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Description
October 31, 1903; Ranchos de los Brujos, New Mexico Territory

“I'm going to rip that bastard’s throat out when we get our hands on him,” Evelyn grumbled through her teeth. “I do not need our horses getting stolen tonight.”

“We will be out of this town in the morning, I promise, my love,” Chaytan assured her, keeping his voice hushed as well as the two trekked through the wet rocks of the stormy desert.

“I hope so. I'm ready to just relax with my daughter at home again.”

“And when you do, you will have quite the tale to tell her,” Chaytan chuckled.

Evelyn let out a breathy laugh of her own, then put her focus back on navigating the desert night. Despite her dress getting soaked, she was thankful for the rain in this specific regard. It provided cover amongst the rocks of the gorge, keeping the Assassins out of sight from any bandits lurking in the valley.

Then suddenly, Chaytan stopped walking. He went completely still, then held up a hand to let his wife know she should do the same.

“What?” Evelyn whispered. “What's wrong?”

“Do you hear that?” Chaytan asked her.

Evelyn closed her mouth and redirected her focus to her ears. The two of them stood in dead silence, save for the rain itself. For a moment she heard nothing, and was about to shrug it off as Chaytan hearing some scuffling animal. But then she heard it. No, that wasn't the right word actually. She… felt it more than she heard it. The actual sound itself was hardly any different than the pitter of the rain, a soft and low sort of rumble emanating from somewhere further down in the gorge. But the feeling was something different entirely. The feeling was somehow coming from the same direction, yet still felt omnipresent. A guttural feeling that crawled up Evelyn's spine and into the base of her brain. Something… ethereal. A feeling that she had experienced before, when she had to take her dives into Precursor temples and wield the ancient artifacts inside, but this was somehow different. Somehow more… foreboding.

“Yeah… I hear it,” she told her husband. “Something tells me our rotten cowboys are that way.”

Chaytan nodded, and the two cautiously made their way in that direction, sticking to the shadows of ditches and rock formations as much as they could while navigating the maze of stone.

The noise became clearer as they came upon a small ridge. Evelyn's nerves were also calmed slightly by the distant nervous whinnying of horses and the angered grumbles given to the animals in response, signifying that they still had time.

“Down girl down!” she could hear someone shouting in Spanish

“Shut that animal up!” another man said.

“I'm trying!”

“Quit bickering, both of you!” another said. “Or I will personally feed you to the beasts!”

Evelyn and Chaytan crouched down and peaked over the rock ledge into the small arena of a gorge below. For the most part, it looked like any other desert bandit hideout that Evelyn had come across in her many years of expeditions, with ragged goons rushing around shuffling supplies and stolen goods while their higher ups scanned their work and collections. Evelyn even caught a glimpse of their stolen horses in a small cave entrance that they were using as a makeshift stable.

But at the center of the depression sat a centerpiece that set this location apart from any that Evelyn had encountered before, a massive tower of stone towering over the arena like a monolith. The humming noise emanated from the formation, and Evelyn's eyes locked onto the feature responsible. There was a sort of crack running straight down the structure, as if the rock had been smitten by a swift bolt of lightning from the heavens. And from that crack shined a bright golden light that beamed out like the sun. A glow that Evelyn had only ever seen radiate from Precursor structures. She narrowed her eyes. What the hell was going on in this town?

She noticed a man standing at the base of the monolith, his hands on his hips as he stared into its glow. Evelyn could tell right away that he was the bandit leader. He was the most finely dressed, and the most well equipped with shining pistols sitting in his holsters. And if he was the leader, that meant he had to be Pedro.

“Pedro,” one of his lackeys said as he came up to him from the stables. “We can't hold on to these horses for much longer. They're too much trouble. We'll never get them to market in time.”

“What happens to the horses is decided by Vivaron, Rodrigo,” Pedro snarled at the man, clearly not one for his plans being questions. Evelyn raised an eyebrow. Vivaron? Was that the brother that Nacho had mentioned?

The other man sneered. “Then toss them to the beast already! Those steeds will break out of their ropes if they keep thrashing around like that.”

Pedro slowly walked up to the man, getting in his face. The man immediately began to shrink back as his boss loomed over him.

“Vivaron eats what she wants to eat, when she wants to eat,” Pedro declared. “So do not tempt her to eat you with your insubordination.”

Rodrigo stood frozen for a moment, then simply nodded nervously.

“Good,” Pedro said. Then suddenly he made a face as if he suddenly realized something. His dark eyes slowly drifted towards the crack in the monolith. Suddenly, a new noise started gurgling from within the glow. It was loud, and deep, bassy enough to rattle Evelyn's stomach from all the distance away. It was a terrifying noise. The closest comparison Evelyn could think to make would be the thunderous booming noise that a crocodile makes.

