***Tirnanog, The Plains***

***Astra***

I opened my eyes and quickly rolled out of the bed, switching from dream to reality in a moment.

At least that's what I tried to do until my filaments held me back with a discomforting tug. Still half asleep, I tugged twice more and was pulled back each time. It felt like I was tied to something.

Giving up on solving the problem the easy way, I turned around to find out where my filaments had entangled themselves this time.

Magnus had mirrored my actions on the other side of the bed and we found ourselves glaring at the entangled mess between us until we finally woke up enough to free ourselves.

“Did Gaia scream in your face too?”

“Yes.”

I grunted and cursed while loosening a particularly nasty Gordian knot. This had been a growing problem since Magnus's filaments had begun to reach mentionable length. I would have to ask my parents whether they had a solution to the problem.

Once we were free, we wasted no time and began putting on our armour.

Thanks to the prepared supports my armour was hanging from, it was easy to arrange my weave correctly before I tightened it.

This caused the armour pieces to be pulled onto my body and into position.

A few seconds later, Magnus and I were fully equipped and ready to fight.

Then we stood and listened, but the fortress was silent apart from the saherna's monotonously thumping steps.

Magnus drew his short sword and attached the spetum to his back while he scanned the ceiling with his second sight. There was nothing to see apart from the faint outlines of the two guards at our door.

Second Sight wasn't comparable to real x-ray vision, but if something had strong energy output and wasn't shielded by a lot of material, Second Sight was sufficient. A layer of wood wasn't enough to block whatever form of energy this extraordinary sense detected.

Seeing the wisdom in going for a smaller weapon, I did the same and drew my rapier.

I gave the sword a testing swing, not trusting my instincts to wield the weapon properly right after waking up. Recently the spear had been my main weapon during training and I had to admit I had neglected to hone my proficiency with the rapier.

No matter the lack of training, there was little choice. The fortress's corridors and doorways were too narrow for a large weapon. They limited our range of movement too much.

“What do you think could be dangerous enough for Gaia to raise the alarm?” Magnus whispered. “I didn't even know she could wake us up any time she wants. That's a dangerous ability. What if she keeps us up indefinitely? She could kill us.”

“I can't imagine her not using the ability to steer humanity if it didn't have significant drawbacks,” I pointed out.

“And what about this threat?” he pressed.

I gestured with the rapier towards the door.

“I don't know. I was having a fucked up dream when she barged in and screamed me awake, mentioning some monster. You've studied the same bestiary I did,” I whispered back. “It's night outside and few people are brave or foolish enough to gather experience with Tirnanog's night predators. Why do you believe we barricade ourselves as soon as the sun sets?”

“Hmm.” Magnus went to the door and opened it.

Aside from the two bodyguards standing watch in front of our room, the corridor was empty.

“Is there something wrong, protector?” one of the guards asked.

“Yes,” Magnus replied while putting on his helmet, turning himself into the image of a dauntless warrior. “But I don't know what. Something feels off. We are going on a little tour to check on everyone.”

I followed suit and a few steps later we were at Thalia's door.

Her guards had already seen us coming and knew something was up. They had knocked on their charge’s door to wake her up as soon as we left our quarters.

Thalia dreamily opened the door right when we arrived. “What's wrong? It's in the middle of the night.”

“Just checking on everyone,” Magnus answered. “Something... feels wrong.”

Our people were all housed on a single section of the fortress, conveniently connected by the central corridor which ran in a circle around the entire saherna.

Because of this the guards standing watch at the priestess's and the diplomats' doors also realized something was going on.

One by one, doors along the corridor opened and the normally sleeping dayshift joined us. I figured everyone must be awake by now anyway, so I raised my voice.

“Headcount! I want all of our people accounted for within the minute!”

It didn't take long for the more reclusive members of our mission to show themselves, including Peter Rumen and his diplomatic entourage.

Only our priestess of Gaia, Maria didn't report immediately. I had visited her on multiple occasions, but she couldn't be convinced to leave her quarters, claiming she wasn't a fighter and unused to life outside the colony.

As far as I knew, her orders were to carry some letters to the church’s sister institution which resided in Hochberg.

I couldn’t fathom why the church would use someone like her as a carrier, but the woman seemed genuine in her fear of the outside world, so I didn’t try to pry her out of her comfort zone. It simply wasn’t my business.

It took insistent knocking on her door to prompt the shut-in to open her door just enough to take a peek at the outside world.

“Is something dangerous happening?” She scanned the corridor until her eyes locked on my partner standing next to me.

Magnus pointed an accusing finger at the priestess. “You!”

The woman retreated with a very unpriestly “Eeep!” before she rammed the door shut. Shortly after, sounds of someone barricading the entrance could be heard from within.

I slowly turned my head and looked questioningly at Magnus who was still pointing his finger at the now-closed door.

“It's her!” He gestured. “You know? The priestess! The one I met when I visited the church!”

It slowly dawned on me who this woman was.

