The trip back to the Crystal was blissfully quiet. I worried the entire time that we would attract the attention of some deadly creature around us, but nothing happened. There was a small twinge of disappointment since an attack would have meant growing stronger too, but I pushed that thought back. Retrieving the Crystal was more important.

"You know, we should give him a name," Sam said from the other side of the bull. Daniela and I were surf riding the cart to pass the time while keeping an eye on the surrounding woods.

"How do you know it's going to stick around?" Danny asked, turning towards the blond.

Samuel looked affronted, as if she'd gone up and slapped him. "Of course he's going to stay!"

"Sam, he's a wild animal. I don't think domestication has been a thing over the last two decades," I said, patting the creature's side gently. It's wrist-thick tail swatted at me and the bull snorted but kept moving forward without pause.

"I'll name him Raymond then. And you two have no say in the matter." Without another word, he turned back to the forest. After some time, he leaned down and started to talk to our bovine companion. He was whispering into its ear, but it wasn't incredibly difficult for me to hear with my increased Perception.

"Don't listen to them. You are a big strong bull and you are going to help us build a big strong settlement while you get to have a big strong herd all to yourself."

I shook my head at my friend's antics, but a smile remained plastered on my face. There was no point in blaming Sam for getting attached, and hopefully the bull did stick around.

While musing on the potential of farming and animal husbandry with magically mutated animals, we arrived at the embankment I'd built up. One point of the Crystal reached out from behind the mound and I saw some of the iridescent light it had originally.

Excited about the possibility that the Entity would be awake once again, I leapt off the side of the sled and rushed closer. Sadly, as I neared, no voice greeted me. When I was standing over the Crystal, I could see that it had brightened considerably but was still only a shadow of it's previous glow.

A few minutes later, my friends and Ray the bull pulled up beside me.

"No dice, eh?" Sam said as he fed Raymond another handful of tomatoes.

"No, but it definitely seems to have gotten brighter. Can you get Raymond turned around and we'll try to lever it onto the sled." Putting action to words, I asked Danny to find a rock to use as fulcrum while I sought out a decent fallen branch.

After testing nearly a dozen, I found one that didn't crumble into rot. Propping the branch against the head sized rock Danny fetched gave us enough leverage to lift the tip of the Entity Cluster onto the sled. With that done, Sam had Raymond back up while I used the branch to keep the crystal from sliding. This whole process took nearly two other handfuls of tomatoes and over half an hour. For the first time since encountering the beast, Sam's inexperience at maneuvering the animal showed its annoying head. Nonetheless, with a final assisting push from me and Danny, the crystal was on board.

Sam had Raymond take a few steps forward and our ramshackle contraption held together well enough. A few hammering strikes with the back of my hatchet pushed one of the supporting slats back into place and we were off.

The return trip was much, much slower as our bull friend strained against the weight of the Entity cluster. Other than a pair of squirrels, one of which Danny shot out of the sky before I even got my gun up, the return trip was quiet. When the already regrowing patches of land the fire had ravaged came into view, we knew we were home.

When my spike wall became visible through the trees, we heard the lowing of the herd. It wasn't the ambient, peaceful tones of the grazing animals, but one of panic and concern. My friends and I shared a look, and sped towards the Bunker.

Sam didn't even need to urge Raymond. Since the bull had heard the call of his herd, it had acted as if the large Entity Cluster was but a minor burden. At the base of the clearing, we could hear the herd's lowing increase in fervor. Far beyond, I saw something that raised my hackles.

A corpse, whose throat had been shredded. Ray must have seen the body at the same time, because he thrashed and managed to snap several of the ropes binding him.

"Cut him loose!" Sam shouted over the bulls wild snorts.

Without hesitation, I chopped down on the knot holding the bull to the drag sled. Without needing further prompting, Raymond was off. With only a few feet to build his charge, the bull closed the distance in seconds and disappeared behind my spike wall.

"We need to find out what's going on!" Putting action to words, I leapt over the Crystal and headed for the wall. Daniela moved to rush past me, but I grabbed hold of her arm. " We don't know what's over there. We stick together."

The woman gave me a grim nod and we all matched pace to get to our small base. The scene was one of chaos.

Literal fire ants scurried all over the cows. Small gouts of fire rose from the ground wherever the creatures moved. Most were the size of rats while three were equal in size to the cows. Raymond had locked horns to mandibles with one of the giant ants while the other two were moving to flank the bull. As I took in the mayhem, I saw that our bovine companion had already plowed clear through another of the giant ones and had stomped several of the smaller ones.

