I set a hard pace for us as I went down the left bank of the river. I wanted to get to the ledge I spent a few days on with enough time to build a rest area. However, I was also worried about Lannah. I knew that there was nothing that I could do about her right now and that the problem would likely be passed by the time I got there, but I was still worried.

It was that worry that caused me to miss the signs that we weren’t alone on this bank. Unfortunately, it also seemed that Blink, as her half and half version, wasn’t as observant as her full lizard self. So we were both caught off guard when a mountain lion tackled me to the ground. If it hadn’t been for the added health and the damage resistance of the armor, I likely would have been knocked out or killed.

As it was, I lost about half of my health and hit the ground screaming. My right arm was in the lion’s mouth, and it was grinding my armor, trying to break through the chains. I was feeling the muscles separate in its powerful jaws when it screamed in pain. Blink was on top of the lion with her talons dug into its back.

When the lion yelped, I yanked my arm back. I was pinned under the beast, but I could now try to move. It was bucking and kicking all over the place, trying to dislodge Blink, but she was holding on as best as she could. I was taking a beating because the cat wasn’t moving from on top of me.

I had debuff stacking from when the weight of the lion would hit me, and my head would bounce on the ground. It was a blur of a mess, and then I was free. I had been trying to log roll, and I managed to get out from under the lion as it rolled toward its back.

As it did, I saw Blink get thrown free. She landed and rolled, and the lizard girl came up staggering. Blink shook her head and was about to charge in when a second lion came out of a tree not three feet from her. Blink hissed and changed into her full-sized self.

As she changed, I got my sword out. I was dizzy, and my right arm felt like it was going to fall off, but it was still functioning. I charged the first lion; we needed to change this fight and change it fast before we got overpowered, and so the weakened one had to die.

The lion saw me coming, roared, and jumped at me. Having dealt with Blink pouncing, I could tell this was a skill that it was using, and so I rolled forward to change where I was. I didn’t want to get hit by that damage again. As I tumbled, the lion tried to swipe at me but missed. I came up facing away and quickly turned, which was just a second too slow, and caught the whole weight of a claw on my right leg.

The strike’s momentum passed into me, and my legs went out from under me. Once again, I was down, and the lion was moving to pin me. However, unlike last time I had my sword, which I interposed between us right under its paw. That lost me the grip on my sword as the blade went all the way through the lion’s foot. Then it ripped it back so fast that the sword stayed in the paw but was yanked from my fist.

The lion tried to catch itself as it lost balance from the pain but used the sword paw driving the blade all the way into the hilt. The big cat roared in pain and bit at the sword. It didn’t care about me anymore, but it wasn’t smart enough to know what was happening. It cut its own face on my sword as it tried to get the blade out.

I took the risk and looked over at the other one, and it was trying to trade shots with Blink. She was hitting and vanishing, and the lion was trying to react to her attacks. It was one of the most effective ways she had to attack. She was, after all, built it seemed to be the best assassin around.

I fished my health potion out of my shield and chugged it back. Instantly my health went up to 3/4s a bar, and my arm felt much better. I stowed my vial and pulled out two of my throwing spikes. The first was a pause, and the second rot. They were by far my favorite of the set.

I stopped at the lion Blink was fighting and let my pausing spike fly. I watched with joy as the blade sunk into the side of the lion, and it stopped moving for all of half a second. That little bit of time was all that Blink needed to strike at its neck. When it started to move again, it was to gurgle out blood from its mouth and slump to the ground, defeated for the last time.

As Blink was finishing off the other lion, I threw rot and then the other three spikes at the beast. None of them could finish it off directly, but with four spikes and a sword in it, the beast was slow. Slow enough that Blink had no problems finishing off the cougar.

I looked around the field; it had been less than an hour since we started our hike, and we ended up in a fight with a pair of mountain lions. I hoped that this wouldn’t set the tone for the rest of the trip down to Essex. I wanted something that was more nature hiking and less bloody battle.

