Two, do you have a target?” The leader was still in control, though his plan had just gone in to the blender.

Gong answered. “Negative. No visibility.”

“Team Four, do you have a target?”

“Affirmative. Firing for effect. The silver ones do have shields, and morphic armor.”

“Five, Six. Break out the Zap Guns.” The leader was not going to screw around. They wanted the gang stopped, not slaughtered. The Beasts and Monsters were interlopers in his battle field.

Jochquin dialed his scope back and could see the gang survivors had all scurried around to this side of the convoy as the two silver armored Monsters swept thought the fallen on the other side. The three beasts that stood were actively looking round, still standing in the grain field on the far side of the road.

Gong spoke. “Pit One, Beam Rider, Fire.”

Jochquin noticed Gong’s green dot on one of the Beasts and put his own on the same one. Switching back to grenades, he fired two shots. The grenades hit just before the mortar, with desired the effect of breaking the Beast’s psi-shields. The mortar reduced the beast to ground meat.

Jochquin spoke into the radio. “Double hit them. The first breaks their concentration and drops their shields.”

Gong suddenly jerked back hard and rolled over clutching his head, then was still.

“Gong’s down.” Jochquin felt anger creep in for the first time in a long time.

He moved his aim, and pulled his trigger, feeling his weapon start bucking as he swept across the two remaining beasts. Three shots. Switch. Three shots. Back. Still standing. Need a heavier weapon.

Jochquin was about to switch positions and take up Gong’s rifle, when he saw an energy ball hit the beast. It staggered and was hit again. Jochquin pulled his trigger, putting two grenades into its torso and neck, then switched target to see this beast also sparking. Its head and shoulders spattered from hits from Jochquin’s right and left. It fell.

That left the two Monsters. They were working to roll truck three over onto its damaged side. Three gang members scrambled into the field below Jochquin’s view.

“Hit the fuel tank with a sabot.” Leader commanded.

Jochquin let go of his gun and started to shift position to take up Gong’s gun. The truck exploded before he got more than onto his elbows. Jochquin all but jumped back to his weapon. Evidently the other sniper in Team Five had his gun up. Jochquin scanned the area. He knew that the Monsters were still there; they were tougher than what had been done so far.

A cluster of green lines crossed in the smoke as the other squads markers showed where they were looking. Jochquin scanned the convoy, trying to remember how Monsters behaved. The first truck was in a crater, on fire. No survivors aboard, unknown off of it. Second truck was half in the bed of the first, flames licking at its front. Doors open, empty. The third truck was on its side, burning. Empty with at least three in the weeds. The forth truck was a wreck. Empty and unaccounted, to Jochquin. Four Beasts down, in the field on the far side of the trucks. Two armored Monsters, where?

“There’s one. Pit Two, Beam Rider.” This was someone from Team Four.

Jochquin could not see where half-a-dozen green lines converged, but the field beyond the trucks suddenly exploded.

Jochquin kept scanning for the last. On instinct he put the gun down and scanned without the scope. The trucks were most of two fields away, just short of a crossroads used by farm machinery. Looking the field over, Jochquin thought he saw movement. He called it in.

“Probable movement, in the tall plants coming right at Team Two.”

After a moment, a loud speaker from the town called out in the local language.

Jochquin resettled to his weapon, getting onto his knees to aim into the field in front of him. Six points of disturbance suddenly stood out; five men stood and ran to Jochquin’s right. The sixth stood up, dusty chrome reflecting light from a multitude of surfaces. For a moment Jochquin wished he could close in with a sword, but instead joined a controlled hail of fire that quickly overwhelmed the monsters shields and finally killed it.

As the squad helped the locals clean up. The gang was taken to the Elder’s and questioned. They knew nothing of the Beasts or Monsters. They did admit that they had been coming on a food raid, a smash-and-grab on the local store.

It took Jochquin a bit to remember, but he soon recognized that Gong had been what Janace called ‘burned.’ He would be back to normal with a few days of quiet.

The Monsters and Beasts were cleaned up and put into a mass grave. A second was prepared for the dead of the gang.

Jochquin found the leader watching as the trucks were pulled apart for salvage. The leader spoke first.

“You made the right call, Joch.”

“That is because I have dealt with them before, sir. I think these came looking for me.”

The leader waited.

“An old friend called me a couple of days back. One of those came after her. First a magic scan, then the gate. I expect more before long, though I can’t say just how long. I think it means it’s time to move on, before more do come. These things were not easy to make, last time. I doubt they will send more once I leave.”

The leader continued waiting, listening.

“I don’t want more people hurt. They already put Gong down for a couple of days, if I remember correctly. I don’t want what happened to him or those hapless gang idiots to happen to anybody else.”

The leader considered all this. “I hate to see you go. I can get you some pay for your time, but…”

Jochquin finished that sentence. “But it won’t be as much as if I had stayed. I am not running from this fight. I am running at that one.”

Jochquin sold the rifle and grenade launcher and left it behind. He didn’t want to lug a big rifle around anyway. The grenades were weak against the shields by themselves. He did have a spare scatter gun and got some flechette rounds for it, once he got to the city.

