Pelrith followed the tracks back towards their origin. They came from a slight rise in the snow that made him want to swear; he should have checked the bunker with the old interface first! Of course they were using it for shelter; they had to have known where it was. They'd surely found it before he arrived and simply not paid attention to it because there was nothing there. They wouldn't have been able to get into the hidden room, but it was still shelter when they needed it..

At least he was smart enough to stay away from it when he would have trouble running. That was the only good part of the news; they were probably all still alive, even though their horses clearly weren't. It really was too bad he couldn't have blocked the place off, but he didn't have a way to do that without revealing that he existed.

Not that he'd thought he had to. Sure, he'd stayed out of the place, but he'd assumed he was being overcautious. He really should have known they'd know about it and tried harder to figure out something that could block it off. Maybe he could have herded some monsters in there to make a den? As long as it was monsters he could sneak past, it would have been fine.

They'd probably have noticed them and killed them early, which would have drawn attention to the place, though, so no, that probably wouldn't have worked. Pelrith grumbled to himself.

It was too late to second-guess himself. He now needed to dig the rats out of their hole. He'd have to be a little careful since they had a solid place to fall back to, but if he did this right it would be a trap, not a real defense.

He moved up the mountain, leaving the snow behind himself unmarked. It wasn't quite perfect, there were small marks where he was actually standing, but even those were far smaller than they should have been and his stealth Ability removed them as soon as he no longer needed the support. He had to be more careful about other traces he left behind, but none of those applied here.

The closer he got, the more his nerves got to him. Pelrith froze every time he thought something or someone might have noticed him; while he had an Ability for that, it was entirely too sensitive and could be triggered by animals as well as humans. Each time, the attention vanished after a few moments, so it was probably nothing more than an animal hidden in the snow, but there certainly did seem to be a lot of them.

Pelrith pushed the worry away. He was anxious to get this over with, that was all. This was the last free shot he was going to get unless he actually managed the ambush he planned on Los'en's small group. He needed to kill these people first, though, so he could hit Los'en while he was relaxed because he thought he was within range of help and didn't know they were dead.

He was halfway up the small hill when he suddenly knew someone was watching him. This time, the feeling didn't disappear immediately, so Los'en started looking around. There was definitely no one watching from the building roughly fifty feet ahead of him, which was good, and there was very little cover in this deep snow. It wasn't until he checked the sky and saw a bird that he started to relax. It was entirely possible that the watcher was a bird hunting for whatever it could find; his Ability to hide only minimized his presence and there was little else moving on the snowy field.

The bird would eventually be drawn away by a rabbit or something; a white rabbit moving against the snowy landscape would be more obvious than Pelrith was and would certainly look like a better target.

A second wheeling bird caught Pelrith's eye and he frowned. He couldn't tell what they were in the distance, but where there were two birds, there were likely to be more. A full scan of the sky showed that there were five. They varied from a near-white that was hard to see against the sky to a mottled black that looked almost like a solid object, but he could see its wings move.

One particularly showy one was plumed in red and orange with a few touches of yellow and maybe some brown. It was probably male, the fancy birds usually were. Pelrith grinned at it and wished him luck with his less colorful counterparts before he turned his attention back to the building in front of himself. Now that he knew what was watching him, he could move forward confidently.

Pelrith ignored his Ability's warning of watchers and made his way to the top of the hill, then confidently snuck around the side towards the only entrance. The place was mostly underground, which made his assault more difficult, but he ought to be able to sneak in without anyone noticing. They were unlikely to be on guard; there weren't enough of them with six out hunting. He'd have to be careful about how he passed whatever they'd set up in front of the doorway, but that was all.

You have entered the Domain of the Psychic Plumed Vestige!

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

Pelrith froze when he saw the Guide's message. A Domain? Here? If there was someone who'd already managed to create a Domain in the group hiding underground, he might be in trouble. A Domain made things more favorable for the person who controlled it.

That mattered more for some Domains than others; some Domains did nothing more than help their creators live in places they otherwise would be unable to, like a fish removed from the stream. Pelrith reread the message quickly, trying to learn what it meant. Psychic and Vestige were not helpful, but Plumed gave away what he needed to know: it was about feathers, and that meant it had to be from one of the birds he'd seen in the distance.

One of the birds that had seen him was hunting him.

