"In the name of survival there is little one won't sacrifice, even if that entails giving their personal freedoms to a system designed to keep them under control."

There are reasons the four kingdoms are where they are. Mantle is cold, isolated, and hard to get to. It breeds a hardy kind of people. Vacuo is rich in natural resources in a climate that makes it difficult for anything to survive, including weak Grimm. Knowing that what they are sitting on is all they have and knowing that the Grimm are tough enough to survive the desert has made them resourceful, efficient, and full of potential. Vale was a masterpiece. It had everything going in its favour. Mountains, shallow water, warm weather, anything you could want in a kingdom. It gave them a sheltered life, but a good one. And most importantly, massive amounts of farmland. Vale could conceivably have the largest military in the world if it didn't spend over half of it protecting its farmlands against constant Grimm attacks. South of the city of Vale is a monstrous trench designed to act as the last defense against a stampede of Grimm. But there are some accounts of the Grimm coming in such masses that their bodies filled the gap and made a bridge for the other Grimm. After that trench is where the farmland starts, and it goes on for miles. And a person could blindly throw a stone and stand at having one-third of a chance of hitting a soldier with it.

But Mistral is a different story entirely. They found refuge of an entirely different sort. When people found themselves in Mistral they found The Wraith Corridor. Hundreds of kilometres of cliff cut out from the Mistral Plateau. From the Crook of the Dragon's Neck down, past Malevolence Coast, all the way down into the Scorched Lands before it abruptly stopped half way through. The people of Mistral had found the perfect refuge for themselves.

The only issue being the Wraith winds.

Every few hours, at random intervals, massive winds blow through the corridor at incredibly high speeds. Everything and anyone caught in its path are swept up into the current and carried a few hundred miles until you are either bashed too many times against the cliff, cut to pieces from other flying debris, or ejected out the other side. If the wind blows in your favour, you might land safely at The Crook of the Dragon's Neck, and then you just have to fight your way through Grimm to make it back. But the wind might just as easily carry you to The Scorched Lands. No one returns from the scorched lands.

It made them a quick-thinking people. The winds could start or stop at any time, the longest being three days. Stand too close to the edge and you're gone. Leave a window open in just the right room in just the right house and you're gone. Walk on a particularly high spot on the ground, and you're gone. Jump and you're gone.

But the winds were as much a saving grace as they were damnation. All manner of flying Grimm are completely torn apart. Sometimes a larger land Grimm might get pulled in, and as soon as the wind stops they are crushed by both sides of the cliff firing on them.

In time the people of Mistral found more and more issues with their land. For one, most dwellings are carved in cliffs and those that aren't are built into valleys in the above Plateau. Those sparse valleys are the only source of farming Mistral has, and while the deafening winds of the high Plateau keeps them safe from most flying and small Grimm it doesn't stop a Goliath or Grumunds. And on rare occasion, a pack of Harpies fly down and attacking a village. Yet despite that, Mistral has managed to spread further than any other kingdom. They sell all the displaced stone to Vale, who uses it to make walls for their farms, that makes food that is sold back to Mistral.

And so it happens that team STL was caught walking in the Wraith Winds on their way to one of these valleys. And they were not prepared. Low to the ground, the winds weren't so bad. But the debris kicked up from it all would tear a person apart instantly. Stark was able to put up a shield for a time, but it was unexpected when a beowulf crashed into it.

Stark grunted under the force of it as it practically exploded against his shield. Suddenly, Nevermore feathers clattered against it. The team moved as fast as they could across the canyon bottom, but Stark couldn't keep the shield up forever.

Lucas held his pistol ready. Tecaelis waved his hand wildly as he tried to push away waved of shrapnel with his semblance. When they weren't looking, Stark pulled out a blue Dust crystal and pressed it to his chest. His golden shield had a touch of blue to, but no one really noticed.

