The Bat glared at me, and I glared right back. A hundred yards away, a great feathered form, its naked head the same hue as sandstone and its massive wings a combination of white and rusty brown, swooped down and alighted on the ground next to a pile of several charred Spiders, chasing away two forty-foot Gila Monsters munching on them as it did so.

The two Commander fliers were treating each other warily, but clearly didn’t plan to attack one another. Instead, first one, then the other chirped and screeched at me.

“I can kill you both rather than do what you are demanding of me. Which do you think is easier for me?” I returned to both of them. They both paused to think about that, bristling a bit, and then glancing at the Commander Spider’s abdomen as it crumbled inwards, the steel-hard carapace and hairs falling to dust. “How about this?” I gestured to the area. “You have your Servants get me the heads of the dead Spiders. In return, I and my fellow Humans will chase after the Spider Swarm, and I’ll pop at least one Commander Spider for each of you. I won’t burn any of the corpses in the white fire, so your people can eat all they want, but I want all the eyeballs and mandibles, and at least a dozen sets of the legs, from the Warrior-class Spiders.

“I’ll even cut them all open so it’s easier for your Servants to feed!” I waved Noble’s humming Gold-edged Blade at them. They couldn’t have missed how I was hewing through Spider necks with it, so they were wary of it, if confident such a tiny thing wouldn’t do much to them.

Well, what they didn’t know and all...

They screeched only a bit, and the threat displays faded. They called out to the skies, and the flocks above promptly dove down all over the place.

The ground scavengers hissed and scampered away as the Bats and Vultures circling overhead descended on the dead Spiders, expeditiously tore off their heads, and flapped off with them, flying over and dropping them on us like backpack-sized boulders.

Void TK caught them effortlessly and piled them up on the extra Disks, about twenty per, while the Warrior ones went right into the Pocket to start working on.

The men were gaping at the display. It certainly was a lot more efficient than doing it all themselves!

“Let’s go. Elder Vulture, we’ll probably be moving a little slow for your tastes. A little Wind to speed us up would probably help us all.”

I turned us all in the right direction as the wind instantly began to pick up, a Wind Trail ten times the size of the one I’d put up washing over us and instantly picking up speed to send us hurtling in the right direction.

I sighed as I concentrated my other thoughtstream on processing the heads. About every thirty seconds, a cracked spider head, minus its eyeballs and mandibles, was ejected from the Pocket as we raced over the landscape at a healthy clip.

Some of the flocks stayed behind to eat the dead Spiders there. The rest, and more seemed to be joining by the minute, started paralleling us up above.

“This is the goddamn weirdest thing I’ve ever seen,” the Mick freely admitted, gazing upwards into the starry sky as we raced over the scrubby plains all around us, only shifting left or right to avoid stands of cactus, or the occasional boulders. They were all looking up at the lightening sky, and the scores, starting on hundreds, of very large winged forms above us.

“Commander-class creatures are about as intelligent as average humans, and are not above working together if they don’t have to compete for the same things. I’m sure in normal circumstances these Bats and Vultures would be going at it, but this is a buffet, and as long as they can be killed, there’s enough Spiders for everyone.

“As long as we can kill enough Spiders for them, they’ll be happy to let us do so. The Spiders are better prey than Humans are.”

“I’m setting up a main course for a bunch of Bats and Buzzards. Being a Hunter truly is the weirdest damn job,” Glenn piped up, still watching the creatures above nervously.

“You know, this is really gonna make our reps if we pull this off right,” Red muttered, watching another Spider-head get unceremoniously ejected from the Pocket and splat to the ground behind us. “And if the Beasts give us all the Warrior-heads, and we get a bunch of the foot-spikes, too...”

“What eats the foot-spikes?” I had to ask, sure nothing of the dead would go to waste.

“The local Lizards and the Beetles, mostly. There’s Shale-Shell Ants in the area, too, and they’ll render everything dead down, even grinding up the Spider’s hairs and bristles. Those Spiders behind us will be totally gone by nightfall,” Red answered immediately.

“We’ve got Lightning Runners paralleling us,” Driver Sam spoke up quietly, drawing everyone’s attention to the sides.

Roadrunners twelve feet tall, with blue and purple feathering on their wings, were racing along aside and after us easily, keeping a safe distance while obviously heading in the same direction. There was only the occasional spark dancing over them, but none of the fliers above seemed to want to mess with them.

“They must have been listening in, and want a free meal or two as well,” I shrugged. “That’s fine, there’ll be enough for everyone. There’s a big difference between having to defend and having to attack here.

“Red, Glenn, you’ve both got Light Magic. Focus on defending any swooping Bats from getting shot. They can use their screams to stun the Spiders and set them up for quick kills if you do that. Sam, Bjorn, you’re blocking for us. Big John, Mick, Burt; mire the Spiders down, cluster them up so they can die in droves. Tox, final defense.

“With the Bats helping us, we should be able to rip through the lesser Spiders with great speed. Just block for them so they can stun the Spiders and shut down their Earth Magic, and we should be able to tear them apart.”

