)+\( Hugo )/+(

Vidita looked between different sets of footprints in the dirt, and frowned.

"I'm still not good at this, you know. We could be chasing people that left months ago."

Hugo shook his head. "I have seen the glimmer of a group of souls on the horizon. Be not dismayed. We are not in a fruitless chase."

She whipped around and pointed at him with two fingers. "That's the third time today. Now, you have to make dinner."

Hugo frowned. "That was not court-talk. There was nothing formal about it!"

Vidita tilted her head. "Be not dismayed? Really?"

Hugo opened his mouth to retort, but hearing the words from her, he realized he'd gone back into full formal tone again. He nodded at her. "Okay, but only if you help me slice the vegetables."

Her light danced. "Deal."

Allowing himself happiness was the best thing Hugo had ever done. Sure, Vidita had needed to help - or push - him to grasp it, but he'd given himself deeply to the relationship, and had great hopes it would remain as perfect and electric once they left the tutorial and returned to Vuxarina itself. Vidita made every day feel full, even when she was attempting to get him to realize how to self-moderate his interactions in nonformal settings.

They'd taken out more Belar bases together, and the most recent one came with a surprise - nearly everyone inside was gone. The few that remained were peons stuffing papers and notes into a series of backpacks and boxes, then using a wrist bangle to make each disappear. They died quickly, and the only information Hugo was able to gain from them was that they were enacting an 'Icebox'. The bangle was a spatial storage device, and reminded him of Serroc's ability to make goods appear. Hugo used it to get all the paperwork back, and used the information there to piece the situation together.

Belar's leadership inside the tutorial had fallen, and he enacted a series of protocols to store and preserve information so it could make it out of the tutorial instance, then have all the outlying base personnel congregate at a single, fortified location.

The details turned Hugo's stomach. Once information was collected, it would be given to a representative. That representative would then attain a 'system-recognized' faction abandonment by shooting and killing one of their fellow soldiers. Removing themselves from Belar's faction would make it so they didn't show up in quest totals, nor appear as an enemy force to other skills or technology that was faction based. All they had to do was murder a brother-in-arms.

This had happened dozens of times, in each of the Belar bases. Those individuals were now loose, somewhere in the Tutorial's wilderness, waiting for their chance to get out and give all of that information over to their leadership.

He knew, logically, that he couldn't find them all. He still wanted to track down the ones he could.

That desire had led to their current situation. There was evidence that the top leadership from the base they'd just sacked hadn't gone towards the Belar Headquarters like the rest, but instead made a path towards a beast lord quest objective. He could guess at their purpose, to kill the beast themselves, or to try and impede Serroc - but Hugo assumed attempting to impede the Osteal Empire's patriarch was how Belar's tutorial leader had died in the first place. It was most likely they were going there to gather more information, and would then have another murderer split off and flee into the wilderness. Hugo didn't want them to accomplish any objective.

He gave Vidita's hand a light squeeze, and walked forward. "Come. I expect our enemy will still approach the beast lord's location. The mountains will slow them, and we can catch up."

#

Near midday, Vidita tapped him to slow. "There's smoke in the air. We could be coming on a camp."

He nodded, and lessened his pace. They were firmly in the shadow of the mountain now, though there weren't any glows visible to his Soulsight on its incline.

They prowled through the foliage, until Vidita spoke again, terse and serious. "Hugo - there's rifle fire."

He pushed himself forward before she could offer a word of caution. It wouldn't be the first time Belar had killed Vuxarinans in the wilderness, and he wouldn't waste a moment with his people's lives in danger. Branches cracked under his feet, then stones clacked as the terrain shifted from sparse vegetation to a barren landscape.

His feet slipped against loose dirt as he crested a small incline - and took in the battle before him.

A decent-sized but simple structure stood in the distance, smoke rising where a roof had been burned away. Three Vuxarinans were trapped under a barrage of fire from Belar soldiers. Another set of the company's guards were ringed around someone - or something - exquisite. He forced his attention back on the soldiers, and sent soulthreads forward to join the fray.

There were too many enemy troops to take them all down at once, and still too many to stumble everyone. He chose his targets. Three of the soldiers attempting to flank the three Vuxarinans in cover, to give them a better chance at winning the fight. One closer, to at least stop the Belar soldier that was poised to shoot the man laying on the ground. Four was the most he could do, at this distance, and as quickly as he needed to. He twisted his energy around each, and pulled. The close soldier froze completely as his light stretched and started to tear. The three far enemies were allowed to shout for a few seconds before he silenced them - a good distraction to their fellow soldiers, and a way to hopefully give his fellow Vuxarinans a bit more advantage.

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The focus of the enemies shifted. Their shock left them immobile long enough for Hugo to finish off the close enemy and two of the far ones. The close enemy dropped his weapon, and the prone man fell into the dirt, alive but stilled. He shifted his newly free energies to more of the enemies near his people, and was rewarded with one of his held enemies dying to rifle fire before he could rip apart the man's soul. Belar's troops panicked, and the momentum of the fight shifted. They scattered themselves and scanned around for their attackers, for cover, for escape.

Hugo's energy plucked two more souls from their bodies before they saw him. His presence elicited a shout from Belar's troops that echoed through their forces in a mix of terror and disbelief.

"It's the soulcrusher!"