Thankfully, the incident had been swiped under the rug relatively effortlessly.

But this was months ago! Just what did Magnus do to her for her to be so terrified of him? Was the reason why she was hiding in her room because she was afraid of running into my partner, rather than being a shut-in?

I forcefully interrupted my train of thought and raised a hand to stop further arguments. “We don't have time for this right now. Mary is obviously fine and safely barricaded within her room. Someone like her is better off inside a closed room anyway. Is anyone missing?”

“No, protector,” Amudsen answered as he approached us. Thanks to his bed hair it was obvious he had still been sleeping five minutes ago. “Might I ask what this is about?”

“Intuition,” I replied non-nonchalantly. There was no need to explain the details of our abilities to others. “Something is not right.”

A warning shout drew my attention away from our guard captain and down the corridor where the shout had come from.

“Identify yourself and stay where you are!”

Ignoring Amudsen, I walked quickly to reach the scene of the incident where several of our mission's guards had formed up to block the corridor which gave access to our quarters.

We came just in time to witness them facing a Caravaner clad in their people's fur and combat gear. He had been shuffling along the corridor's wall, apparently hurt and needing it for support. The better I could see the man, the stranger it was. He looked wet. As if someone had just dumped a bucked of water over his head.

Had he taken a dive down in the bog and climbed back up?

I didn't have time to process what was wrong with the situation.

Before I could do anything, the Caravaner defied gravity as he silently shot forward with surprising speed. There was no tensing of muscles which could have announced the attack.

One moment he stood supporting himself against the wall, the next he was smacking wetly against the foremost guard who managed to impale the attacker with his short sword.

It wasn’t a matter of the guard reacting faster than anyone else. Our hunter had simply held out his weapon, keeping it between him and the stranger. The Caravaner was so eager to close the distance that he had impaled himself.

“Aaah!” The guard screamed while the Caravaner's flesh flowed around his victim. Long spikes emerged while the Caravaner's skin turned grey and lost its human disguise.

The guards next to the scene barely had time to strike whatever had attacked their comrade, opening long wounds which revealed white flesh. Their attacks showed no reaction before a long, fleshy cord which was attached to the former Caravaner pulled taught and yanked the guard out of the defensive line and down the corridor in a single powerful motion.

I didn't think, I just acted as I screamed and flash-stepped forward. “Nightcrawler!”

My rapier fell down on the cord with all the strength I could muster, separating it.

An angered roar rose from outside the fortress and the saherna's steps faltered.

The fleshy tentacle sans its spiky pseudo-pod began whipping around manically, splintering the wood where it hit. My sub-identities took over and I barely managed to dodge the flailing appendage.

Three more pseudo-pods came around the bend in the corridor, searching along the walls and ceiling as if their owner was feeling out the space.

“Get him back into formation!” I stepped over the fallen guard and tried to stop the flailing appendage with my filaments. By spreading out my filaments, it was just a matter of moments before they caught the appendage.

At the same time, I anchored myself with more filaments. Thanks to their thinness it was easy to sneak them in between the cracks of the wooden construction. Moments later, I was anchored to the walls, the floor, and the ceiling.

Then I discharged as much power as I could into the thing, but it only made the creature mad while it reformed a smaller pseudo-pod and grabbed onto a handful of my filaments.

I was suddenly the one being pulled forward with irresistible force.

For a moment my precaution held, but then my filaments began to slip and I was slowly pulled down the corridor.

Several guards threw themselves onto me and then Magnus was there, electric discharges dancing between his short sword and the pseudo pod holding my filaments while he hacked at it.

There was a sharp yank and then there was only pain.

My mind could barely process the retreating tentacle. The monster had ripped three or four filaments right out of my back and vanished down the corridor.

I must have blacked out for a few seconds because when I came to I was screaming in anguish and futile rage.

Filaments couldn’t feel pain. They were nerveless appendages. Their loss could be felt as a phantom limp and was annoying, but that was all.

Never before had someone ripped a filament out of me!

The nightcrawler had plucked them out as if I was nothing more than a fly.

Magnus pulled one of his flechettes from his belt and his hand blurred. It hit one of the other encroaching pseudo-pods, but aside from a pained twitch and a slight retreat of the appendage, there was no effect.

The projectile had punched through the appendage and embedded itself in the wall. The small wound didn’t bother the nightcrawler much. To the nightcrawler, it was no more than if a human had been stung by a needle.

“Curse this!” Magnus retrieved another flechette and used electromagnetism to lift it above his palm. Lightning discharged and danced between his fingers and the projectile. The metal quickly began to glow red as it was brought close to the melting point.

When the searching pseudo-pods moved forward once more, he launched the flechette with a throwing gesture. This time it had just enough force to have the glowing piece of metal embed itself deep within the flesh of the foremost tentacle.

The following roar of pain was much, much louder this time and the pseudo-pods retreated entirely from the corridor.