When I focused on one, their information blinked into view.

I fought back the urge to panic at the overwhelming number of enemies. Seeing that if we didn't intervene, not only would the cows be decimated by the ants, we would follow soon after. With that cold realization, a plan snapped into place.

"Danny, try to save as many of the cows as you can, keep them moving. Sam and I are going to try to deal with the giant ones." I brandished my gun and flicked the safety off.

With huffs in response, the two of us parted around the dead cow's body. With a running start, I punted ant after ant, crushing their heads in a flash. It didn't do much to abate the tide.

A flare of fire followed by a muted boom marked Danny's first Skill, followed by a half dozen cracks of gunfire. The ants didn't like that.

A veritable surge of the smaller ones headed straight for her while one of the larger ones veered off from Raymond.

"Sam, help Raymond!" Gritting my teeth, I focused on the ant heading towards Danny. Keeping in mind how many I had available, I triggered .

The condensed earth rose up and caught one of the creature's limbs. With the sudden obstruction, it stumbled but only briefly. Thankfully, that was all I needed. With three shots I managed to blow out one of its eyes, directing it's ire towards me.

My own eyes widened when the ant spat a fireball in my direction. Reflexively, I cast at point blank range in front of me. Not a moment later, the heat and flames of the attack forced me to cover my face. Then the ant was on top of me.

The impact with the ant was like getting hit by a rogue storage container when I helped Ben on the storage floor. Except this one was alive, angry and lightly coated in fire. My gun went flying as I grabbed ahold of the insect's mandibles. A hiss escaped my lips as the chitin burned my hands, but I held on regardless.

It might have had something to do with the burning furnace breath and the prodding angry feelers reaching for my face.

Focusing through the madness a few inches from my face, I cast another stone Spike towards the ant's head. Grimacing at how close the stone brushed passed me, I was glad when it entered right in its damaged eye. The insect struggled for several more seconds until it realized that it was dead. Several hundred pounds of crispy ant fell on top of me and I was forced to summon another spike to keep it from crushing me. Ignoring the gut wrenching sensation of my magic, I crawled out from under the insect to rejoin the fight.

In the time it had taken for me to extract myself from my ant, my friends and the herd had done a number on the ants. While the entire area was once again scorched bald, with most of the cows suffering from burns all along their fur, Danny was working through the ants with ease. As they surged to attack her once more, she lobbed a ball of fire right into their midst. It didn't seem to do as much damage as I expected, but the sound threw the herd into motion. The wild stomp of the cows flattened the smaller ants, leaving Danny to snipe the few remaining ones.

Raymond and Sam had also fully addressed their pair of giant ants. A torn ant head hung limply from Ray's horns while he charged the other ant. Sam was standing just behind Ray, reaching out towards the ant as vines rose up and bound the giant ant. They didn't last long as they dried out quickly, but it was enough to keep the ant in place and distracted. Just before the bull could charge right through the creature's thorax, my Perception populated the ant's information.

A moment later, the information winked out as Raymond cleaved the ant in half, tearing right through the strings of Sam's . I held my gun up and scanned for any other threats. Just when I was about to blast one of the smaller ants to pieces, a thick vine rose up out of the ground and locked it in place. The creature chittered and struggled to bite at its restraints. Even if the vines looked like they were already drying out due to the insect's attunement, they held. For good measure, I knocked it on the head and that seemed to daze the creature and stop its struggling.

Giving Sam a nod, I eyed the rest of our clearing. Only the one cow had been taken down, and the wound had already been cauterized by what I assumed was one of the bigger ant's attacks. Looking over the rest of the herd, I spotted burning marks on every single one. They were still quite agitated, but with the immediate threat gone, they huddled together and seemed to be nursing each other's wounds. Raymond limped over from the two corpses he'd generated and set his massive flank against the side of the herd. A moment later, the green glow we'd seen earlier when restraining him pushed out in a small bubble. The grass reached for the sky and, to my amazement, the burns on the nearest cow smoothed out slowly.

From what I could see, the bull wasn't privy to his own healing as he remained slumped on the ground. The rest of the herd slowly shifted to encase the bull, blocking him from sight. My friends walked up to me, Danny holding on to the rat-sized ant by the head and thorax. A small wave of heat reached me when she drew near with it, but her hold seemed to fully placate the creature. I didn't know which to focus on, the apparently docile ant or the healing herd of cows not two dozen feet away. Leave it up to the surface to make each day interesting...

Deciding to address the bull in the room, I pointed at Raymond. "So, big boy over there can heal things."

