Omen of the Witchblade Chapters 21 - 30 (Patreon)

Chapter 21 – A Shift in the Wind

As it turned out, they had walked right past an exit to the underground complex. If they had gone through the gruesome kitchens, they would have found a door that led to a long hallway and finally an exit.

The complex led out into a large cavern with countless tunnels that snaked beneath the rocky plateau. Fortunately, the Bloodtide Covenant set up torches at set intervals to mark the best passages.

Mel led her silent party through the pools of light amid the darkness, surprised but relieved that they didn’t come across any more monsters.

From the way their eyes darted back and forth, Mel didn’t think their nerves could handle another battle.

Mel marked a few side passages as potentially useful places to scout out later. She could smell fresh water down them, but didn’t want to risk a confrontation against whatever else might be drinking from them.

When they exited the cavern system, it was clear that they were no longer on the same plateau. The sheer wall of rock above and behind them could have been the very same cliff that Mel once looked down for all she knew.

The forest was denser here, more foreboding.

Mel couldn’t shake the sensation that they had ventured into a more dangerous area. She was glad for the enhancements to her equipment, but at the same time she was keenly aware that she could not rely upon the others.

She still held out hope that they could find a safe place to rest and recover. Her health was on the mend, but would take time to fully heal.

Like the others, Maddie kept looking around as if she expected the shadows of the trees to snatch her.

Instead of spreading out slightly as Mel had taught them, they stayed in a tight clump, afraid and jumpy at every little sound the forest made.

Mel didn’t know why she made straight for the darkness of the forest. There were paths around it to the north and south, but she felt an urge to dive straight into it. As if she could feel somebody watching her.

Once inside, the itching feeling between her shoulder blades lessened, and she started to relax.

Squirrels and other animals moved about in a tapestry of life, highlighted in reds and oranges to her infravision. Anybody trying to hide from her would be clearly highlighted against the background warmth of the shaded underbrush.

Eventually, Mel noticed a shift in the coloration of the plants. On a hunch, she followed the cooler colors until she came across a small, forested pond.

Without her infravision, she would have walked right past this place. The foliage was so dense and the area so rocky that even from a few feet away, she could not tell what was there.

Rocky shelves lined the northern and eastern edges, with the southern and western ends sloping down to the pond. The water was startlingly still, reflecting the trees and blue sky up above like a mirror.

The water had a milky green hue to it. A few fish darted under the water as her shadow fell across the pond.

In short, it was nearly perfect. Small enough that larger animals and people were unlikely to find it, but deep enough for fishing and clean drinking water.

The screen of trees and dense underbrush hid them from sight. As Mel went down to the edge of the pond, she noticed that the overhang of rock from the eastern edge created a small shelter.

Skirting the edge of the water, Mel disappeared beneath the dark shelf of rock. There was nothing there aside from crumbled stone and smooth pebbles. It wouldn’t be the most comfortable seating arrangement, but Mel could stand up easily. More importantly, there was just enough room for each of them to lounge out comfortably.

When Mel returned, she could see the peace of the area working on her friends. Each passing moment relaxed them a little further.

“There’s a small shelter down there that you can stand up in,” Mel told them.

Shane, the tallest of the group, looked doubtfully at her, a hint of a smile on his lips. “Maybe you can.”

“Ha ha,” Mel said, encouraged by his demeanor. “I know I’m short, but even if you can’t stand up, the rest of us can.”

A small smile played on Sabrina’s lips. “I don’t know about that, Mel.”

Mel rolled her eyes and took it all in stride. “How about we go down there and check it out instead of making short jokes at my expense?”

Unfortunately, when Mel led them to the shelter, she was the only person in the entire group who could stand without her head touching the stone ceiling.

She folded her arms and frowned at their hunched forms. “I get it, I’m short!”

That outburst seemed to pop the ballooning tension that had been hovering over their heads ever since the chapel of the Bloodtide Covenant.

From that moment on, they slowly returned to life. Each person pitching in with a respective task to make the place a little more livable.

Bernard and Shane went to find wood, Nathan and Sabrina made a stone ring for the fire, while Maddie and Mel went to find something to eat.

“I am starving,” Mel said, trying to get Maddie to come out of her shell a bit more. The poor woman had been through more than anybody else.

Maddie nodded. “There’s usually some blackberries around bodies of water like this, makes for some scratched legs but good foraging.”

True to her guess, there were plenty of blackberries to be had. Mel reached into the briars without thinking about it, much to Maddie’s surprise.

The other woman tried to warn her, but Mel held up her gloved hand. “I’ve got armor on, don’t worry.” Mel deposited a handful of berries into the woman’s makeshift pouch.

They spent the better part of that day foraging and resting.

Mel suggested that they use the canteens they had to wash off the worst of their ordeal before anybody had the bright idea to take a dip in the pond, potentially tainting their drinking water.

Nobody argued with her about it, despite the added annoyance it would bring. At the same time, nobody talked about what they had been through. It became clear as night fell that it was something Mel would need to broach before long.

If she didn’t, it would fester beneath the surface.

The only sign that there were people here was the thin stream of smoke coming out from beneath the lip of stone around the small forest pond. Even that was all but impossible to see unless you were close enough to smell it.

Satisfied that they were as safe as possible, Mel slinked back into their shelter. Nathan was stuffing his face with berries and drinking from a leather canteen filled with fresh pond water.

Nobody had gotten sick from drinking the water yet, so they assumed it was safe.

“I think we need to talk,” Mel said, wishing she didn’t have to bring this up.

“We do,” Sabrina agreed. “We’ve been talking…”

Mel raised a brow. “When?”

“While you were cleaning up,” Nathan told her.

Mel had insisted on being the last one to get clean. It was an uncomfortable experience washing in cold water from a bottle.

There was no shampoo or soap, but she found that her skin cleaned a lot easier than she thought it would. Almost as if she was cleaning stone or metal instead of skin. The dirt and filth rinsed away with surprising ease.

While each person cleaned, everybody else stood guard to make sure nothing happened to them. Mel didn’t mind somebody peeking at her. She had nothing to hide and was quite honestly proud of her body, but her confidence wasn’t shared by anybody else.

Mel turned to Nathan, reminded that her hair was still wetly clinging to the back of her neck. “I didn’t take very long. It must not have been a long conversation.”

“It wasn’t,” Sabrina agreed. “Though I must say, you were a model of efficiency. Unlike some people.”

All eyes turned to Shane.

The big guy hunched his shoulders. “What?! I’m not comfortable being naked around other people, okay? There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“Are you one of those never nudes?” Nathan asked, a spark of the joker he used to be returned to his eyes.

“No, I get naked!”

“Do you though?”

Shane turned beet red, but didn’t argue the point anymore. “I think we’re getting off track,” he said tightly.

