I had to get out of this. I had to save myself. There was only one Uhlbeh holding me, while Rachel had to deal with two of them. I couldn't be some helpless little baby right now. She needed me to back her up. It didn't matter how scared I happened to be. It didn't matter how terrifying this whole thing was when I didn't have her to stand behind. I was gonna get myself out of this, damn it!

  The big tree monster was trying to swallow me. My fancy identity as a Teller didn't include any weapons or anything. I had to think fast. And the fact was, I really wasn't good at thinking fast. I wasn't good under pressure. I tended to freeze up and fail. But right now, I couldn't. Rachel needed me to take care of myself. So, I did the only thing I could right then. As the monster brought me toward its mouth, I lashed out with both feet as hard as I could. One missed almost entirely, glancing off what mounted to the side of the Uhlbeh’s cheek. But the other foot collided with a couple teeth. I might not have been nearly as strong as my sister, but it was enough to make the thing yowl and stumble slightly.

  Unfortunately, it didn't drop me. That would've been nice. But I could still work with this. At least I wasn't halfway down the monster's throat. Assuming it had a throat. I had a second to grab onto a couple of the branches that were its fingers. I pushed and pulled and pried, all while kicking and shouting, a thing I was actually capable of now that the thing had loosened its grip enough for me to draw air. I wasn't even sure what I was shouting, it was just sounds. But in the end, I managed to pry those branch fingers out enough to slip free.

  And yeah, that was about the time I remembered that the thing had lifted me like fifteen feet in the air at that point. The shouted noises became an actual series of curses I'd heard my dad use when he was doing especially bad in his poker game. Then the rushing air took over for like a second before I hit the ground.

  On paper, I knew how to fall without hurting myself. I'd been taught by Rachel and Madison both more than once. For some reason, they thought it might be good for me to know. But I had to say, in the rush of that moment, when it would've been most useful, I basically completely forgot everything they ever said. It was a good thing I wouldn't be keeping this body once we left this Jaunt. And doubly good that I retained the extra strength and durability from being a Squire. But even then, hitting the ground sucked. I felt pain rush up through me and fell to my knees with a yelp.

  But, I was free. I forgot about the pain immediately and jumped back up with my fists raised triumphantly. Which lasted about half a second before I remembered that I hadn't actually done anything to stop the tree monster itself. Hurting its tooth wasn't exactly going to save the day here.

  Oh yeah, and it was very mad about that whole tooth thing. That much was obvious from the way it snarled at me and reached down. I stumbled backward, grabbing the nearest thing I could find. Which happened to be a stick. As the Uhlbeh reached toward me, I slammed that long stick into its fingers as hard as I could. The thing barely noticed. I pushed the fingers back a little bit, but not much. Then its other hand started to come in from that side to grab me. All while I was still off-balance from swinging the stick as hard as I could at the first one.

  That was when Rachel cut that second hand off. She just appeared between us, the sword snapping out to cut through those branch fingers. With a quick leap, she collided with its chest. Or trunk, or whatever it was called. She planted her feet against it, swiping the sword back over her head to expertly cut off the other hand as it reached for her. The monster howled, and she cut its mouth open so far half its head was hanging sideways. Then she gave the sword a casual toss, but it didn't fall. The thing hovered there in the air while she planted one foot on it and pivoted. Her other foot collided with the side of the tree monster's broken head and took it the rest of the way off, sending that part flying off into the woods, while the rest of it collapsed.

  The sword dropped then, along with my sister. Unlike me, she landed smoothly. She even caught the sword on the way down so she could snap it out to one side, sending tree monster blood (sap) and small bits of bark flying before sheathing it.

  And then she was hugging me. She kept asking if I was okay, while I continually insisted I was fine. I definitely wasn't going to tell her about how badly my legs hurt right then. I was pretty sure nothing was broken, just bruised. After all that, all I'd managed to do was barely squirm free for about eight seconds before I would have been caught by that thing again. Meanwhile, Rachel had taken down both of her opponents, then came in to save me from mine. It was a good thing my sister was seriously the coolest person ever, or I really would’ve been in trouble.

  Once she was satisfied that I wasn't about to fall apart, Rachel and I set out again. We kept going through those woods, keeping a closer eye on the trees to make sure we weren't stumbling into any more ambushes. But honestly, after what she had just done back there, I was pretty sure any nearby Uhlbeh were just going to keep very still until we were gone.

