\|/ Turn 47, midlight

  Mik and I almost got killed last dark. I was stupidly ignorant about the hunters.

  I almost lost my journal because of it. I don’t know what I would’ve done had I not found it.

  I was writing about Mik teaching me it’s weird head gestures. Mik was working out it’s left arm at the time, moving it around and tilting it. Its arm wasn’t shaking anymore, but it was still extremely thin.

  As I wrote, there was some minor shuffling around the tent, but I didn’t think it was anything dangerous. Mik didn’t stress over it, either. The fire was almost completely out.

  Then, the hunter found us.

  Mik and I both looked at a yip coming from the entrance to the tent. A large, chitinous light-blue snout clacked as four fully black eyes stared at us. Its cloak was a silver-white combination, and it was massive, its clawed feet as large as my torso. It left no taste in the air.

  Mik picked up its hatchet. I let my journal fall to the ground, picking up my spear.

  It all happened way too fast.

  The being yipped loudly again and tried to come into the tent. It got stuck on the entrance, making the entire tent tilt.

  I quickly got up and plunged my spear into it. Mik tried to swing its hatchet at the hunter, but it moved back into the dark. Red blood dripped from my spear, releasing the metallic taste.

  More of them showed up.

  Similar trills surrounded the tent. Mik and I backed up towards the center, back-to-back. I was hoping they would impale themselves on the spikes and run away, but they were out for our blood.

  One side of the tent was torn apart by a massive claw. It made the tent look laughably weak, despite it surviving massive weights of snow. I tried stabbing at the newly formed hole but didn’t connect with anything.

  The first hunter, gauging from tasting blood in its direction, slammed into the tent from the other side. Several of the embedded pieces of wood flew out, and the tent partially flew up.

  It managed to squeeze under the partial opening and charge towards us. I threw myself off to the side, landing on my left arm, screaming out in pain.

  The hatchet connected with its neck. It tried to yip, but blood filled its snout immediately.

  The hunter fell onto the central piece of wood. It snapped it in half, bringing the tent collapsing in on itself.

  The heavy tent compressed fell on top of me, making it hard to breathe. I couldn’t see where anything was, and I could only hear wet gurgling and more trills.

  Fortunately, the fire had gone out from the parachute material falling onto it, otherwise I would’ve burned alive.

  I managed to claw out of one side of the tent, panting from exertion. I stood and held my spear up, my left arm aching, but I couldn’t see anything. There was some bioluminescent moss around, but I could only see shapes in front of me.

  The trills intensified from one direction, the same direction I could taste Mik from.

  I saw Mik trying to fend off two of the large hunters, swinging its hatchet wildly. The hunters dodged easily, and one took flight above him.

  I tried distracting them by hissing as loud as I could, but they were dead set on Mik.

  The flying hunter dove down and grabbed Mik’s right arm. Mik flailed as the other hunter took flight and grabbed his left leg.

  They started flapping wildly, trying to pull Mik apart. Mik screamed in terror. My vision narrowed to Mik dying.

  I made one last ditch effort; I threw my spear as hard as I could.

  The Suns must’ve blessed me, because it connected.

  The spear hit the hunter holding Mik’s right arm in the wing. It lost control and crashed into the ground, bringing Mik and the other hunter down with it.

  I sprinted to Mik. It was groaning on the floor, but it was alive. I grabbed it by its shoulder and pulled as hard as I could, yelping from straining my left arm. Mik got up, stumbling. It grabbed its hatchet from the ground, and we ran away from the tent as fast as we could.

  The hunter without the spear in its wing trilled and chased after us. It chased us, in a weird combination of hopping and flying.

  It stopped when a loud yip could be heard from the hunter I had hit.

  I heard it turning around and hop-flying back to the tent.

  I collapsed soon after, panting so quickly my lungs burned. Mik crouched beside me, tasting like when I first saw it destroy the tree, though combined with fear.

  I pulled myself up and leaned against a tree, with Mik looking over me towards the tent. I doubted it could see anything.

  Trills could be heard in the distance, but they weren’t approaching. Something caught their attention.

