Chương 180: Chapter 178 – A Foxy Proposition

The first thing he noticed was the smell. The fetid, bitter tang of water with a bite almost as sharp as the creatures that spilled through the portals at Oak Ridge. The second thing Cole noticed was that his boots were already waterlogged with it.

"Ah, hell," he said, lifting one boot up out of the swampy soup. All around him, water and swamp extended outward, filled with twisting trees and strange structures that looked as though they'd been assembled by someone without a square or level, or any architectural sensibility to speak of. The shin-high sea bubbled around him, and dark shapes moved beneath the already almost pitch black water. Overhead, the twilight sun of the Starlit burned in a sky full of stars—ones Cole didn't recognize.

No Orion, no Cassiopeia, not even the Big Dipper. Hell, he'd even take the Southern Cross. Cole glanced down to where his rifle would normally hang from its strap-like tentacles and then rolled his eyes. Of course it wasn't there. But it was pretty clear it had had some… influence on his evolution path after all. And as for paths? He could sense the distant stars of power, burning somewhere in the steam that belched from the surface.

Each pulsed with distinct energy, unlike what he'd felt on his previous meditations. It felt… different. Alien. The Error 114 of his own mind's eye. Maybe there was merit to giving up that rifle after all. Well, maybe the Meteoric Valkyrie would have something to say about it. It always seemed to. Cole sighed, waiting for the wise-crack of a voice from his past. The third thing Cole noticed, quite a bit later than the first two, was that he was alone. He turned in a circle, looking around the bog.

"Hello?" Nothing. This was the first time his evolution meditation hadn't come with a smart-assed manifestation of his class ready to chide him for being indecisive. Shadows moved in the steam, but none of them were faceted onyx warriors—or anything else you might mistake for human. The ground began to rumble under Cole's feet, water bubbling and breaking to his left.

He turned toward the disturbance and ducked into a crouch as thick vines and branches burst out of the swamp water, still dripping, even as they wound around each other and thickened. Where once had been dead swamp, a verdant forest began to sprout, weaving both floor and canopy to form a passage of sorts. A dark one, darker even, than the swamp. The swamp itself seemed to reject it, water hissing at its boundary and beginning to scale its outermost walls with swamp-slick creepers.

Cole looked into the mouth of that tunnel, catching a hint of motion behind one of the trees. A massive shadow slid between two trunks and vanished, reappearing behind a third several meters away. Wake up! Cole urged himself. A set of golden, vulpine eyes opened in the gloom, wide pupils locking onto his own eyes." It took some skill to find you, little pup. A curious hollow you've found for yourself." The voice felt as though it came from the entirety of the wooded construct before him.

It crashed against him, washed over him, and sent waves through the water at his ankles.

"Who are you?" asked Cole. The shadow and eyes vanished again. A splash sounded behind Cole, and he spun to find the shadow sitting on a stump rising out of the swamp, silhouetted against the starlight. The creature's yellow eyes twisted back and forth, surveying the meditation space as the platform continued to rise. It stood, walking towards the edge of the stump, and then along a thick branch that emerged from the wooden base and continued to grow and wind under, just as it needed to support each step.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings." You have neither the tongue to speak my name or the mind to comprehend it. To the kin, I am She who Weaves through Twisted Boughs. I've come to take the measure of those who would tread upon my land."

"And once you've taken it?" Her form turned to smoke and spiraled around the vine as it grew. The goddess coalesced back into her fox shape as stones rose from the water to lift her. It seemed the god took great care to not put herself into the eldritch waters of his unconventional evolution path. Now on a level with Cole, he could see that while she might have had the form of a fox, she was at least the size of a grizzly.

If she was this size in the real world, and if she wanted it, she could crush his ribcage between teeth like two-inch nails." What you fear is true. And yet, there is an unquiet corner of your mind, an unceasing pinwheel that wishes to stalk me, even as I hunt you. A sly corner. A deceitful corner. A hungry corner. I like what I see there. That you are a hunter, a son of a sire and grandsire hunter, and would dare seek me with your strange weapons despite the danger."

"Not locked in a temple basement, I take it?" Barking laughter echoed through the swamp, rippling out through the water." I am no bird content to sit in a cage and rut. I move unseen beneath vine and bough. These lands are mine, and even the Thunderwinged dare not tread the trails hidden from star and sun." She lifted a paw." Perhaps I should show you why?" A pressure mounted on Cole's chest. He grabbed his uniform shirt as his skin throbbed beneath it, heating. He fell to a knee, soaking his pant leg in the water.

The nodes of power in the distance thrummed in response.

"I'm going to fight the Thunderwinged," Cole said. The pressure lifted and the fox goddess lowered her paws. Cole staggered back to his feet." Yes, I see that. As I see your true purpose—and its inevitable end." The fox considered." But the Thunderwinged are yet my enemy, and you would split hide and skull and paint the story of their deaths across the snow." She tilted her head, considering.

"A boon, then, I shall offer you." Down the twisted forest path, another source of power began to pulse.

"Is that…?" Cole began." My Path. The Graceful Huntress Path." The golden eyes fixed past Cole, centered on the twisting tunnel of vines.

"No longer would you leap gracelessly through the air as a toad given flight. You would twist between shadows, silent and sudden as a proper predator. Your enemies would be known to you between the sun's setting and its rise, for night is our domain. Spilling their life's blood upon the sand, stone, or soil would replenish your power." It didn't take a genius to figure out what she was talking about. The smoky shadowstep she had done to flit between the trees. Not flight, but near-teleportation.

Closer to Beth Black's ability than his current Meteoric Leap. And his target mark, always on from sundown to sun-up. But She who Weaves through Twisted Boughs had praised his sly, deceitful nature. Power didn't come without a cost, and there was anticipation in those eyes.

"Will I become like…" Cole gestured behind himself futilely.

"Like the Starlit?" The goddess' tail twitched." Perhaps. Who can say?" That vixen bitch. She knew perfectly well. And judging from the gleam in her golden eyes, this exchange was more for her amusement than his benefit. Well, he didn't have to dance to her tune. And he certainly didn't have to bind himself to a god—least of all one who was, herself, bound. He held her eyes as he felt the power coming from the eldritch waters. His path was easy enough to discern.

The arhythmic pulsing he'd come to associate with kinetic redirection lay directly in front of him, on the other side of the bound god. Cole steeled himself and trudged around the water, feeling the fox's eyes burn into his back. After a dozen sodden steps, every instinct he had told him that he was moments from death. He could practically feel the goddess' teeth preparing to snap closed around his throat. He whipped around, heart hammering in his chest. But the fox, as well as her offered boon, were gone.

Some time later, he awoke on his cot, eyes sliding open and staring at the spiral of the tree's interior. Roxy snored to his side, while on his other side Besson was out of his cot, likely on his watch rotation. Cole sighed and sat up, pausing as he felt a strange sensation. He reached down and touched his chest. Mud had dried and began to crack on the front of his uniform. And caked in it, were strands of thick, orange hair.

A burning sensation remained on his chest, and he opened his blouse to reveal the five pads of a pawprint darkening his skin. He turned his head this way and that, scouring the dark corners. She'd been here. Not just in his mind, but here, here. And whether or not he'd chosen to bind himself to her path, she'd still marked him. That wouldn't mean anything good. He hadn't been the only one meditating, either. He tossed his woobie blanket aside and went looking for Howie and Wayland.