The path to the mountains is rocky and steep. Several times both had to stop and fish out a random pebble that had smuggled itself into their boots. The view, however, was divine. The shorter mountains flank and bow beneath the shadows of the tall, snow-capped bulwarks of the Azerlian range. Clouds blanket the mountaintops, rendering some beyond the reach of sight. They flow into the canyons, formed by long-running rivers and glaciers millennia ago.

  Kandar found himself surprised. He almost expected Samira to at least struggle a little, that he'd be much faster than her because he knew this place since childhood, but the girl maneuvered the terrain like she had lived here all her life. He found himself left behind several times, or absolutely convinced he'd overtaken her, before finding her sitting on a rock waiting for him.

  Unfortunately, the little encounter at the T-junction had taken up time, and night was fast approaching. Aside from the wild animals, the unpredictable night weather is dangerous to walk into. They had to make camp. Both chose the banks of a calm river, where red-scaled fish swam against the currents.

  Kandar gathered firewood into a neat pile surrounded by rocks and pebbles. He'd brought a flint, but Samira brought her Worldforger's gun. As the tiniest of flames made by the flint huffed to life, it was siphoned by her gun, dancing in mid-air as ethereal waves. She pulled the trigger. He expected a loud 'BANG", but instead a click was heard as the hammer struck. Tongues of smokeless flame leapt out of her gun and danced towards the firewood until it ignited into a bonfire.

  "Thanks for bringing a flint," Samira said as she sat. "Saved me a bullet."

  "You're welcome. I hardly ever get to see a Worldforger in action. Very few travel around these parts, and most of them just fix really old buildings and leaky roofs."

  Samira chuckled at that.

  "So, what type of worldforger are you?" Kandar asked. "Wait, let me guess – elementalist specializing in fire?"

  "Nope." Samira said, as she gestured towards the water. A sphere formed and floated towards her. One of the red-scaled fish was in it.

  "Oh? Fire-and-water elementalist, then? That's impressive."

  "Not quite..." She stood up, walked towards, and touched two of the bigger rocks around them. Cracks formed, then the stones shattered, leaving two comfortable-looking chairs behind. And a stone pan, which she placed below the floating water orb.

  "Wait, wait. Three-arts elementalist? You can manipulate the earth as well? Wow."

  Okay, how much talent does this girl could possibly have?

  A gust of wind blew hard and split apart the floating water orb with the fish in it. The fish died before it hit the pan.

  "All four elements?! How long did it take you to master them?!"

  "Most of my life." She answered. She poked a tree, and two sharp wooden skewers fell down from it. She caught both.

  Kandar stared at her in silence. Damn, this girl's been worldforging since she's a toddler?

  "Oh wait, do we still need skewers?" She made her way to her leather backpack and started rummaging through it. She took out enough metal utensils for the both of them. Spoons, forks, knives, and two tin plates.

  "I hope you're not allergic to fish. We're having that tonight." She placed the stone pan over the fire. The flames licked the bottom of the stone, and in a few minutes heated the top as well.

  "I....I am in shock." Kandar managed to speak his mind.

  "Please don't be too alarmed. I'm sure there are others more skilled than I am."

  "No, no. I... I just think that it's amazing that you've managed to master five fields of worldforging. I don't think I've met anyone with that much under their belt. You must be really talented..."

  "Talent had nothing to do with it," she said, adjusting the stone pan and turning the bits of fish on it as well as adding more cooking oil. "I've failed more times than most people even tried."

  Absurd. Her parents must be some truly amazing worldforgers. There's no way someone as young as she is could master five fields of worldforging without serious talent.

  "Hey, eat up," she passed him a plate of fish. "We should be there by tomorrow morning. I'll make a shelter for us after dinner."

  "Don't use the stone pan again – it's going to break by morning." Samira said. "And careful with the chairs. I told the rock to form the shape but something else around us is going to break in exchange."

  Kandar wordlessly acknowledged, and began eating. The fish was surprisingly good after a flame, though it needed a bit of salt. Neither brought much, so it was only sparingly used tonight. After the salt, it was delicious. The taste melted across the tongue with every bite.