Blink bushed up on my leg and sent over to me a pleased feeling, “goods hunts.” Then there was a pause, and I almost heard her purring, “bait go!”

I shook my head. When she was in her big lizard form, she was much more direct with what she wanted. Hunting and me as the bait. I guessed that it worked out kind of well as I could do what she wanted.

I smiled at her as I walked over to get my weapons, “sure, I will be bait.” With that, she vanished.

I was about to walk away from the lions when I saw a light flashing coming from the belly of the first one. So I went over and cut into the gut cavity to see what was there. The flashing was coming from a small core-shaped item. It was bloody and had some meat stuck to it, but it was like the cores that I made. Only whereas mine was empty like a transparent line drawing, this one was a tawny yellow.

I accessed the interface. This was the first core that I had found other than the ones that I made. So I wanted to see how it was different.

Level 1 core

Core of strength

+1 strength

I could only guess why this core had color. It could be so many different reasons, but this was an odd item. It would add to strength, but I didn’t know how that would happen. Would it strengthen the item or give the wielder of it a strength bonus. Either way, it was free for the taking.

I checked the other lion, and there was nothing there. So either the first lion had eaten a core or somehow developed one. This was something that I hadn’t run across before, and so was something that was kind of odd to me. I sighed. There was only one way to learn more about this.

My hands shot up above my head as I activated the spell I hated the most. I felt my head roll back, and I yelled.

“Oh great and mighty greeter Sam, I the lowly Arn beseech you to answer my question. How do cores occur naturally?”

As I finished, my knees buckled, and I felt the headache of the loss of mana hit me like a sledgehammer. My eyes crossed, and my face smashed into the ground as darkness overtook the pain.

I woke up just a few minutes later and saw that where there had been two mountain lions, there was now a third, and it was lying dead just a few feet from my prone body. I struggled to get to my feet and heard a burst of laughter in the bond.

“Goods Bait!”

I rubbed my head and moaned. My mana was up to three. It would improve over the next hour as it refilled; it just was a mess right now. I checked the last cat, and it was also without a core. So then it was time to keep pushing down.

As we moved, Blink stayed true to using me as bait. There wasn’t much in the way of fighting after the cats. They had likely taken a large territory, and so it was only logical that for a while at least, things would go smooth. The trip downriver took six hours to get to the ledge on which the dogs had tried to trap me.

As I got up to the ledge, I looked around a bit. The branches I had used to keep me from falling off were still there. So other than rain on the ground, it looked like nothing had gotten to this point.

I started to pull out my set of wands. I had some work to do, and I needed to begin on it as soon as possible. “Blink, you might like hunting around here. There was a raccoon that used fire the last time I was here. I killed that one, but there are likely more.”

Blink sent happy thoughts of fighting back to me, “Hunts!”

I didn’t hear or see her go. I got to work making my cave; it took me the better part of 2 hours to get my room set. I almost killed myself with my first dirt-to-water casting when the 5-foot cubic feet of water slammed into me. If the tree hadn’t been behind me, then I would have taken the twenty-foot plunge off the ledge backwards.

Once I quickly got the main room carved out, I started in on the more minor details that I needed to ensure were in place. First, I used a smaller set of wands to create a stone door that was a foot deep and filled the 5x10 opening. Then I used the same methods for the door that I did for the hidden passage, except that the number of prayers to Chaos changed from 3-7 to 4 or 5. The required prayers number wasn’t something I was trying to put on the door, but when I placed the core for the door in, that was what happened.

After that, the internal details were where I had to spend time working. First, I built a second way out, heading to the top of the river gorge that could only be opened from the inside. I also created a smoke hole and cooking area inside. Then I affixed three lights using my glow spell, power stones, and cores. Finally, I used 5 cores to make a stone bunker for the goddesses’ worshipers.

I was drained and ready to go to sleep when I heard a scratching at the door and felt Blink desiring to get in. When I opened the door, she walked in and dropped two fish at my feet, and then went a curled up on the ground.

That night I dreamed of Sam’s office again.