They spent a long time in the caves. So long the cave stopped being a cave and became something more akin to a secondary stone world within the icy heart of the tundra. It was warm— muggy, as they delved down rocky corridors and traversed valleys of brown under bladed stalactites.
There was a hole in the earthen world somewhere that allowed streaks of cascading white lights to fall. Highlighting things they never noticed before.
Claude stood facing a wall, sweat dripping down his head as he carried his crown-mellivora egg.
"What does this mean?" He asked aloud.
Ursula shrugged.
For a while they stood in silence— like the other students standing around in the open stone valley.
The walls were smooth, wet and covered in crude art. It almost looked like children's drawings, but the depictions were adult. Violence, sex, families, fears, monsters.
It was like they were seeing the recorded history of a world before their own.
But that couldn't be it.
It was a bronze ranked tangent. Intelligent life didn't exist inside. Humans didn't exist insi—
"Want to hear a story?" Naz said from his other side.
"Sure."
"I once had a teacher. His name was Maha. He was an intelligent man— but he had moments where he was like a different person. Some days he would have this wild look on his face and his intelligence would run free. It would just flow out of his mouth all day. Facts…. Theories…. Discoveries, we'd go on expeditions and run tests in the wild— he did not care how unforgiving the sands were. On those days he was unpredictable. But aside from the violence, there was one other thing from him I could always count on."
Ursula and Claude listened as they eyed the art of six men fighting a Wholly Rex wearing a serpent spine as a defensive necklace.
"He called it the Grapevine Realm Theory."
"I've heard of that." Ursula said.
Naz continued, "Whatever caused the birth of Tangents, split what our world once was into sections along the same plane of earth. Either through miscalculation or by design, now each grape is accessible to us through the Tangent's."
"The only problem with that theory is that it implies there's an end to this. We've had Tangents for two thousand years." Darius added.
Naz shrugged, "Our world is much older than that. I'm not surprised."
Claude held her hand— a struggle to do while also carrying the egg, "Crazy theories aside, I'm sorry you had such a crazy teacher."
Naz shook her head, "He was my favorite."
Claude turned his head and found Ursula side eyeing her if only for a moment.
"Guys!" Stella yelled from further into the stone under world. "I found something."
A few minutes later and the whole of Claude and Naz's team surrounded Stella as she stood around a fresh battle scene.
Bits of fur, flesh and blood littered the ground along with a serrated knife.
"Wyldermen aren't bronze ranked are they?" Reagan asked.
"Low silver usually. Reborn beings turned into wyldermen are high gold."
"Then who made the knife?" Warren asked.
Stella crouched over the scene and picked it up, holding it up to the scarce light in the cave.
"It's not a knife. It's a toot—" She stood up suddenly, pointing into the dark ahead.
Claude followed her as his Island-dogs headed after her with their noses to the ground.
Their steps were soon audible in the sticky wetness.
"Blood."
"Scimitar cats don't usually have to worry about being hunted— especially in tundra-type enviroments." Claude said from behind her, "They do amazing in the cold. Especially at night. Nothing has eyes as good as them out here."
"This doesn't have eyes at all." Stella commented.
The two looked at eachother. Stella couldn't hide the shake in her legs.
Claude was convinced this tundra-type tangent was in the Christmas season, "Stella, this is perfect." His legs shook for a different reason.
Ten minutes later and he and Stella were leading their fellow students down the cave, following the Island-Dogs with their noses to the floor beside Claude. The scents grew with the lights as they neared a clearing in the distance.
He could smell the air going crisp from unmitigated winds and updrafts. He could smell it.
The species was nocturnal so they slept during the day. They slept deeply, knowing none would come for them. Not even the red-backs. To the animals and monsters of the tundra, it was the only species that functioned more like an urban legend.
An element.
A smell left to be questioned and never followed.
A sound in the night never to be pursued.
A mystery wrapped in white. Left to be invisible under snowfall.
Claude turned to face everyone, putting a finger to his lips and motioning for them to stop.
Naz watched with a wild look in her eyes.
He turned to Stella, she was paralyzed with fear.
Claude was remembering his readings on them. Calls, habitats, behaviors.
He put his hands over his mouth, cupping his lips to make the clicking growl sound deeper than his natural boyish vocal chords could manage.
The sound knocked Stella out of her apprehension.
When his calls were met with the proper reply, she forced down a gasp. Along with a few other students.
Everyone entered a new domain of silence as the figure moved further down the hall.
Claude could hear the creature groan as it stretched and shook itself awake, wondering who had the idea to wake them up at such an unholy hour.
A series of intricate and unique snorting sounds went off, echoing down the hall.
The beast lumbered out of the shadows. Only barely. Just a white outline of shimmering short fur, held up on long white legs like a horse. If horses had gigantic webbed paws tipped by retractable claws. They were like nightmarish snowshoes.
Speaking of nightmares, the creature had no eyes. It didn't need them. Where the eyes were supposed to be, an extra set of larger nostrils opened and closed, slinging slobber and steam as it gave out a series of warning calls and snotty chuffing sounds.
At the same time, it fanned its massive batlike ears, pulling their scents in to be studied.
It didn't look like any other well known worldly felines but Claude knew from his father that it was a distant variant relative of the homotherium. Shown in its one remaining sabered tooth and build that was obviously more suited to long distance running instead of ambush style hunting. Its deepset chest almost reminded him of old-world greyhounds. If they were five feet tall at the shoulder.
It took him a moment to stop marveling and embrace reality.
"It's….. it's a tundra-stalker."
As if it needed to give them further confirmation, the tundra-stalker went rigid— catching a scent it wasn't a fan of. Immediately inhaled and centralized organs in its hairless chest began to glow— steaming as the magical heat climbed and spiraled out of its jaws as sparks of electrical blue fire.
"Bow!" Claude and Stella said at the same time.
In seconds everyone dropped their heads.
The tundra-stalker came a step closer.
The heat faded.
Claude looked to Stella. "She's not a cheetah, but she does suit you."
Stella slowly stood up, finding the stalker of the steppe already facing her. Attracted to her familiar feline nature. The smells of cat embedded in her skin and on her clothing. Her quiet steps. Her magic.
Her platinum blond hair almost looked equally as white as the stalkers fur as they faced eachother. It was, as their traits merged. Elven ears split her— now white straight hair. Her hands and feet grew larger— as if they already weren't. She took on a lankier form causing her university pants to only reach her shins.
She held a hand out and purred as the stalker brushed against it.
It was just like before. It was beautiful. Better, because this time it wasn't a drea—
The stalker growled and spun around, ears pointing straight up. Immediately after, the beast took off and left Stella disoriented, falling into Claude's arms as the students swarmed.
"What the hell happened?"
"I couldnt tame her— there's something out there, I heard it. I'm guessing it's the boss."
Claude peeked past her and headed into the tundra-stalkers den.
Nothing but massive thick bones. Human bones.
"It's been feeding on the marrow."
"The marrow of what?"
"Skeleton-hunters."