"Have you ever run with wolves, Varghen? There's a rush to it. You're moving on your own but it's like you're all one. Like a shoal of fish or something. Fuck, it's incredible! And you feel all this energy within you. Just bubbling up in an endless well. You can't fall behind until the others get tired, and you're all focused on that one goal together? I love it. I try to get out at least once a season to hunt with the Timber Wolves of the Great Plains.

"But I only went hunting with a big cat just the once. Terrifying experience, honestly – I'll never do it again. The hunt was fine itself, but there was no comradery there. Didn't feel a hint of shared purpose. I was out there for the joy of it, and the cat – great big fucker of a Jag, he was – Nah, he was out there just to kill.

"I swear, we took down a Storm-Elk – an impressive specimen itself, to be fair – but the moment that thing was dead and the cat looked at me? Flat eyes. Nothing behind them. Calculating and cold, but no emotion whatsoever. I was next on the list, and the only reason I walked out of there was because I'd not turned my back for a few miles.

"Fuck me, never again."

- Royal Huntsman to Suzerain Antanista Red-Hand, 2nd Herald of the Winter Court, as recorded by royal scribes in the Book of the Court (16th edition)

Through the gaps in the large palm fronds and Jurassic ferns that thrust bravely towards the canopy above, I saw a glittering wall of icy spears. Shards and icicles at least three feet long protruded in a semi-circle, their bristling points aimed at my head. And my heart. And my eyes and my face and my stomach and my…

Safe to say I was panicking.

I activated Check-Step, more instinct than conscious thought at this point, and the world slowed minutely. I had a moment to think as my body hurtled towards its imminent death. No time to stop, barely any time to slow myself, and not sufficiently to prevent a grisly death by impalement in any case. Check-Step as a Skill was almost perfectly designed for this moment, what with its momentum-altering effects, but I couldn't cut momentum entirely in an instant, and I was already mid-stride and slightly off the ground. I had microseconds before impact, and there was precious little time to think, let alone physically move.

I couldn't tell visually, but my stone-sense helpfully informed me that the ice was at least as thick through as my arm was long. Despite my enhanced attributes, there would be little hope of smashing through with my bodyweight alone, and those ice-spears would make any such impact devastating.

I could bring my shield to bear and potentially save myself the indignity of leaving my companions a body full of holes to mourn over, but I'd certainly break a collarbone and perhaps worse by hitting a solid wall of ice at my speed, even tucked behind it. Meeting the creature responsible for creating the obstruction while incapacitated was tantamount to death, anyway.

Said creature, the one I had been hunting with my trusty silver friend, had pivoted on its giant three-toed hooves and was rearing up on its hind legs, moments away from smashing through the ice wall it had just created.

My mind worked at a frenetic pace, frantically creating and discarding plans to get me out of the death sentence I'd written for myself, until I stumbled upon an idea that might work. It was a gamble, but I didn't have time to search for a better one in the heartbeat since I'd activated Check-Step.

Committing fully, I de-activated the Skill and put all of my focus into Faultline as I reached out to within the convex wall of icy death before me. Time didn't slow as I searched for imperfections within the conjured element, instead I let my instincts guide me. Long days of hard study and experience forcing my mind to search in likely locations for that single microscopic crack, that tiny imperfection that could allow my Skill to take root.

Blessedly, after another heartbeat in which I closed half the remaining distance to the spears in front of me, I found the microfractures littering the internal lattice of the wall, and without hesitation pushed all of the mana I could muster from my core into the Skill constellation of Faultline.

An ominous crack echoed through the forest, and a moment later my body slammed into the wall, shield held in front of me and shoulder and knee bracing against it. I was curled tightly into a ball, keeping as much of my body covered by the bronze artifact as possible. There followed a series of crunches as my shield, reinforced and given momentum by my Mountain-Born body, smashed through the three-foot-long spikes that extended from the white barrier, before I impacted the wall itself, right against the burgeoning crack created by my newest Skill.

Breath whooped from my lungs, and I felt my very bones shake with the impact, but my shield held strong, and the ice wall did not. I burst through the crack, spittle spraying from my mouth as I was essentially punched in the entire body by a massive fist of elemental mana. It didn't matter though – I was through.