Despite everyone else in the gorge having the blood drained from their faces in fear, the noise made a toothy, dirty smile leech onto Pedro’s face. He turned back towards the monolith, reaching into his jacket pocket as he did. Evelyn watched as he slowly withdrew a small stone of sorts, jagged like a piece of obsidian but gold instead of black. It was etched with glowing engravings that were the hallmark of a Piece of Eden. Evelyn got a bad feeling in her gut.

Pedro walked towards the monolith, holding the stone aloft and closing his eyes as the reptilian rumbles continued to roar from the crack.

“She is hungry,” Pedro announced. “Bring one of the horses.”

Evelyn watched as two of the bandits went to untie one of the horses they had captured. To her relief, not hers or Chaytan's. The horse whinnied and tried to shake its captors away, but they kept a firm control on it as they led it forward. Pedro took the horse by its reins with his free hand, and began to lead it up a rough rock ramp that led up towards the glow. The gurgling grew quieter, and Evelyn could hear the heavy nasal breathing replacing it. Even the horse seemed to be freezing up in fear as it was brought to the base of the crack and its reins were secured to a rock. Pedro then stepped back to ground level, still holding the glowing stone aloft as he watched with almost sadistic anticipation.

The breathing and gurgling got louder and louder. The horse bucked and pulled, trying to break free from the ropes that held it. The light started pulsing, and Evelyn saw flecks of gold flittering off of its edges. The flecks started condensing into two shapes, ones that were increasingly unmistakable as massive, reptilian claws. The light faded from the claws, revealing the dry, armored scales of the fingers in the flesh as they slowly reached out for the struggling horse. They squirmed, clearly feeling around for its meal. And as soon as they made contact with the horse’s skin, they latched on with unprecedented speed. The horse neighed in pain, and then it was immediately silenced when it got yanked into the crack at a speed Evelyn found difficult to comprehend. The only thing that remained was the sounds, first of the horse in agony, then it being silenced by a series of loud, bloody chomping noises.

Evelyn nearly threw up, and Chaytan held her as she retched over. The men down below were clearly as scared and disgusted, but they kept their lunches down, mostly.

Pedro meanwhile just smiled. He continued to stare at the crack, listening to the visceral noises with a gleeful satisfaction. Whatever monstrosity had poked out from the glow suddenly made a low rumble.

“She wants another,” Pedro declared.

“But boss,” one of his henchmen protested. “If we get rid of one more then we won't have enough of a take for the market!”

Pedro glared down at the man. “Are you volunteering then?” he asked, holding the stone a little higher and being echoed by another rumbling roar from the crack.

The goon grimaced at the thought, but he seemed to hold his ground. “Can't that thing make an exception?” he demanded. “We keep having to steal more and more just for that thing! We aren't turning a profit anymore, boss.”

“This isn't about the money,” Pedro snarled, his eyes dark in the shade casted on his face from his hat.

“Well it is for me! You promised if I stuck with you then I could earn my way out of this town! But instead I'm just a zookeeper for some giant lizard!”

Pedro replied to his complaints with a scowl, one that could easily pierce through a person's soul. The silence unnerved the goon more than any words Pedro could've said. Suddenly the stone in his hand started glowing brighter, pulsing as if signaling something. The glow from the crack started expelling flitters of gold, like a swarm of pixies descending from a hive. The clusters began to snake down to the ground around Pedro, slowly condensing into solid forms. Evelyn watched nervously. The shapes were animals, that much was certain. But it wasn't obvious what exactly they were until the glow receded and the light was replaced by flesh and feathers. The closest thing Evelyn could compare it to was some sort of massive bird, but a very reptilian bird, with claws instead of wings and teeth instead of beaks. They were about the size of large wolves, and they made crocodilian hisses as they stared aggressively at the insubordinate goon.

The man suddenly panicked, and started to run towards the edge of the gorge. The creatures immediately sprang after him, jaws wide open. It was only a few moments before they lunged upon him, and his screams of pain were cut off when they sunk their teeth into his throat.

Evelyn wasn't able to keep her lunch down this time. She had to look away and Chaytan held her close as they both looked in horror. The men nearby all took steps back while the creatures finished their job of turning the goon into a bloody mess. When the beasts finally stepped away and turned back towards Pedro, giving the other goons hungry looks as they did. Pedro then returned his smile to his face, and lowered the stone. The creatures suddenly began to dissolve back into the glowing specks of light, and they hovered back into the crack in the monolith like a swarm of insects returning to their nest. Pedro cast a look around his gang of bandits, all of them thoroughly horrified. “Anyone else have any protests?” he asked. And when he was responded to with silence, he said, “Good. Now bring me another horse.”