  The view, however, was more delicious.

  Samira ate her fill and walked around for a bit, examining the surroundings.

  "...Nevermind. Everything around here's easy to get flooded in."

  "We could use my tent!" Kandar offered.

  "How big is it?"

  "...Fits one person and their equipment." He smiled awkwardly.

  "Absolutely not." She refused.

  *******************************************************************************************

  "The thing we are after is an Animiculus," Samira explained. "This one is a soul shard of the last Emperor of the Paragonian Empire, Nasir II Auramzed, made moments before his physical death and divine imprisonment."

  Stolen story; please report.

  "I've never heard of this 'Animiculus' before," Kandar said. "Shouldn't that be something you mentioned to the Freeblade Guild before you made the contract?"

  "Of course it should be, if we had known for sure we would have, and made precautions."

  "You said it's more dangerous now that it has access to two dead bodies. Why?"

  "This Animiculus needs two things to sustain its most dangerous form: heat and organic matter. Without both, it's an inert gemstone that absorbs all light, cold to the touch."

  "When the other Freeblades killed each other, one of them ran from the scuffle and tried to claim the Animiculus to bring it back for the reward. He pocketed the thing and made his way back, but he was shot and killed by the last survivor of the earlier fight. In the time it took for the last Freeblade to approach and try to rummage the corpse, the Animiculus had absorbed his insides through the wound and manipulated his body. The resulting monster killed the last Freeblade and went in search of more heat and bodies."

  "That's why I said things have changed," Samira took out the contract once more. "You still have the choice to back off. As I said, Talon and I will handle things from here."

  She brought the scroll in front of him.

  Kandar pondered for a moment.

  "Nah, I choose to stay," he said, gesturing a refusal. "It's not every day I get to work with a Worldforger, after all, much less your caliber. I'm sure I'll learn a lot, or at least see a spectacular show."

  "So, it's not the money?"

  "Hell no."

  "Well, I'll still expect you to pull your weight. I can't be everywhere at once." Samira put away the contract, hopefully for the last time. She sat back down. Silence descended upon them once more. His decision was final. The money was a nice bonus.

  But the truth was he was probably never going to see her again after this. The more he looked at her, the more interested he became. Her red robe, as it turned out, was partially made of threads of precious metals, hewn into strings then woven into the intricate gold pattern. He'd seen these robes before, worn by State Worldforgers whenever they wanted to show off during an army parade. Or any kind of national celebration, really. Although, the ones worn by State Worldforgers are probably entirely made of precious metals...

  She gazed at the dancing flames. He gazed at her. Her long dark hair was decorated by a series of silvery hairclips on her sidelocks, framing her face. Probably expensive, too. Titanium? Silver? He couldn't tell the difference.

  Her eyes, however, were void of life. They did not have that 'light', that excitement, that drive to see the next sunrise. They only stared at the dancing flames as she wordlessly ate. Most likely a victim of her way of life. Or war. Those same eyes he'd seen on his comrades that served in the last one. Their bodies survived, their souls probably did not. All of them irreversibly changed in some way.

  A freak road accident saved him from frontline duty. For that he was eternally thankful.

  "Like what you see, Kandar?" she glanced at him, barely turning her head.

  "I-I'm sorry, that was impolite." Kandar averted his gaze, looking at everything except her.

  "By all means, look as long as you please," she said. "I won't bite."

  Kandar steeled himself, then his gaze met hers. Her eyes were green, at least by the crackling firelight. He couldn't stare at her for long. Those eyes looked through him.

  "I WIN! You blinked first!" she jumped from her chair, pointing at him and laughing.

  "Wha- what the hell? I didn't know we're playing a game!" He protested.

  Samira still laughed, she composed herself seconds later.

  "...Well, I think that's how we should approach the Animiculus tomorrow. We don't want it to figure out we're after it. Ideally, we'd win before it knows what's happening."

  "It's that smart?"