“Shane’s right,” Sabrina agreed. She turned to Mel. “You’ve done so much for us, saved our lives time and time again…”

“I’m sensing a ‘but’ here,” Mel said.

Sabrina clasped her hands and nodded. “There is.”

Mel shifted her position and tilted her chin up. She had expected this. “Go on then, I can take it. I’m a big girl.”

“We can’t do this anymore, Mel,” Sabrina said, her voice choked with emotion. “I know we said we’d follow you anywhere…but after…after that, we can’t. It’s too much. Every time I close my eyes, I see their faces. I can’t do it, Mel.”

Mel nodded, already halfway to standing. “I understand. I’ll pack my things and–”

“Wait, what?” Sabrina surged to her feet, hit her head, cursed, then crouched. “What do you mean? We don’t want you to go.”

Mel looked at them all in turn. “This sounds like a breakup.”

Sabrina reached out and took Mel’s hand. “Mel, we don’t want you to leave. We want you to join us. It couldn’t have been easy for you protecting us and watching over us in that…that charnel house. How many days has it been, three? I’ve gone through more horrors in the last three days than I had in my entire life. I can’t do it anymore, Mel. None of us can. It would be wrong to expect you to keep fighting. We want you to join us. Lay down your burdens.”

Mel looked down at Sabrina’s trembling hand holding onto hers. How wrong she was that Mel suffered for what she did. It hadn’t been a picnic, but it wasn’t that bad.

This is the gulf between us, Mel thought to herself. They seek to hide away from the pain, while I run toward it like some sort of addict. They’re such kind people that they think I’m like them.

“Join you?” Mel asked, grappling with the impending decision.

“We’ve been talking about what you told us,” Shane said. “You mentioned that people will probably be moving outward from wherever they entered the competition, right? That’s what we did, even if we didn’t realize it. Well…what if we do the opposite? Go back toward the starting area.”

“We think that maybe there will be fewer monsters,” Sabrina said. “Fewer people who want to fight and kill. With less room for advancement, the people seeking strength will move farther away, right? So what safer place than the areas that have already been cleared out?”

“It’s not a bad idea.” Mel had to admit. It made a lot of sense. If you wanted to survive, staying put or going back to the starting location was probably a wise choice. “There’s just one problem.”

“What’s that?”

“Going back is nearly impossible.”

“There has to be another way back,” Sabrina said. “Even if it’s back through another cave, we can handle it. The closer we get to the starting area, the less dangerous it’ll be anyway, right?”

Mel could see that they were all clinging to this one spider silk strand of hope with all the fervor of a drowning man. She couldn’t take it away from them.

“You might be right,” she said with a forced smile. “But you’ve all been through so much. I can’t ask you to do that.” Mel took a deep breath. This was the least she could do. “I’ll find the way back. You just stay here and recover.”

The surprise on their faces was clear. Mel wondered if they thought she would argue with them about their decision.

It wasn’t up to her to decide what they wanted. They had been there for her when she needed help, and she would be there for them. They may not be like her, but that didn’t make them any less deserving of life.

If Mel could hide them away somewhere safe, maybe she would feel less guilty about going off on her own.

Maybe.

Chapter 22 - Good Hunting

Mel roamed the forest, vision aglow with [Gaze of the Serpent].

Her feeling had been right. The monsters here were stronger than those on the plateau she started on.

That meant it was more important than ever to find a clear passage back to relative safety for her friends.

As Mel searched, she hunted monsters. For once, she wasn’t entirely on the defensive. Her new aspect skills and improved equipment granted Mel an advantage she hadn’t been able to adequately exploit before.

The element of surprise.

[Heathen’s Cuirass] enhanced Mel’s natural stealth, allowing her to move quietly through the underbrush. The increase to stealth complemented [Hidden Mist] well. She could shroud herself in mist and most monsters, even those with magical detection, didn’t notice her until it was too late.

While these monsters were stronger, trending towards Copper rather than Mundane, they weren’t much smarter. No matter how many times she used the same tactics, the monsters never adapted.

For the briefest of moments, Mel caught herself wishing for people to fight instead of monsters. A thought she promptly shoved free from her mind.

[Gaze of the Serpent] easily highlighted monsters in blossoms of color. She was able to be picky with her targets. Rather than going after those in groups of threes or twos, Mel singled out the lone monsters.

Her weapon, now at a dramatically higher rarity, struck far harder than ever before. With its piercing damage heightened, two-handed stabbing strikes often dealt a killing blow.

What really sealed the deal was the terrifying combination of [Omen Mark] and [Sanguine Coat].

Oh, how did I ever get by without you two, Mel thought fondly of the aspect skills. In recollection, not very well.

The first morning she went out to search for a way back up to their plateau, Mel used [Sanguine Coat]. She used the blood of a monster to create the crimson armament.

As it turned out, “considerable” meant nearly two-thirds of her available mana, and “modest” meant half of her health.

From the sheer shock of losing so much mana and health at once, Mel nearly threw up on the spot.

Luckily, once summoned, the coat didn’t fade away or degrade over time. A small infusion of mana could alter the design into nearly anything she wanted.

On a whim, she could change the color and the cut of the coat from a long blood red duster that would have been at home in any spaghetti western, to something altogether more opulent and sinister straight out of Yharnam.

Or anything in between.

[Sanguine Coat] caused any attack with her twinblade to afflict the target with the bleed status effect, draining its health over time. [Omen Mark] made it possible for any chosen target to build up stacks of any affliction placed on them.

That last point was incredibly important. It was probably the most powerful facet of the skill, which was truly saying something.

Not to mention, [Omen Mark] often sent monsters into a blind panic, which made them much easier to deal with.

As if that wasn’t enough, when her mark was combined with [Sanguine Coat], she not only applied the bleed affliction, but could stack the affliction for increasingly more damage-over-time.

That meant, instead of simply dealing damage with her twinblade, she eroded their vitality away. Quite literally.

Five stacks of bleed was truly horrifying to behold. Mixed with [Hidden Mist] and [Gaze of the Serpent], Mel hunted Copper monsters with ease despite still being Mundane herself.

That’ll change as soon as I get my final aspect, she thought to herself, tracking a monster she had let go after a single strike. She was left wondering what her last aspect might be.

Mel could afford to be more selective about her final aspect. If she didn’t like what she came across, she could always keep it for later. Bargaining chips would be handy if they came across a group of stronger bandits.

I’m not enough to keep them safe out here. Not if there are more people as strong or stronger than me.

Infravision turned the droplets of blood from the monster’s bleed affliction into bright orange markers for her to follow. Even if [Omen Mark] didn’t allow her to know where her target was within 100 feet at all times, she could have easily fallen back to her serpent gaze skill.