The bandits quickly scrambled to grab another horse, Evelyn's horse to be specific. She cursed under her breath as she wiped her mouth.

“No!” she quietly gasped.

“We have to act now,” Chaytan declared.

“What are we supposed to do?”

Chaytan inched forwards to the rock ledge, and drew his rifle from the holster on her back. “I will take out as many as I can from up here. You sneak down and try to take them out silently while they are scrambling.”

Evelyn nodded, shaking her head to clear the dizziness. She hopped over the ridge, carefully sliding her way down into the gorge and ducking for cover behind the rocks as soon as her feet hit solid ground again. She peaked out from her hiding spot, eyeing Pedro as he greedily reached for her panicking horse. Her muscles were tensed, but she waited, and waited, until suddenly the bang of a rifle shot pierced the air and one of the bandits on the opposite end of the gorge went spiraling to the ground in a splash of red. The other bandits spun on their heels, immediately on the alert and beginning to bark orders at each other. Pedro clearly wasn't happy, and he kept his fingers pressed tight on the golden stone.

Another shot pierced the night, coming from a different angle as Chaytan scuffled around. Another man fell, and the bandits were twisting their necks trying to find the source. Evelyn made her own rounds, pulling unsuspecting targets into the shadows and silencing them with the flick of her hidden blade. The bandits were quickly taking notice of their dwindling numbers, and the scowl on Pedro’s face grew deeper.

“You damned coward!” he snarled into the darkness as his men were picked off. “Couldn't keep your hands off my prizes, could you? Well fine then. If you're so set on betraying me, then just try to take this from me, brother!”

Evelyn's heart sank as he suddenly raised the stone up high and its light pulsed like a sickly sun. The willow wisps descended from the crack in the monolith again, and soon Pedro was surrounded by his army of feathered freaks once more. They hissed and garbled at one another, before Pedro gave them their command: “Kill them all!”

The creatures bellowed loudly, and they sprinted forward like a pack of wolves descending on deer. Many of the men who were yet spared Evelyn's blade had dropped their tools and ran, too terrified to stick around anymore.

Evelyn quickly pressed herself against a rock when she peaked out and saw one of the creatures running her way. She held her breath, not daring to move. She could hear it sniffing the air and scuffling the ground while it's companions fluttered around the gorge looking for someone to sink their teeth into. Evelyn could hear the beast scratching the dirt. It had her scent, she knew it did. She cursed her luck and preemptively drew her revolver. She held her breath, turning her head just in time to see the creature slowly poking its head around the corner, turning its snout towards her, threateningly rolling up the flesh of its mouth to reveal the teeth underneath. She saw its claws extend forward like some sort of demonic bird wing, and it made the beginnings of another crocodilian bellow.

And then Evelyn jammed the barrel of her gun into its nostril.

“Bite this,” she said. And then one second later, the beast went collapsing into the dirt with an exit wound in the back of its skull.

Evelyn then stepped out from her hiding place, pistol aimed directly at Pedro’s head as he spun around to face her.

“So… an Assassin,” he frowned. “I've heard of your kind. I should've known Nacho would've stooped to sending the likes of you to kill me.”

“You've been terrorizing this land for too long, Pedro,” she told him. “I don't know what the hell is going on here or what those… things are, but I will not let you hurt Nacho's townspeople any longer.”

“His townspeople?” Pedro said, laughing. “Is that what my brother told you?”

“I… brother…?”

“Ahh. So he didn't send you. He set you up to kill me. That sounds more like the Archuleta way. We always get what we want without staining our hands. Though after this, I'll have to make an exception for Nacho.”

He raised the stone again, and his monsters rallied to him from the cliffsides. They all snapped and hissed in Evelyn's direction, and after a smirk and a whistle from Pedro, they charged.

Evelyn's eyes widened, and she immediately flicked out her hidden blades for a brawl. One of the creatures tried to lunge at her, claws out and teeth bared. She shoved it away as soon as it made contact with her, earning a few scars and some ripped clothes but overall fine. But she kept her ground, blades ready for the next onslaught that came at her. Two of the beasts tried to rush her, descending upon her like some sort of reptilian hawks. She ducked down, sliding between the two and using her momentum to thrust her hidden blades into their necks. More came for her, many of them catching her arm with teeth and claws, and all of them getting blades in the neck in retaliation. Evelyn fought hard and soon the flock laid dead at her feet. She looked over at Pedro, out of breath, but he simply sneered. He held the stone aloft, and summoned more feathered minions from the monolith. Evelyn cursed her luck.