Hugo winced. He was responsible for the moniker, though unintentionally. In his recent attempts at interrogation, before he learned to look for and dispose of Belar's recording devices prior to starting his work, he'd made a simple statement inspired by the title bestowed to him by Serroc. The threat was that he would 'crush the soldier's soul if he didn't cough up information', and it was a recording apparently shared with all of the company's troops. The recording - and his actions - had given Hugo a reputation. He hated the name, but couldn't argue against the effect.

The panicked troops fell into true disarray. Some attempted to flee. One cowered in place and pleaded to gods Hugo didn't recognize as they wrapped their arms around their chest, as though that would hold their soul in place. The rest aimed at him, and a hail of projectiles rocketed through the air to take his life.

Hugo kept his feet planted to the ground. He had to keep the pressure on the enemy - and he didn't need to worry about the ranged fire.

A thick, luminous barrier flashed into existence and tinked like shattered glass as it intercepted the enemy rifle fire. Vidita panted behind him with her hands raised.

"Thank you, Vivi."

She shifted her left arm up, and an orb of light condensed in her right hand. With a twitch of her wrist, a solid beam the size of a pen shot forward and hit the armor of one of their enemies. It didn't penetrate the burgundy material, but heated it enough that the metal started to glow, and the man inside started to scream. He dropped his weapon and rolled on the ground as he fought to free himself from the burning metal.

She was definitely frustrated. He was going to need to apologize later for sprinting ahead.

The enemy and his people continued to exchange fire, but Belar's shots lessened. Hugo ripped souls from bodies, Vidita disabled foes with her magic, and his people took opportunistic shots at the enemy soldiers until there were only two left alive. One was the soldier that had dropped and prayed, still rocking back and forth with their arms tucked tight around their torso. The other was a grey furred soldier with bright blue eyes that had dropped his weapon and raised his hands to the sky.

Hugo was preparing to close in and question them when a stout man built like a bricklayer and a lithe woman stood and fired on each enemy. They had awful aim, but that was solved with quantity, and Hugo lost his prisoners - along with his chance at interrogation. The third Vuxarinan stood, and limped forward for a few steps before he was helped along by the other two. Hugo pursed his lips and blew a breath out his nose, then scratched his head as he started to walk forward towards the prone man.

His face was half hidden by the dirt, and the other was full of cuts and scrapes - but he still recognized the person that had allowed him to set off on his current path. Hugo stared down at the man, eyes wide and jaw slack.

The light of a soul, for most, was a shimmering, humming thing. Some burned brighter than others. Some coiled, and shifted. They had changes in color and direction and intensity depending on the individual, and it was a thing of subtle beauty.

Serroc's soul churned like a storm. It was dense and deep like ocean water. It blazed like the roaring plasma of a sun. It exploded and stilled and shrank and moved like nature asserting dominance on the world.

The man was defined and surrounded by a massive, slowly spinning vortex of yellow-orange light. A completely separate source of light - a band of black - streamed around his body and swirled through his head, shimmering with bits of silver and weaving itself through and around something else that was grey... like static. Flashes erupted through his soul, seemingly at random, like lightning. Hugo couldn't comprehend the grey, but the rest was sublime. Like everything in the orbit of that energy was more... true.

He had so many questions. Seeing Serroc with his Soulsight made him feel inspired and insignificant all at once. He knelt down and grunted with effort as he turned the man over onto his back, and wiped dust from his face.

"Vidita - herbs, please."

She knelt beside him and rested her hand on his arm. "Hugo, herbs can't fix this. Please - saving three isn't a bad thing. They would all be dead if you hadn't rushed forward to help them."

"Watch out, now." The stout man practically elbowed Hugo out of the way, and hoisted Serroc up by the shoulders until he was nearly sitting. The skinny, wounded one was glowing with magic as he turned a bottle of water with a bleeding cube of meat in it into a viscous green liquid. The stout one pulled open Serroc's jaws while the wounded one emptied the contents of the bottle into his mouth.

"What are you-"

The lithe woman stepped in front of him before he could lunge forward. "Greetings, my lord, my lady. Thank you both for your timely assistance. Please do not fret, we are helping our friend." The stout man slapped Serroc hard on the shoulderblades, and he started to gulp the liquid. She traced his gaze. "Ah, yes - we are administering a nutrient smoothie to aid in his recovery. Figured it out after last time. Let me introduce us. I am Brinkha, attendant - or former attendant - of House Tashmarina. My friends are Gerald, the proprietor of Gerald's Superior Stones, and Norton, a celebrated chef of the Gilded Hearth. The last of our group is Serroc, a... missing child of Vuxarina."

Hugo watched her wince as she realized she'd gotten the official description wrong. He held up a hand. "Please. Titles and houses hardly matter here - though, you have my condolences for the fate of your benefactors. Above all, in this place and in our awakened world, we are fellow Vuxarinans. This is Vidita, and I am Hugo. It is our pleasure."

Serroc coughed up green liquid, then fell over on his side with his head in the dirt. Gerald scrambled, and picked up his lolling head. He gave Hugo and Vidita a forced smile. "He isn't dead! I promise. He just gets like that. Sometimes. Like now."

Brinkha nodded. "He probably won't wake up for a while - so let's make ourselves some shelter and get Serroc set up in there, alright?" She started towards the burnt remains of their old shelter, then spun and spoke with animated hands.

"Oh, also, Serroc is going to scream in his sleep. Loudly. For hours. But don't worry - it's totally normal."

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