  "The truth is – I don't know. An Animiculus might be as smart as a human, or as wild as a rabid beast, according to what they've consumed. And how long they process their meals. The longer they 'digest' the more they learn. It's safe to assume this one is smart, it killed a man earlier today."

  "Oof, sounds like a tricky beast."

  "Well, since you insist on coming along, I'll let you use my Pollaxe."

  "OH NO WAY!" It was Kandar's turn to jump. "I've never used a scrollcaster Pollaxe before!"

  "It's a crutch, Kandar. I need you to be able to strike using several spells as well," Samira handed him the weapon, nearly as tall as she is. It was surprisingly lightweight, probably only slightly more than his own sword. But it does weigh more towards the axe-head.

  "You're familiar with quarterstaff techniques?"

  "Yeah, I read a few manuals on them. Same principles?"

  "The very same."

  "Okay," He made several practice stabs and swings.

  "Like a quarterstaff, every part of the pollaxe is a weapon – but since you knew that, I'll explain about the scrollcaster portion of the thing."

  Samira approached him, a single brass bullet in hand. The bullet and cartridge are encrusted with writing and runes.

  "This is the pollaxe's bullet. Same as my handgun. This one is a fireball spell suspended in stasis at the moment of casting. Bullets like these are made to conserve energy and lodestones. I would've used it to make a bonfire earlier."

  She twirled the long bullet between her fingers.

  "Stab and shoot. Simple enough, right?

  "Like a harpoon - got it. How do I adjust the safety?"

  "The switch near the middle. Shoots only from the spear point near the bottom. For obvious reasons you do not want to set it to shoot in a melee fight, loaded or unloaded."

  "Huh, I could just shoot the opponent after taking a stance though?"

  "Do not do that, you do not want the risk, believe me."

  "Not worth the risk then, but you did say something about the safety off mode only shooting from the bottom part - why?"

  "Try to aim using the axe-head."

  The weight almost immediately ran forwards, dragging the axe-head towards the ground.

  "Okay, impractical. Is there anything else I need to know?"

  "Truthfully I wanted to disassemble the pollaxe and build a rifle using its parts and my gun, but since you tagged along and I don't know how good your aim is, make sure to set it to STS mode at all times when we fight the Animiculus."

  "Why don't we practice here?"

  "I didn't bring many bullets. We might run out before you get any good. But, just in case you want to feel how it's like to shoot the thing," She loaded the bullet into the pollaxe's ammo hopper. The thing whirred into life. "Pick a spot, plant the pollaxe and squeeze any of the rivets."

  "Uh, okay?"

  "I'll use the results as our shelter for the night."

  Kandar wandered around the campsite for a bit before coming across some of the bigger rocks that Samira made chairs out of. He set the safety to STS and plunged the bottom spearhead into the biggest rock he could find. It was surprisingly easy; he'd expected to try once or twice before the thing is perfectly planted. It just glided into the rock.

  He squeezed a rivet.

  BANG.

  The rock was cracked open by the force of the flames. Tongues of orange and yellow danced into the skies as smoke billowed from the rock. Strangely, the flames seem to dance away from him. The rock burned white-hot for a few seconds as Kandar held the speartip in position. There was a surprisingly low amount of recoil, he expected the thing to fly out of his hand the moment the rivet was squeezed, but he barely felt any force.

  What was left of the rock formed a hollow dome, big enough for both of them and all their gear.

  "Well done! How did it feel to shoot a scrollcaster pollaxe for the first time?"

  Kandar's hands shook a bit. He smiled as he turned towards her.

  "Exhilarating."

  ........

  ....

  ..

  "Wait a minute -," Samira said, suddenly ruffling through her ammo pouch. "Damn it, that's the only pyromancy bullet I brought!"

  "...Are we going to need them?"

  "I should hope not!" Samira answered. "The only other bullets I brought are ice and explosive. Can't make fire with one, too dangerous with the other."

  She sighed.

  "Push comes to shove, I'll use worldforging."

  "Well, that settles it, then!" Kandar said, shrugging.

  Samira gave him a heavy-lidded stare.