Janace had called and warned him. Neither of them knew for sure where to find Carl, Yori, or Brian. In the years since the group had split up, Jochquin had bumped into Carl once, and told Janace the name of the town where that had happened. Brian had completely disappeared.

He was a week’s travel from that town, and also from the nearby city he had agreed to meet Janace in. At least by any means that he could afford. It was just as well. Jochquin wanted to make a side trip, and pick a few things up.

03-Janace warns Carl and Yori

Yori was busy getting lunch put together, when the knock came at the front door. She put down the sandwich she was assembling and went to the door, wiping her hands on her apron. At the door was one of the last people she expected to see.

“Hello Yori. How have you been?”

Yori just stood there looking for a moment. Janace was road dirty and her hair almost a uniform color, but otherwise essentially unchanged by the ten years it had been since they had last crossed paths.

“Come in.” Yori’s mind got back into gear, sort of, as she turned and walked away leaving the door open.

Janace took her shawl off and gave it a shake, then stepped in and closed the door. She sat down on the bench in the front hall, removed her boots and left her shall and shoulder bag there. She followed the smell of stew to the kitchen. She knew she was unexpected, and had not parted on the best of terms, but had not expected so cool a reception.

Stepping into the kitchen, Janace noted the passage to her left leading into the mudroom, before the first counter of the kitchen proper. The kitchen had an informal dining room attached with a large window on the far end looking out on a grassy backyard. To Janace’s left the island-kitchen had stone countertops in a u-shape, with stools set up on the two outer portions with raised surfaces above the counters. The stew pot simmered on the cook surface off center in the close counter, with the sink under a side window, at the bottom of the ‘U’. Ahead in the dining room was a table with bench seating against one wall, and chairs the rest of the way round. Half of a meal was already laid out on it Yori kept a clean house, and Janace was too much the good guest to wantonly dirty a place. But she still felt that she was trailing road grime. Janace stood at the end of the counter Yori was working at the middle of.

“Anything I can do to help?” Janace tried again.

Yori was busy assembling another sandwich. At that moment a boy came blustering through the side door. He stopped only long enough in the mudroom off to remove his muddy boots, then bee lined for the food.

Yori stopped him with a look. “Go back out and tell your father that we have company.”

“I want something to eat.”

“Fine. After you tell your father that we have company.”

The boy looked ready to argue noticing Janace, but instead grabbed a piece of fruit and all but ran back out the door, stepping into his boots almost without breaking stride.

Yori continued to make lunch, in silence.

Janace tried to start the conversation again. “I’m fine, Yori. Thanks for asking. Sure, lunch will be fine. Let me wash up and I will give you a hand.”

At that Janace went to the sink and washed her hands. She then pulled a bag from her belt and dumped the fruit from it into the sink and rinsed them. Yori set a bowl by the sink, and Janace put the fruit into it and set it on the table with the other stuff already there.

Yori then handed her the other bowl of fruit and a plate with a brick of cheese and a knife. Last was a container of fruit juice. Yori brought the plate of sandwiches and bowls of stew. All the place settings were already there.

They sat, Yori to the side of the head of the table, Janace at the foot. Yori selected some fruit and cheese, said grace for herself. She then just started in, paying little heed to Janace.

For her part, Janace was getting a bit flustered at this behavior. But a quick glance at Yori psionically brought a sharp rebuff. But it did finally provoke a reaction.

“You could have picked a better time, and let us know that you were coming to visit, Janace.”

As if on cue, a baby in another room began crying and fussing, having just woke up. Yori put down her half eaten sandwich and left after the baby.

Janace was sitting politely, nibbling a slice of fruit, when the boy came back in, grabbed a sandwich from the plate and a hand full of fruit and left again. She was watching his progress toward the orchard through the kitchen side window, when a little girl and a toddler of undetermined sex came into the room. Both were carrying toys, which were dropped when the food was spotted. They got half way to the table when they spotted Janace sitting on a chair at the far end.

They were about to turn and flee when a heavy set of boots tramped on the porch outside the mud room. The sound of much mud being kicked off continued for a short time, then the door opened and Carl came into the mudroom.

“Whose horse is out…”

He stopped upon seeing Janace sitting at the table. He took a moment, and then turned to removing his boots and overalls.

Carl’s daughters, as soon as the overalls were hung, both ran onto his outstretched arms as he greeted them. They told him they loved him as he carried them to wash their hands in the sink, and then set them on the bench against the wall. They scrambled to their places and sat down. Carl sat in his chair at the head of the table and helped his older daughter say grace. Janace bowed her head for this. Once the prayer was done, the kids attacked the fruit and sandwiches.

Carl helped himself to one of the larger sandwiches, and alternated between it and his stew. Janace followed his lead. After finishing half a sandwich, Carl felt fortified enough to deal with Janace.

“So, what brings you to our home, Janace?”

“So solicitous. I’m fine, thank you. I see that you and Yori are well, and prospering.” Janace paused briefly “I think the company is back. Or someone is using the same methods.”

Carl was unmoved by this. Janace continued.

“I was attacked by one of their Beasts a few days ago. Someone used magic and psionics to find me. If they can find me, they can find you and the others. I thought you should be warned.” She took a bite and after swallowing, “This is a good sandwich.”