Pelrith jumped to the side quickly, in case the bird was in a dive, and looked up. He didn't see any of the birds at first glance; the sky was clear.

Too clear. There were no birds up there at all.

A bird appeared out of nowhere. It had pastel wings and a similar body, but no beak. Instead, its body looked sort of like a pale lizard. More importantly, its mouth was open and it was spitting some sort of shimmering fire at Pelrith. He tried to dodge, but there just wasn't enough warning.

The shimmering fire didn't hurt. It didn't even touch Pelrith. Instead, it seemed to sit less than an inch away from his armor.

That was more terrifying than if it had hurt. It was very obviously a shieldbreaking attack, one Pelrith wasn't prepared for. There was only one thing he could do. It would damage his shield, but not much, and it would get rid of the stuff clinging to it. He pulled the broken sword he carried at his waist and slashed downward with a Cleansing Strike.

It hurt. Cleansing Strike always did. It also worked, just like always. These birds might have a Domain, possibly even a shared Domain, but they weren't second upgrade the way Pelrith was. That Ability broke too easily.

Pelrith glanced around and saw nothing that mattered. There were no birds in the sky, not even the flying lizard he'd just seen. He spun slowly. There! A flash of red caught his eye as another flying lizard appeared out of nowhere, already well into its dive. In the back of his mind, Pelkrith knew that meant something was hiding the flock from him, but there was little he could do about it.

He was certain the "bird" wanted him to dodge so that it could follow, but he stepped under it instead. It tried to spit fire across him, but he was too close and the side of his sword, near the spot where the tip was broken off, slashed into the creature's wing.

Something cold and painful washed across Pelrith's back. There wasn't one bird this time, there were two!

He spun and tried to slice the flying lizard, but all he managed was to catch a glimpse of a black tail with strange bright spots as it fled up into the sky and vanished.

One down, four to go. If his count was right, at least. Pelrith checked the ground for any sign of the fire-winged lizard but all he could see was half-melted snow.

This definitely wasn't going to plan. If he was lucky, no one inside would notice, but he couldn't guarantee that. Maybe it would be best to run and come back later? They didn't know he was here; he could attack another time Los'en left the building, when there weren't these strange Domain-tied birds in the sky.

The next lizard-bird had ice for wings. Pelrith didn't allow that to delay him; he simply charged forward. It managed to slap him in the face with a wing before he slashed through its neck and it fell to the slushy ground in two pieces. He'd have to be careful about that; it was small enough that he could easily trip on it if he wasn't careful, and the ice-wings blended into the stirred-up snow and bits of slush from the fire-bird all too well.

He spun quickly, expecting the back attack this time, only to find two different bird-lizards diving for him. One was the feathered pastel one with the shieldbreaking fire, while the other was purple with bat-wings covered in crackling lightning.

Pelrith could already guess what the lightning-lizard would do, but he figured his shield could take it. He dove for the pastel feathered lizard. It didn't even try to spit its weird fire; instead, it seemed to flip to the side and nearly avoided his sword stroke.

Pelrith immediately brought his sword back towards the small agile creature. He stepped forward, which was the wrong way; he expected it to dodge away from his blow, not strike forward and bite his hand! It should have been stopped by his shield, but it wasn't!

Wait. That strike from the icy wings of the previous lizard wasn't stopped either, was it?

What happened to his shield? He knew he'd struck the shield-breaking poison off his shield before it was destroyed.

Painfully cold fire washed across Pelrith's back as if in answer to his question. It was like the second attack he was hit with, the one he never saw coming, only far more painful. He felt his muscles lock from the cold. It felt like they bulged and shrank randomly under the influence of whatever the cold fire was. The shocking pain that invaded his nerves starting at the back of his neck was almost a relief after feeling his muscles warp and shift outside his control.

Pelrith's hand clenched around his broken sword even as he toppled to the ground with a muffled thump. The cold snow made his landing softer than it should have been. Even half-buried, his eyes were frozen open as two dog-sized lizards with wings landed next to him. The one covered in lightning savaged his joints while the darkly colorful one went for his throat.

Pelrith tried to fight, tried to get up, but his body no longer responded. Then he couldn't breathe. No matter how hard he tried, no air filled his lungs.

Moments later, there was only the darkness of death.

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