Stronger Together chapter 154 (Patreon)

The cave was pretty fucking deep. Like unusually deep. Deeper than  most caves. Probably. After about ten minutes I got bored ruminating  about how fucking deep this cave was and turned to glare at my mentor.  "Harry. How deep is this cave? When exactly are we going to get to the  spot we need to be in to open the Way. Because honestly, I'm still  really on edge from the jungle and the constant skittering echoes from  whatever rats or bugs I'm hearing are make it kind of hard to calm down.  I never thought I would say these words, but please hurry up and open  the horrifying death forest so I can relax."

He chuckled a  bit "We aren't opening a way." We all gave him odd looks, trying to  communicate with our eyes that we absolutely did not want to deal with  his mysterious wizard schtick right now. Or I was communicating that.  Everyone else was probably just curious. He smiled "Don't pout. I'm your  teacher, let me teach. We are currently in the nevernever already.  Anybody know how?" No one answered and he just shrugged happily, glad to  be able to enlighten us and probably to be able to show off. "We are  currently in a shallowing. I know this was in your reading somewhere,  but I also know you started at different points. Nobody knows what that  is?"

Yang cackled "I actually know this one. Cam tends to  focus on books about magical artifacts and stuff. I always liked  geography though, and I read about it in one of my guides to the  nevernever." Harry was mostly hands on, but he did give us tons of  reading,I didn't mind since I loved fiction stories and our homework was  basically all the stuff I used to read back home anyway. Yang kept  going. She seemed animated and cheerful at knowing the answer which made  me smile "A shallowing is a natural wear in the veil between worlds  that people can wander into even without magic."

I snapped  my fingers "Right. Like Tam Lin. I knew about places like that  actually, but not the name. Or at least I knew certain supernaturals can  use places to cross over. Like vampires can come over through strip  clubs. Anyway if we're already in the nevernever does that mean we have  to cross back to earth again before we finally get to the forest?" I  didn't mind the walk honestly but I was already dreading the return  trip. Something occurred to me as i said that. It was getting warmer.  The cave had been icy as hell because...you know...Himalayas. Now it was  starting to warm up as we walked.

Harry smiled as he saw  my face. "Yup, you guessed it. We're already there. The Himalayas is  known as the Roof of the World. It's considered the apex, which is just  tenous enough of a connection to form this shallowing to The Wild Wood,  the home of apex predators. Normal places like game preserves and zoos  wouldn't work, this place is both conceptually linked because of the  nature and denizens and also remote enough to connect to a place as  distant as The Wild Wood. When we come out of this cave, we'll be in a  forest."

That actually helped me calm down weirdly. It was  time to focus, and childish stuff like mini freak outs were for times  when people I loved weren't in danger. I saw that same serious mask  slide into place on Yang. Raven always looked serious when we weren't  doing something emotional so with her it was more that she just kept her  poker face up. I tapped into my aura and cranked up my lightning and  force aspects to a minimal level, just letting them idle so to speak. I  wanted to be able to react instantly to any trouble.

After  about twenty more minutes we saw moonlight spilling into the cave. The  washed out silver coloring of the light combined with the dark rock made  everything look eerie, like we were in a black and white horror movie.  There was thin indentations I could see even from within the cave, they  were like splits in the foliage like badly made paths leading in  multiple directions. Luckily Harry seemed to know which way to head. It  was so bizarre that when we finally stepped out into the night air I was  genuinely worried the color of our eyes might alert someone to our  presence. I flicked said eyes over to Raven and winced. I'd never  realized how brightly colored her hair could look in this kind of  lighting. She saw me looking and willed some of her power to flow over  her into a cloak.

Color wise Raven's powers were a  flawless match for the black and white forest and I grinned at her,  shooting her a thumbs up as we began to move deeper into the wood. Oddly  we all seemed to feel like we should be silent. The Wild Wood was much  quieter than expected and the silence was so deep it was almost a  predator of it's own. It felt like the quiet was looming over us,  waiting to pounce if we disturbed its peaceful repose. I swallowed hard  and had to jerk my head around to see if anyone heard the noise.

I  looked at Raven and glanced around then held a finger to my lips and  shot her a questioning look. She smiled and her eyes glowed with the  dark light of her power enshrouding us in a mobile bubble of silence. I  was so relieved I almost literally gasped with the release of tension.  The other's looked almost as happy to be able to speak. Yang especially  looked shaken "What the actual hell was that? I felt like if I made a  sound the whole forest was going to come alive and eat me!" Her voice  was raspy, as if even the few minutes of disuse had worn away at it.