Yori entered the room, a sated infant on her shoulder clutching at a burp rag. She sat down to her food, around the corner from Carl, and began again at her own lunch. Carl reached across the table and briefly took her hand. He finished his second sandwich before speaking more.

“If they are back, what is that to us? We retired 12 years ago.”

“I think someone is going to want revenge on those who stopped things 15 years ago.” Janace was finishing her stew, and ready to go after the fruit she had brought with her.

Yori and Carl glanced at each other, dubious.

Janace snapped at this. “Why don’t you want to believe me, or take me seriously?”

Carl looked again at Yori, who just shrugged and kept eating. He grunted a sigh.

“Walk with me, Janace.”

Carl got up and got his boots from the mudroom, and took them to the front entry, and put them on. Janace put hers on, and they went out. He then untied her horse from the front hitching post, and led it around the house to the trough in front of the barn, and tied it there while Janace further loosened the saddle. Carl then led Janace to the orchard between the barn and the road. The horse shook itself under its tack as they left. One of Carl’s horses in its corral next to the barn wandered over to greet the stranger.

They were several trees into the orchard when Carl finished the second fruit, and spoke again. “Janace, we saw him dead. Jochquin pulled his sword out of him. Magic users are hard to kill, and I know you don’t lie. But I do find it hard to believe he’s back. Especially with his amulet broken up. Nor do I think anybody in that company would try to follow in his steps.”

“I don’t think it is truly him. But somebody is following his pattern.” Janace looked at the small fruit growing on the trees.

“Yori and I can handle anything that comes. But we aren’t going looking for trouble anymore.”

“I didn’t expect you would.”

They walked for a while before Janace spoke again. “Is your thinking that I would try to drag you off on some crusade why the two of you are treating me so coldly?”

“No. The truth there is that you are a chaos maker. Always causing trouble and never solving it. Yori and I decided a long time ago that while we value you as a friend, we are not going to allow you to cause anymore trouble for us, or our children.”

Janace thought about this, and liked it as much at having a drink thrown in her face, thought it hurt worse than any drink ever did.

The fruit on the trees was in various staged around half grown. They walked out of the orchard, and started along the fence line between the stockyard and the garden, the gorse corral and barn on the far side of the garden. The garden was sectioned with a few bits still fallow, most of it showing pre-mid season growth. The stockyard was populated by several horses and a small population of cattle, and other interspersed stock animals. As she looked over the farm, Janace found little to fault.

“You have done well here. Looks like a good place to raise children. How would you defend it from a Monster?”

Carl smiled, and whistled loud.

Within a few moments five large hounds were bounding over the fields toward them, with several smaller ones in pursuit. To Janace’s initial surprise, they seamed to run down the row, or across them, and never hit a plant in their travel. They even jumped the irrigation ditch as they came. The pack stopped short at seeing Janace with Carl, and was unsure what to do.

Carl knelt and called the leader. He came and buried his head in Carl's hands, then carefully padded over and sniffed Janace.

Janace had never felt very intimidated by animals, but was ever cautious about them, especially in obvious packs. After the hound was content, he wondered back to Carl, putting his head under Carl’s hand. The rest of the pack alternately sniffed and ignored Janace and began to disperse. One of the puppies started back across the garden, when one of the adults started after it, and chased it off the field.

“I taught the older ones to respect the furrows, and they are slowly teaching the pups to do the same.” He dismissed the hounds, and they went bounding into the stockyard, and began chasing around, the larger animals drifted away from the frolicking hounds. One of the males stayed in proximity, following Carl and Janace.

Janace watched them. “Impressive hounds.”

“They are enough to trouble anyone that tries to trespass. Anything they can’t handle, they can slow down enough to allow a weapon to be brought to bear.”

She had noticed weapons of some sort on virtually every wall of the house, above toddler reach. “I figured them to be at least partially decoration, as well as functional.”

They finished the circuit, and were back at the hedge separating the farm from the back yard.

Janace looked at her watch and the sun. Then stopped and looked at Carl.

“You can and will do as you want. I just came by to warn you. Something is brewing. I don’t know what or how, but it is. Watch yourself. I would hate to think something happened to you because of my inaction.”

“I will consider that. Please don’t be a stranger. Just leave your troubles at the road.”

They walked around to the barn and Janace’s horse. It had cropped the grass it could reach and was trying to get at more.

Janace watched for a moment, and then turned to Carl. “Have you heard anything about Brian? I looked him up, but all his old addresses are dormant. When the three of you disappeared you did a good job. I only found you because Jochquin said he had bumped into you in town here.”

Carl chuckled a grunt. “Yori keeps contact with him. He set himself up as a doctor in a town a ways from here. We have visited him a few times over the years. You want us to warn him?”

Janace put a slight psionic emphasis as she replied. “Yes. The five of us survived. The three of you disappeared. They found me in a scenic park and sent the Beast, regardless of what else it might have done once it had finished with me. Afterword I contacted Jochquin.”

Carl shook his head. “We expect you have seen him more recently that we have, the both of you heading off together was the last we heard of him. Save for the one time I bumped into him.”