  It took another couple hours of going through that forest before we made it out the other side. By that point, my legs really were hurting. But I ignored them. Like hell was I going to say anything about it and make this situation harder for my sister to deal with. I gritted my teeth, ignored the pain, and kept going.

  Mercifully, the actual town we were heading for was really close to the edge of the forest. We saw it as soon as we came out that side. And yeah, it looked like any fantasy medieval town. It probably held a few hundred people at most, and consisted of an assortment of stone and wood buildings arranged in something approximating streets. The main one was the same road we were walking down, though it widened after getting out of the forest. The town was sitting near a slow, wide river with a pretty decent boating dock. It looked like they also had a series of mines in the nearby hills, which was probably what that extensive boating dock was for. They could load the product from the mines on the boats and send them up or down the river.

  Oh wait, the boats. Yeah, that was probably bad. If these guys we were chasing got on a boat, who knew how far they'd be able to go. Or what direction. They could end up anywhere. It would be practically impossible to track them down before they did whatever they had to do to get back to our world.

  Rachel and I both looked at each other as we realized that. And that was still weird. Yes, I'd been on a few of these Jaunt things, but it was always strange to see my sister look like someone completely different. Honestly, it was weirder to see her look like she was in the wrong body than it was for me. As far as I was concerned, I've been in the wrong body for the first fifteen years of my life. I didn't exactly like looking like someone I wasn't supposed to be, but I was accustomed to it.

  Either way, we both realized quickly that we had to get down there now. There were a half dozen boats moored at those docks, and at least that many heading off up or down the river. None of them were that big, obviously. Half of them were small, three or four person things the size of speed boats, while the others were maybe two or three times that and were clearly full of supply crates. But it wouldn't exactly take an ocean liner for the people we were chasing to escape.

  No, not people. Intruders. Eighty-Sevens. Whatever they were, whatever they called themselves, the fact was that they invaded our world. They invaded all worlds. They would invade this one en masse if they had the chance. They would spread their crystal shit over every world, every universe in existence. And if we didn't find and stop these ones here, they might find a way to spread their invasion even faster than they already were. We had to get to them.

  That was why I completely ignored the pain in my legs as we started running. I would have liked to say I forgot about it at that moment. That was what was supposed to happen, right? When there was some huge, important event like this, something monumental that had to be done, the hero was supposed to easily ignore the pain they were in. It was supposed to just vanish under the epic soundtrack.

  But there was no soundtrack. The only sound was my heavy breathing and somewhat muffled grunts of pain every time I took another step. Yeah, maybe I wasn't actually hiding it as well as I thought. But I kept going anyway.

  As soon as the scattered villagers going about their daily lives saw Rachel sprinting straight into their town, they recognized what she was. All of them scramble to get out of the way, holding up their hands as though surrendering just in case they were the one she was after. I tried not to think about what sort of people some of the Seekers might be, and what sort of reputation they might have, if these people thought they might be arrested for no reason.

  At least this meant they all listened when Rachel raised her voice to shout for all the boats to be stopped. We both heard the call going ahead of us, the people shouting those same words onward, to stop the boats. I could actually hear relief in their voices when they realized we weren't here for any of them. Curiosity too, of course, but mostly relief. Now they seemed eager to stop the boats. Probably because the sooner we found our quarry, the sooner we would leave.

  Maybe I was reading into it too much, but that was the impression I got. It kind of seemed like the upload information we got about the Seekers in general wasn't the same as what these people had experienced. Was that just because they had some bad Seekers around here or something?

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  No time to think about that now. We had boats to stop and Intruders to find. Fortunately, that wasn't going to be too hard. Unless the boats they had taken were already gone. But they hadn't been that far ahead of us, right? No, I had to believe we would catch them. I had to believe it was still possible to stop those bastards before they escaped back into our world along with everything they knew.

  Rachel could've gotten there much faster than me, and that was even before I was hurt. Finally, I shouted at her to stop slowing down for me and just get down there and stop them. I told her I would catch up. That was all the encouragement she needed. In the blink of an eye, she was gone. Okay, maybe that was a slight exaggeration, but still, she was incredibly quick. Like, speed of a car on the freeway quick.

