After returning from the Library with his gains, Nicolai had been accosted by Perro, who once more demanded they go to rescue Maxine.

  Since healing the laser burn, he was in good health and there was plenty of time left in the day. Desiring to keep the momentum going and see what else could be accomplished, he agreed to Perro’s request.

  Now, Nicolai and the others filtered through the rooftop jungle. He was accompanied by Jo, Beth, Perro, Azure, Daksh, and Elena. This time, no one wore balaclava’s. Since they weren’t trading, he felt it best to keep the masks off, as otherwise people spotting them would identify them as the traders. He wanted to keep that role separate from their normal appearance. It wouldn’t make a huge difference since they were recognisable enough just from their gear, but every little helped.

  The area was busy, that day. Their drones spotted other drones in the distance above the trees, more groups moving about. The crackle of gunfire was heard here and there.

  They crept to one edge of the jungle, where two towers rose above.

  On the left, Maxine’s Radio Tower. An antenna was visible poking up from the top. The ground-level entrance was destroyed, a collapse that made the tower slump a little.

  A few hundred metres away stood another tower. This one had a ground-level entrance choked with ragged, angry vines.

  Faintly, a cry could be heard, drifting down from its crown.

  ‘Kill me! Kill me! Kill me!’

  ‘There it is,’ murmured Azure, peering up at the tower.

  ‘Who is that?’ asked Daksh, looking confused.

  ‘No one knows,’ Perro supplied. ‘But whoever it is, they’ve never stopped yelling that. Everyone just calls this the Kill Me tower.’

  Daksh shook his head. ‘A strange place we find ourselves in.’

  ‘An interesting place,’ said Nicolai, who found the cries from above intriguing. They made him want to go up there and see what was letting them out. He pulled his gaze from the Kill Me tower to look at the others. ‘Myself, Jo and Beth will float up and see about finding Maxine,’ he said. ‘The rest of you, take up position there.’ He gestured to a jagged pile of masonry, part of the collapsed front of the Radio Tower. ‘Good natural cover,’ he added. ‘Keep your weapons ready.’

  He and the others made their way over. He paused halfway, gesturing to Jo and Beth, while the others continued to the cover he’d indicated. He was about to activate his Pegasi ring when he saw Beth’s eyes widen. She was looking upward.

  ‘Wait,’ Beth hissed, then gestured upwards. ‘Look. Its that bird.’

  Nicolai followed her gesture, turning and scanning the castle. He saw it almost immediately. Sitting on a bastion nearby to the radio tower, where it must have been the entire time, blending in with the stone. The bird was currently fluffing its wings, and the movement made it stand out.

  It was watching Maxine’s Radio Tower.

  Nicolai deactivated his Pegasi ring, brows creasing. Getting up there wouldn’t be as simple as he’d imagined.

  After a moments thought he moved to join the others in the rubble, trying to work out what to do. Jo and Beth followed after him.

  ‘We have a problem,’ he said, pointing at the bird, and they all craned their heads.

  ‘Did Maxine ever mention the bird?’ he asked, looking to Perro. The boy seemed to be the one keeping closest in contact with Maxine.

  Perro nodded. ‘Yeah, Maxine mentioned it a few times. She said that it’s… uh, hunting her.’

  Nicolai nodded. He recalled her mentioning the bird before on the radio, that it had killed the Chosen who’d come after her, but he hadn’t expected it to take up literal camp outside her tower. He had seen it elsewhere, though, so it wasn’t always here.

  In that case, how much time did it spend here? Would it stay here until the moment it detected Cultivators flying around, then come for them, then return? From what he could tell that was what it was doing. He figured it had come for him when he was floating beneath the bridges, tangling with archers, because it had sensed the ripples in the Aura his activities had made, had sensed that he was a Cultivator in an open area it could get to.

  He didn’t think they would do well if they attempted to fly up to land on the top of the tower. It was a perceptive creature, with a powerful Soul Sense. If it’d felt him flying when he was all way in the bridge-filled area between the bastions, then it would certainly feel him—even being more subtle—if he was using a Pegasi ring right underneath its nose. The only option then was to go without any Symbiotes or Imbued.