Harry  grimaced "I felt it too. I think it has to do with what this place is.  The primal fear of being devoured in the dark is connected to this place  in a visceral way. Naturally we're experiencing that on a deeper level  being in the middle of the manifestation of it. Honestly I still feel  like we're being stalked, but the silencing field is a helping a ton,  thanks Raven." Despite that being true, being under the protection of  her cone of silence felt like a weight off our shoulders. "Now,  according to my mom's research she didn't really delve to deep into this  place. She just has a direction for the clearing unfortunately."

That  was pretty reasonable, I doubted I would have continued through this  shitty forest if I hadn't been forced to by circumstance. Between the  black and white trees I could make out flashes of color now. Apparently I  had not been wrong about our eye color drawing attention, at the very  least it definitely drew attention to whatever was in the fucking  forest, glowing red and green and blue gazes raked hungrily across our  whole party. I slipped my glove off so I could get ready to deal with  any of them if they came in for a bite. Let's see how the furry assholes  liked chowing down on divine metal.

However,  speaking of the furry assholes, one of them had somehow gotten into the  field of magic my girlfriend had placed down. Well not exactly. It was  sitting in the middle of the path and we sort of stumbled on it.The tiny  thing was, well, a tiger. But more like a cub. It's paws were huge in  comparison to its body, which was strange considering it was a spirit  being but apparently they work the same way as normal canines. When it  spotted us it growled in what it probably thought was a menacing fashion  and tried to loom over us. Unfortunately for the pup it was smaller  than a shoe box and the looming kind of flopped.

It  took a step forward, clearly attempting to menace us, but it's paw  slipped and it fell cutely in the grass, scrambling to get back up and  looking around adorably before glaring at us like it was angry we had  seen it. I raised an eyebrow and turned to look at Harry questioningly,  curious what the hell it was. He shrugged "The nevernever is a big  place, of course there are more kinds of beings here than I'm aware of  The Wild Wood is home to plenty of species, not just wolves. They just  tend to gather together in groups, we're heading to the wolf clearing.  This little guy is probably some other interesting spirit animal, though  I wasn't expecting a baby."

I  reached out to the thing with my hand. It was white with black stripes,  because of course it was in this monochrome hell. I used my godsteel  hand just in case because I obviously didn't want to get bitten by some  unknown baby cat beast on my normal hand. Raven was staring at it  raptly, her eyes wide at how adorable it was. Damn it, we were probably  going to end up keeping it. The tiger cub leaned forward and bit down on  my hand. Which to my surprise actually fucking hurt. It bit a chunk out  of the godsteel. I yanked my hand back in pain and surprise. I  channeled my power into my hand and formed more godsteel to patch the  damage but still, I was stunned.

It  had bitten through the godsteel. I hadn't even known that was possible.  I was perplexed but Harry looked stunned. "Hell's Bells that's a White  Tiger!" We turned to look at him, including the cat which had snuck in  closer with the distraction and was snuggling against me like I was it's  new mommy. It's ice blue eyes were glowing even brighter now and it's  fur somehow looked shinier under the moonlight. We all gave him a look  that implied he was being an idiot, but he shook his head. "Not like the  animal. White Tiger. Capital letters. The totemic beast of ancient  China. That's the only thing I could think of that could bite through  Cam's arm. I've worked with godsteel, that stuff is tough, but White  Tigers are of the metal element, eating powerful metals makes them  stronger."

I  looked down at the now very friendly kitten nuzzling against me. Now I  knew why it had a change of heart. It thought I was delicious. I groaned  but considering Raven seemed so intrigued I picked it up. She rarely  showed interest in things that weren't me or Barb or now Cinder, so I  wanted to encourage that. Besides I could train the thing to eat  godsteel only after I made it. Maybe it would prefer the stable stuff to  the stuff in my arm, or maybe not. Either way I did not want to be  fucking bitten again. I raised the adorable little monster to look me in  the eye, but since I wasn't metal anywhere it could see but my arm it  didn't nip at my nose or anything.

I  turned to look at Raven and Yang "I guess he likes me. I probably taste  like chicken. You guys cool if we bring him with us? I don't really  like the thought of leaving the little guy stranded in this hellhole  anyway?" Raven's face lit up in a smile and Yang grinned excitedly. We  already had a dog, now we were getting a cat. I wondered if they would  get along. I smiled down at the tiger kitten "Now, if I'm taking you  home I should name you. But it should be something strong and fierce.  How about Max? You look like a Max to me." The serious little guy  reached out and bopped my nose with his paw, without claws out luckily. I  laughed at the cuteness "Max it is I guess. Welcome to the family."