“I am the master of the desert spirits, Assassin,” Pedro taunted as they swarmed around him. “There is nothing you can do to bring my power to heel.”

Then suddenly a gunshot rang through the air, and Pedro recoiled as a bullet slammed into his hand. The stone went flying into the dirt, and Evelyn joyfully turned to see Chaytan rushing down to her rescue. He extended his blades, tackling one of the monsters as if it were a bear and wrestling with it. “Get the stone!” he called to his wife while the beasts swarmed to attack him. Evelyn didn't hesitate. She made a beeline for the stone, reaching her hands out to grasp it. Unfortunately, just as she jumped and slid, she found herself being tackled by Pedro, who had pulled out his own wicked-looking knife. She wrestled him, kicking and flailing in the dirt as they tumbled and tried to draw blood. She delivered a swift kick to his face, and shoved him off of her, then aimed for the stone again. Pedro quickly recovered, however, and the two soon found themselves tumbling in the dirt once more, this time with the stone locked between their fingers.

The object pulsed and hummed as they fought, and Evelyn suddenly heard the same bassy rumble from earlier emanate from the crack in the monolith. Her heart sunk, and she gasped. She had to end this quickly, or else. She grit her teeth, holding on tight to the stone with one hand, and then using her other to release the mechanism of her hidden blade, and jam it between Pedro's ribs.

The man yelled in pain, and to Evelyn's surprise, so did the creatures. They all suddenly started writing with their master, and when he finally fell limp on the ground, so did they. Chaytan promptly shoved off one of the beasts that fell on top of him, and stood to stand beside his wife as she retracted her blade from her prey.

Pedro painfully rolled his head over at his dying monsters. “No…” he moaned, painfully stretching a hand out. Evelyn looked over at the beasts. She saw them slowly fading away to the golden dust, bit by bit returning to the monolith.

“My pets… my legions…” Pedro croaked.

“You won't be hurting anyone anymore,” Evelyn declared. “Directly or indirectly.”

“And now you've merely opened the door for Nacho to monopolize on our terror, Assassin. And my brother will not be as considerate as I was.”

“Tell me the truth that he denied us then so that we can stop him.”

Pedro let out a gurgled laugh. “We are merely conduits for Vivaron’s will,” he said. “She is… power…”

With that, Pedro's eyes rolled back into his skull, and his body went limp. Evelyn cursed under her breath, and closed his eyes. “Then may your goddess grant you rest,” she told his corpse. And then she stood.

She picked up the golden stone, and quickly shoved it away in her bag. She cast a glance at the monolith, and she heard the crocodilian gargling slowly fading away. She sighed, simultaneously in relief and irritation.

“At least we saved our horses,” Chaytan said, indicating their steeds over in the cave.

“Yeah…” Evelyn said. “But now we're caught up in another Precursor nightmare.”

“When aren't we?” Chaytan laughed.

Evelyn chuckled, and then went over to the rapidly evaporating creatures that littered the arena. They were reduced to skeletons by now, their flesh gone into the monolith’s glow.

“What the hell were these things?” she pondered.

“I do not know,” Chaytan said. Then he reached down, and picked up the skull of one of the animals. He turned it over in his hands a few times, then passed it over to Evelyn. “Does it look like any creature you recognize?”

Evelyn took the skull, turning it around and examining it as well, even as it rapidly turned brown and cracked in her hands, as if fossilizing before her very eyes.

“Uhh…” she stammered as she looked. “Let's see. Long thin skull… approximately 27 centimeters long. It's got an antorbital fenestra so it must be an archosaur of some variety…” She paused, desperately trying to dance around the solution that her mind came up with, even though the realization set in and the words stuttered out of her mouth. “The uh… the closest thing this resembles is… Coelurus? No no no, Coelophysis. Yes definitely Coelophysis!”

“But…” Chaytan began as the skull evaporated out of Evelyn's hands entirely, “That cannot be possible, can it? Coelophysis has been extinct since the Triassic.”

“I guess the Archuletas here have found a way to bring these beasts back with… whatever this thing is.” Evelyn pointed to the monolith.

“I would hate to see what the monster lurking on the other side of that gateway was…” Chaytan said. “Who knows what kind of beasts the Precursors had locked in time?”

“Let's hope we never have to find out. But what I do want to find out, is what the hell the deal with this town is. And how Nacho is involved.”

“Then shall we ride back to the ranch, my love?”

“We shall,” Evelyn smiled.

The two of them promptly made their way over to the cave, taking a moment to calm their horses down and then saddle up on top of them. They then kicked their steeds into gear, and road them back out of the gorge, realizing that they still had quite a long road ahead of them on this little detour.