"Seems like it. He's still injured, so I don't know how that really works," Sam said, wiping soot from his head. I gave myself a look and noticed that I had a thin layer of ash coating my body, just like the rest of the clearing.

"Hopefully the Entity will have more answers when it wakes up," Danny added, using her ant as a pointing stick. When we gave her an awkward look, she shrugged. "Sam's got his little cow friend, figured I might be able to keep one of these."

"Danny, that isn't why I--"

"Shhh, you. Now, I'm going to figure out where I can keep him without too much trouble." The woman wandered off, ignoring the wisps of smoke coming off her outfit. I made note of the fact that the heat seemed to wash right over her without the same effect it seemed to have on me and Sam.

When I turned to my blond friend, he was working on cleaning off his clothes as much as he could. "I'll let you deal with that. Do you think Ray will be down to help us move the crystal closer?"

"That's probably a negative, I would think. At least not until he's recovered. That big ant left some pretty hefty cuts on his flank."

Resisting the urge to make a joke about eating a real fresh cow, I pointed over my shoulder at the dead cow. "What do you think about that, can we eat it or use it for something?"

My friend frowned as he looked at the half charred remains, but nodded. "I think Danny and I may be able to get some usable meat from it. The rest... well, I can bury it near the crops and it will work as good fertilizer. If it doesn't disintegrate."

With the note I remembered the ants scattered around the camp. Most of the smaller ants were blasted to bits or stomped flat, but the giant ones were big eyesores. "Think you can help me collect the pith from these? I don't even know what I killed other than that one," I said, motioning to the ant still propped up by my spikes. Sam gave me a pair of thumbs up and went around the clearing nudging any bit of ant he saw, charting a slow course to the herd. Probably wants to check in on Raymond. A few seconds after he touched them, the creatures converted to the strange mulch his attunement caused. I contemplated whether it would be more beneficial to have him convert it all, for the sake of fertilizing the area. However, when I saw the sheer amount of ant corpses, I opted to help .

The first creature was the one I'd killed. When I placed my hand on its carapace, the arm material immediately hardened into crystal then shattered like broken glass. The telltale particles of what we knew was pith drifted up from the crumbled pile and split in two. The larger of the two clouds slammed into me while the other drifted towards the herd. Probably headed for Ray. With a smile on my face, I went about the whole clearing, touching the ones Sam hadn't bothered with.

As the final hair thin wisp of pith flew into my body, I pulled up my status.

Subject: Ronan Terrigan

Health: 100% (Unafflicted)

Mana: 100%

Metier Quotient: 2 (51%)

Dreg Accumulation: 16%

LPS: Wildwood, FL

Communications

Skills - (1) Selection Available

Traits - (6% Banked)

Attributes:

I nodded appreciatively at the growth of my Quotient and frowned worrisomely at the Dreg accumulation. It made sense, considering the amount of creatures we'd fought, but the Entity's warning about built up Dreg still rang in my thoughts. With the space around the Bunker entrance littered with small piles of rock and mulch, I went to fetch one of the empty duffles inside. Nearly an hour later, I collected the final bits of ant that had remained after they lost their pith and the strange coal blobs.

I'd managed to keep count while collecting the pieces, and nodded in appreciation. There were 93 small coal blobs from the rat-sized ants and 4 slightly larger ones from the Smoldering Fire Ants. The larger creatures had dropped huge sections of their carapace, except in the case of the one Sam had nudged. That one dropped what looked like a soggy rubber pouch. After collecting all the Dreg I figured I was going to get, I headed for the sled with the crystal to bank it. Just in case.

While still a ways away from the Bunker, the walk to the crystal was brief. I'd seen both Danny, and Sam stop by and purge their own Dreg before returning to whatever else they were doing. The oddest thing about it had been the woven leash tied around the small fire ant that Danny had fashioned, but I didn't comment on it as she headed back to the Bunker. I knew better than to question one of Danny’s decisions on something.

I cast a look at the sky and saw that we wouldn't have much more daylight, so I set out to catalogue just what ant pieces we had available.

"Good to see you three have kept busy."

A voice said behind me, causing me to spin and send a stone spike right into the side of the Metier Crystal. The crystal was unblemished, but it rocked slightly before my spike cracked against the tougher surface. “Ow. I didn't exactly give you access to mana chains just so you could use them against my body." There was a hint of mock pain in his tone, but it didn't last long. I blinked as I noticed that the light within the Entity Cluster had returned to the intensity of our first meeting. When I didn't reply immediately, the crystal continued talking. "Care to update me?"