She had been seeing an increase in these odd ape-like creatures. They were highly territorial and were getting too close to the camp for comfort. While not incredibly powerful on their own, they were smarter than the other monsters. She rarely saw one or two at a time, even when she was looking for them.

Mel decided it might be best to track them to their lair, clear them all out. If she wanted to range out farther, she needed to clear these groles out before they became a problem.

While they weren’t much of an obstacle for her, the others hardly used their newfound aspect powers. She hadn’t seen Sabrina use hers at all since she received it.

Throughout the last few days, they had recovered much of their flagging spirits. Enough that Mel had hoped they might reconsider their decision.

They hadn’t.

If anything, they were more resolute than ever. So she took them on hunting trips, resolving to teach them what she knew about foraging and how to spot wild game or avoiding a monster lair. Never more than two or three at a time, and always when the surrounding forest was relatively quiet.

And never at night. Nobody wanted to leave the safety and comfort of the campsite. They didn’t care about the pending quest, and Mel didn’t feel right pushing them just for her own sake.

Today was different, though. The groles were agitated. She was going to figure out why.

Droplets of shimmering blood from the grole she wounded lifted off the leaves and sailed through the air. They siphoned into the coat’s mass, rebuilding the frayed edges.

Mel grinned beneath the ruby hood as the coat flowed behind her like a river of blood.

They would learn that this forest was hers. All she had to do was track this one back to its den and kill everything there. If they didn’t get the message, at least she’d get plenty of experience and loot.

Then she heard a loud tolling gong back west.

The camp!

Mel paused, staring at the trail of blood. The grole was getting away. Already it was at the edge of [Omen Mark’s] detection range. If she left now, the blood would cool to the ambient temperature, and she’d never pick up its trail again.

Another gong rolled out, deciding it for her. One gong was trouble, two gongs were serious trouble, and three meant a disaster.

Using [Hidden Mist] to speed herself along, Mel made it back to the camp in record time. Over the past few days, they had turned it into something of a home. There were crude drying racks for fish and animal meat built over smoldering coals, and they had a growing assortment of wooden dishware to eat out of.

While Mel had done the bulk of the hunting, the others back at camp hadn’t been useless. They made tools and improved the camp to the best of their abilities.

Just because they weren’t fighters didn’t mean they were useless. Mel’s desire to protect them was fiercer than ever, even if she knew in her heart of hearts that she would one day have to leave them. She wasn’t cut out for the domestic life.

Mel was resolved to join the other trials of the Convocation. Eventually, that meant she would need to split from her group. But she could stay with them long enough to make sure they were okay.

I owe them that much at least.

She was responsible for them. They trusted her.

And she took that trust very seriously.

When Mel arrived, she saw the camp was surrounded by three scouts. Each one an Archer, well hidden in the underbrush but with a good sightline on her camp’s many exits. They were practically invisible to the human eye.

Her infravision lit them up like neon signs.

Mel’s trust in other people was at an all-time low. Slipping behind one of the Archers hidden in her mist was easy. He looked around curiously, but never saw the heavy clubbing strike with the flat of her blade.

The Archer went down in a heap, snoring contentedly.

She didn’t trust these people, but she wasn’t going to kill them unless she absolutely had to. Kneeling, she bound and gagged the man, then moved onto the next until all three were quietly taken out of the equation.

There hadn’t been a third bell, which meant the camp wasn’t in immediate danger.

Only then did she let her mist roll out over the pond and the surrounding area, walking out of the fog like a ghost.

The four men there started, two of them reaching for their weapons before the man in front stopped them with a subtle gesture. Mel immediately focused on him. He was big with broad shoulders, the beginnings of a mighty Paul Bunyan style beard, and slicked back silver hair.

His allies were like smaller replicas of himself, none quite as good as the original.

What truly set Mel’s hackles up was that the leader had a Legendary title.

“Here she comes now,” Sabrina said with a friendly smile, clasping her hands in front of herself. “Mister Stolst, this is our leader, Mel Harper.”

Stolst stepped forward, extending his thick hand. Mel looked at it and lifted a blonde brow but made no move to shake it.

The tanned man beside Stolst ground his teeth and flexed his jaw in anger at the slight, but Mel couldn’t have cared less. “What do you want?”

“To be friends,” Stolst said, smiling without missing a beat. He hardly seemed to mind that she didn’t shake his hand.

He wore simple but clean plate mail armor. A Defender with a good eye for leadership, if Mel was any guess. Her memories had been coming back day after day, most of them less than helpful as to how she arrived here.

What they did illuminate, however, was a deep and disturbing history of fighting both monsters and people somewhere called Aldim, and before that at a school for magical people connected to Earth.

All her training told her that Stolst was a man to watch. Calm and collected, in command of his men, and practically radiating power. He was at least as strong as Mel, which meant he was close to Copper as well. One, maybe two aspects, though she’d bet hard on just the one missing.

Just like me.

“We’ve got enough friends, thanks,” Mel said, hardly pausing to consider the offer.

“It’s good to be friends with us,” his Number Two hissed. Mel immediately marked him down as a wannabe badass. Somebody who thought having a loose rein on their temper meant they were cool.

“Jimmy, please,” Stolst said.

The younger man stood ramrod straight and stared forward without another word.

Mel looked at Stolst with begrudging respect. “Neat trick, you teach all your dogs that? Answer’s still no.”

“And if I said I was not asking?” Stolst asked in that same gentle tone. “Our group is growing rapidly. We’re taking on people who are almost at Copper already, but we need healers and mages. You’ve got both of those here. There are surprisingly few in the wild. Even fewer Mystics such as yourself.”

Mel struggled to keep her face blank, but judging by the twinkle in Stolst’s gray eyes, she knew something had slipped.

Maybe that’s his Legendary title? Not very useful in combat, but for a leader…well, I could see knowing what classes people are being pretty damn nice.

“I’ll level with you, Miss Harper.”

“Just Mel.”

He inclined his head. “Mel, then. Since we’re on a first name basis, you may call me Warren.”

“All right, Warren. Piss off.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Can’t, or won’t?”

The man spread out his hands and shrugged. “Please do not take this personally. Recruitment is a necessary evil. We have plenty of food and water to go around. There is safety in numbers. I would be a poor leader if I let every Acolyte, Mage, and Mystic pass by without doing the…ah, ‘hard sell’ I suppose you could call it.”

Mel’s fingers itched to summon her twinblade, but she didn’t like the odds. Even if she could count on her friends to back her up, Mel could tell these four knew what they were doing. The way they moved subtly to draw weapons without getting in the way of each other spoke volumes.

They’ve done this before.

Warren gave her a conspiratorial look. “You see, classes matter a lot. People with ritual magic skills are far and few between. We’ve come into a great deal of knowledge that would greatly benefit you and yours, Mel,” Warren told her as his eyes casually–too casually–darted to the spots he knew his Archers were stationed.

