Seeker Tempest ran.

Her blood thundered in her ears as her bare feet carried her through the Graven Jungle. Her heart hammered in her chest as she leaped over fallen logs and sped by Forest Sweepers, not even acknowledging the huge blobs as they turned their eyestalks in her direction. Her breath burned in her lungs as she pushed her flagging body harder and harder. She could feel consciousness slipping from her with the sheer amount of energy she was expending on her flight.

And still she ran.

Because that's what you did when Demons from hell itself might be chasing you.

How did everything go so wrong? The thought had been circling around in the elf's head for hours now, ever since she had reached the western shore and found Them.

Found her.

She had come across the female, alone, as it moved through the jungle as one with purpose. Seeker Tempest had followed her at a safe distance, as one did with Sojourners. And the woman was clearly a Sojourner. Her clothes had been unfamiliar, her face and coloration utterly alien to Seeker Tempest, and the words she muttered from time to time were of a language the elf had never encountered before.

But she knew the stories. She had sat at the elder's knee as they instructed the children on the nature of this world. She knew the legends of otherworlders, Sojourners, being pulled through time and space and deposited on Velkan's surface for some inscrutable purpose. They were the heroes and villains of legend, and though it had been centuries since the last confirmed Sojourner sighting, she knew instinctively that this could be nothing else.

And more importantly, the Sojourner had tech.

Weapons. Far-talkers. Who knew what else the female carried in its backpack. A treasure-trove of not just tech, but new tech, the likes of which the Community had never seen before. Seeker Tempest had known instantly that if she could retrieve just one piece of the female's tech, the elders would welcome her back with open arms.

She could be re-united with her family again. The desire for it burned in her chest like a flame.

So she followed the female. She watched as it slew a Forest Sweeper with negligent ease–although only after receiving minor injuries from the beast's acid and tail sting. She watched as it moved through the forest with the coiled grace of a djacken stalking its prey, the firearm in her hands held casually but ready.

This was a warrior, Seeker Tempest had realized. And in realizing, she had increased the distance at which she followed. Warriors were dangerous, and Sojourner warriors were said to be the most dangerous of all. Capricious and unpredictable at the best of times. If she was seen, her life was likely forfeit. Or worse. The elders still spoke of one Sojourner hundreds of years ago that had nearly brought the Community to ruin over what they had perceived as a slight on their honor.

So she followed, and she watched, and she listened. The female was in contact with others through her far-talker. Seeker Tempest had heard a male's voice–though again, the words were utterly alien to her ears. She was able to infer from their tone and inflections however that they were friendly with each other, possibly more. A mate, perhaps, left back at their campsite or base to guard the home? Would there then be even more tech to be had there? Seeker Tempest had filed that tidbit away in her mind to check later.

So caught up in her own mind and the visions of returning to the community had she been that Seeker Tempest had not realized where they were until it was too late. The signs had been everywhere, the fresh scrapings on the trees, the scuff-marks in the dirt, the tufts of fur and scales seemingly left at random intervals.

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Territory markers.

She had barely managed to keep from screaming in fear when she looked up to realize the female had walked right into the den of a thrakah pack. An old thrakah pack.

The next five minutes were pure fear and chaos. The female fought off an entire thrakah pack with her tech. The weapons–definitely firearms of some sort but of a kind Seeker Tempest had never even dreamed of before–spat death at a rate unheard of. The female thrakahs had melted before the might of that tech, even though the Sojourner took damage from their attacks in turn.

She missed some of the fight then when a female thrakah, in panicked flight from the monster that had fallen in their midst, burst from the underbrush and collided with Seeker Tempest. They had both gone down in a tangle of limbs, and it was only pure instinct and years of drills that had gotten the elf's hand on the hilt of her knife in time. The next handful of seconds were spent in furious combat as she tried to keep the terrified monster from shredding her flesh and ripping her abdomen open in its mad desire for escape.

She had taken some cuts on her arms and legs, and those stung even now as she ran. But fortune had been on her side in the encounter, and in the end, she managed to get her hunting knife into its throat, the star-shaped blade opening up a terrible wound and wrenching the monster's life from its body in one fast ugly motion.

And when she had turned back to see if the Sojourner had noticed, she barely had time to understand what was happening before her world, already teetering on the brink, dove off the cliffs of madness and into the sea of destruction.

The alpha thrakah, which by itself could level entire settlements, was destroyed by the Sojourner. Not through the use of tech, her firearms were simply not up to the task of penetrating the great monster's hide. No, she did it through… That.

[Desperation Arts: Hose The Room!]

The blood had drained from Seeker Tempest's face as an Art was activated, changing the Sojourner's tech from an impressive-yet-ineffective firearm to the weapon of a god. The fire spewing forth from the gun eviscerated the thrakah, and every other living thing in the clearing. The toll it took on the Sojourner was crippling, but it was enough to destroy her enemies and leave her relatively safe, if broken.

For a leaden second, Seeker Tempest could neither move nor think. And then the second passed, and she had looked down at the hunting knife still clutched in her bloody trembling hand. The thought swirled to the surface of her mind; she should kill the Sojourner now. She was weakened, nearly slain, from her fight with the Alpha. It was possibly the only chance she would ever have.

But then the Sojourner, even with her broken form, had crawled to her discarded backpack and retrieved another firearm. This one produced a brilliant light that shot into the air and hung there like a miniature star.

A signal.

A signal to others. A call for help. Seeker Tempest understood it as soon as she saw it. And knew that she had to flee.

More Sojourners were coming.

Fortune smirked on her as she moved away. One of the Sojourner's firearms had been lost in the fight, batted away by a thrakah paw, and the elf practically stumbled over it in her haste to leave the clearing. Her decision to snatch it up as she started to run was made not by her mind but by pure instinct. None from the Community would ever leave tech behind, not if they had a chance to retrieve it. And here was not just tech, but Sojourner tech. A marvelously light firearm, intricately crafted, and loaded with ammunition that could destroy a female thrakah in a bare shot or two.

She clutched her unasked-for prize to her chest and ran.

Because the last thing she had seen, as she turned away from the dying Sojourner and the carnage in its wake, was a soft golden glow around the Alpha coalescing into a small golden coin that hung in mid-air and began to spin slowly.

Everything else fell away from her comprehension. The tech, the boat, the Sojourners, everything was supplanted by that simple golden disc.

And now she ran. She ran back through the jungles, back towards the Community. She ran from ancient stories come to life, and from ancient terrors nipping at her heels. In one hand she carried the Sojourner's tech, the little firearm that blew fist-sized chunks out of thrakahs and Forest Sweepers. In the other she clutched her own familiar knife like it was a talisman against evil.

And in her mind's eye, she saw again the small gold coin hovering just above the ground. A small golden coin, on which was etched the face of the Enemy.

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