“That was eleven years ago. We split up and have bumped into each other a few times. I am meeting him in Sangelo in a week.” Janace pulled at her horses cinch, beginning to tighten it back up for riding. The horse puffed itself as she did.

“All right. Is there anywhere in town that you recommend? Good beds, and adequate food? A stable for Boulder here?”

Carl told her the best places to go, and where the best watering holes were. Janace gathered her horse, and walked it to the front gate where she tightened the saddle again.

Carl went with, and Yori joined him there still holding the baby, the girls chasing around the yard with puppies as big as they were, after they handed Janace her shall and shoulder bag.

Janace pulled her new comm-phone from her bag. “Do you have one, or a number to call?”

Yori answered. “Yori at 432546.041845. That is the house phone.”

Janace dialed it right there, and they all turned as the house comm-phone chimed then turned off and Janace disconnected. “There. You can get a hold of me on this, if you need to. Be sure you warn Brian, and my greetings to his family.”

Janace put the comm-phone away and climbed onto her horse and pointed it into town. With some mild urging the horse moved into a long stride gate and walked quickly out of sight on the road.

Yori spoke first. “What do you think?”

“I think she fought a Beast, and it had put her on mental alert,” Carl answered. “Whether someone is going to send one after us? That was part of why we changed our contact data and moved ultimately to here. Nothing has happened in ten years. If it does, we will handle it. That is what we decided, and what have practiced for. On the other hand, I do think it prudent to warn Brian.”

Yori nodded. For the first time since before this baby, she wondered if she could fit into her old silver armor, and what Jochquin was up to.

04-Janace meets Levi

Janace let the horse lope along. She had been letting it set its own pace for the few days since leaving the town near where Carl and Yori lived. That municipality was devoid of most large non-industrial vehicles and support infrastructure by its own choice, as were many others around the country, and world. So the horse was the best way in and out, unless you wanted to constrain yourself to mass transit.

Janace rode along the horse trail into the equestrian thru fare and into a stabling and corral area. Janace sensed the animals here outnumbered the people, by an order of magnitude, give or take a few. She had acquired this horse in another city, rode it to the town outside of which Yori and Carl lived, and then here to Sangelo.

Technically she was still some distance from the city proper, but Sangelo was a ‘Hub City,’ having the equestrian and other stabling areas and road access, as well as the more technological means of travel of ground and air craft. Were it on the coast it would probably have a port as well, but as it was well inland on a non-navigable river, it was only a landed hub. The non-technical muni- was south and east of Sangelo, with the technical highways and railways following the river to the northwest, and on separate commerce arteries southwest and east.

Janace traded Boulder and his tack in for a deposit and then got on the mass-transit train for the Transport Hub, and its district, where she was to meet Jochquin in three days.

Since the fight in the park, Janace had kept her senses on a higher level of awareness. By this she counted and kept a passing tab on all around her. As such she counted three dozen people get on the elevated train with her leaving the Equestrian Center. Just over half of them were locals who had lunch on their minds. The majority of the rest were travelers like herself with a few bags in tow, and showers in the immediate future. Two separate individuals were interested in Janace, despite their attempts to appear otherwise.

As the company had used indirect means of following people in the past, double- and triple-deep bribed non-combatants, Janace figured that was still in effect. It followed the rules of surveillance: Never be seen, or be the only thing seen. In this case without a more in-depth scan that would attract attention, the use of dupes fell into ‘always be seen,’ while ‘never being seen.’ It did confirm to Janace that she was being kept track of. Which was more important to her than exactly who was doing so.

By the Hub, one of the people following her had departed to her own business. Others had boarded. Janace disembarked at the Hub, and looked for the hotel that Jochquin had recommended. It was not a specific building, as a franchise that was at hubs like this around the world. Shortly she found it and found that Jochquin had already arranged both of their stays and rooms. The people following Janace had traded off, so she was certain that dupes were in order. As such, she was less likely to be a target in the busyness of the main areas of the Hub.

Her room was little more than a cell in a honeycomb. The bed chamber was big enough for the bunk, and little more. Below was a storage chamber for whatever personal effects she had along. Larger storage areas were available for greater sized or quantity of goods. The bath house had common bath area, private locker booths, private and public showers, and all the complimentary towels you could need. Laundry facilities and a gymnasium were attached. A common room allowed for other rest and recreation. Food was not provided, nor discouraged, as there were eating places all though out the hub.

As she settled in and got herself cleaned up and her washables laundered, Janace counted a company of mercenaries, twice that number of businessmen, a handful of iterant salesmen, and the equivalent of a platoon of youth and older people backpacking through the area, all staying in the same hotel. That was just in her area. In the adjoining area were roughnecks of assorted employ. Beyond was a larger area where couples were able to get shared bunks.

One common attitude of all here, particularly the mercenaries, was no one gave more than cursory notice to odd shaped baggage, and all cases were kept closed save for designated areas. There was even a crew who had well used and cared for saddles.

Janace put most of her clothes and other goods in to the laundry and went to the gym to work out some soreness and see about getting in a practice fight. She was rewarded in this by going a few rounds with some of the female merc’s. She and several others watched a display of a few people training with live-steel swords. Afterwards she relaxed in one of the spa pools, before finally going to dinner.