Description
October 31, 1903; Ranchos de los Brujos, New Mexico Territory

“I'm going to rip that bastard’s throat out when we get our hands on him,” Evelyn grumbled through her teeth. “I do not need our horses getting stolen tonight.”

“We will be out of this town in the morning, I promise, my love,” Chaytan assured her, keeping his voice hushed as well as the two trekked through the wet rocks of the stormy desert.

“I hope so. I'm ready to just relax with my daughter at home again.”

“And when you do, you will have quite the tale to tell her,” Chaytan chuckled.

Evelyn let out a breathy laugh of her own, then put her focus back on navigating the desert night. Despite her dress getting soaked, she was thankful for the rain in this specific regard. It provided cover amongst the rocks of the gorge, keeping the Assassins out of sight from any bandits lurking in the valley.

Then suddenly, Chaytan stopped walking. He went completely still, then held up a hand to let his wife know she should do the same.

“What?” Evelyn whispered. “What's wrong?”

“Do you hear that?” Chaytan asked her.

Evelyn closed her mouth and redirected her focus to her ears. The two of them stood in dead silence, save for the rain itself. For a moment she heard nothing, and was about to shrug it off as Chaytan hearing some scuffling animal. But then she heard it. No, that wasn't the right word actually. She… felt it more than she heard it. The actual sound itself was hardly any different than the pitter of the rain, a soft and low sort of rumble emanating from somewhere further down in the gorge. But the feeling was something different entirely. The feeling was somehow coming from the same direction, yet still felt omnipresent. A guttural feeling that crawled up Evelyn's spine and into the base of her brain. Something… ethereal. A feeling that she had experienced before, when she had to take her dives into Precursor temples and wield the ancient artifacts inside, but this was somehow different. Somehow more… foreboding.

“Yeah… I hear it,” she told her husband. “Something tells me our rotten cowboys are that way.”

Chaytan nodded, and the two cautiously made their way in that direction, sticking to the shadows of ditches and rock formations as much as they could while navigating the maze of stone.

The noise became clearer as they came upon a small ridge. Evelyn's nerves were also calmed slightly by the distant nervous whinnying of horses and the angered grumbles given to the animals in response, signifying that they still had time.

“Down girl down!” she could hear someone shouting in Spanish

“Shut that animal up!” another man said.

“I'm trying!”

“Quit bickering, both of you!” another said. “Or I will personally feed you to the beasts!”

Evelyn and Chaytan crouched down and peaked over the rock ledge into the small arena of a gorge below. For the most part, it looked like any other desert bandit hideout that Evelyn had come across in her many years of expeditions, with ragged goons rushing around shuffling supplies and stolen goods while their higher ups scanned their work and collections. Evelyn even caught a glimpse of their stolen horses in a small cave entrance that they were using as a makeshift stable.

But at the center of the depression sat a centerpiece that set this location apart from any that Evelyn had encountered before, a massive tower of stone towering over the arena like a monolith. The humming noise emanated from the formation, and Evelyn's eyes locked onto the feature responsible. There was a sort of crack running straight down the structure, as if the rock had been smitten by a swift bolt of lightning from the heavens. And from that crack shined a bright golden light that beamed out like the sun. A glow that Evelyn had only ever seen radiate from Precursor structures. She narrowed her eyes. What the hell was going on in this town?

She noticed a man standing at the base of the monolith, his hands on his hips as he stared into its glow. Evelyn could tell right away that he was the bandit leader. He was the most finely dressed, and the most well equipped with shining pistols sitting in his holsters. And if he was the leader, that meant he had to be Pedro.

“Pedro,” one of his lackeys said as he came up to him from the stables. “We can't hold on to these horses for much longer. They're too much trouble. We'll never get them to market in time.”

“What happens to the horses is decided by Vivaron, Rodrigo,” Pedro snarled at the man, clearly not one for his plans being questions. Evelyn raised an eyebrow. Vivaron? Was that the brother that Nacho had mentioned?

The other man sneered. “Then toss them to the beast already! Those steeds will break out of their ropes if they keep thrashing around like that.”

Pedro slowly walked up to the man, getting in his face. The man immediately began to shrink back as his boss loomed over him.

“Vivaron eats what she wants to eat, when she wants to eat,” Pedro declared. “So do not tempt her to eat you with your insubordination.”

Rodrigo stood frozen for a moment, then simply nodded nervously.

“Good,” Pedro said. Then suddenly he made a face as if he suddenly realized something. His dark eyes slowly drifted towards the crack in the monolith. Suddenly, a new noise started gurgling from within the glow. It was loud, and deep, bassy enough to rattle Evelyn's stomach from all the distance away. It was a terrifying noise. The closest comparison Evelyn could think to make would be the thunderous booming noise that a crocodile makes.