  Squirmy…

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  I covered my eyes with my hands. I had just gotten attached to the weird little being.

  “Maya.” Mik whispered.

  I looked at it but could barely see its face aside from the general shape.

  Mik took its journal out, writing something.

  I panicked, feeling my pocket. It was empty.

  I left my sunsdamned journal there…

  Mik handed me its journal. I looked at it but couldn’t read anything in the dark. I handed the journal back and moved my head left and right.

  At the moment, I considered making a run for it to get my journal. It meant everything to me. But I was smart enough not to commit suicide by hunter this time and thought about when to actually get it.

  They always leave by day, like the shadow…

  Mik, meanwhile, got some mold from a nearby tree. It put the mold into its journal and opened the page where it wrote, handing it back to me.

  “Monster not see” is what I could read.

  I held out my hand, and Mik gave me its pen. Writing with Mik’s blunt feeling pen instead of mine felt jarring.

  “Hide” I wrote underneath automatically.

  Did I really just do that, now out of all times?

  I groaned internally and gave Mik back its journal. It was right, we needed to hide, at least until morning.

  I stood up and held out my hand. Mik grabbed it lightly.

  I shuddered, knowing how long I’d have to lead it that way.

  We carefully started moving in a large arc around the tent. I lead Mik with my right hand, using my left hand to feel the trees.

  I heard some kind of scraping noise coming from the tent. I didn’t even want to imagine what was happening there.

  After quite a bit of searching, I finally felt one of the marks towards the lake I made on the trees.

  I followed them, still leading Mik. Its hand was colder than I ever felt it be.

  After a while, we got to Shlika. The bush rustled because we had gotten too close without Mik crouching. We did the usual charade of taking a few steps back, Mik crouching and then going through the bush.

  Mik almost fell over me when I stopped in the middle of the bush. It kicked me with its leg accidentally.

  “Watch it.” I hissed, immediately shying away. It was unnecessary.

  I let go of Mik’s hand and sat down, lightly thumping the ground with my tail next to me.

  Mik looked around. It was unsure about the idea, but after a moment it sat down next to me.

  When Shlika closed around us Mik panicked, grabbing its hatchet. I quickly grabbed its arm to prevent it hurting Shlika.

  “Don’t.” I whispered. “Safe.”

  Mik slowly brought its hatchet down.

  We spent the rest of the dark there. Neither of us slept, mostly sitting or lying in the bush. We were hidden under Shlika, but we both knew what happened to our tent.

  Our home was gone. The very first thing we did together, while I was still afraid that Mik would betray me.

  When first light came through the bush, enough to actually see properly, I decided it was time to find my journal.

  I tapped Mik with my tail. It was half asleep, but it woke up quickly. I motioned to its pocket.

  Mik gave me its journal and pen.

  I drew a little tent and wrote “Maya” near it. I tapped the side of Mik’s journal a couple of times.

  Mik moved its head up and down. We got up, Shlika opening, and made our way to the tent.

  I felt extremely vulnerable without my spear as we made our way to the tent. I was glued to Mik. Mik didn’t feel safe either, tasting like fear and holding its hatchet tightly.

  While we were walking, I noticed Mik’s left arm wasn’t in its improvised sling. The sling was probably lost somewhere in the chaos. Mik was holding its thin left arm very close to its stomach, but it was actually holding it on its own now. I felt the slightest glimmer of happiness from seeing it get better.

  When we got close to the tent, we veered off of the path (though it was overgrowing again) and hid behind some bushes.

  I could taste blood in the air, but otherwise there wasn’t any noise. The hunters had left.

  Very carefully, Mik and I got to the ruins of the tent.

  It was a complete mess. The structure was completely destroyed, with the bushes around heavily bent and broken.

  Even worse, it was buried.

  Parts of the parachute and leaves were visible through the small mound, but if we didn’t know exactly where the tent was, we would struggle to find it. I almost impaled myself on a spike that was sticking out. It felt like the failed defense was taunting me.

  I got on my knees and started digging, Mik helped.

  The taste of blood intensified as we got to the actual tent.

  Then, we found the first hunter.