As much as the spa and gym relaxed Janace, she preferred to be out of doors, or where drinks were served. When she was younger, Janace liked to go to taverns and stir up trouble. She dressed as a wench, and got a little bit juiced up, enough to get attention, and get away with being as offensive as she felt. But she never actually finished her first drink. As she matured, this behavior diminished.

By preference, Janace dresses perfectly modest, if enough like a tavern wench to occasionally be mistaken for one. In certain circumstances, she is still an unmitigated flirt, and elsewhere the body hugging clothes don’t get in the way when casting. As a sorceress, Janace throw magic and energy around as casually as she flirts. As a psi-witch she is as brutal in combat as the fiercest of warriors

Her fiery red hair takes on more of the hues of a fire as she uses her powers, with gradations in the color all around. She just lets it fly in all directions in response to her using energy. She also trims it regularly. The color changes stay, while working their way along the length.

Janace grew up the seventh daughter, and eleventh child in a tavern/inn, in a large low-tech city. As such she learned how to handle herself in one, and handle her liquor. As a young girl, her power began to blossom at the same time as her body. Her first psionic tantrum was her last night in the bar.

Her mother wanted to send her to a convent. Her father to a wizard college. Janace did neither. She went off with her mother’s brother, he being a wizard. He got her in a girl’s school for Talents. They saw to her formal training. They also ruined her toward normal boring men, by the few men there being so boring themselves.

Janace does not want to be boring.

Approaching mid-life, Janace has never had a lover. She just has not encountered the right man to settle down with, or for. Before leaving the school, she met and dated Jochquin. Because of her skills, he later recruited her for the team where she met Carl, Yori, Brian, and two others.

Now, Janace went out into the Hub complex. She had noted several people paying a bit more than normal notice to her in the gym and pool area. She put on a skirt and blouse, taking care to put on some tights/trunks under the skirt. She carried a small scrip on her belt but otherwise carried nothing. She first stopped in a tavern and got a small drink and a salad. As she ate she marked three more points of attention. She still got the same vibe, of being paid interest, rather than the thugs themselves. Janace figured it was time to see what traps they had, and what she needed to do to spring it. Fortunately she had been practicing and reviewing her spells and psionics as the horse had brought her along.

Scanning around as she left the tavern, she found the least occupied park in the Hub and went to it. This park was on top of part of the train terminal and near the executive wing of the air terminal. There were some shade trees and benches, and it was discretely far enough away from anything to have very many bystanders, the security of the place was thin here, and there were very few visible people here just now. Janace found a bench in the open halfway between two rows of trees. As she looked it over, she figured this would be a good place for an ambush, and sat down. She smirked as she realized she had forgotten to draw a target to hang on her back.

Janace did not wait long. She sensed the full crew before they were all in place, or so she thought.

One shot at her with a dart, from behind the tree to her left. She let it hit her shields at her neck, and held it against them as she slumped slightly. Before too long a medic cart showed up, with two official looking medics.

Janace listened to them as they approached. They sounded professional, but not for the medic uniforms they wore. Mostly they sounded board. She would fix that, momentarily. The cart approached from her right, and stopped just past the bench on her left. The men got off the cart and moved to approach her, rather than retrieve any medical gear. Janace’s turn.

Both medics were hit by the psionic equivalent of a large man at full speed. They both went horizontal and landed on their backs, gasping for air.

Janace stood up and stepped over to the closer man, a bit older than her, and straddling him, she grabbed his shirt and pulled him up a bit. “Who sent you, and what do they want with me?”

Before the man could even get the air to begin to answer, the dart-sniper tried again. Janace was functioning on a different level; she caught the dart with her left hand and threw it back with a magic assist, hitting that guy just beside his throat, the soporific in the dart putting him out of the fight.

The two medics had enough time now to get their air. The one to Janace’s right got up and drew combat syringe, essentially a needle thin knife with a fluid container and plunger. The one she still had a hand on, tried to break her hold and get free, dragging Janace forward a step. The one to her right tried to stab her with the syringe as she moved forward.

She let go of the one below her and backhanded the one behind to her right, adding a bit of psionic energy to the hit and sent him three times his height away, to tumble over himself on the pavement and grass, the syringe to fly further away and stick itself in the turf. The one below scooted out from under her as Janace turned back to him and switched to a magic spell and smashed him into the pavement, knocking him senseless as he tried to deploy his combat syringe.

Janace’s senses lit up as the rest of the team mobilized around to close in and try to take her down. This perimeter team was all plain clothes, and closing at a run. As she sized them up Janace realized that one of who she had tagged as part of the team was not, and was attacking the team members, as they worked their way in to her.

Janace turned away from that interloper and faced the ones coming from the other direction, working in a clockwise direction. First she drew on some of her more creative magic. One woman who was in her jogging clothes, armed with a tazer, was suddenly wearing her birthday suit and tripping over her clothes all bunched around her ankles. A business man who had produced a sub-machine gun caught the first dart that had been fired at Janace in his chest, at the same time he found he was holding a large angry rodent with sharp teeth and needle claws. The next man found himself suddenly running through the air right into the branches of a tree. The forth one was close enough to Janace to get a psionic enhanced punch in the gut and tumbled across the pavement and turn back to where he had started, his weapon sailing across the park as he went.