Archers Mel had already taken out.

“Normal people, Defenders, Brawlers, and Archers like ourselves can’t do anything but the most rudimentary of ritual magic. Everything from breaking down equipment to healing spells is done via ritual magic of G-Tier or higher.”

“And for that, you need at least a Mystic,” Mel reasoned.

“Very good! Yes, you’re right. You see, we have materials to advance any of you if you’ll just help us out. Owing to the rather…fragile nature of the magical classes, there aren’t that many of you around. Imagine my surprise when I found not just two, but three. What do you say? Why not be friends? What’ve you got to lose?”

Mel tilted her chin up aggressively. “I. Said. No.” Despite their vast size difference, she knew she could get to him before he could react. Being larger wasn’t always better. It might give him extra reach, but it would take him longer to act.

Her smaller, more compact size meant she could move incredibly fast over short distances.

Jimmy stepped forward. Despite being several inches shorter than Warren, he still towered over Mel. “If you aren’t with us, then you are against us. You’ll want to be friends with our…organization. Not enemies. You’re already surrounded by half a dozen Archers. At our signal, they’ll fire on you and yours. You don’t want that.”

For a moment, Mel glanced to the sides, checking the perimeter with her infravision.

“You won’t see them until we let you,” Jimmy hissed. “So I suggest you be a good little girl, and listen to the boss.”

Mel couldn’t hold the snarl building in the back of her throat for much longer.

Jimmy started laughing at the sound, but Warren was smarter. He immediately stepped forward and put a hand on Jimmy’s chest. “Don’t, Jimmy.”

A look of understanding passed between Warren and Mel. From one leader to the other. Mel eased the tension in her stance.

For a wonder, she saw Warren’s shoulders relax in relief as well.

Neither desired an open fight, but it was clear they had come to an impasse.

Chapter 23 – Obduration

Warren could feel the tension in Jimmy’s muscles. The older man had risen to prominence before the apocalypse precisely because he could read dangerous situations like this.

What had seemed like an easy sell had become something very different.

The short, scrappy girl glaring with the force of a thousand suns spoke volumes. This “Mel” saw how badly she was outnumbered, but there wasn’t a shred of fear to be found.

Nothing he could use as leverage.

This encounter was starting to feel like that werewolf all over again. A fearless beast that viciously took out several of his men.

An entire plateau was off limits because of that rampaging beast that shattered weapons as easily as bones.

There were no levers that Warren could use to get his way with this group. Mel would fight, purely for the sake of it. He had seen vicious dogs like that before. You’d think they were loyal allies until they snapped. There was something there, a cobweb of self-restraint holding back the beast that men had thought tamed.

Normally there was a rival family member, a boss, a street leader, a handler, somebody Warren could reason with to call the dog off. The way the others looked to this girl told him there was nobody who would call her off if she decided to slip her leash.

Jimmy was blinded by the small pixie of a girl. At barely five feet, Jimmy clearly saw her as a pushover. To continue the tired dog-based analogies, he clearly thought she had more bark than bite.

Warren knew better. He could see that she yearned to back up her strong words with something definitive.

It was still seven against one. He had judged the others accurately. They were a broken mess. They should have been an easy grab. Safety and numbers for doing a simple job.

He had recruited cornermen with less effort than this!

This isn’t Boston, he reminded himself. Your crew is gone. You’re vulnerable until you can reach this next threshold of power the Mages keep talking about.

Warren gently pushed Jimmy back and stepped up to take his place. The idiot would get himself killed sooner or later, and constantly having to step in to calm him down wasn’t having the effect it usually had.

It only made Mel angrier.

Warren was no coward, but he understood that this was a fight both himself and Mel would prefer to put off for another day. It was clear the others were under her protection, and that there would be no swaying her.

A pity, she could have been a lieutenant easily, Warren thought to himself.

He was about to smooth things over when Mel aimed a snide remark at Jimmy.

“Daddy going to bail you out of trouble again?” she said with a sinister grin.

Warren groaned internally. Jimmy was a hothead. Always had been, but he was loyal to a fault. He glanced at Warren’s stern features and backed off.

A boss was nothing if they didn’t have the loyalty and respect of their family members. If Warren wanted to rebuild his network bigger and better than anything he had in Boston, without fear of the feds or cops butting in, he needed to be careful here.

“What? No snippy remarks?” Mel asked. “Gonna let Daddy over here hold your balls too? I can see how badly you want to give it a go. Do it. Give me an excuse to humiliate you. I’m begging you.”

“Jimmy, go cool off,” Warren snapped before the man totally lost it.

He didn’t realize how close he was to death.

Warren might not understand a lot of this new world, but he could tell that Mel was at least near his own strength. Worse, she had a temper that made Jimmy’s look like a child’s tantrum. If Warren didn’t need Jimmy’s loyalty, he would have found it fun to let him get eaten alive by this pixie-looking girl.

You could offer her Jimmy’s position, he thought to himself, then immediately dismissed it. Mel would never go for it. She had made that abundantly clear, and then he’d have to handle Jimmy.

“We don’t need to be enemies, Mel,” Warren said, forcing a smile onto his face. This had gone about as bad as possible. He needed magical users, but the cost of taking these people would be too high.

Later, once the family and yourself are stronger. Look at them. She’s the only thing holding them together. Eventually they’ll break or she’ll grow tired of playing babysitter.

Warren could wait to take everything Mel had. All he needed was time. Only then would she possibly be vulnerable enough to recruit.

And if not, he wouldn’t mind growing stronger by cutting her down.

He couldn’t get enough of the power offered by this new world. Warren greedily sought any source of it whenever the opportunity arose. The stuff was in everything, from loot to aspects.

But Warren’t was stupid. He knew a losing battle when he saw one. Even outnumbered, he couldn’t take on Mel and win.

It was still difficult to control himself.

“You going to take a long walk off a short pier?” Mel asked.

“Not likely.”

“Then I don’t see how we can be anything but enemies,” Mel said. She threw up her arms. The explosive motion had Rick and Kevin both reaching for weapons before Warren held out a hand to stop them. “Wow. Jumpy?”

“You aren’t exactly making this easy,” Warren told her.

She smiled. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Despite Warren’s grudging respect, he wanted nothing more than to unleash his Mayhem aspect on this upstart. The lack of respect was almost too much for him to ignore.

If I was younger, I would have happily choked the life out of her, no matter the cost to me or my men.

Fortunately, he was wiser and older. He had seen too many friends die or get sloppy and get caught. There were no cops anymore. No rules but the rule of strength. And yet, he wasn’t absolutely confident he could kill Mel before taking too serious a wound himself.

