My first thought on entering the portal is that drone videos really need something to set a sense of scale.
Those water buffalo are enormous.
They're easily the size of a delivery truck and have got to weigh upwards of 10 ton. Did I even bring a big enough gun for this insanity?
Penetrating rounds it is, I'm not sure anything else will get through to their vitals. It seems the wolves have had the same idea, as they're both now swapping magazines.
"Watch out for dung piles, they'll be big enough to bog down the Jeeps like a mud pit" I hear one of the Ramirez brothers laugh over the radio, the distortion of the electronic device preventing me from telling who exactly our resident joker is.
He wasn't wrong though, I wouldn't want to have to try to walk through this field.
"Kat, take the left edge of the pack, see if you can down a straggler and we'll try to break up the herd. A stampede likely won't end well for us"
This voice would be Karl, over the small speaker mounted in the box, as the cab itself has no windows that open to let sound out.
"Scratch that, there's some sort of huge lion coming in from the 3 o clock position headed for the herd. Let the predator scatter them and we'll pick off what we can."
The trailer the Jeep hauled out is on the other side of the portal, so Karl must be intending to get a quick kill and fill the quota for the research team before we get to business.
Luck was on our side, one panicked beast, a full grown one with shorter horns came charging directly at us. I waited until it was only a hundred meters away before squeezing the trigger and putting a burst of penetrating rounds into its enormous chest, dropping it in just a few staggering steps.
"Well we know the guns work" I smiled over at the wolves, and the two vehicles headed over to collect our first target. Ropes were quickly attached to legs and to the Toyota, but one vehicle wasn't enough traction to drag that much dead weight through the dirt. It's like dragging a house.
Fortunately, we've got Mary on our side. After a quick conversation with Karl, she hopped up beside me and started casting a spell on the corpse, lifting it slightly into the air, sweat already beginning to form on her forehead.
"Why didn't you drive and have Karl do this?"
"We played rock, paper, scissors and I lost" Mary despaired. "Now, get us out of here before I collapse from the strain you cheating old Mage"
We left the area so quickly I had to hold Mary just to keep her upright in the box while she kept her spell going to keep the beast levitated.
I thought of the magic bag we had to transport items back to the base, but with an opening that I could barely fit through, how long would it take to send this entire beast? I guess lifting it to the trailer really is the only option.
"Hey Karl, I've got a brilliant idea" I hear Jurgen call over the radio. "If you summon a bunch of wagons, we can roll these things out no problem. Werewolves are plenty strong, and with these enhancements, we can pull better than any team of horses.
Now why didn't we think of this earlier?
The first beast is back at the trailer, and Karl has taken a half hour to summon 6 aluminum wagons, like the ones I've seen in western movies, except metal, for ease of summoning. They're all linked up in a train, ready for us to send someone to recover them when it's time to clean up the mess we're eager to start making.
Mary has the mana stone from the beast in her hand, and it's like nothing we've come across before. It's stone hard and perfectly round like the ones from the snakes, but it's the size of a fist and gently glowing green, giving off an earthy feeling and not just a feeling of stored power.
Looking around I notice we can all see how excited she is to try something out, she's staring at that stone the way I stare at chocolate cake.
"Go ahead and try Mary. I'll cover for you if something unexpected happens." Karl seems eager to see what she's got planned too.
Slowly I see Mary's signature bright pink energy surround the stone, before slowly drawing some of the stored energy into herself.
"It's already been converted to Earth Elemental energy, it's not raw mana in this stone!" Mary exclaims "But if I focus I can smooth it back into raw energy and use it to fill my mana pool back up. Like a long lasting battery, with one of these in my hand I could fight for days at full output"
Karl looks intrigued, and pulls one of the stones from the snakes out of his pocket. It's a plain black one, like all the others we've found, with sparks of energy floating around in it. He doesn't surround it in a field like Mary did, instead he just draws straight from it, I can see the energy flowing into his hand, turning to his signature purple as it touches his skin.
"This one is raw arcane energy, basic mana if you will. Perhaps the stones have to do with the nature of the beast that formed them?"
"Only one way to find out" the rest of us respond almost in unison.