Janace crescent-kicked the next one who approached, a woman about her size, and that woman’s momentum carried her into the side of the medical cart, where she piled up like a dropped rag doll. The last one approached as Janace turned to face him. She waved her hands as doing a spell, and he put his hands up in defense and started to skid. Instead of magic, she simply kneed him in the gut as he got to her, and threw him on the ground.

Janace looked around. The Interloper approached, breath huffing, having dispensed with three attackers on his way across the park. The men and women on the ground were in various states of consciousness and injury.

Janace stepped into the front of the medical cart, and picked up a radio mic, turned the unit on, and pressed its transmit button.

“Dispatch and security please.” Janace was not worried about the protocals.

A voice answered. “Go ahead.”

“One of your carts is up on the park above the train station. Looks like a group of hired thugs stole it and have had a bit of a fight. There appear to be multiple men and women with contusions, abrasions, lacerations, and assorted other blunt force trauma injuries. You will want to get someone up here quick to detain and treat them.” Janace finished and put the mic down.

“Top of the Train Station. Thank you.”

Janace turned as the radio paged and the same voice came on and called all available hands to her location. The man she had last laid hands on tried to get up. Janace pointed at his ankle and psionically pulled it hard and sent him crashing down on his chin, where he groaned and stopped moving.

Janace then turned to her earstwhile ally. He was appeared to her to be in his twenties, good shape, athletic without being overly bulky, and rubbing his hands and wrists to keep them from bruising. He was average height with dark hair and plain features.

“Thanks for the help. You look thirsty. Let me get you a drink.” Janace took the young man’s arm and walked away with this newcomer. Her senses stayed at a combat level.

Janace reached out to the jogger-woman, who had just begun to pick herself up. Her tazer was at the wrong angle, and went off into her thigh. Thirteen people in various states of awake and injury were left on the grass around the bench and two trees as Janace walked away, curious to learn about her potential ally.

Janace and Levi sat at a tall table in the bar section of a restaurant. Dinner Rush was starting, with the tables slowly filling with business class patrons. Janace’s senses were still at an alert level, and all the people here glowed. She could follow every order from its inception in the mind of the patron through the kitchen, and back to the table. Janace sipped at a frosty mug of the local beer, as she ate her meat, potatoes, and vegetables, while letting Levi do most of the talking. His own plate of diced meat and vegetables was getting steadily consumed even as he talked.

This Levi, he was a little younger that Janace had been when she had joined the party all those years ago. That put him a bit more than half her age now. His aura showed him sincere, his emotions were generally amused, but he felt on-edge; Janace felt he was similar to Jochquin, or how Yori had been when they adventured.

He had started by telling Janace that the old adversary of the group had been his grandfather. The intermediate generation, Levi’s father, was the oldest son who with some other of his siblings, had come to disapprove of their father, and had left before starting families of their own. When he had learned of his father’s death he had thrown a party, then started teaching Levi to replace his Aunt, the youngest daughter of the dead grandfather.

The will passed most of the estate and control of the company to the youngest daughter, or son, whichever proved more capable when they come of age, and it was held in trust until then. This had happened a few years ago. She first rebuilt the groundwork for creating Monsters and Beasts. But she was going in other directions with the medical and materials sub-companies, taking them in new magical and scientific directions.

She had consolidated her corporate power from the trust, other holders, and from her siblings that had held parts of the overall structure. The youngest brother, who could do magic, had disappeared. All the other older siblings were bought out, fired, or summarily ushered out of power.

Levi had been quietly poking around the edges, gathering publically available information from whatever obscure and trade-publications he could. His aunt was up to something. At a company level she was doing some strange things. It was not unprofitable, but definitely strange. Some R&D Facilities had been constructed in out of the way places. Some products had been shuffled around. She had good business savy, and the public face of the company was as bright and shiny as it could be. But it also had been getting involved in some less than savory activities. Like the goon squad that had come after Janace.

Janace turned the conversation to what and who Levi was himself.

He obliged in telling her about his capacities and training in various forms of combat. He had not served time in anybodies military, but his father had quietly sent him to training with as many schools and trainers in the theory and application of battle and espionage as he could. Coupled to this was as much business training as he could, primarily in information processing.

Over dessert Levi turned the conversation back to the company, and more of what he had learned from it. His Aunt was in charge, and had taken her father’s office, so Janace knew where that was. She had been hiring magic-users and talents for the medical and materials divisions, as well as sprinkling a few through the other divisions. He had found three new R&D facilities, under these divisions, all in proximity to her corporate headquarters. But these were not open to the public, so he had not been able to get in. As well, his father had explicitly told him not to ever reveal himself to his Aunt.

Janace had one last set of questions, but Levi did not yet know what his aunt wants with Janace specifically.

05-Carl and Yori decide

Carl was out in the field, planting some fresh furrows when he heard a commotion from the orchard. The dogs had something in there. A returning snarl stopped him cold. Carl dropped the seeds where he had stood, and taking the hoe as a weapon started across the fields toward the house and orchard, as fast as he could.