  I really did do my best to run after her as quickly as possible. But I was still moving way too slowly to even hope to help. By the time I got down there, Rachel would have the whole thing handled. Assuming they were still there, of course. Not that I would’ve contributed that much even if I was there from the start. But still, at least I would’ve been standing there, alongside all the other people.

  Alongside… all the other people. All those people, the whole town, really. All of them just standing around, watching us as we ran in. They were watching where we went, watching every move we made. They were all… watching… us.

  Shit. Shit, shit, shit. These guys we were chasing weren't stupid, were they? Nothing they had done so far had given any impression that they were dumb enough not to realize we would come through that door after them. There was no way they actually thought those few guys they had sent after Rachel would do anything more than delay her for a second or two. It hadn't been about stopping us, it was about delaying us long enough for them to go through the door and get a headstart.

  So they knew we would be right on their heels. They knew we were in hot pursuit, and that we would be incredibly motivated to stop them. And their plan was to put themselves on a boat where they could be easily found? There was no way they actually thought they could get far enough down the river to escape before Rachel caught up with them. She was Casper. She had a reputation. They knew she would be right there.

  They didn't get on the boats. They just knew that was what we would immediately think. They knew we would come racing into the village, see those boats, and assume that's what they were doing. And what's more, they knew our arrival would draw attention. Even if they didn't know exactly what new identity Casper would appear as, they had to know her arrival would make a big stir somehow. Even if it was just her personality. They knew she would draw attention, and she had. Everyone in town was watching where she went. Everyone in town was trying to help right now by sending the message about stopping those boats. They were all paying attention to the boats, instead of the… the… mines I’d noticed. Specifically, the most obvious mine entrance, the closest one, that they would’ve seen immediately as soon as they made it into town.

  I had no idea how far it went, or what they were mining for, but I knew that was where those guys went. They were too smart to trap themselves on a boat for Rachel to find, and if they stayed on the road or hid in the village, she’d find them. The mine took them out of sight and gave them a chance to get as far away as possible. By the time we finished searching the river and surrounding area, they could’ve reached the end of that mine, then found another way to continue on. They might’ve disappeared completely.

  Turning back to where Rachel had been going, all I could see was a distant speck as she disappeared onto one of the boats. She couldn’t hear me from here, and even if I ran as fast as I could, those guys could be gone by the time I got there and explained everything. To say nothing of how long it would take to get to the mine itself after that.

  A rush of panic filled me, and I completely froze for a second. What was I supposed to do? I-- I couldn’t-- I wasn’t-- if those guys escaped, it could--

  Before realizing what I was doing, my hand was already snapping out to catch hold of one of the villagers who had been running past me in the other direction. “The Seeker!” I found myself snapping, pointing the way Rachel had gone. “Go find the Seeker, tell her ‘they went to the mine!’ Tell her Rhythm says they went to the mine!”

  Giving the guy a little shove that way to get him moving, praying he would actually listen, I took off once more. But now I was running to the mine itself, not the river. I was nothing. I was nobody. In real life I was just the Squire, and in this world I was the Teller. I navigated, I helped my sister, I told stories. I did not fight.

  But they were getting away, and I couldn’t let that happen. Somehow, I had to catch up and… and stall them until Rachel found us. I just had to stop them from escaping long enough for my sister to get there. I could do that, right? I could… I could stall them. Please let me stall them.

  As my sprinting feet kicked up dirt, the pain in my legs screaming in protest, I desperately searched through my provided memories for some sort of skill or power I could use to help with this. But everything this Teller identity knew was meant for recording things, writing stories, telling stories. I knew how to make quills and such move by themselves to write things down or draw simple images, I knew how to recall any information I’d heard or seen, how to change my voice, do minor special effects to help with that whole storytelling thing, I could even make areas slightly warmer or cooler to make audiences more comfortable. Tellers had all sorts of tricks for telling great stories about the Seeker they were paired with, spreading their legend. But as far as actually being able to fight went? I had bupkis. Which I probably should’ve known based on the fact that I hadn’t even shown up with a weapon, but still.

  It didn’t matter. None of that mattered. Rachel would be there. She was always there. I just had to slow those guys down, keep them busy for a few seconds. I could do that. I had to do that.

  Breathing heavily already as I reached the mine entrance, I hesitated for only a second. Just long enough to steel myself and reach out to grab a nearby shovel. Yeah, it wasn’t a sword. Or, even better, a machine gun. But it still made me feel a bit better to have something in my hands.