Healing was too hard to come by, and the healing he could access only closed up wounds. It was like having a magical EMT in your pocket, nothing more.

He had to admit, a coat of rippling blood was far more off-putting than anything his aspects could do. Just one more and you’ll reach Copper. She can wait that long.

“Tell me something,” Mel said, the commanding tone in her voice grated like nails on a chalkboard. “Why is it men always resort to tyranny the moment structure and order shits the bed? What is it in your makeup that makes you think basic bitch dictatorships are anything but a fool’s errand? Are you just dumb as bricks, or do you really think that this time, you’ll be on top? You’re worse than college girls with uggs and pumpkin spice the moment a leaf hits the ground.”

Warren gritted his teeth. “Society has always been broken,” he told her sharply. “The strong have always been on top. Once they started ruling, they changed the way the game worked. They said ‘this land is ours and these are the laws you need to live by’ while ignoring their own. You think society was good? It was a mess. People like me lived in the cracks, watching good people get bilked by those with power and money. You’d have to be braindead to not make a grab for the crown the moment the old guard died.”

Mel grinned. “Finally, some truth.”

Taking a deep breath to calm his nerves, Warren couldn’t help but feel like he’d somehow lost that exchange. He needed to save face in front of his men. A hand raised and clenched into a fist. “You want to talk about truth?”

Mel’s smile did not slip an inch. In fact, it grew.

What does that bitch know?

“Problem?” she asked sweetly. “Looking for your friends, perhaps?”

Warren could feel cold sweat drip down his spine. No, she couldn’t have taken out his snipers. Not this little thing. They were perfectly hidden. Even the most observant man had walked right past them within inches.

Warren made the motion to fire warning shots again and nothing happened.

“If you killed them–” he started to say.

Mel laced her fingers behind her head, striking a pose of utter disrespect and aloofness. “Untwist your panties. I didn’t kill them because I didn’t know what was going on. I’m not a psychopath.”

Could have fooled me.

Getting his breathing under control, Warren took a gingerly step back. Losing a little face would be worth it to get out of here. His desire to recruit Mel warred with boiling hatred. In another life, he would have loved breaking her in, turning her from a wild animal to a loyal attack dog.

He let a little respect slip into his voice, “The offer still stands. You could join us. I’d make you a Captain immediately. You’d have control of your own group.” He motioned to the others. “Take them with you if you like. You’d be treated like a Queen. With your skills and my manpower? We’d be unstoppable.”

Mel laughed so disdainfully that Warren nearly summoned his sword right then and there. She wiped a tear from her brilliant green eyes. “You’re barking up the wrong tree, buddy.”

Warren spread his hands out wide and kept them there, the signal for retreat. He kept his gaze on Mel, knowing that the only reason she wasn’t throwing herself at him in a suicidal frenzy had something to do with those PTSD-ridden people behind her.

“You can’t blame a guy for trying.”

Mel snarled. “Watch me.”

Warren nodded. He recognized the signs. This was taking too long. She must be getting suspicious that he had more people coming.

If only! With a few more men, they might have been able to take them. Now their guard would be up. They had stumbled upon the area entirely by accident. Even if they could find it again, there was too little to gain going to war with Mel.

Warren had seen Rambo. He didn’t want a fantasy equivalent playing out with him as the villain. Not until he had more power at least.

“We’re leaving,” Warren said.

Mel’s look of disappointment spoke volumes. She summoned a strange, double-bladed spear in her hand and pointed it threateningly, trying to provoke a fight. “If I see any of you near me or my friends again, I won’t just kill you. I’ll kill every single one of your so-called Captains and Lieutenants. Anything you build, I’ll tear it down. Then I’ll come for you. Pass it around.” She shrugged. “Or don’t. More fun for me.”

Balling his fists up in rage, Warren kept a tight leash on his emotions. That she was trying to provoke a fight now that she knew it was just four against one was obvious, but Warren couldn’t figure out why unless she really was crazy.

Or she has aspects that trump yours. This isn’t as simple as whoever has more guys or more guns. Look at her. This world is hers. She understands it on an instinctual level.

Once more, Warren’s sense of self-preservation eased his temper back down. He felt a brief pang of loss for what could have been. She was smarter than she looked and had the power to back up that mouth of hers.

The moment he had relinquished the least bit of ground, she had seized it and used it to diminish him in front of everybody. The only response would be to fight or flee, further playing right into her hands.

I’ll remember this, Warren promised as he backed away slowly, his men copying his movements. I don’t know when, or where, but I’ll find you again. And you’ll regret every word out of your mouth.

The added humiliation washed over him as his men had to carry his downed snipers away.

Mel’s laughter followed them into the forest.

Nobody spoke for nearly a mile as they marched deeper, directly away from the camp.

Eventually, Jimmy exploded. He tossed down Eric’s unconscious body and rounded on Warren. “You should have let me kill her!”

Warren was ready for it. He used [Ironclad]. Plates of shiny silver metal sheathed his entire body until he resembled a medieval Iron Man. His enhanced strength caught Jimmy around the throat and lifted him off the ground with one arm.

“You idiot!” Warren barked at him. “Is this the thanks I get? I just saved your goddamned life! She would have gutted you like a fish, leaving you to bleed out at her feet. You think I should have let you fight her? How about I kill you right now and save her the trouble?!”

Jimmy’s eyes bulged and his face turned an ugly shade of puce, but he had enough sense to try shaking his head.

Warren dropped him to the ground, turning his back on him. He vented his rage by punching a tree, blasting through the thick bark and toppling the tree into the forest.

Jimmy retched and coughed behind him.

I’ve seen those eyes before, Warren thought, I can’t shake the feeling like I just managed to pull my head out of a lion’s mouth.

The feeling of relief only added to his mounting rage. He spun on his men. “If any of you ever go near this camp or that bitch again, I will personally kill you myself. They are not worth our time. Just like the werewolf! Got it? If we’re going to win this competition, we can’t waste valuable hours in petty conflicts. We’re moving on to the next plateau immediately and putting this area of weaklings behind us.”

Jimmy rose to his feet, averting his eyes and rubbing his red throat. “But after we get stronger…?” he asked hopefully.

Warren put a fatherly hand on Jimmy’s shoulder and playfully shook him. “When we are stronger, we’ll crush them. All that matters is what happens at the top. We’ll return and crush every person who dared to disrespect us. Until then–” His grip intensified, eliciting a whimper from Jimmy. “–we leave them alone.”

This entire competition would be theirs by the end, but only if they played smart. While Mel and her pals spent days hardening their defenses or finding a new place to hole up, Warren’s family would be killing monsters and gaining more Battle Points and aspects.

He looked back toward the direction of the encampment. So long as that group of broken individuals anchored that crazy bitch in place, nothing could threaten his rule.