What they did notice was the Ursa major that crashed into the shield. Stark stumbled and the shield went down for an instance. In a split second Lucas had fired ten rounds straight into the beast's chest, all in the exact same spot. By the fifth bullet the hole had punched through the other side. Stark held up his spear, but Tecaelis beat him to the punch. Literally, as the mechanism on his arms whirled and he punched the Ursa across the face. It's bone plates shattered, yet it only seemed mildly annoyed. Tecaelis punched it three more times, each time his fist seemed to cause it to shake and hesitate. Suddenly Stark's spear passed through its eye, out the other side, and stopped only when it hit a small shield behind the Ursa. The creature collapsed to the ground with a growl and began to smoke. Stark threw up a new shield with renewed strength and began pulling sharp pieces of metal and rock out of his clothing. They practically ran the rest of the way.

The Wraith winds had ended when they were about halfway up on the left face of the cliff. They tucked themselves into a little safe hole carved out for anyone who might be travelling the cliffside path wind the winds kicked in. They watched with fascination as the Mistral settlement could be seen purging the ground from kilometres away. As soon as the winds had stopped, bullets and fire filled the canyon bed as everyone capable of holding a gun fired on any Grimm that had made it in. It only took a few seconds, and then the scavengers came out and began picking the canyon bed clean of any and all metal.

Mistral's hunger for ore was insatiable. Even though they live their lives in carved out piece of the cliffs, those cliffs had been stripped clean of anything of value long ago. Mistral had to make up for its inconvenient location, and they did it with industry.

There was an old saying, 'If you want food, you go to Vale. If you want Dust tech, you go to Mantle. If you want something built, you go Mistral. If you want the materials to do the first three, you go to Vacou.' For the moment, Vacou has all the best materials available to them. Even the largest Dust mine. There have been some locations on Mantle thought to have a lot of Dust, but for the moment they were inaccessible.

This led to a stable system. Raw materials came from Vacou, technology came from Mantle, food came from Vale, and machines came from Mistral. But there was a smaller system in place most people didn't know about. Mistral has little open space and high security. Vale has lots of open space and is constantly subject to roaming Grimm. So as Mistral cuts out more room for itself, thousands of pound of stone is shipped to Vale. In return, Mistral gets first pick of each season's crop and Vale gets the never ending project of building hundreds of kilometres of wall around plots of farmland. Recent estimates expect it to take only another one-hundred and seventy years, depending on how active the Grimm stay.

Mantle makes the engines for Mistral's machines in return for stone and fish from The Lake of Malevolence. Vacou provides the Dust and ore in return for some of these machines. There were at least a dozen or more trading deals across the kingdoms, even more if you consider trading amongst individual villages.

It was part of this trading system that made Mistral really good at finding metal. It took two full minutes for the scavengers to pick up every last piece of metal that was even remotely useful. Seconds after that and skyhauls floated in and picked up anything too large to carry.

Stark led them out of the safe hole as soon as everyone had returned to their homes. They only made it a few meters before the cliff side took a suddenly turn left and head towards a new town in the distance. Stark stopped them and crouched down around the corner. Across the way was a tunnel. Stark held out his hand and Tecaelis pressed a map into it. A few minutes of looking and then Stark said,

"The place we are looking for is straight ahead, one of the villages made in a crevice in the surface. Black, see if you can see any path there, check the tunnel too." Lucas grunted and moved into position.

"That tunnel is crawling with Mistral people and soldiers. I think even a few hunters." Lucas said as he peered through his rifle scope. Stark frowned.

"Is there any other way?" Lucas swivelled his rifle around and peered across.

"I don't see nothin."

"And there isn't anything on the map." Tecaelis said. Stark's frowned deepened and he stroked his chin.

"What about paths to the surface."

"You want to go up there?" Tecaelis asked incredulously. "We barely made through the normal Wraith winds. But if we go up there will be shredded in an instance."