Just in time to see the giant body of the Glacial Rhinoceros falling towards me. Over five tonnes of mammalian might descended upon me, encased in an armour of frost and snorting freezing air from its massive nose. I once more activated Check-Step, but my feet had not even touched the ground and I had little hope of avoiding the tree-trunk sized legs aiming to crush my feeble body.

Another impact rocked me, and I was now flying sideways, watching the ground shake as the rhino stamped down on empty earth with an outraged bellow. I rolled swiftly to my feet, seeing a silver flash as my hunting companion darted in and under the massive creature, catching its attention for a moment and buying me time to reassess.

The Juvenile Rakshasa that had accompanied me on my hunt was not yet a match for such a massive creature on its own, although if it reached maturity and developed its third set of tails, it would be far more powerful. What mattered right now, though, was that there were two of us attacking the one Glacial Rhinoceros, and clearly we were able to work together.

I shrugged my shoulder bearing the shield. It was sore as all hells, but still responded seamlessly to my commands, and that was what was important at the moment. The Rhino was at least ten feet tall at the shoulder, and its hide was hidden beneath a foot or so of solid ice.

Jorge's advice from earlier was essential to my plan of attack and current survival. The hint was in the name – I was hunting a glacial creature, with an affinity for not just frozen water, but one inspired by the frozen lakes of the Dragon-Spine mountains themselves. Its ice was not just water cooled below its freezing point, but also further compacted by geological amounts of pressure. That pressure caused bubbling and the build-up of many small layers within the substance, responsible for the white colour rather than a natural blue. Normally that would make it stronger than regular ice formed by temperature alone, but it also made my Skill much more effective.

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Jorge hadn't quite told me that hunting a Glacial Rhinoceros was a good idea, but when I'd confirmed my desire to do so with enough force, he'd eventually relented and given me some advice regarding my approach. 'Use your most powerful Skill to break through its armour and Skills' wasn't exactly phenomenal advice when you really thought about it, but that was the good thing about being impulsive – I didn't tend to think too deeply about things like that.

I hefted my spear and held my arm in position for a few moments, whistling at the Rakshasa to get its attention. It flicked an eye stalk in my direction while it continued to prance around and beneath the raging ball of muscle and hoarfrost we were fighting, in what was once a normal patch of forest. It now resembled a small clearing at least twenty foot wide. The broken carcasses of trampled trees lay scattered across the ground, and the six-legged Rakshasa danced through them without issue, nimble padded feet guided by the mane of prehensile eye-stalks flaring out from its neck to survey its surroundings. It had clearly gleaned my intent, for it launched forwards in a flash and scraped a glowing silver claw as long as my forearm down the icy armour at the rhino's flank.

It hadn't managed to pierce through, but the smaller creature was deceptively strong, and the impact must have hurt since the rhino whipped around with another bellow. The moment it moved I launched forwards, a throw with my entire body behind it, guided by eight levels in The Forgotten Spear, ten in Guerrilla Warfare, and nearly seventy attribute points in strength.

The magical bronze alloy of the lanceolate spear tip thudded into the gap between the rhino's neck and shoulder and buried itself deep into the frozen coat protecting its vitals. I dove to the side as the enormous creature continued its turn, swinging its backside around towards me. It seemed like a ridiculous move on the surface, but with a few tonnes of armour-wrapped muscle flying towards me, I had to admit to its effectiveness.

From my position on the ground, having avoided death for the 2nd time in as many moments, I reached out with Faultline and seized on the cracked armour at the creature's shoulder. Fractures spiderwebbed their way across its chest and flank, and I focused on the Skill, willing cracks to widen and then ripping them apart with my mana-empowered intent.

The Rakshasa dove back in just as I screamed with the mental effort and tore away a thick plating of armour from the rhino's neck. My spear fell to the ground, and suddenly there was nothing to protect the creature's hide and the organs beneath from the lunging claws of one of Tsanderos's most prolific and legendary hunters.

The Rakshasa scraped a deep wound into the rhino that fountained blood around the clearing as the larger creature reared back in pain. Unwilling to be outdone and keen to claim my part of the experience, I rushed forwards. Mountain-Born guided my steps, and I scooped up my spear from the ground before leaping into the air.

I stretched like a bow, both hands gripping the weapon above my head, back arched and ready. As I reached the height of my leap, I flexed inwards and drove the spear into its hide. The impact was heavy, but the spear dug deep. I was left to swing back and forth for a moment, riding out the frenzied bucking of the Glacial Rhinoceros as it contended with strikes from two directions at once.

