Beyond?

“The verdebret is a small, furry animal which lives in Quinn's deep valleys. It's one of the few animals on this world which doesn't lay eggs. A long, bushy tail and a very cute appearance with big eyes are their trademark. But woe betide he who dares to underestimate it because of its cuteness.

The verdebret is a carnivore with a very strong paralysing poison and they live in groups of up to a hundred individuals. Once the victim gets bitten, it becomes unable to move but still feels and hears everything around it.

Being nibbled to death by a family of verdebrets is the worst death which can befall you on this continent. They are very clean animals and work their way down to your bones if nobody finds you in time.”

-Traveller

***Free City States of Nict, Capital***

***Azir***

Something isn't right. Pearls of sweat gather on my forehead as I try to solve the problem which is presenting itself to me. Today I have three pairs of eyes watching me. This change of circumstances is disrupting my training schedule for the twins and I am not entirely sure on how to involve Zana into my equation. “Hrm. Let's continue with letters and writing. You already know how to write, Zana?”

The little girl who is sitting between the twins shakes her head and I sigh in relief. That means I don't have to change my schedule. “Then we will continue with the lessons as planned.” I hold my lesson as normal until I realize that Zana is looking like a lost child. “Is there a problem, Zana?”

Sariel raises her hand slowly and I focus my gaze on her instead. “Letters! Again.” She smiles and is very proud of herself for having found the problem.

The twins made great progress in terms of language. They already use a wide range of words, though forming complete sentences is still too hard. If I have to guess, then I would say that their vocabulary contains about two hundred words at this point.

“Sorry.” Zana is sitting there with tears in her eyes. She should be entering school the next semester.

“It's okay. We simply have to go from the beginning to give you a little head start for school.” I clean the chalkboard of what I wrote earlier. “You'll see that everything is a lot easier once you enter school.”

Starting the lessons from the beginning is a little set back for Zadkiel and Sariel, but they still have time until they are five. If Zana knows the basic stuff already, she'll have more time for finding friends. That means less trouble for me.

After an hour I decide that the attention of the kids should be at its limit and I stop the lesson. “How about taking a look at Ivy's quarters?” They cheer and we head out.

I place the kids in Ivy's care and make my way to Stella's laboratory. She said that she had a lot of work to do, so I want to know what's so important.

Opening the door I already hear strange noises from the workroom. A few careful steps take me there and I peek inside.

Stella has a huge animal on her dissection table and I believe that I recognize it. “What the hell do you need a fire lizard for?”

She turns around with an axe in her hands and looks at me, flabbergasted. “Nothing special. I just needed a few parts from it for my research.”

I squint my eyes. “What research? And what do you need that axe for?”

Stella swings the axe at the lizard's hide, but the thick leathery skin absorbs the impact and the scales prevent any damage from cutting. “I bought this corpse from hunters to increase my own skill at transformation. Once I find out on how to create a skin like that on myself I'll be a lot stronger.”

“Skin on yourself? You can already turn your skin to steel, what do you need these scales for?” I ask, wondering about her goal.

She continues to work on the corpse, but her axe doesn't have much effect. “Turning my body into steel is unpleasant and clunky. It requires great concentration to move the steel parts in synchronisation with the flesh ones.”

Finally her axe bites into a gap between the scales and she draws blood for the first time. But even from that point on it seems like hard work to open the wound further. “If I could change my skin into the hide of the fire lizard it would free my concentration from other things. As you see the fire lizard's defence may be even better than having a thin skin of steel.”

“I see.” So she is planning to increase her own strength. “Aren't you already strong enough?”

Stella looks at me with a killing glance and continues her work. “You are always running off to throw yourself in danger when the situation gets dire. I won't allow that any more. For that purpose I'll research the most dangerous animals on this planet and try to copy their strengths.”

“Haha... I see.” What a high ambition. “How did the hunters even kill that thing if it is that strong. There weren't any wounds on it before you started your... work.”

“They trapped it in a hole with water and drowned it. That's pretty much the only possibility to kill a fire lizard. Assuming you don't want to be burned to a crisp.” Another swing of her axe finally opens the fire lizard's hide. I don't fail to notice that the repeated swings of the axe didn't damage the scales in the least. The weak point was the leathery skin beneath them. Stella hurries to catch some of the blood in a bottle. “Tonight we'll have lizard soup! And liver with potatoes.”

“No, thank you. I'll go with a salad.” There is no need for me to eat liver any more.

“But you could try to be a good example for Zadkiel.” Stella smirks and opens the fire lizard further. “Have you heard anything new about the southern nations?”

I retreat from the stench of the dead animal. “Their attack on Penta and Tri caused a lot of damage to the cities. In Penta they managed to break the city's wall, but the flying fortress arrived soon afterwards and stopped them.

The military is thinking about attacking the cities of the southern nations which are close to our border. It's intended as some kind of retaliation.”

Stella stops her work for a moment. “But don't they recognize that attack on civil centres would lead to even more bad blood between our nations?”

I don't think that the military command cares about that. “You are certainly right, but as you have seen the enemy is perfectly willing to use even totally untrained farmers by controlling their minds. The villages we are talking about are mostly empty and the military intends to use that chance to create a no man's land between us and them.”

“They already had great trouble to march their armies to our cities. If we force their starting point even further away from our cities we don't have to worry about strikes at our industrial centres. There is also the point about Lucas trying to cause a civil war between the southern nations.”

Stella growls. “Father tried for so long to create a lasting peace between them and us.”

“Only that their current leaders are in cahoots with our enemy. If he succeeds we may have our hands free enough to think about attacking the second continent.”

“We can't even subdue the southern nations. How can we think about moving our forces to the second continent?” Stella shakes her head in wonder.

“I am not proposing to conquer a continent. It would be more about creating a force powerful enough to go there and gather information. If we get help from Dwem and Quinn this could work out. Once we get viable information about Jeremiah's brother, we attack them with the sole purpose of killing him.” Ivy is already working on new spying devices for that purpose.

“You are hoping that the snake will stop acting without a head?” Stella starts gutting the fire lizard.

“It's our best bet. Somehow I can't believe that the whole second continent is as unified as it seems. We have to remove their means of control.” I reply.

“You are thinking about the amulet?” Stella asks.

“What else could it be that gives them so much control. I am sure that Jeremiah's brother is using it to control everyone of importance.” If not the whole population. The images of our drones are painting a very dark picture.

Stella nods and stands up, licking her bloody fingers.

My eyes widen. “Stel? Did you just...”

She looks at me with a question mark above her head. “Oh. Did you never drink the blood of a fire lizard? It's a delicacy, you want some?” She offers me the bottle with blood.

“No, thank you.” I pull a grimace and decline with my hand. When I am about to starve I am not a picky eater. I have proven that already several times in my previous life, but this is a little different. I am not starving and in the kitchen above me is a collection of the finest foods I can think of.

Stella shrugs her shoulders and takes a sip from the blood. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained. It's your loss.”

.