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.

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.