Between The Crystals

Ch 4 A Worrisome Trend

After hanging out at the Guard Station for twenty minutes and catching up on gossip from other villages, I got to my feet.

"Are you sure you're ready to go?" a woman asked, watching in concern.

I tilted my head as if contemplating my energy levels. "I could manage two ports back-to-back if needed, so I should be good. After how this morning went, I'm heading to the plains. It's been over two years since we've seen a Saursune there."

"Good choice," she said, unaware of my unusually strong porting ability. It was a closely-guarded village secret. And unlike the locations of the crystals, the villagers didn't like sharing porters and had plenty of incentive to make sure no one else ever got wind of it.

With a goodbye wave, I touched the crystal and murmured the location name. Light danced through my veins, and soon, I was standing on an open plain as the wind blew the knee-high grasses in undulating waves.

Other than a handful of scattered scrawny shrubs, there was no shelter or hiding places, and the grass was too short to hide something as big as a Saursune. Wolves sometimes passed through this area, but it would be hard to sneak up on me, and that was the peace of mind I was looking for right now.

I began walking through the grasses as I peered at the various plants. This close to the crystal, most were inedible grasses, but some like the indestructible dandelion were already regrowing.

Several hours later, I stood up and shaded my eyes as I peered at the horizon. Some bison were coming over a hill and more kept meandering into sight. No one was sure if the Saursune raised bison like cattle or if they just hunted the wild herds, but whenever someone tried to hunt one of the massive mounds of meat, the overgrown lizards appeared shortly afterward.

With a carry net full of wilting plants, I jogged toward the distant crystal. I had wandered much farther than I liked, and the spires glittered in the sunlight like a beacon, casting refractions onto the grass.

I was out of breath by the time I finally reached it. When I glanced back, the bison hadn't moved far, but two upright figures stood along the top of the hill, watching me. Saursunes.

My heart hammered at the sight of the aliens. It was hard to make out details at this distance, but both had armbands, and one had a belt with a lot of objects on it. I couldn't tell if they were belt pouches, devices, or weapons. Probably all three.

One reached for its belt, and I immediately ported to the abandoned Sunrise Village. I sighed and wiped sweat off my forehead. Normally, I went months without seeing any sign of a Saursune, and they hadn't been seen at that location for years. My recent track record wasn't boding well.

The plants and tubers I collected wouldn't last long in the heat, so I ported back to the village. When the haze disappeared, familiar cliffs loomed over me.

"Just dropping these off," I told Grant, who was almost always near the main village crystal. "That other new crystal is a no-go. The lizards built a town nearby. I went to the plains, but some bison and a couple of Saursunes appeared, so I came back here."

"A town?" the middle-aged man asked in concern, flipping through the leather pages in his book to find his notes. His black hair had already gone halfway silver from the stress of his job and possibly from raising me.

With a sigh, I set my bundles down and retold my day's events, leaving nothing out.

When I finished, I asked, "Are others seeing more Saursunes, or am I just ending up in the wrong places at the wrong time?" The troubled look on his face made me suspect it wasn't just me, but his prolonged silence made me ask, "Grant? Are the Saursunes really pressing in?"