“You don’t want us attacking?” the Mick asked quickly.

“You’ve got less than half your attack Mana left, right?” I asked him, and he grimaced, nodding slightly. “You save it for an emergency. Leave the killing to me while you make the battlefield a quagmire and obstacle course. If we do this right, none of the Spiders will make it to us. You Light users are going to have to be on the ball, blocking for the Bats.”

“I’m full on Light. Glenn, Tox, use Wind Walls to block the spike-shots for them. They can fly through them and use them to get altitude back, won’t make any difference to the Bats.” The other two signaled to Red that they understood what to do.

The Mick looked at the stacks of Spider-heads around them, a grin starting to spread on his face. “We are going to make so much money off of this...” he murmured, and the others all started to smile along with him.

“Gentlemen, I have one more requirement of you.” I turned around, gliding backwards without missing anything as I crossed my arms and faced them. “You will not inform anyone, in any manner, about vivic fire.” My eyes met each of theirs in turn. “Vivic fire is very, very dangerous for you to know about. There are powerful beings who will do horrendous things to make sure knowledge of it doesn’t spread. It is very dangerous for you to know what it is, or even that it exists. I will have your verbal agreement that you will relate nothing about vivus or Soul Crystals to anyone or anything, or I may just have to kill you all to spare you just how badly you are going to die in the future.”

They all blinked at me, looked at one another, and looked back.

The Mick reached out and punched the skeptical Driver Sam immediately. “I agree!” he announced loudly. “We all agree, don’t we?” He turned around, an angry look on his face, and his expression had them all nodding and agreeing.

I pointed at the reticent Tox. “Verbal,” I demanded coldly, staring at him.

“Aloud, Tox!” the Mick quickly backed me up.

“I agree,” the reserved Plant Adept finally piped up, as if it was difficult to get the words out.

It was only a Lesser Geas, but it would do the job. They wouldn’t be able to relate anything about vivus, even if they wanted to, and they’d know if something was trying to force them to do so, which would raise all sorts of warning bells.

“Is it really so dangerous to know about, Miss Fae?” Red spoke up, clearly worried at my words.

“Dark Magic practitioners who know of it loathe vivic fire with an almighty passion. The same goes for Beasts using Dark Magic.” I paused significantly as I turned back around. “I’m sure you know a lot of Dark Element users. While some might be honorable people, I’m sure you know that a large number of them are complete dastards, especially the ones who are really good with the stuff.

“Dark Magic is a feast for vivus. Dark Mana is an alien magic not native to our world, and vivus will burn it and those who practice it, as well as destroy their magic and servants and energies.

“It also makes Soul Crystals. I don’t think I have to tell you the utter greed that will erupt when people find out Soul Crystals can be used to buff Stars. The slaughter that will erupt on the Beasts, and the retaliation that will rapidly happen in return, are not something you want to have to deal with.

“Powerful mages will capture you and tear apart your minds and souls to discover the secret of vivus for themselves. I strongly suggest you not even think of speaking a damn word about all this to anyone, if you value your sanity and souls, until it is so pervasive that it doesn’t matter anymore.”

They all thought about the Soul Crystals, what I’d said they could do, and realized I was totally right.

“Could we test these Soul Crystals out for ourselves? We’ve a bit before we run into the Swarm again, I’m thinking,” the Mick asked hesitantly.

“That’s actually a good idea.” He blinked that I actually agreed so readily. “Give me a second. I’ve got to combine the basic Crystals into viable Cores for you.”

“They won’t just work as they are?” Red asked promptly, definitely the sort who enjoyed the details.

“A Core is a Soul Crystal with the equivalent of twenty-eight Mana to it, as your Tier Three stars have twenty-one in them. Servant-class creatures cough up Tier One to Three Crystals if they are vivified on death. If you apply the Crystals separately, you lose one or two Mana each time. If you do it all at once, you don’t waste anything.

“Let me meld a few together, and get one for each of you. You’ll see the results, even if it won’t have any effect right now.”

“If this works like you say, screw the extra money, I’m going to want as many Spiders burning with that mistfire as we can make it!” Big John announced loudly.

“There’s thousands of Spiders and only a few hundred scavengers,” I sniffed. “We can explain the burning corpses off as a Seed effect, as long as they don’t see much of the Soul Crystals and learn what they can do.”

“Damn!” the Mick muttered. “I have never looked forward to ramming into a full Horde of goddamn Tarantulas so much in my life!”

“Same!” “You know it!” “Shit, me either!” all floated up in agreement from the others.

“That’s good, because we probably need to kill at least a thousand for you all to get Tier Four in ONE Element. If you’re lucky, we’ll get enough Warriors for you to get one set of Seven Stars to Tier Five... or to get the Element of one of you to Tier Five, which would be the smarter play, if you trust one another.”

“Do these Soul Crystals combine up?” Red tossed out after everyone thought about that.

“They do. But it means combining them into an Adept-class Egg, which takes the equivalent of ten Tier-3 Crystals.

“From there, each Tier doubles the cost, and jumping a Rank multiples it by ten.”