“They attack in short bursts of speed,” Clive explained, “but if you’re talking about overland speed, then no faster than a person.”

Realisation crossed Clive’s face.

“Every village reported daily attacks,” he said. “There’s no way one monster got around to every village in a day. There’s more than one monster.”

“That’s what I was thinking.”

“We need to know how many there are,” Clive said. “Given the distances, it’s at least three or four. It could be more than that. People don’t stop when they spot the first monster to check if it brought a friend.”

“Well, I don’t have a way to check how many there are,” Jason said. “But I should be able to tell once we’ve got them all.”

“Oh?”

“I told you about my quest system, right? I got a quest for this contract, the same as the others.”

Quest: [Contract: Mangrove Snatcher]

A number of villages have reported being attacked by a mangrove snatcher.

Objective: Eliminate the [Mangrove Snatcher] threat to the four villages 0/1.

“The objective is to end the mangrove snatcher threat. Once we get the last one, the quest should complete.”

“That’s good,” Clive said. “Otherwise we’d be waiting around for days, not knowing if we were finished or not.”

Like Jason, Clive had a dimensional space that could store objects. A magical circle appeared in the air, lines and runes glowing with golden light. In the middle was a murky darkness Clive reached into, pulling out a notebook and pencil.

“Your abilities all seem very practical,” Clive said as he took notes. “There is a theory that the unique outworlder racial gifts are an unconsciously derived mechanism of self-protection. Possibly as a reaction to the original body being annihilated.”

“I’m sorry, what now?” Jason asked, his gaze locking onto Clive. “What do mean by the body being annihilated?”

“You didn't know?” Clive asked. “It's one of the better-known aspects of outworlder knowledge, because of what we already know about the astral.”

“Didn’t know what? What annihilation?”

“How much do you know about the astral?” Clive asked. “The space between worlds.”

“I read a skill book of astral magic,” Jason said. “I took it from Landemere Vane.”

“So, basically nothing,” Clive said. “Those books are all practice, no theory. Alright, here we go. If you could encapsulate the cosmos, as in all of everything, your world, my world, the space in between, it would be like a bowl of dumpling soup.”

“Dumpling soup?”

“Do they not have dumpling soup on your world?” Clive asked. “Or do they not have analogies?”

“We have both,” Jason said. “We also have smart guys getting punched in the face for running their mouth.”

“That’s rich, coming from you.”