As he ran across the stock yard nearing the orchard, he saw his oldest daughter running through the orchard toward the house. Her bow in her hand. The adult hounds were making fighting noises from farther in the orchard than Carl could see at the moment. There were more snarls as well, not from the hounds.

Carl changed his course to intercept his daughter. Five steps after vaulting the fence he intercepted and scooped her up; from this point Carl could see down the rows of the orchard. The five hounds were worrying a Monster, which had two arrows in it. The hounds all had wounds from the thing.

As he turned, Carl all but tossed his daughter over his shoulder and took off full tilt for the house. When he got close enough he began yelling for Yory. Yory came out the door with a battle rifle in hand. Carl skidded up to the porch, and traded Yory, the gun for the girl, and turned back to face the orchard. Stepping clear of the house as he checked the weapons load, Carl then called the hounds to come. They cleared the trees just ahead of the Monster. Carl stood his ground, and once the Monster was clear of the orchard he fired three shots into its torso. It took a few steps, and fell on its face. Carl put one more shot into the Monster's head, finishing it off.

The hounds alerted to other Monsters and were about to charge off when Yory called them to the porch. She had a large bore scatter-gun in her hands, the three younger children gone inside.

“Where’s Jason?”

“Over at the Galloway’s,” Yori replied.

Carl traded guns and called the oldest hound and took off for the barn. There he grabbed his bridle. Going out the back of the barn he went into the stockyard, and whistled for his horse. They were all gathered with the rest of the stock at the far end of the yard, away from the orchard.

His horse came cantering up, still very nervous. The hound was mulling about and alerting toward the orchard. Carl slung the rifle and reached out to calm the horse. He knew that the most direct route to ride was through the orchard, it being between the stockyard and the road, and in the direction of the neighbors. He slipped the bridle over the horse’s nose and ears, then gathered the reins, and vaulted onto the bare back. The hound alerted at this. He clamped his heals against the horses flanks and headed across the yard, toward the fence of the orchard, the hound at the horses heals. The horse tried to shy away but he pulled its head back and urged it harder. This horse was used to mostly domestic duties, but it still had instinct.  It gathered and jumped the fence into the orchard. The hound jumped between the rails, keeping pace.

They turned some to cut across the orchard diagonally. As they ducked under and around branches, Carl spotted another Monster running to cut them off.  The horse tried to shy away again, but Carl refused to let it. He pulled the scatter-gun around one handed and let fly with a flichette round, blowing the Monster's hip to a bloody mist. He left it there, and called the hound to keep up, as it went to investigate the felled creature.

They jumped the outer fence to the orchard and were on the narrows of the irrigation easement when Carl turned fully toward the neighbors. He urged the horse on to go faster. One more harry Monster tried to lunge out at them. Carl put a shot in it and galloped on as it fell.

They jumped one last fence into the neighbor’s yard, and galloped across the grass to the house. Carl reined the horse in and vaulted from it and through the front door, adjusting the rifle as he went. The hound ran around the side of the house.

A commotion was coming from the back of the house. Carl ran to the great room to find one Monster to his right tossing furniture aside heading to the hall deeper into the house; another on the left advancing on the kitchen through a steady hail of assorted dishes. Carl thumbed a lever on the grip of the gun, and fired; the Monster going toward the kitchen got a small ball of lightening in its back that stunned it thoroughly.

Carl then brought the gun up as a shield to block the paw of the other Monster as it swung at him. The claws missed, but the force knocked him through the end table and against the bookshelf.

Carl recovered in time to blast this Monster at point blank, stunning it. He thumbed the selector switch again, and pumped two flichette rounds into it. As it collapsed, Carl turned to the first and put a round into it, finishing it.

Mrs. Galloway was almost hysteric, and was about to throw a plate at Carl before she realized who he is. Jason called out from the hall, where the one Monster had been going. Carl moved around the carcass and knelt to embrace his son as he and his friend came into the room. Just then the horse started raising a fuss, as did the hound, from right out side the kitchen. Carl let go of his son and turned to the damage and Mrs. Galloway.

“Get into one room, and bar the door.”

She grabbed the biggest knife she had in the kitchen, and herded the children back into the master bedroom. Carl went out the opening the Monsters had made in the glass picture window, and around the side of the house.

The horse was dancing back and forth and rearing at another Monster, the hound was getting back on his feet after having been swatted across the yard.

This Monster’s fur had different coloring, it had red stripes.

Carl could not immediately remember why that scared him.

So he brought the gun up and let fly at the head.

The flichette round hit a psionic shield and puffed to powder. Now Carl remembered why these scared him.

He switched the gun back to energy and let fly again. An unseen force knocked him on his back to slide twice his own length. He shook his head to clear it as he fought to get air back into his lungs.

The Beast was almost to him as Carl got the gun up and emptied it at the thing, nearly point blank. The electrical discharge wreathed the Beast, shorting out its nervous system. It collapsed in a fit of spasms. Carl switched back and put the last two flichette rounds into that Beast, ending it.