Despite everyone else in the gorge having the blood drained from their faces in fear, the noise made a toothy, dirty smile leech onto Pedro’s face. He turned back towards the monolith, reaching into his jacket pocket as he did. Evelyn watched as he slowly withdrew a small stone of sorts, jagged like a piece of obsidian but gold instead of black. It was etched with glowing engravings that were the hallmark of a Piece of Eden. Evelyn got a bad feeling in her gut.

Pedro walked towards the monolith, holding the stone aloft and closing his eyes as the reptilian rumbles continued to roar from the crack.

“She is hungry,” Pedro announced. “Bring one of the horses.”

Evelyn watched as two of the bandits went to untie one of the horses they had captured. To her relief, not hers or Chaytan's. The horse whinnied and tried to shake its captors away, but they kept a firm control on it as they led it forward. Pedro took the horse by its reins with his free hand, and began to lead it up a rough rock ramp that led up towards the glow. The gurgling grew quieter, and Evelyn could hear the heavy nasal breathing replacing it. Even the horse seemed to be freezing up in fear as it was brought to the base of the crack and its reins were secured to a rock. Pedro then stepped back to ground level, still holding the glowing stone aloft as he watched with almost sadistic anticipation.

The breathing and gurgling got louder and louder. The horse bucked and pulled, trying to break free from the ropes that held it. The light started pulsing, and Evelyn saw flecks of gold flittering off of its edges. The flecks started condensing into two shapes, ones that were increasingly unmistakable as massive, reptilian claws. The light faded from the claws, revealing the dry, armored scales of the fingers in the flesh as they slowly reached out for the struggling horse. They squirmed, clearly feeling around for its meal. And as soon as they made contact with the horse’s skin, they latched on with unprecedented speed. The horse neighed in pain, and then it was immediately silenced when it got yanked into the crack at a speed Evelyn found difficult to comprehend. The only thing that remained was the sounds, first of the horse in agony, then it being silenced by a series of loud, bloody chomping noises.

Evelyn nearly threw up, and Chaytan held her as she retched over. The men down below were clearly as scared and disgusted, but they kept their lunches down, mostly.

Pedro meanwhile just smiled. He continued to stare at the crack, listening to the visceral noises with a gleeful satisfaction. Whatever monstrosity had poked out from the glow suddenly made a low rumble.

“She wants another,” Pedro declared.

“But boss,” one of his henchmen protested. “If we get rid of one more then we won't have enough of a take for the market!”

Pedro glared down at the man. “Are you volunteering then?” he asked, holding the stone a little higher and being echoed by another rumbling roar from the crack.

The goon grimaced at the thought, but he seemed to hold his ground. “Can't that thing make an exception?” he demanded. “We keep having to steal more and more just for that thing! We aren't turning a profit anymore, boss.”

“This isn't about the money,” Pedro snarled, his eyes dark in the shade casted on his face from his hat.

“Well it is for me! You promised if I stuck with you then I could earn my way out of this town! But instead I'm just a zookeeper for some giant lizard!”

Pedro replied to his complaints with a scowl, one that could easily pierce through a person's soul. The silence unnerved the goon more than any words Pedro could've said. Suddenly the stone in his hand started glowing brighter, pulsing as if signaling something. The glow from the crack started expelling flitters of gold, like a swarm of pixies descending from a hive. The clusters began to snake down to the ground around Pedro, slowly condensing into solid forms. Evelyn watched nervously. The shapes were animals, that much was certain. But it wasn't obvious what exactly they were until the glow receded and the light was replaced by flesh and feathers. The closest thing Evelyn could compare it to was some sort of massive bird, but a very reptilian bird, with claws instead of wings and teeth instead of beaks. They were about the size of large wolves, and they made crocodilian hisses as they stared aggressively at the insubordinate goon.

The man suddenly panicked, and started to run towards the edge of the gorge. The creatures immediately sprang after him, jaws wide open. It was only a few moments before they lunged upon him, and his screams of pain were cut off when they sunk their teeth into his throat.

Evelyn wasn't able to keep her lunch down this time. She had to look away and Chaytan held her close as they both looked in horror. The men nearby all took steps back while the creatures finished their job of turning the goon into a bloody mess. When the beasts finally stepped away and turned back towards Pedro, giving the other goons hungry looks as they did. Pedro then returned his smile to his face, and lowered the stone. The creatures suddenly began to dissolve back into the glowing specks of light, and they hovered back into the crack in the monolith like a swarm of insects returning to their nest. Pedro cast a look around his gang of bandits, all of them thoroughly horrified. “Anyone else have any protests?” he asked. And when he was responded to with silence, he said, “Good. Now bring me another horse.”