Chapter 24 — Noodling

Mel crossed her arms, chewing her bottom lip in thought.

Shane came up and clapped her on the back. “Damn, Mel! You were a stone-cold killer. That dude looked like a mob boss and you acted like he was some snotty schoolyard bully.”

“Because he was,” she said absently. “The environment changes, but the boy doesn’t.”

“He really was a mob boss?” Bernard whispered, studying the forest. He probably didn’t even realize he had his bow in his hands, an arrow loosely nocked, pointing at the ground.

At least his hands aren’t shaking, Mel thought.

“We should set up some defenses though,” Sabrina said. “They don’t look like the type of people to let something like this go.”

Mel shook her head. “No need. They aren’t coming back.”

“You can’t be sure,” Maddie said, looking at the woods as if expecting an army to come charging out.

“He’s scared,” Mel said, turning back to look at them. “All bullies are. They know their thrones are built on the flimsiest of foundations. He won’t threaten his status or power by coming after us. He knows he’ll lose too many men, but worse, the humiliation would affect morale. They’ll know he can’t crush his enemies or protect them.”

Bernard nodded. “It’ll foment resentment and discord. Especially if he’s not established as a gang leader yet, or whatever he calls himself.”

“He said ‘family’ so I’m going to go with mafia,” Mel said. She tapped her foot in thought. “He’s used to getting his own way, but when faced with a predicament like this…he’ll be smart. Eventually, he’ll be an issue. By then, we’ll be back up on the plateau and far away from him. It won’t be worth the trouble to find us.”

The others exchanged looks.

“What?” Mel asked.

“Nothing,” Sabrina said, forcing a smile and grabbing at Mel’s hands. “We’re lucky to have you here.”

“Well, I found this place, so technically, they found us because of me.”

“We would have been dead without you,” Maddie said, putting a motherly hand on Mel’s back. “Even if we weren’t, I don’t think anybody would have wanted to go through the dark forest. We don’t have a lantern like you, or torches or anything. It’d be safer to camp out in the fields, and that’d make us much easier to be seen.”

Mel agreed, but she still couldn’t help but feel angry that this place seemed sullied somehow. She knew in her bones that they wouldn’t come back.

Warren was a bully, but he didn’t seem like an idiot. He understood that the price he would pay to exact petty vengeance would be too high. Like any businessman, he wasn’t willing to pay the price.

He would be back, but Mel would find the entrance to the plateau long before they were strong enough to have an overwhelming force.

I could go after them. They’d have good equipment. Food and resources we could use. Warren has a title I could take. My guess is still that it’s one that reveals people’s classes. I don’t know how else he knew.

She paused. Am I really entertaining the thought of that?

If Mel was being honest with herself, she did want that title.

It would be easy. She could track them, but now they were seven instead of just four. Mel chewed on her lip, unsure of what to do.

Apparently, she missed something being said because Sabrina was waving her hand in front of her face.

“Hm?” Mel asked. “What’d I miss?”

“We were asking if you were sure we don’t need to worry.”

Mel looked over her shoulder, then back at her friends. She nodded. “I’m sure. They would have to be suicidal, and you don’t plan an empire by being suicidal.”

“You think he’s really that egotistical?” Nathan asked.

“The only jabs he responded to were ones aimed at his sense of self,” Mel said. “I’d say he thinks he’ll be some sort of Emperor or worse.” She shook her head. “Tyranny is so basic. Why don’t they ever think up something more interesting?”

Maddie shrugged. “Men.”

“Damn right,” Nathan chimed in. “What? I’m #MeToo!”

Mel rolled her eyes. “If you want to leave, I’m cool with it, but I don’t think they’re going to be dumb enough to waste anymore time with us. Though I don’t think it’s a bad idea to keep up the watch rotations. You were able to let me know something was wrong more than a mile away.”

“You heard that?” Maddie asked, surprised. “Finally seems like a good use for my Sonic aspect.”

“Do you think they noticed what you were doing?” Mel asked.

Maddie shook her head. “They seemed confused by the noise, but nobody suspected me.”

“Good.”

Looking around, Mel had to resist the urge to find a more defensible place. This had been a stroke of pure luck to find, but it was only defensible against stupid, wandering monsters.

Any creature–or person–with brains would easily find them. The pond was surrounded on all sides by forest, and there was no means of egress or ingress that she could turn into a chokepoint.

All this passed through her head in a fraction of a second, coming from a different life that she only remembered in bits and pieces. She knew that her past self would never have picked such a vulnerable location.

Little wonder you were discovered. You’re camping out in the open without a shred of–

Mel shook her head to dispel the thoughts. It wasn’t productive to chastise herself. Now more than ever, she needed to find the plateau.

“I’ve got a monster nest to take out before I can range farther,” Mel said. She noticed with a sinking heart the way everybody flinched, as if they feared she was about to ask them to join her.

She had hoped that their fear of fighting would have diminished over time. Mel realized that she had to let go of that hope. She couldn’t keep hoping that they’d shrug off the trauma and suddenly want to partake in all the wonders of this new life.

They missed the stability of their old home.

A stability I never had, Mel thought to herself. It was little wonder she was so at home fighting and killing monsters. She’d been doing it–or training for it–most of her life.

Mel couldn’t help wishing one of them was like her. Somebody that could keep up with her. Somebody she could trust to watch her back.

It was lonely at times, but at least she had a group of friends to support her back at the base. She could use that. They could make food and help repair her equipment when she came back. It wouldn’t do much good while she was in the midst of a monster nest, but it was better than being utterly alone.

I don’t know if I can handle that isolation.

Despite that, she turned and started heading back in the direction she had come from.

“Where are you going, Mel?” Sabrina asked, a small tremor in her voice.

“Back to handle the groles,” Mel told her. “Remember the thing you saw the other day up in the tree?”

“The lizard gorilla thing?”

“That’s the one.”

Sabrina shivered and hugged herself. “It’s getting kind of late. Shouldn’t you wait until tomorrow?”

Mel looked up at the sun riding high overhead. She looked curiously at Sabrina, noticing things she hadn’t before.

The way the woman stood, the way the others watched the woods, their eyes flicking back and forth.

They’re scared. They want to be protected from the horrors of the night, even if they don’t know it.

Mel forced a smile. “You know what? You’re right. I should wait until first light.”

A tiny spark of resentment flared in her for a moment, but she quickly tamped it down. It wasn’t their fault that Mel wanted to vent her frustration on some monsters.

If they weren’t broken, they would have proven far more formidable to Warren and his mob bros. Instead of four on one, it would have been four against six. Even seven against six would be too much for cowards like them to stomach.

As it was, Mel was somewhat surprised she had managed to get him to back off.

She hadn’t been bluffing. She would have gladly skewered those jackasses without a single worry about herself. However, she knew that her friends would be the ones to suffer.