We decide the best idea is to split up into 2 groups and cover more ground. We can clean up our kills in a bit, the valley we're in is the extent of this portal. Mary hops in with the wolves, and Jurgen hops in with me and Karl, giving both teams a magician for support as well as multiple combat specialists.
Jake's team heads off first, breaking off to the right and into the open plains where they're hoping to get more of the water buffalo. Our team decides that a bit of exercise is in order, so we head to the tree line and decide to circle the inside of the ridge to see what's hiding.
It's not long before our hopes and dreams are fulfilled. 3 of the purple spotted panther that we found the other day come into sight, but one is significantly larger than the last ones we found. Big enough to take down the truck sized water buffalo we killed earlier.
"I tell you, I'm not sure if you're bad luck or good luck Little Lycan. You wished for something to fight, and the first thing we see is a truck sized carnivorous cat."
I laugh at his pessimistic attitude. "Relax pup, I'll take the big one, you two can take one of the little ones each."
Karl parks the Toyota between a pair of trees and takes a set of handheld radios from the cab. They've got little clips on the back to attach to our clothes and Karl assures me they're good for about a 20 mile range, so more than enough to talk to anyone in this portal.
Powering up my clawed gloves and drawing my saber I hop up onto a fallen tree and shout one of Alpha Petros's favorite war cries at the big cat.
"Bring it b!tch"
It seems that the cat understands my sentiment, if not the words. It throws its head back and roars before charging jaws first at the tree I'm standing on. A quick flip brings me out of the path of the jaws and I smash my clawed left hand down on its back, hoping to sever its spine.
Such will not be my luck today though, as with a sickening crunch of shattering steel, the barrier surrounding my claw is depleted and the claw itself shatters.
Moon Goddess, how hard did I hit that thing?
No time to think about that now, as the Panther is not impressed by my antics and is trying to crush me with a recliner sized paw.
Thinking fast, I send a surge of energy through my saber and swing at its lower leg, scoring a deep gash down to the bone. The cat jumps back, visibly favoring its injured leg and begins to circle me, crouched low to the ground, ears flat.
Too late to stalk your prey kitten, I lunge forward with my saber, ducking low under the incoming paw and landing another solid hit, severing the injured leg and dropping the unbalanced beast to its side. Not wanting to miss an opportunity, I drive my saber down into its chest, hoping the vital organs are in the expected spot.
It takes every bit of force I can muster to drive the point of the sword through the tough hide, but once through it slides smoothly and a quick twist brings a fountain of blood gargling through the creatures jaws.
Must have hit a lung.
It's not done yet though, as it twists its body in a way only a cat could manage and I take a grazing blow from its remaining front paw, ripping though my coat and deep into my left shoulder. I stagger back, trying not to get overwhelmed by the huge beast, but the follow up strike falls short as the cat collapses onto its belly, eyes glazed and blood flowing freely from the wound in its chest.
That was intense.
I drop to the ground, trying to catch my breath after that last hit, pulling the remains of my coat and shirt away from the wound while I circulate energy through the area to speed the healing process. Barely a glance, but so much damage. If I had been even a little slower it would have taken my arm clean off.
Jurgen comes over with the first aid kit and I shrug out of my coat for him to clean and dress the wound.
"Everything go well with your fights guys?"
Karl looks over at the mangled corpse of the beast Jurgen was fighting. "As well as any. It seems the werewolf has a personal vendetta against cats though."
Jurgen flushes a little at being called out.
"Hey, it tried to bite me somewhere very sacred and valuable, I had no other options."
"And the follow up kicks?"
"Totally justified anger management"
Jurgen is working while they banter and my arm is all bandaged up. At the rate I'm healing I should be in prime condition within 5 minutes, but it was still bleeding pretty heavily, and that much lost blood takes a lot of energy to regenerate.
Fortunately, we've still got 3 stones to collect, and one very big cat to drag out of the woods where we can get the cart to load it later.
We're all snacking on trail mix as we creep through the trees, looking for our next target when I feel a change come over my body. The quality of my circulating energy is improving rapidly and it feels like every cell in my body is being enhanced all at once.