Viktor had finished his huge chunk of meat and was gnawing the last little bits of gristle from the bone. The bone itself was as sizable as the original haunch had been, and was easily as long as my leg.

"Did that take the edge off of your hunger?" I asked him with a grin.

He looked at me as we continued our walk. "A little," he acknowledged.

The wooooo noise struck just then, as the wind picked up. It still raised the hackles on my neck whenever it occurred. There wasn't any geometry at work inside the crevasse that would account for the sound - that I could see - and there were other reasons for me to believe it wasn't exactly natural. There was a very slight hint of Nebula that I could see flow whenever it occurred.

Now, the wind itself had a hint of Nebula by default in this world, with the occasional Mote of the same Alignment. Those were light blue, similar to the robes I was wearing. This wasn't that. Instead, I could see another alignment at play, a thin blue-green that reminded me of something, but I couldn't quite place it.

When the noise rose, a couple of matching Motes would pop into existence, thinning out the normally present Alignment. They'd get carried along with the rest of the wind, then fade away once the sound did.

I watched as one blew into me, stopping and sinking into the surface of my skin. Steeve appeared, looking at the area where it had vanished from atop my head, before zipping off to go chase down a few more, snapping at them and apparently eating them. I realized that without my special talents, she probably looked like she was trying to eat the air.

Well, assuming anyone else could see what she was doing.

Originally I assumed that Steeve's antics were visible for all, but recently I realized that wasn't the case. There was a moment at the Falcon's Eye where she walked out of the tub with a materialized towel around her torso, before sneezing and blowing it off into the air, where it fell slowly like a leaf. After watching it for a second in mock horror, the little fox then ran away while with a glowing, cloudy blush replete with blush 'lines' on it superimposed floating just over her face. As though she was wearing an embarrassed ghost as a mask or something. That one made me laugh out loud.

Qīwù had been there, washing my back as was customary for her, and she had no idea what was so funny, despite Steeve's performance being essentially at eye-level for her. It was then I realized Steeve was apparently only as visible as she wanted to be, and in this case the towel gag was meant to be an inside joke just between the two of us.

No idea why though; I thought it was pretty solid.

A distant barking sound - something halfway between a chicken and a dog - shook me out of my internal diversion.

"Well, that is not a noise you hear every day," István said jovially, but at the same time I felt more than saw the density of the surrounding Nebula increase. Looking over, I could see a series of nodes light up. István had Streams!

I wasn't sure if he'd had them before at the Spar and I'd just been too far away to see them or what. Either way…

"Congratulations on your advancement," I said.

Viktor cut off the response that was on István's tongue with an abrupt swing of the bone in his hand. With a noise like that of a melon falling on the ground, it connected with something that had dashed out of the fog. Crimson splashed into the air, and whatever it was got returned to sender.

Viktor glanced at the business end of of his improvised club; judging by the grin, he liked what he saw. He spun it around a few times.

In the distance I heard the sounds of that same something thrashing around on the ground, evidently stunned or mortally wounded by the strike. I directed my Nebula forward and the sphere of clarity around us expanded.

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I'd been too slow, however, and all that we found was a copious amount of blood and scratches on the ground. Whatever had been there either came to its senses enough or something else retrieved it.

Wet crunching sounds answered my question almost immediately, which is the worst kind of answer, if you ask me. Not a lick of suspense.

I also heard some growls and more of the weird barks. "If I had to guess," I said out loud, realizing I was doing a lot of thinking inside my head, "Whatever strange new foe we've encountered is not above eating its own. We'd best keep our heads on a swivel."

"Way ahead of you," Qīwù said, looking around like she was attempting to create thrust with her swinging hair. The cultivator 'style' was long and flowing, which seemed disinclined for combat, but made quite the statement when combined with their graceful combat styles. Here though, it just looked like Qīwù was trying to braid it hands-free.

I grabbed her head. "It's just an expression, you're making me dizzy. They're all in front, anyway."

"How do you know?" She asked, looking confused, but at least stopping the head movements.

I pointed at the ground, where a creeping carpet of my Nebula had spread out. I'd used this technique before, originally to find Steeve, and then to see just how screwed I was in the forest when I first encountered the Stormwing Circle.

Here, it was doing double duty - I was checking the ground ahead of us and trying to locate our adversaries. Several times while walking down the canyon floor we'd encountered cracks, holes and other pitfalls I wasn't keen on suddenly finding in the middle of a fight.

My 'Nebulocation' had eventually let me determine we had at least five of these adversaries, although they were scrambling over the remains of their fallen comrade to such an extent that I couldn't clearly make them out.

"Do you still have that launcher from before?" I asked?

"No," István said, before grinning. "Something much better."

He pulled an ornate pistol from his pocket. It had a dark black body covered in golden accents that evoked ivy. He'd clearly taken some inspiration from the architecture in the sect, and likely help from their artisans. I knew he'd been spending time with them.

"New toy?" Viktor said, surprising me. Usually he didn't care about anything anyone else did. I guess István's weapons were an exception.

"It is!" said the man in question, his eyes lighting up. He held the gun out for Viktor examine it. The big man tapped a Seal near where the hammer would have been, had it been a normal weapon. Granted, his finger was so huge it was hard to tell exactly what he was tapping.

"This should be farther back," Viktor said, a brief flare of energy from his finger passing into the gun, where all the Seals lit up. He then somehow slid the one in question towards the grip. Qīwù's jaw dropped.

"This one thanks Elder Mountain for his enlightenment!" she almost shouted, bowing repeatedly.

What?

That's… not something that is supposed to be possible, I heard Celistar say inside my head. Usually, once seals are applied, they are immutable. Fascinating…

I got a chill down my spine; she sounded just like István when she said that. Was I about to have two 'Elder Scholars' on my hands?

When he lifted his finger, the Seal stayed put. "There," the big guy said, his voice little more than a rumble. "That will be more efficient when you use it."

"Ohh!" István explained. "I never would have thought of that. Thank you."

Viktor just nodded, tapping his bone on his shoulder. He seemed a bit impatient… or maybe a little embarrassed?

"As you were saying, oh 'Venerable'?" István said, a twinkle in his eye. He loved teasing me about my title.

"There's a big pile of them about thirty meters that direction." I said, and you could still hear them scrabbling and the sounds of crunching as they ate their fallen comrade. Luckily all the fighting reduced their efficiency, or we might have already had a problem on our hands.

István raised his newly 'touched' pistol up, sighting in on a target none of us save me could see. Qīwù was still staring at it as if doing so would let her figure out what Viktor had done when even Celistar wasn't sure.

A loud pop washed over the group as he fired, but there was very little to see… if you couldn't see the Nebula, anyway. In my aura sight, a very concentrated bolus of Nebula burst out of the muzzle, trailing loose wisps and growing smaller as it went. It vanished into the fog as a firm thump rang out, echoing through our feet before reverberating up the tawny sandstone of the walls. I was half-disappointed that the new weapon didn't 'bloop' anymore.

Although it was hard to argue with the outcome. At the same time the thump had come, I had felt the echoes of the group of enemies vanish as a blast wave tore apart the veil of Nebula I was covering the ground with.

A chunk of something flew towards me, and Viktor stretched out a palm to stop it from landing. Looking at the bit of gore in his hand, he smiled.

"That really puts the 'pop' in 'popgun'."

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