They arrived at the fort in the late afternoon. The area was the most naturally open she had seen since arriving. It was still forested, but there were wide stretches of plains between clusters of trees. A wide river could be seen behind the fort. Mountains loomed closer than ever on the horizon.

  The fort itself was unimpressive. It was a wooden palisade surrounding some quickly put together buildings. From the looks of them, they were formed by someone with an Apex Telluric Domain in the most efficient manner possible. It was all form over function.

  The people were much the same. They were rugged frontiersmen; those who left the safety of cultivated land and came to help tame the frontier for others to join them. This was Fort Herald. It was created to act as an entry point into the future colony. It was established almost a year ago. This was as far as one could get without crossing into efferan territory.

  Amelia told Harper all of this as they made their way to the fort. She herself had already been here a few times, usually with messages instead of supplies.

  Harper had of course heard that the King of Quilen had issued another charter and appointed a governor to lay claim to the next stretch of land. She just hadn’t imagined at the time that she would see the effects of it. Over the next couple years, another wave of supplies and people would be coming to Vanax.

  No doubt another war with the efferans was inevitable. They just couldn't seem to grasp that they wouldn’t be able to stop the colonies. The colonies had more people, superior weapons, better Domain practitioners, better supply lines, and more. Harper hoped that they would listen to reason this next time and move to where the colonies stipulate. They didn’t need nearly as much room for their smaller population after all.

  The delivery was well received. They were running low on ammunition and had sent a messenger requesting more. A recent attack by a tyragator had depleted even their emergency stocks. A tyragator was like a massive alligator, similar to the tyracrocs and crocodiles she was familiar with. It had the Domains of Sea, Earth, and Aurora.

  Their base nature provided them with an amazing armor that is shockingly tough for a creature that needs to be light enough to swim. With this one's flexible Domain being taken by Aurora; those scales had the curious property of sticking, or rather freezing, whatever hit them to its armor. This not only made it more difficult for the resident Magnates to fight it, but for the supporting gunmen to recover their bullets.

  The metal was valuable enough, especially out here, that they tried to recover as many bullets as possible. Sometimes they had someone with an Apex Telluric Domain to collect all of them and reshape them as musket balls. Sometimes they just picked up all they could up by hand and reforged them into proper bullets. That wasn’t possible when the monster took them all on its armor when it retreated.

  With their stock of ammunition gone and being unable to recover any bullets, they had needed a restock before the next supply caravan was scheduled to arrive. That’s where the couriers came in. They had hardly brought an extensive supply, but it should be enough to hold them over until the usual resupply package arrived.

  Once their deliveries were received and they were given the reports that were to be taken back to Mentril with them, they considered what to do. If they left now, it meant sleeping the night in the wilderness and getting back to the nearest town tomorrow night. If they left tomorrow morning, it meant either spending tomorrow night in the wilderness or riding well into the night.

  Ultimately, they decided on the latter. This was mostly because Harper was utterly exhausted. She had never completely skipped sleeping before. She felt she could ride if she really needed to, but it’d be rough. Amelia didn’t see any reason to hurry back, so they ended up staying the night.

  As soon as she had eaten and the sun went down, she lay in her borrowed bed and fell into the warm embrace of sleep. She couldn’t even find it in herself to care that she slept in an open barracks and lacked any semblance of privacy. The bed, which would have been barely adequate if she wasn’t nearly dead on her feet, felt like the most comfortable thing in the world at the moment.

  HHAAACCCCC!!!

  Harper woke up with a start, along with the majority of the barrack’s occupants. She looked over and her mentor had shot up as well.

  RRRRRRRRRR!

  They heard loud bellows, growls and bangs. Someone called out, “It’s the tyragator! It’s back!”

  Everyone slid out of their bed, shoving on boots and wrapping themselves up. Most threw on jackets and cloaks. A few began armoring themselves in either leather or mail. Amelia and Harper followed the rush outside. It was very late in the night, almost early morning.

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  They ran up the palisade to get a view of the creature. Sure enough, a large, scaled beast had emerged from the river, approaching the wall. From the tip of its snout to its tail was around the length of a decent sized longboat. In height, it was much more modest, being of a similar stature to her. As she watched it snap at an attacking kong, she realized it would be capable of swallowing a bear whole. It wasn’t the biggest three Domain creature, not even close, but it was formidable.

  Its armor was a dark green color, perfect for sitting in a river, waiting for prey. Not that it would fit comfortably in many rivers, only ones large enough for boats to pass each other in. Its underbelly was a light cyan, hinting at its Domain adaptation. The large alligator was very similar to Canjor’s tyracrocs. Only those had abilities centered more on their jaw’s grip than their armor.