The bandits quickly scrambled to grab another horse, Evelyn's horse to be specific. She cursed under her breath as she wiped her mouth.

“No!” she quietly gasped.

“We have to act now,” Chaytan declared.

“What are we supposed to do?”

Chaytan inched forwards to the rock ledge, and drew his rifle from the holster on her back. “I will take out as many as I can from up here. You sneak down and try to take them out silently while they are scrambling.”

Evelyn nodded, shaking her head to clear the dizziness. She hopped over the ridge, carefully sliding her way down into the gorge and ducking for cover behind the rocks as soon as her feet hit solid ground again. She peaked out from her hiding spot, eyeing Pedro as he greedily reached for her panicking horse. Her muscles were tensed, but she waited, and waited, until suddenly the bang of a rifle shot pierced the air and one of the bandits on the opposite end of the gorge went spiraling to the ground in a splash of red. The other bandits spun on their heels, immediately on the alert and beginning to bark orders at each other. Pedro clearly wasn't happy, and he kept his fingers pressed tight on the golden stone.

Another shot pierced the night, coming from a different angle as Chaytan scuffled around. Another man fell, and the bandits were twisting their necks trying to find the source. Evelyn made her own rounds, pulling unsuspecting targets into the shadows and silencing them with the flick of her hidden blade. The bandits were quickly taking notice of their dwindling numbers, and the scowl on Pedro’s face grew deeper.

“You damned coward!” he snarled into the darkness as his men were picked off. “Couldn't keep your hands off my prizes, could you? Well fine then. If you're so set on betraying me, then just try to take this from me, brother!”

Evelyn's heart sank as he suddenly raised the stone up high and its light pulsed like a sickly sun. The willow wisps descended from the crack in the monolith again, and soon Pedro was surrounded by his army of feathered freaks once more. They hissed and garbled at one another, before Pedro gave them their command: “Kill them all!”

The creatures bellowed loudly, and they sprinted forward like a pack of wolves descending on deer. Many of the men who were yet spared Evelyn's blade had dropped their tools and ran, too terrified to stick around anymore.

Evelyn quickly pressed herself against a rock when she peaked out and saw one of the creatures running her way. She held her breath, not daring to move. She could hear it sniffing the air and scuffling the ground while it's companions fluttered around the gorge looking for someone to sink their teeth into. Evelyn could hear the beast scratching the dirt. It had her scent, she knew it did. She cursed her luck and preemptively drew her revolver. She held her breath, turning her head just in time to see the creature slowly poking its head around the corner, turning its snout towards her, threateningly rolling up the flesh of its mouth to reveal the teeth underneath. She saw its claws extend forward like some sort of demonic bird wing, and it made the beginnings of another crocodilian bellow.

And then Evelyn jammed the barrel of her gun into its nostril.

“Bite this,” she said. And then one second later, the beast went collapsing into the dirt with an exit wound in the back of its skull.

Evelyn then stepped out from her hiding place, pistol aimed directly at Pedro’s head as he spun around to face her.

“So… an Assassin,” he frowned. “I've heard of your kind. I should've known Nacho would've stooped to sending the likes of you to kill me.”

“You've been terrorizing this land for too long, Pedro,” she told him. “I don't know what the hell is going on here or what those… things are, but I will not let you hurt Nacho's townspeople any longer.”

“His townspeople?” Pedro said, laughing. “Is that what my brother told you?”

“I… brother…?”

“Ahh. So he didn't send you. He set you up to kill me. That sounds more like the Archuleta way. We always get what we want without staining our hands. Though after this, I'll have to make an exception for Nacho.”

He raised the stone again, and his monsters rallied to him from the cliffsides. They all snapped and hissed in Evelyn's direction, and after a smirk and a whistle from Pedro, they charged.

Evelyn's eyes widened, and she immediately flicked out her hidden blades for a brawl. One of the creatures tried to lunge at her, claws out and teeth bared. She shoved it away as soon as it made contact with her, earning a few scars and some ripped clothes but overall fine. But she kept her ground, blades ready for the next onslaught that came at her. Two of the beasts tried to rush her, descending upon her like some sort of reptilian hawks. She ducked down, sliding between the two and using her momentum to thrust her hidden blades into their necks. More came for her, many of them catching her arm with teeth and claws, and all of them getting blades in the neck in retaliation. Evelyn fought hard and soon the flock laid dead at her feet. She looked over at Pedro, out of breath, but he simply sneered. He held the stone aloft, and summoned more feathered minions from the monolith. Evelyn cursed her luck.