  Nicolai was a skilled climber, and unusually strong and fast now he was Cultivator. The tower was a ragged thing, scarred by jutting ridges and worming cracks; it would pose little challenge. He estimated he could be at the top in under three minutes.

  But he didn’t just need to get up there. He needed to get Maxine out. If she was capable of climbing the tower, she could have just gone to the side the bird wasn’t watching and climbed down at any time. The fact she remained suggested either she could not make the climb, or that she didn’t want to.

  The bird was powerful, stronger than they could deal with quickly or easily. He wasn’t even sure it could be killed by their weapons. He’d seen it soak dozens of shots the last time, when it attacked the Chosen and pursued him on the bridge. Jo had shot it in the head. The Chosen had fired on it with SMG’s and shotguns. The bird had soaked all of it without dying, without even apparent injury.

  He looked it over carefully. It wasn’t dissimilar to a hawk, only greatly scaled up. Long, hooked beak narrowing to a sharp point. Legs that seemed spindly compared to its bulk, but still huge compared to him and ending with sharp talons that broke the stone of the tower-top it clung to. Even from this distance, Nicolai was able to distantly make out the Soul Sense writhing around it. He sensed it through ripples in the Aura, easily noticeable now he was looking out for them.

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  Even ignoring its unnatural abilities it was very dangerous. With the two combined; strange abilities and simple size, he wasn’t sure they could deal with it.

  But, as Nicolai continued to gaze at it, he noted more, and Threat Analysis worked with him as they studied the bird, searching for weaknesses. There were gaps in its feathers; scars. One of its legs seemed slightly shorter, a little crooked. There were chips and bumps on its beak.

  Nicolai and the Module couldn’t be sure, but as they gazed at it an impression was becoming rooted in his mind. The bird was old. It’d had lived a long, rough life. That could explain why it was here in the first place. Were it not for the arrival of Nicolai and the other humans, something he had reason to believe was a rare and unusual event, it would only have had undead to chew on. He doubted that desiccated flesh and mouldering bones were high up on its list of ideal meals.

  It was common for older members of any predatory species to find themselves pushed to the edges as they grew older, forced to scrape by. The young would shove them out. This had been true in his profession, as much as it was in the wild. In his time, Nicolai had been both the one doing the shoving, and the one being shoved. He’d come out on top each time, but maybe this bird hadn’t, and now it was here. Or perhaps it was the opposite. Perhaps this was the most perfect, most desirable hunting ground, and it had claimed it by virtue of great strength.

  Either way, the injuries on the bird told him it could be hurt, and this told him that it could be killed. He just needed to understand what was making it so resistant to bullets, to work out exactly how much damage and in which spots they ought to aim in order to kill it.

  This reconnaissance could be performed over time—no need to rush—as now he knew where it tended to come to roost. Powerful as it was, it was still limited. He had gotten away from it the last time simply by running into the castle.

  That in mind, he could simply shoot at it with a sniper rifle from a distance, then run away when it came after him. He could buy more sniper rifles and the others could shoot at it with him.

  They could shoot it, record how it reacted and how damaged it seemed to be. Work out where it was strong and where it was weak. If it could be made furious enough to stay there being shot at, perhaps they could even whittle it down from a distance, without the need to work everything out.

  A workable plan but lengthy, and his time was short. Nicolai hoped it wouldn’t be necessary. He needed to check something else, first.

  Keep an eye on things, he said to Threat Analysis. It gave him a coded nod and Nicolai allowed his mind to drift within, into his Soul.

  He swam through it, searching, and quickly found the green orbs of information that reading the Memory Tomes had left in him, scattered through his Soul’s mirror of his brain.

  While some of the Tomes’ information seemed close beneath the surface, eager to spill out into his consciousness the moment he thought on whatever it was relevant to, other parts were deeper buried. The information on the bird would hopefully be one of them.