The horse settled down at the ending of the Beast. The hound came over, and sniffed and nipped at it. It did not respond, so it was there after ignored.

Carl took a deep breath. “I hope that’s the last of them.”

He set the gun’s power pack to ambient recharge, and shouldered it. He then went in to the house, the hound following. He knocked at the door of the master bedroom, and almost got shot for his effort to identify himself.

That afternoon and early evening, as Carl had borrowed the Galloway’s bucket loader and buried the Monsters’ and Beast in a mass grave, Yory decided that she and Carl needed to have a talk. So she got a baby sitter for the evening.

When Carl got home, Yori sent him to go get cleaned up when he came in; once he is presentable for company, she took him out to the barn, where the wagon was all hitched up, and she drove them to town. She took them to their preferred restaurant, and a corner booth where they could talk privately. She did not waste time getting to the meat of the subject.

“Carl, what do we do now? These Monsters on the heals of Janace can’t be coincidence. And I don’t think she would send them.”

“I don’t think she would send them,” Carl added. “They aren’t easy to make, either. Janace is more than two days away by now. So they were either following her, or sent for us.”

“And our kids” Yori added. The two that had been after Jason still frightened her. Particularly that one had been a Beast.

“So the question is, what to do about it.” Carl started into his meal as the server left.

“Twelve years ago, we answered that. We’ll defend our home. Someone else can go have the adventure.” Yori was trying to be adamant, but not very well.

They ate in silence for a moment.

Carl broke the silence. “That sounds hollow now.”

Yory finished her bite. “You want to go track down the source of this?”

Carl stopped and looked at her, then around at the place.

“I’m a farmer. Part of that means solving problems at their roots.”

“What about your armor? You are still cursed.” Yori had agreed to settle down with him fifteen years prior despite a wizard having put a curse on Carl that said that if Carl put on battle armor again, he would loose his humanity and soul.

“That didn’t stop me this afternoon.”

“What about the kids, or me?”

“You want to go worse than I do. But you also want to stay with the kids.” Carl knew his wife. She had enjoyed adventuring more than he had, and giving that up to be with him on a farm had initially been a big sacrifice. Then the kids had come.

“We can’t take kids looking for trouble.” Yori again tried to be adamant about this, for different reasons than before. This was mama bear grumbling.

The conversation paused as they both ate some more. Both knowing the resolution that they would ultimately talk themselves into, if they let the conversation run its course. So by mutual consent they let it end there.

Moonlight streamed through the curtains illuminating the room in muted silver. But that was not what woke Carl up. The breeze through the partially opened windows played with the curtains, while Carl tried to figure out what woke him up. The warm softness of Yory next to him was not it, nor her arm across his shoulders. The baby was asleep, as also the other kids.

The hounds.

Carl sat up, Yory’s arm sliding off as he did. He listened for the hounds. They were not in the house. The Barn? Those animals were restless, but the hounds were not there. This was not good.

Carl turned the covers aside, and got some fresh drawers from the bureau, putting a bathrobe on over these. Something was wrong on his farm, but he could not tell by sound. He took his favorite battle rifle from its mount on the wall and checked its load. This sound woke Yory almost as fast as the baby’s cry would.

“What’s wrong?” She was not yet awake, and trying to decide whether to be.

“I don’t know. But the hounds left the house, and the animals in the barn are restless. Stay here.”

Carl pulled the curtains to the doors aside and slid the door full open cautiously. The night was cool, but not uncomfortable. The taste of electricity filled his mouth. There was magic near by. The hounds set up a howl, and alert. Carl sprinted to the hedge, and looked through toward the sound. A blue-white glowing rift hung in the air toward the middle of his wheat field. The hounds were packed together watching it. Then the first Monster stepped through.

A Beast stepped through first, and the hounds and some dirt and wheat flew and scattered. Some of the hounds yelped as three got to unsteady feet. A second flotilla of blasts hit all three, gouging the dirt around them; none of them got back up. Carl aimed and fired an energy blast, then thumbed the selector back and hit the beast twice, dropping it where it stood. Then a half dozen Monsters charged through. They stomped on the hounds as they moved apart and tried to determine Carl’s location.

Carl lined up and started shooting. He had enough ammunition to take them all if he could just keep sighted on them. They split into two groups and ran in either direction as the gate closed and faded. Carl turned to his left, as that was closer to the house, and fired, but with the light diminished, his aim was not as sure, and he did not have electronic sights on this rifle.

Then Yory shows up in her armor, and rips through the Monsters. She then closes the gate and finishes off the still-dangerous Monsters. Carl shoots from his position as he can.

Carl turned the hose on Yory, washing the gore from the Monsters off her chrome-covered form.

Yori was speaking as they worked the entrails off the armor. “Taking an eight-month old adventuring is not being a responsible mother.”

Carl twisted the nozzle from spray to stream. “Neither is sitting around waiting for the enemy to send overwhelming force.”

“You want to go.”

“I want the problem solved, that means tracking the problem to its roots and pulling them out.”

They had gathered the living hounds, and called a vet. The kids have gotten up by now, and start tending the hounds.

They also call Janace.

Carl and Yory then begin planning out what to take and how, and what to do about the rest of their stuff.