  Without wasting any more time, I plunged right into the mine. It was immediately cooler, almost uncomfortably so. Which might’ve meant I could actually make some use out of that temperature-controlling spell, but I didn’t think about it. I was too focused on listening for footsteps. Please, please don’t let it be too late. God, don’t let it be too late. They had to be here still. They couldn’t have already escaped, please…

  The entrance area of this mine immediately split off into three tunnels going different directions, and I felt that panic rush up. Three choices, what if I made the wrong one? They could’ve gone in any of them, how-- what was I supposed t--

  There. The one on the left, there were voices coming from that way. I couldn’t make out the words, but it was definitely voices. No time to waste, I took that one. But first, I dug that shovel into the dirt right in front of it and drew a quick arrow for Rachel. Then I started running again.

  I’d thought it would be hard to catch up with them. I was wrong. Either they’d been really delayed somehow and only just reached the mine when Rachel and I had made it to the edge of the village itself, or… or it was a trap. Either way, I went sprinting full-tilt through that tunnel and into a slightly wider spot before even realizing that I’d reached them. But there they were, just the way the guy back at the farm had described. Two humans and one of the big, troll-like Faurkesh (seriously, he looked like Shrek but blue, much more muscular, and with large walrus-like tusks). They were already turning toward me as I came into view, but none of them had moved yet. I had a chance. Gripping the shovel tightly in one hand, I told myself what I had to do. The big guy, I had to stop the big guy first. I saw it all play out in my mind. Throw the shovel like a spear, right into his throat. Even if it didn’t kill him, the shovel hitting his throat would still screw up his breathing and take him out of the fight. In the meantime, I could throw myself into the smaller of the two humans, using my momentum to slam him into the wall. Then I’d just have the one remaining guy to deal with.

  With a grunt, I sent the shovel flying, before hurling myself at the next guy. Aaand… the shovel awkwardly clanged off the tunnel wall a good two feet to the right of the troll. It didn’t come anywhere near where I threw it. Worse, the thing didn’t even hit tip first. It had already flipped over to be vertical, the whole handle slamming length-wise into the wall before bouncing off and clattering down into the dirt.

  As for me, I somehow got tangled up in my own feet just as I went to lunge at the smaller human. Things went sideways and upside down for a second, and the next thing I knew, I was on the ground, dazed and winded.

  Before I could do anything, the Faurkesh reached down to grab my ankle. He hoisted me off the ground, holding me upside down like that. All three of them stared at me, and I froze. I should’ve fought. I should’ve kicked and flailed and broken free. I should’ve done something. Instead, I felt a chill of terror run through me. I was paralyzed by fear. I couldn’t even say anything, thanks to the lump in my throat.

  “Human,” came the first word from the Faurkesh. Not that he was really a Faurkesh. All three of these guys were Eighty-Sevens, Intruders. They’d just been transformed into these bodies, like Rachel and me.

  “Earth human,” one of the ‘human’ Eighty-Sevens amended, leaning in to sniff me. “Followed us. With Freestyler.”

  Those two snarled angrily, before the other ‘human’ lifted his chin. “Well, we’ll have to put a stop to that. Maybe it’ll be less interested in following if we cut out its larynx.”

  “No time for knife,” the ‘Faurkesh’ insisted. “We make no follow now. Never follow again.” With that, he reached out for me, that huge, leathery blue hand cutting off my vision and muffling my scream as he grabbed my face. I felt just how strong his grip was. Biting his hand did nothing, it was like biting onto a thick baseball glove or something. He cut off my air, then laughed as I struggled in vain. I was tossing my head back and forth, a muffled scream escaping me as I fought completely uselessly to pull my face free. Air, air, I needed air, please, I had to breathe, I had t--

  A howl of rage filled the room, as air rushed into my lungs. At the same time, I found myself falling into an awkward heap in the dirt. The ‘Faurkesh’ was staggering backward, his severed arm lying in the dirt near me.

  Derecho was there, in that dog form, standing between me and the disguised Eighty-Sevens while giving a low, warning growl for them to back off. More important, so was Rachel. She was standing in front of those three, bloody sword in one hand and the shovel I’d thrown in the other. “Now, see, you really screwed up here,” she informed them while flipping the shovel around. “I was already gonna stop you. But now you touched my sister.

  “So I’m really gonna make it hurt.”

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