  He scanned the green orbs as he swum by them, poking them until he’d learned roughly what they were about. He was pleased when one of them returned an image of a familiar looking giant bird. Nicolai enfolded the green orb and began to manually integrate the knowledge within, studying it.

  A moment later he emerged from his Soul, gazing at the bird above with fresh eyes.

  It was a Dull Eagle, a type of Spirit Bird common to this world. They were generally towards the lower end of the Spirit Beast food-chain; unless one had happened to find a good combination of Symbiotes. Nicolai thought that was what had happened, because the information swimming through his mind had confirmed that this one, by soaking all those bullets, had shown much more resistance to damage that it should possess by nature. The bird was large, sure, and it had similarly enhanced physical capabilities as Nicolai had received after integrating his Seed, but other than that it should be little tougher than he would have expected from a large animal on Earth.

  Therefore its toughness could only be because of Symbiotes.

  Nicolai knew it had something with a kind of pulling ability similar to what the Grasping Finger Symbiote gave him, the usage sign of which was yellow light from its eye. It must also have something to allow it to resist damage, or rapidly heal from it. Perhaps both.

  He allowed his awareness of his body to fade once more, focusing on the green bundles of information lurking in his Soul. They were split into a few sections, and he had now moved from the one on Spirit Beasts to the Symbiote area. He immersed himself into them, skimming through lists and quick descriptions of Symbiotes, looking for the answer.

  After some time he opened his eyes, a conclusion in his mind.

  The bird likely had three Symbiotes. The pulling one could be one of a large number, but it wasn’t overly important. The other two were the important ones. One was likely a Symbote that significantly reduced the effect of any physical strikes it received. The second was most likely one which greatly increased the bird’s ability to heal from wounds. There were a few options for which exact Symbiotes it had filling those roles, and the difficulty of killing it would depend on exactly which ones it had.

  For instance, if it had a Blue Tortoise Symbiote, it would be able to form a powerful layer over its skin that would greatly reduce the damage it took, though it would be weak to getting shot in the same place more than once. However, a Black Tortoise Symbiote would create a similar layer, but one which would be much harder to pierce. Nicolai was uncertain how the early-modern guns and bullets the Trade Link provided would match up against such a barrier.

  As to its regeneration Symbiote, which he felt sure it must have, it should be quite a decent one. In the last fight it had been shot many times, but it had never shown any signs of fleeing, instead sticking around and killing until everyone had fled from it.

  Staring up at the bird, thinking these thoughts, Nicolai mouth creased in a smile. This kind of information was exactly what he’d been missing. He knew much about Earth; the capabilities of people and weapons. Back in his time as a hired killer, learning all he could of any new technology, weapons, augments, and anything else that could effect him during combat, had been a high priority. He had always strived to know as much as possible, before committing to any act.

  But when first arriving here he had known nothing of the new world. Gradually, his knowledge had grown. Now, with the Memory Tomes, his understand was rapidly broadening. In order to do as he desired—to not only survive, but thrive, in the new world—he needed his understanding to grow to match his knowledge of Earth. He was getting closer.

  Nicolai’s eyes traced the bird as its great hooked head moved, the tip of its beak digging beneath its wing, scratching at an itch. He didn’t think it would be easy to fell the bird. Flying or climbing up the tower was not necessarily wise. Before committing to action, he needed information about more than just the bird.

  They needed to be able to talk to Maxine.

  He loosed his Link and started broadcasting, attempting to reach her, but he found nothing. The tower was high and she must be inside, behind thick walls. His Link’s Local communications only had so much power.

  ‘Daksh,’ he said, turning to the man. ‘Do you think you can hail Maxine over Local? She should be up in this tower somewhere.’

  Daksh nodded. ‘I’ll give it a go. No promises, though.’ The man raised his arm, hand out, then that hand split apart into its true form, a mass of spindly artificial digits, antennas and wires. The antennas twisted, searching, and Nicolai felt a buzz of information through the Local, emanating from Daksh, calling out for Maxine.

  With Daksh’s permission, he and the others connected to the man over Local, able to use him as a transmission booster.

  After a moment of searching and broadcasting, someone else connected.