“I am the master of the desert spirits, Assassin,” Pedro taunted as they swarmed around him. “There is nothing you can do to bring my power to heel.”

Then suddenly a gunshot rang through the air, and Pedro recoiled as a bullet slammed into his hand. The stone went flying into the dirt, and Evelyn joyfully turned to see Chaytan rushing down to her rescue. He extended his blades, tackling one of the monsters as if it were a bear and wrestling with it. “Get the stone!” he called to his wife while the beasts swarmed to attack him. Evelyn didn't hesitate. She made a beeline for the stone, reaching her hands out to grasp it. Unfortunately, just as she jumped and slid, she found herself being tackled by Pedro, who had pulled out his own wicked-looking knife. She wrestled him, kicking and flailing in the dirt as they tumbled and tried to draw blood. She delivered a swift kick to his face, and shoved him off of her, then aimed for the stone again. Pedro quickly recovered, however, and the two soon found themselves tumbling in the dirt once more, this time with the stone locked between their fingers.

The object pulsed and hummed as they fought, and Evelyn suddenly heard the same bassy rumble from earlier emanate from the crack in the monolith. Her heart sunk, and she gasped. She had to end this quickly, or else. She grit her teeth, holding on tight to the stone with one hand, and then using her other to release the mechanism of her hidden blade, and jam it between Pedro's ribs.

The man yelled in pain, and to Evelyn's surprise, so did the creatures. They all suddenly started writing with their master, and when he finally fell limp on the ground, so did they. Chaytan promptly shoved off one of the beasts that fell on top of him, and stood to stand beside his wife as she retracted her blade from her prey.

Pedro painfully rolled his head over at his dying monsters. “No…” he moaned, painfully stretching a hand out. Evelyn looked over at the beasts. She saw them slowly fading away to the golden dust, bit by bit returning to the monolith.

“My pets… my legions…” Pedro croaked.

“You won't be hurting anyone anymore,” Evelyn declared. “Directly or indirectly.”

“And now you've merely opened the door for Nacho to monopolize on our terror, Assassin. And my brother will not be as considerate as I was.”

“Tell me the truth that he denied us then so that we can stop him.”

Pedro let out a gurgled laugh. “We are merely conduits for Vivaron’s will,” he said. “She is… power…”

With that, Pedro's eyes rolled back into his skull, and his body went limp. Evelyn cursed under her breath, and closed his eyes. “Then may your goddess grant you rest,” she told his corpse. And then she stood.

She picked up the golden stone, and quickly shoved it away in her bag. She cast a glance at the monolith, and she heard the crocodilian gargling slowly fading away. She sighed, simultaneously in relief and irritation.

“At least we saved our horses,” Chaytan said, indicating their steeds over in the cave.

“Yeah…” Evelyn said. “But now we're caught up in another Precursor nightmare.”

“When aren't we?” Chaytan laughed.

Evelyn chuckled, and then went over to the rapidly evaporating creatures that littered the arena. They were reduced to skeletons by now, their flesh gone into the monolith’s glow.

“What the hell were these things?” she pondered.

“I do not know,” Chaytan said. Then he reached down, and picked up the skull of one of the animals. He turned it over in his hands a few times, then passed it over to Evelyn. “Does it look like any creature you recognize?”

Evelyn took the skull, turning it around and examining it as well, even as it rapidly turned brown and cracked in her hands, as if fossilizing before her very eyes.

“Uhh…” she stammered as she looked. “Let's see. Long thin skull… approximately 27 centimeters long. It's got an antorbital fenestra so it must be an archosaur of some variety…” She paused, desperately trying to dance around the solution that her mind came up with, even though the realization set in and the words stuttered out of her mouth. “The uh… the closest thing this resembles is… Coelurus? No no no, Coelophysis. Yes definitely Coelophysis!”

“But…” Chaytan began as the skull evaporated out of Evelyn's hands entirely, “That cannot be possible, can it? Coelophysis has been extinct since the Triassic.”

“I guess the Archuletas here have found a way to bring these beasts back with… whatever this thing is.” Evelyn pointed to the monolith.

“I would hate to see what the monster lurking on the other side of that gateway was…” Chaytan said. “Who knows what kind of beasts the Precursors had locked in time?”

“Let's hope we never have to find out. But what I do want to find out, is what the hell the deal with this town is. And how Nacho is involved.”

“Then shall we ride back to the ranch, my love?”

“We shall,” Evelyn smiled.

The two of them promptly made their way over to the cave, taking a moment to calm their horses down and then saddle up on top of them. They then kicked their steeds into gear, and road them back out of the gorge, realizing that they still had quite a long road ahead of them on this little detour.