  Its carcass was torn apart, missing a lot of its body.

  Mik took a step back when he saw it. I just stared into the open body. I refused to see eyes again.

  They cannibalized and buried it.

  They bury prey.

  The reason I didn’t see any carcasses and thought it was safe was because these hunters buried what they ate.

  I hated myself at the moment, feeling like an idiot.

  I unburied the rest of the body as much as I could and tried dragging it out, but my left arm was too painful.

  Mik helped a moment later, and we moved it off to the side.

  We continued digging, finding some more things. The bowls were wrecked, completely broken apart. One bowl was only split in half, so I put it off to the side.

  We got to what used to be my sand bed and I found Squirmy. There was very little left of my would-be pet. Only a few of its legs were there. The rest was consumed.

  I’m sorry.

  I buried the tiny being in the sand. I felt too numb to grieve it.

  Then, in another part of the sand bend, I found my journal.

  I wanted to be happy to find it, but I felt only a little relieved.

  Everything else was gone. I didn’t even want to be in the area.

  I flipped through the pages, seeing it was fully intact, if full of dirt. The pen was there as well.

  “Mik” I called out. Mik, who was digging in another part, looked at me.

  I showed Mik my journal. Mik nodded, but I saw water coming out of its eyes silently.

  I went over to Mik and pulled its right shoulder. It didn’t budge.

  “Let’s go, Mik.” I hissed lightly to it. “It’s no use.” I pulled harder, dragging it out of its digging trance.

  Mik finally got up. I took the split bowl and one of the dead hunter’s wings, with Mik taking its leg. We made our way to the lake.

  It’s midlight now. Mik and I are on the right side of the lake. I’m on the beach, writing this, while Mik is under the shade. It’s fixing the bowl with some leaves right now.

  Mik made a campfire on the sand. It hacked off a bit of the hunter and descaled it, putting it on the sand next to the fire while I wrote this.

  I feel as if losing the tent means I lost a part of me. It meant as much to me as Unity’s Hope did.

  \|/ Turn 47, late light

  Mik and I are still on the lake, and I’m writing this now since we won’t be starting a fire under Shlika. I haven’t been doing anything productive; I couldn’t force myself to do anything.

  Mik, meanwhile, was constantly running around, keeping itself distracted.

  We ate half of the cannibalized hunter during midlight and left half for now.

  While we were eating, I saw Mik’s face going red and coughing.

  Wait…

  Is that the same from when there was snow…?

  After we ate, when Mik went to gather leaves to fix the bowl, I called out to it. Mik continued to work, but I called out to it a few more times. It finally stopped and looked at me.

  I took my journal out and wrote “Snow monster?”

  Mik read it and stared at me, confused.

  I went over to the rest of the meat and tapped it.

  Mik nodded.

  “How did you catch a sunsdamned hunter in snow?” I breathed out. I wrote “How?” in my journal.

  Mik wrote “Was under snow.”

  It hurried away after that, running to its next task.

  I could only laugh.

  Of course it was buried.

  I went back to the sand, lying down in my own imprint. I saw the divers and the big filter feeder, and even saw another being like Squirmy pass me, but I didn’t bother. What was the point of it?

  I’m forcing myself to write this now. Mik boiled more water, and we’re going to sleep under Shlika this dark.

  At least Mik’s hyperproductivity made it so that we have two bowls now, Mik having fixed the broken one and hastily making a new one. Mik boiled and drank a lot of water, and we’re bringing some to the bush as well.

  I’m tired.

  by D. N. Newyn

  All Severa Montreal ever wanted was to become the greatest dungeoneer alive. Instead, she got to manage other dungeoneers.

  a bit of a spoiled brat. How dare she demand respect when she was only the youngest prodigy in the history of the Synod of Thaumaturgic Studies and the youngest ever to solo a Tier II dungeon?

  hardly refuse: to become the youngest Dungeon Archivist in history. After all, she had an uncanny talent for cataloguing artifacts.

  other dungeoneers as well. Complete, moronic beginners. She would have to face her worst enemy: socializing. But if tolerating other people was what it would take to become the best dungeoneer manager, so be it.