  Several of the fort’s fighters ran out of the gate in their Alius, the ones too big to do so transforming outside the walls. The wall, and by extension the gate, would do nothing against the large creature anyway. Their main defense against such an attack was the Magnates who were stationed here. Those were the people who had integrated a two Domain core. They relied on their numbers and supporting fire against Potentate creatures, lacking one of their own.

  Unfortunately, those with a three Domain core were too rare to be stationed in such an outlying area. The price to keep one here would be outrageous, and so they went without. Unfortunately, one of their main advantages, supporting fire from the fort, was next to useless against this creature.

  Even if the projectiles were weak to most Potentate creatures, they could still help. A dragon attacking would suffer damage to the soft membrane of its wings if they were shot at relentlessly. Of course, a dragon would not be limited to a single approach on the ground and would have its infernal breath.

  The tyragator’s armor rendered the bullets completely moot. Shooting it would be detrimental if anything, when one considered the waste. They had no bigger weapons prepared to fire on the beast. So, it was up to the defenders.

  There were five of them in total. The kong, a large apelike creature that wielded a club, a unicorn, a horned horse that shot scorching beams at the gator, a wyvern, a winged bipedal reptile that swooped at it from above, a cretan, a large pale bull that battered its sides, and a spriggan, a being made of wood in the shape of a tall humanoid.

  She thought the kong and the cretan had Apex Domains. The kong had unusual yellow markings on its gray fur, atypical of a standard kong. Electricity surrounded it and zapped into the creature when the kong struck. She was sure that they had a Magnetic Domain.

  The cretan manipulated the earth around themselves, surrounding their horns in it and adding extra force to their charges. The bull had a brown ring pattern on their legs and metallic looking horns. A sure sign of the Apex Domain of Earth.

  The Aliuses fought the gator with practiced teamwork. The kong and wyvern kept its attention on them. The cretan attacked and hurt its sides, and the unicorn took shots at its underbelly when the opportunity arose. The spriggan watched over their teammates, jumping in to land a blow or pulling someone out of a dangerous position at need.

  The alligator snapped at them in turn. Its bites were incredibly quick, and very dangerous to any of its opponents. Once it had a grip on someone, it was unlikely to let go. Any attacks on its armor took extra force to pull away from, making a frozen connection between them. It wasn’t too bad when making rapid attacks, but if anyone rested something on the armor it would freeze it in place the longer it rested there.

  Finally, the kong and wyvern worked together, maneuvering the creature into position and lifting it slightly, ignoring the ice creeping up their hands and claws. This gave an opening for the bull to ram their horns into the soft underbelly. They came away bloody, the tyragator having taken a wound. The kong and wyvern wrenched themselves away before the ice could trap them on the armor.

  It wasn’t enough to kill it, but the monster recognized that it wouldn’t win. It retreated, sliding back into the river and swimming away for the second time. It was anyone's guess if it would be back a third time, lured by the presence of cores and potent aether consumables.

  Ideally, they could have killed it and taken its core, but that was a dubious possibility once it had moved back towards the river. It was too strong for them to guarantee victory without losses. Especially when it moved to a more favorable area.

  If it was a humanoid’s Alius, the fight would have been quite different. Domains were more effective for creatures than humanoids. If they had the same number of integrated Domains, ignoring any external Domain the humanoids may have or an Apex Domain either could have, the creature would be stronger.

  This didn’t mean they would always win, however. Humanoids retained their intelligence and preparations. No creature could truly measure up to humanoids in that regard. There were many that had an animal cunning, able to trick the unwary person. But, in general, humanoids won out in that area.

  Five people of the Magnate rank, two with Apex Domains, definitely won out in both power and intelligence against the average Potentate creature, but not enough that they could be sure they would kill it without losses. Besides, they’d be leaving the fort nearly unprotected against larger threats while they fought and recovered.

  As for Harper, she was more determined than ever to progress her Domains and grow an Alius. She had seen some battles between creatures before, but they hadn’t been quite as intense.

  She had been on a “hunt” before, but it was orchestrated in almost its entirety. They had already known where the creature was and had made extensive preparations that made the hunt itself easy. One of their retainers took the form of a wolf and distracted it. She hadn’t done more than shoot it with an arrow with the rest of the hunting party. It was just a single Domain boar.

  She had seen some battles in the arena on Zecura during her family’s visits, but those were hardly life or death. Injuries to one’s Alius not only hurt but had to be healed. This took extra food and sometimes a core to provide the energy needed for the natural healing process.

  This, this was a true skirmish, even if it ended before it had really ramped up.

  Harper once again went to bed. They had a few hours before it was time to leave. She found it much more difficult this time to fall asleep. She kept replaying the fight in her head, but eventually, she slipped off into a dream.