Magnus didn’t dare to turn around and instead walked backwards until he was next to us.

“Are you alright?”

“I will be as soon as you get me up!” I ordered through clenched teeth.

The four guards who had thrown themselves onto me like rugby players hurried to accommodate my order.

The creature’s antics had finally drawn enough attention to cause a reaction because it sounded like the machine cannon on the central tower began firing. There was another angered roar from the outside and something thudded against the ceiling, causing the entire construction to shake slightly. But it held.

“Fuck!” Magnus cursed and drew another flechette in anticipation of more to come. “The book didn't do it justice!”

We waited and held our breaths while the cannon spoke, firing roughly one shot per second. After twenty-four shots, it fell silent again.

Few people had ever seen what a nightcrawler looked like as a whole. According to the few descriptions available, it was something like a snail or land-based octopus with long tentacles. At the end of each tentacle was a pseudo-pod which it could use to mimic its prey.

It would use these mimicries to get the tentacles close to its unsuspecting food. Once the tentacle was close enough, it would snatch the prey and reel it in.

Many a guard had found themselves being pulled into the darkness of the night to be fed upon by the far larger creature. It wasn't known how big nightcrawlers could get, but judging by the length of the tentacle, this one must be huge.

Magnus gestured down the corridor. “The entrance to the courtyard is about fifty metres down the corridor. It’s the closest way into the fortress unless the thing managed to break open a wall.”

“The nightcrawler has to be huge,” I confirmed while I tried to touch my back where the filaments had been ripped out.

Which I shouldn’t have done.

The pain renewed in full as soon as I touched the wound.

I cursed beneath my breath. My filaments had just been getting long enough for me to fly again. The loss of three whole filaments had set me back at least two weeks, given how slowly they grew. Worse, the section down my spine from which the filaments emerged had very good circulation and bled like crazy even if the wound was superficial.

Looking down at myself, I saw that a small puddle of blood had already formed around my left foot.

“Don't move for a moment. I can staunch the blood.” Thalia came up from behind me and touched my back. Then I could feel her bloodvines wriggling in between the openings of my armour and do something.

I tried to wave her off. “Go and help the guard! I can stop the bleeding by covering the wound with my filaments.”

It would hurt like hell, but I would survive it.

Thalia placed her other hand on my shoulder to hold me still before she replied calmly, “There's nothing to help. The spikes turned him into a pincushion, perforating every organ. He was dead the moment the creature sank its hooks into him.”

I turned around and allowed myself just a moment to look at the guard who was still in the embrace of a warped version of a Caravaner who had now more in common with the end of a calamari's tentacle.

The guard's armour had held back most of the spikes and hooks covering the pseudo-pod, but there were countless numbers of them. Some had been bound to find the gaps.

“What about the drakes?”

Magnus's question turned my attention away from the corpse. He couldn't be helped.

“I dare say they are too big to be seen as prey by a nightcrawler,” Thalia pointed out. “And they aren't locked in their stalls, allowing them to flee if something is up. The nightcrawler can't snatch them like us. Just in case you are thinking about foolishly running out there to save our mounts.”

I closed my eyes and took a moment to think while Thalia somehow managed to dampen the pain. It was one of my sub-identities who brought helpful insight.

“The nightcrawler wouldn’t have tried to get into the fortress if it could feed on a drake or two outside,” I rationalized. “Let’s just wait here until-”

My suggestion became unnecessary when Holly and her partner Luka came jogging around the bend in the corridor.

The chieftain carried two very impressive axes in her enormous mitts, fitting her humongous figure. Luka had a sword as long as himself.

The two seekers looked relieved when they saw us, but the chieftain quickly regained her composure.

“How’s your status?” Holly, asked professionally.

“One guard down,” Magnus replied stoically. “Nightcrawler?”

Holly nodded. “We still don’t know how it managed to crawl onto the roof. The watch on tower-duty reported they couldn’t see anything until it screamed. Even then they couldn’t make out what was going on until the small drake scratched the creature’s back and broke its camouflage.”

Luka put down his sword. “We have to rethink our defences if there are more like it out there. Normally, nightcrawlers shouldn’t be able to blend in their entire bodies with their surroundings.”

Holly nodded. “As soon as we’ve checked on everyone and find out who is missing. I still can’t believe it got past the outer watch without anyone noticing.”

“Did the gun kill it?” Magnus asked.

Luka shook his head. “It went over the parapet and dropped down into the marsh when the cannon hurt it too much. It was twice the size of your drakes.”

“Good,” I replied. “Let’s go and check on our mounts.”

I took a step forward, but Thalia turned me around. “Nonono! We are going to your room and you will take your armour off so I can check the wound!”

I tried to protest, but Magnus also insisted. “You can come after Thalia takes a look. I will see to the drakes with the guards.”

When I stubbornly tried to follow Magnus, Thalia pulled on the wound with her bloodvines.

It was enough to have me hiss curses at her and turn around, right back to my room.