There is was. The presence that had decided that today was the day. I felt like I was being invaded by a force of tiny ants.

  In other words, I couldn't see things and everything went dark and all of a sudden I was running and running.

  My feet found the cobblestones. My arms pumped. I was moving. In the back my mind, I knew that this wasn't the kind of effect that I could shake off without using all of my thrill.

  It would cost everything.

  If I got far out of a half away from the magic then maybe I could.

  I found myself five blocks away, drenched in sweat. There was no two ways about it. That was a particular use of magic that I'd never encountered. That made me fear for everything. I instinctively reached for Martin looking around for him but he was nowhere to be found.

  There I was a middle-aged fae lost in the middle of a human City with only the nearby of water to navigate from.

  This was fine. I'd been here before. Well, not here exactly but I knew what I needed to do.

  I started walking. He would find me.

  I looked for some landmark. Any evidence of where I'd gone through would have been wonderful but each street had the same feeling. I'd appreciated the way that they all packed in together. Masses of humanity all in one place had to work out some way. The smell was something to be experienced from afar but the culture was at least kind adjacent.

  Now if only Martin was around. I stepped back towards the direction I was reasonably sure that I had come from. Instantly the ants returned.

  "Rek." Of course I moved back. This had to be some anti fae magic. I couldn't even get close enough to do something about it. Martin was probably suffering on his own and I couldn't fix this.

  A loud crash on my right reminded me that we'd had visitors before.

  Once upon a time I had a plan to run alongside Martin and if the dinosaur caught up, well he had more meat on his bones than me. This isn't to say that all humans are expendable or that this one was.

  Those teeth just happened to be longer than my palm. Getting multiple puncture marks along my skin due to badly trained minions would ruin my day to say nothing of my work clothes.

  I don't take pride in my ritual uniform but I'll be damned if I pay for another one with my own money. The company could pay for that.

  However this one? My own stuff? I once again considering tapping into my stored thrill. It would be so easy. But my legs still worked and I had to reel of aether. Whatever this shade was looking for, I had to be a beacon in the crowd. Not every human could or would learn to use magic.

  I ran. Martin had his own issues. I just kept telling myself that I did not need his protection and that I'll be fine. And the best part about dinosaurs was that they had difficulty adjusting to changes in direction when they got going. I ran down one block and immediately turned to the right. The shade dinosaur blew past me going downhill. I kept sprinting down perpendicular from the way I've been going and then made another turn. Surely I wouldn't be able to follow me around forever.

  There had to be more interesting humans around.

  There had to be more interesting people with magical abilities for it to go and try and gnaw on.

  Rek, the little victories were good.

  I found myself out of breath listening for whenever the shade would show up again. If there was one thing about these kinds of beasts, they were always loud. They were always persistent but they were always something you could listen for. Unfortunately for me, that meant that I would have to slow down. Instead of losing that. By the time I left that block I ducked up another block trying to go a different angle. If this daughter said wanted me? It was going to have to find me. And I was not going to make it easy.

  There had to be a way to get it to stop chasing without using magic. I didn't know of one. I could think of a way to destroy it, but large enough the lista or a Warhammer but I gotten far enough away that I could hear it moving but I didn't hear my heartbeat in breath. The only bad part about being on Port ship was that you couldn't get all this walking and running around. You were able to do when you were on land. There was not much you could do about it, but conditioning was always a thing that you had to worry about.

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  Out running dinosaurs was not a normal task for anyone to do. I ducked again to say another cobblestone Road looking out for me on the corner. Down the way, the dinosaur was charging the opposite direction. I was safe for now. Unfortunately the dinosaur was charging the way that I wanted to go. If I started walking up behind it, would it take that as some kind of aggression?

  What like. Mostly because it was running through several stalls and scouting people all over. It didn't really stop long for anything. It did not have the sort of intent that a sapient mind would. But then I saw it.

  My favorite small town vendor, a tall green-skinned being Hawking food was directly in the path of the dinosaur that I had so far. Been able to avoid chasing down too fast. That's what I knew that I couldn't stand by. If anything happened to this orcs meat pies, then my whole world would get up ended.

  He must be protected.

  In the course of business, I found out that there are a few things that are always true. One is that you should never lean home without a good towel. The next is that you shouldn't sign a fae deal with anybody unless you have a fae lawyer which in itself is a fade deal of its own. And the final one is that orcs will not back down from a challenge and will not cede ground to anyone under any circumstances.

  As I ran down towards the docks I was just glad that I wasn't charging to battle with him. It was one thing to mess up my day. It was a wholely other different thing to mess up the day and or life of the person that was selling the best food cart food that I found so far among the humans.

  So far I've been holding back and minding my time but this this meant War. Whoever sent this thing? I didn't care about Professor Vaughn anymore. All I cared about was keeping mine safe. And at that moment that green-skinned Foreigner was one of my people and I couldn't help myself. I felt it. Electric underneath my skin, The thrill worked in Spanish up and strengthen as I left. Now I've jumped a fair distance but in two small bounds I cleared almost twice as many blocks to come careening into the dinosaur. It looked at me as if it was shocked.

  "Remember me guy?" I elbow-checked it into the nearest building. Neither the building nor the dinosaur gave in, a testament to true dwarven engineering at the forefront. I would credit the humans for this but it was obviously dwarven make.

  Now the dog was behind me, the dinosaur shade was in front of me angry and looking at me like I was back on the menu.

  "Take this!" The orc handed me a giant axe.

  Now axes are not my favorite weapon, but they'll do in a pinch and they were especially good against dinosaurs who didn't tend to have long range weapons. Unless this dinosaur decided I want to sign with his tail, that would be the end of it. This one charged headlong against me and once again I tapped deep into the source of my magic. I was only hoping to make it up with whatever blood I could get from this experiment.

  I'm at the head directly with the ax I have been given and it's sunk in caving the dinosaur's upper jaw in and unfortunately when a dinosaur runs at you and you don't move, you tend to get caught up in its run. I held on to my ax for dear life as the dinosaur twisted and ran into a far worse made building. Fucking humans and their wooden frame buildings that would never stand up against the realities of the fae Court.

  Oh I should say that all humans that build this way are wonderful because I went straight through a wall and it felt like nothing. And on the other side I was inside of a warehouse building. The shades face was now stuck through it and stuck to the ax. The ax itself got lodged into the wall so the dinosaur couldn't actually leave and behind it, I heard the thrilling sound of an orcish war cry.

  I was never so glad to have found a new friend on the docks.