"I don't think so, look." Stark pointed upward. "Clear skies, no shrapnel. And there doesn't appear and Grimm."

"Because even a Beowulf is smart enough to avoid going up there." Tecaelis mumbled.

"Hey, I've got something." Lucas moved away from away the scope and let Stark peer through it. On the other side of the curved mountain, there was a short steep wall with handholds carved into it. A few meters up the rock wall ended and a small path went up the rest of the way, before ending on the impossibly flat plateau. Stark moved away from the rifle and considered it. "They have started up the alarm." Stark nodded.

"Wait, how can you know that?" Tecaelis asked him. He shrugged.

"I can hear it." Stark chuckled.

"Lucas can use his semblance of absorbing sound as a way to hear things, even over extremely large distances."

"So what is normal hearing like for you?"

"I wouldn't know." Stark chuckled again.

"Black was born deaf until he got his hearing." Stark then frowned. "If they already have the alarm up they'll be after us soon.

"Let's move quickly then. We'll eat once we make up top, and we can make the town just as they start looking for us." Tecaelis rolled his eyes.

"At this rate we'll never make it back in time for The Pickings." Lucas grunted his agreement. Stark stared at the two of them.

"You mean you haven't been picked yet?" Tecaelis shrugged.

"Not yet, a bit too young."

"I've been Picked a few times," Lucas grumbled, "They always return me though. One time I was picked by someone from Vale, only they returned me too. Apparently, I drank too much alcohol for their liking." Lucas drank from his flask as he thought about it. Stark laughed at them all. Apparently, they were all younger than he gave them credit for.

Stark held out his hand and a wide shield laid down, stretching from where they were and to the other side of the bend. Just a few meters, but it saved them and hour of walking and avoiding anyone that might be travelling the road. Tecaelis and Lucas stole across as fast as they could make it. Stark was a bit surprised at the strength Tecaelis struck his shield, but he noticed the mechanical leg brace he was wearing on each leg.

Stark took a deep breath and started his walk across. About halfway across he nearly slipped and dropped the shield. He added his other hand to generating the shield and a sweat appeared across his forehead. To the other two, it looked like he was lifting an enormous weight. Discreetly, Stark felt telekinetic force lift his heavy packs off him just enough for them not to weigh anything. Stark gave Tecaelis a glance, just a glance because after all, he was his superior.

Stark had two shields, one allows bullets to pass through and one that doesn't. The issue is that the bullet stopping shield takes a lot of energy, and doesn't allow bullets to come through either side. It was also the only shield that could stop little pebbles from striking them every few seconds.

"There… shouldn't be this many Grimm." Stark grunted, the light from his hands were fading. Every few seconds the shield would flicker under the strain of keeping the wind and rocks out. Tecaelis had taking out his military rifle and was attempting to time his shots in between the shield flickers. Lucas was having much better luck with his revolver. The shield would flicker for a moment and he would fire two or three shots. Each one blasted a hole in the eyes of a Grunt. Stout little Grimm that looked like a deflated ball had grown four legs and ran at them like spiders. Lucas went to reload and then suddenly a creature leaped up onto the shield and caused into collapse. Stark grunted as he attempted to throw up a new one. He failed.

Suddenly a few dozen more Grunts came out of nowhere charging them. But, STL was technically a Grimm control team. It took on second for Lucas to drop ten Grunts with ten bullets before he had to reload. Tecaelis waved his arms and metal ball bearings went cutting through them. Suddenly Stark charged toward the remaining Grunts. He threw his spear into one of them, causing it to stick out of its head. He then forcefully tore the spear back out and spun around, his weapon now his rifle. He fired rapidly before switching back to a spear.

His team watched with a little bit of amusement as Stark rampaged over the remaining Grunts. He stabbed, shot, tore, swore, and ripped them apart until they're weren't any Grunts left in one piece. Stark gave the two of them a smile, there was a glint in his silver eyes. He didn't have any more issues with his shield after that.