I caught another flash of silver in my vision as the smaller creature darted back out of range while the rhino summoned another wall of spears. My temporary ally hadn't been in much danger of being hit, but the rhino's attack did give it some breathing room, leaving me on my own for the moment and firmly back in the top spot for most aggravating danger.

Rather than hang around to find out what horrible things would happen if I didn't move, I climbed up onto the back of the titanic beast, breath wheezing from my strained lungs, whether from exertion or the cold I wasn't sure. I managed to snag one of its ears in hand, and wrenched myself around and onto its face, sliding down until I could place on foot against the first of its two horns.

It all happened so fast. By the time it had realised I had been hanging on to the spear, I was scrabbling down onto its face. By the time it realised I was on its face, my knife was driving into one of its eyes.

I was flung bodily away by its flailing and sailed through the air to land with a heavy thud against the trunk of a downed tree. I groaned as I sat up but regained my wits quickly enough to leap to my feet and start moving once more. I'd done serious damage to the creature, but with a beast of this size and power, to stand still was a death sentence.

The many-limbed Rakshasa scrabbled up the wall of ice and leapt onto the back of the great rhino as it continued to fling its head about, trying in vain to dislodge the knife from its eye and bellowing in pain all the while. Sharp claws began to tear at the armour on its back, and I reached out once more with Faultline to rid it of its protective shell. Soon enough, the claws were leaving bloody furrows in the rhino's hide as thick ice, now stained red, slipped to the ground.

From there it was a long, drawn out, and brutal affair. We whittled the massive beast down, opening fresh wounds and spilling gallons of blood before it finally collapsed with my spear through its neck. I sagged in place, shoulders drooping from the strain and red staining my clothes. My spear butt dug into the earth as I leaned against it after pulling it out of the corpse.

A crimson muzzle raised to the air and sniffed my way, prehensile eye-stalks looking strangely like a mane of dreadlocks focused on me for a moment before resuming their constant vigil. The young Rakshasa feasted, diving through the viscera with glee to seek out the nutrient and mana-rich organs of the fallen behemoth.

"Fuck, I'm exhausted," I groaned as I levered myself down to a seat on a broken tree stump. A couple of eye-stalks swivelled my way. They focused intently on me for a moment and the large cat went strangely still, and I laughed as I realised its interest.

"Not that exhausted, mate. Don't push it."

Thankfully, the rhino began to jerk around again as the terrifying cat continued its feast. I wasn't truly sure how much of my speech it understood, but the Juvenile Rakshasa definitely had a way of letting its intentions be known through its actions and body language, despite its lack of spoken language.

After trailing the Glacial Rhinoceros for a few hours, I'd caught sight of the young Rakshasa running along the opposite ridgeline. I'd thought at first that it had been stalking me. We'd come to an agreement by funnelling the great beast towards the end of a valley, herding it together from opposite sides. It was a gamble, but in an open area like this, with food plentiful and easier prey around, I had decided to risk it and continued the hunt, praying it wouldn't turn on me at the end. Given the joy with which it was ripping through the carcass currently, I was incredibly glad it had paid off.

I was distracted from the grisly sight by the ringing in my head, and turned my attention to the gains from the fight.

You have killed a Glacial Rhinoceros (level 78). Experience gained.

You have reached level 45. Attribute points available for allocation.

Skill 'Faultline' has increased in level. Faultline – level 7

New Skill Available – Tilt.

No open Skill slots available, Skill banked.

It seemed unfair that such a kill only granted me a single level, but I hadn't been alone in the battle, and the experience requirements were growing astronomical with each level that I gained. I shuddered to think of the death I'd have to deal out just to progress through the 2nd tier.

More interestingly, I had a new Skill. This was no doubt my second, and presumably last, late Skill of the class. To be granted two late Skills was already a surprise, but the name of the Skill further intrigued me. I had some choices to make, it seemed.

Right now though, I had a carcass to butcher. The meat would be useful, and I was keen to bring back at least a part of one of its horns to Jorge. Not only could he tell me if it was likely to be valuable or not, but he may also know of a way I could use it as a material for potential weapons or armour.

I sighed in contentment as I did a final check over my injuries to ensure the adrenaline wasn't hiding something from me, before I got on with the morbid task.

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