Their unwillingness to fight back would have marked them as easy leverage if a fight broke out. Mel wasn’t sure what she would do if one of them was taken hostage, and she didn’t want to find out.

Luckily, Warren didn’t want to find out what would happen either.

I wonder if he’s curious which one of us would win in a one on one, Mel thought to herself as she turned her attention back to the group and the discussion they were having about dinner.

“I swear there are catfish here!” Shane was saying.

“We don’t exactly have nets or fishing poles. Do you remember how hard it was to get the few fish we already have up and drying?” Nathan said.

Mel’s gaze fell to the pond, watching a chubby fish dart beneath the calm waters. Another swam in its shadow.

“It’s easy to go catfishing,” Maddie said.

Everybody looked at her.

Mel smirked. “Yeah? Did that a lot, did you?”

Maddie turned beet red, but she didn’t back down. “Not that kind of catfishing! I mean getting catfish. You find their hole–”

“Go on,” Mel said, showing intense interest.

The older woman threw up her hands and stalked off toward the water. “I’ll just show you!”

Mel couldn’t help but laugh.

Maddie rolled up her trousers and waded into the pond. “And for the record, it’s not called catfishing, it’s called noodling, but I knew you’d make fun of it–stop laughing!”

Mel was nearly doubled over in a fit of giggling. “Seriously? Noodling. Who came up with that?”

“I don’t know,” Maddie said, grumbling. “Listen, you find the hole the catfish is hiding in and block it with your legs like this so it can’t get past you.” She awkwardly shuffled forward. “Then you stick your fist in…”

Mel leaned over to Sabrina, missing the rest of whatever Maddie had to say. “Not letting that happen without a lot of lube and until at least the third date!”

Sabrina’s ears turned red as the sunset. “Mel!”

Mel let out another peal of laughter.

“Hah!” Maddie said, pulling out a large flopping catfish by the gills. “See? I told you…wait, why are you all laughing now?”

Another burst of laughter rippled through the group as Maddie waded toward them and dropped the large wriggling catfish onto the stones far from the water.

Nathan chopped down with his sword, cutting off the head, still chuckling. “Sorry, Maddie. That was really informative.”

Maddie put her fists on her hips. “Children. All of you.”

“Guilty!” Mel said.

They ate well that night. The catfish had to be at least 20 pounds or more. Mel wished they had some bread crumbs or batter to fry it, but searing it over the coals wasn’t too bad either.

Unlike all the other catfish Mel had ever had in her life, the earthy, muddy taste that usually filled her mouth on top of the delicate meat was nowhere to be found.

“Huh, this doesn’t taste like dirt!” Shane said, giving voice to Mel’s thoughts.

“Score one more point for magic,” Mel said absently.

“Is that why?” Shane asked, curious.

Mel nodded and swallowed another bite. “It is. You can think of magic as a sort of reality sandpaper. It sort of…smooths out the rough edges, makes life a lot more livable for those that need to live it.”

“But it also creates horrors,” Sabrina said quietly.

“So does technology,” Mel countered. “What? You think you weren’t being spied on twenty-four-seven? I’d rather have to fight a few monsters with magic than to see ordinary people turn into monsters in their little social echo chambers without it.”

It seemed no one else echoed Mel’s feelings on this matter.

The rest of the day and night was quiet and somber. Clearly, they would gladly take the world they knew to the one that was before them. Mel didn’t agree, but she couldn’t fault them for it.

Change was hard.

And it’s going to get harder before it’s done, Mel thought to herself as she took the first watch of the night.

Chapter 25 — Eradication

Mel crept through the underbrush, tracking another grole to its nest. At least she thought it was a different one from the other day. Given how their go-to tactic when hurt was to flee to their lair, Mel couldn’t be sure. [Gaze of the Serpent], which she always used when hunting, made it almost too easy.

She kept [Omen Mark] in her back pocket in case this failed. It cost more than [Gaze of the Serpent], even accounting for its upkeep. With more of her mana in demand than ever before, Mel needed to keep a tighter leash on her expenditure.

There was nobody out here that would come to help her if she got into trouble. She had to make sure to hold at least half of her mana in reserve, in case something went wrong.

For the last couple of days, she had been going out in a wider spiral while hunting monsters to make sure there were no signs of Warren and his lackeys.

At first, she was worried that Jimmy would do something. He looked like the walking poster boy for white male fragility.

Warren must have a tighter leash on his men than I gave him credit for, Mel thought after she found no signs of anything other than herself and the other denizens of the forest.

Once the danger seemed well and truly passed, Mel returned to her previous task of clearing out the groles. In a lot of ways, they were like Warren. Big, powerful, and brutish. Brighter than they had any right to be, but they squandered their talents by causing more pain instead of making something good in the world.

Might have stretched that analogy a little too far, Mel thought to herself as she ducked down low. The grole’s heat signature was cooler than a mammal’s, but it wasn’t enough of a difference that Mel couldn’t make them out when they were excited.

Or bleeding, as this one was.

Quest Update: Nest of Groles

Objective: Locate the grole monster nest (1/1).

Destroy the grole monster nest (0/1).

Reward: (3) [Small Mana Potions]

She inched forward, curious why the grole had stopped in a nondescript dip in the forest. An old riverbed maybe? Whatever the case, it had clearly not been in use for a long time. The grole looked around and then gripped a broken tree stump.

With impressive strength, the grole uprooted the whole thing and then slipped beneath a cunningly hidden tunnel under the nest of roots.

Mel cursed and sprinted forward, but the stump was already falling back into place. Strength was her single Mundane stat. Though each stat she improved added to her body’s overall capability, there was too much of a gulf between Mundane and Copper. Even having every other stat at Copper, Mel still couldn’t lift the stump.

Should’ve used [Omen Mark], she chastised herself. Even underground, she could have tracked the grole.

Now she had lost it for good.

Mel hopped out of the dried riverbed and began to look around for other signs of movement. The ancient riverbed naturally collected items to cover up such signs, but there was no way that was the only entrance.

If there was a nest under her feet, it would need air. Which meant there was another way in.

Using her infravision, Mel found several vents in the forest floor worked so cunningly that they looked like exposed roots from afar. They glowed with heat to her vision, showing a warm purple-red.

An hour later, Mel found a hole large enough to fit her small frame.

Glad that she didn’t have claustrophobia, Mel wriggled into the tight space and pulled herself deeper inside. She went slowly at first, then as the tunnel opened up, she crouched and proceeded on hands and knees until the tunnel dropped straight down.

She could see moving figures below, but it was considerably harder to distinguish them in the warm room. The groles barely registered as much hotter than the ambient temperature.

