It had been a week since the fight with the Red Hand, and the city had stayed in its tense balance. Steven had heard of a few fights online, and a few regions had gotten sucked up in Scenarios, but aside from that, everything had held the same.

As for Steven…

“You dick!” growled Margie.

Micheal gave her a smug look as he took a sip of coffee.

“What can I say? I’ve got a thing for geometry.”

She glared at the game board as if her ire could change the pieces around.

Steven would admit Micheal was a fiend at board games. It didn’t even seem to matter if they were mostly luck based. The man still tended to come out on top.

Steven made his move, which just so happened to further box Margie in.

She stared at him. Noodle chuffed in a way that sounded suspiciously like a laugh.

Margie eyed the dog, but he refused to meet her gaze.

“Can’t get any respect in my own home.” Buford trundled over and laid his head on her lap. 'Except from you, boy. That’s why you're my favorite.”

Noodle didn’t deign that with a response.

The game continued for a few turns, but as Steven moved his piece, the System spoke in his ear.

“Not there, a little to the left, with your small one.”

“Huh!?”

Instead of answering, the System shouted, its voice whip-cracking through his thoughts.

“THE BEASTS OF THE NORTH GROW RESTLESS. YOU DON'T HAVE MUCH TIME LEFT.”

The words hung there for a beat, like a threat left to sink in.

The words faded, and the System remained quiet.

Was that it?

He looked to the others, but they seemed just as baffled.

“So…it’s just going to throw that out and leave?” Micheal asked.

The System answered.

“Oh, I almost forgot! Patch notes! Ahem.” The sound of shuffling papers filled Steven’s ears.

“You can now think at your Skills to retrieve specific information about them. Some info will need to be figured out the hard way, but if you want to know how long your Skill lets you fly for on the fly, just think it.”

“Now, moving on from the general changes, Jarad is getting his Class Skill nerfed. That’s all for today.”

The System took a deep breath. ”SYSTEM OUT!”

Micheal rubbed his chin. “My man Jarad got his Skill nerfed two weeks in a row. He must be a monster to need that many.”

Steven nodded. “So…”

“The Beasts,” Margie finished.

“If they start leaving their territory, our neighborhood is right in the blast zone. Hell, one of them is practically on our doorstep.”

Micheal looked between them, then sighed. “We’re going to need to fight them, aren’t we?” Before they answered, he was already getting up and moving toward the door.

“We probably are,” Margie called after him. “But where are you going? The System said we shouldn’t pick a fight with the Beasts until we’re level 10.”

Micheal nodded as he pulled on his coat. “Which is why we’re going to do some scouting. We need to know which Beast we should try to fight first.”

Well, fair enough.

Steven and Margie climbed to their feet and joined Micheal to stare at some monsters.

~<>~<>~

Some brave and foolish people had already scouted the Beasts and posted their findings online.

But they still wanted to get their own look…at a distance.

They pulled to a stop, the wheels of Margie’s truck crunching against the snow.

The Scenario map showed this Beast’s territory as deep red, and they were still a good hundred feet from its border.

Margie threw the car in park and rolled down her window, letting the winter air blow in.

Steven shivered and pulled Noodle closer, trying to siphon the hound's warmth.

Noodle grunted but didn’t try to pull away.

Margie pulled out her binoculars, looking like an avid bird watcher as she scanned the trees.

They had stopped near Mount McKinley Drive, where a switch back over the mountain gave them a decent view into the forest.

“This is the bear, right?” Margie asked.

Micheal shivered. “Roll up the window. It’s not going to hurt your view enough to matter! And yeah, this Beast is a giant bear. The things supposed to be the size of a freaking elephant.”

Margie grunted and begrudgingly rolled up the window.

Steven pushed past Buford to look out at the trees, his own binoculars in hand.

There were trees. And snow…lots of both, really, and not much else. Oh, the view was pretty, especially with the city sprawling out in the distance and the bay and dome past it. But as for the trees, not much was changing.

After five minutes of nothing, Steven sighed. “I’m beginning to see why stakeouts are considered boring.”

Buford chuffed.

“Yeah,” Micheal agreed. “Not exactly riveting.” He yawned and stretched. “Do we know what Skills the guy reporting on these things has?”

Steven blinked. “Huh?”

“The guy who posted about the Beasts. Elias something. He started posting the info on all his social media accounts. I figure he has to have some sort of moment Skill to get info on the Beasts without getting eviscerated.”

Steven scratched Buford’s head as he thought.

“Why aren’t there pictures? If this guy’s seen them?”

“The System strikes down any photos, but it will let people talk about the Beasts without interfering.”

Steven scowled. The System was odd about what it censored. It still wouldn’t let him tell any of his friends outside the dome specifics of what was happening, but it was fine with the wider world knowing they had magic and fought monsters, but anything with more detail was immediately stopped cold.

He sighed. “Maybe the guy can teleport."

They went back and forth the better part of a half hour before Margie cut them off.

"Look!”

Steven focused on the trees and saw a moose. It was full-grown and grazing on some branches.

Steven opened his mouth to comment when he noticed the red light. It poured through the trees, staining the snow a blood red.

The moose lifted its head. Its ears pulled back, and it turned to run.

The trees exploded.

Shards of wood and flame covered the moose as a massive form barreled forward, slamming into the moose and carrying it to the ground.

The bear was massive. The elephant comparison had been conservative if anything. Its brown fur was shaggy, with streaks of red running up and down its forelegs. Though they quickly vanished as the moose’s blood wetted its fur.

Its massive head dipped down, digging into the corpse. Fire smoldered over the snow and sparked off the bear's hide, occasionally surging around it in a gigantic ring.

The bear stopped. Then it slowly lifted its bloodied maw and looked right at them.

Steven swallowed as its glowing red eyes bored into him.

“Maybe we should leave… now.”

“Why, what’s wrong? Micheal asked. They only had two pairs of binoculars. Margie handed him hers as she backed them up.

Micheal swore. “Yep! Leaving is a great idea!”

It wasn’t supposed to leave its turf yet, and they were over a hundred feet from its border and even more than that in elevation.

But suddenly, that felt far too close.

“Let’s go check out Potter’s Marsh, then Valley of The Moon,” Micheal said, his voice shaking a little.

As they drove, a simple thought turned over in Steven’s head. They weren’t ready. Not for something like that. But the System had said a level 10 party could fight them. Well, it had said at least level 10.

But level 10 was only a single level away for him. How much of a power spike would it be to let him fight something like that bear?

Seeing it burst from the trees like that…his hands shook.

Steven needed to be stronger. If he wanted to protect the others from things like that bear, he needed power.

He took a deep breath. “System, how are we supposed to reach level 10 without fighting other humans?”

The System filled his mind with a low, satisfied chuckle. “I thought you’d never ask.”