Normally, that would mean she needed to switch back to her standard vision. Groles, however, could see in the dark. They didn’t have her heat vision, which she confirmed the first day by laying a few traps that would have been easily spotted with infravision, but it was close enough for their purposes.

Switching to human sight in the lightless abyss below would have given them a distinct advantage.

With the warmed dens near the ambient temperature of the room and rock, Mel could barely see them unless they moved. She grinned to herself, hardly deterred.

Despite only having four aspect skills, she had more than enough to deal with these creatures.

Using [Hidden Mist], she swept the cool, magical mist into the room. The groles were startled by its appearance, but they couldn’t tell its source.

As the surrounding environment was cooled by her mist, their bodies stood out like glowing beacons.

There are a lot more than I thought. Most of what she had first taken to be strange formations of rock were instead more groles.

She fueled the mist, pushing it deeper into the room to obscure everything. The groles began to panic, making odd barking noises at each other. Mel dropped soundlessly into the room, her legs folding up into a deep crouch to absorb as much impact as possible.

Sweeping her head back and forth, Mel examined the main chamber. It was connected to several others, including a smaller room with an awful, but familiar, reek.

Human bones were thrown into a pile in the back, along with other indigestible material. If Mel had been the sort to have misgiving about slaughtering an entire family tree of monsters (she wasn’t), seeing those bones would have been all the proof she needed to condemn the groles to death.

Mel pointed and used [Omen Mark] on a random grole. It sensed the magical intrusion and spun around in the murk, unable to find its tormentor.

Now for a little chaos.

She scampered forward, reaching out and touching the grole on the hip and darting away. A stack of [Decay] caused the grole to scream and lash out, hitting a nearby ally and causing a scuffle to break out.

Mel moved to the side and summoned her twinblade. Before the silvery ash dissipated, the cutting edge of the blade was already severing the delicate tendons of a different grole’s leg.

The creature went down in a heap, flailing with its muscular limbs ineffectually.

Under the cover of her [Hidden Mist], Mel sowed mayhem among the groles. With no idea who or what was attacking them, they attacked each other, unaware they were doing Mel’s task for her.

While the main room was otherwise occupied, Mel slipped out into a side passage her mist had filtered into. She had to pace herself, keeping the mist tight around her body to be able to see the groles.

She ducked a clawed swipe aimed for her head, spun a circuit and opened up its belly with a backswing of her twinblade. Mel came up, her twinblade spinning the other way, severing another grole’s arm at the elbow.

Both creatures fell back wailing in pain, allowing Mel to slip back into the mist and up against a wall. As more groles came to investigate the noise in the murky room, they collided and mistook each other for the threat.

It took less than an hour to wipe out every last grole. Those that weren’t killed by their own kind were put down by Mel. A few bled to death from the stacking affliction she placed on those unfortunate enough to be marked.

Moving her [Omen Mark] when a monster died was easy, allowing her to stack bleed once more. Her [Sanguine Coat] absorbed the brunt of the attacks, but she still didn’t survive unscathed.

Nobody could.

However, there was little that the groles could do against a nigh-invisible creature that pitted them against each other.

Mel wandered the grole caves, using her favorite aspect of [Sanguine Coat] as she made sure nothing survived.

Droplets of cooling blood lifted from the freshly slain bodies, joining her bloody coat that rippled like a scarlet pool as each droplet joined it.

While she had disliked the aspect at first, Mel was coming around to its benefits. Not only did it give her a second health bar, she could “heal” any damage to her coat with additional blood. The weaker the blood, the more it took to restore her coat’s durability, but that hardly mattered when she could turn a clearing of monsters into a bloody massacre.

The ragged edges of her [Sanguine Coat] healed with the addition of new blood. Mel checked her coat, making sure it was fully restored before she released her draw on the surrounding blood.

The remaining ruby droplets, suspended in the air like a constellation of pain, fell to the ground as red rain.

Quest Complete: Nest of Groles

Objective: Locate the grole monster nest (1/1).

Destroy the grole monster nest (1/1).

Reward: (3) [Small Mana Potions]

Her inventory was filled with grole loot–mostly skin, bone, and claws–so Mel reacted fast to the three bottles appearing in front of her. She grasped them in one sweep of her hands, staring at their contents.

[Small Mana Potion]

(Copper Rank, Item)

(Common)

A stoppered bottle filled with an azure-blue liquid suffused with mana.

Imprint: Drink to recover a small amount of mana over time.

If only health potions worked the same way, she thought wistfully.

These mana potions were too precious for Mel to keep on her person, where they could easily break during combat. She swapped some of the grole loot for the three bottles, eyeing the grole bone with disdain.

Only Hal would get much use out of these, she thought, then froze. Why do I keep thinking about him?

***

Day after day, Mel prowled the forest clad in her hooded [Sanguine Coat]. She was growing increasingly restless.

She had been able to finally kill the fifth and last nocturnal monster, earning her a [Dark Ember], but it looked like she would never get that [Umbral Hood] from the [Seeking Danger] quest. Not unless her allies back at camp suddenly reversed course and decided to come out hunting with her.

That’s about as likely as Warren inviting me to tea and cookies to apologize for being rude.

Quest: [Seeking Danger]

Objective: Slay 5 different nocturnal monster types (5/5).

Reward: [Dark Ember]

Additional Objective: Deal less than 50% of the total damage (4/5).

Reward: [Umbral Hood]

She had tried every trick she could think of to deal less than 50% damage to a monster. Nothing worked.

The monsters that remained were not enough of a challenge any longer.

Mel cut down their numbers by relentlessly hunting in this area of the forested plateau. It made it easier to search the many caves and holes in the cliff face, but that only reminded her of what was coming.

The monsters in the caves were even weaker than those in the forest. What would the creatures back on the plateau be like? Would she feel like a god swatting at gnats?

For some reason she couldn’t pin down, that didn’t sit well with her. She didn’t want to feel strong just for the sake of it. She wanted true strength. Power that only comes from facing death over and over.

Anything else was a joke. A balm for a fragile ego.

She felt like a lion pacing in her cage, bored and wasting away.

Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a little, she thought.

Still, there was a kernel of truth to it. Mel had yet to find another aspect. That didn’t seem like a good sign. She had figured another aspect gem would eventually show up. Now, Mel seriously doubted she could find one in this forested plateau.

And back up where she had first come from? There was no way she would find her final aspect.

It’s perfect for them…but not for you.

Mel shook her head at the voice. I can’t leave them.

Aspects only seemed to appear during situations of extreme duress. The first tomb, the giant serpent that nearly killed her, and then the Bloodtide Covenant and that whole nasty business. She had yet to find something that challenging. With each new aspect she gained more power, which only made it harder to find a proper challenge.

I need to keep pushing my limits. Somehow.

Or else she was going to fall behind in the competition if she hadn’t already.

If Mel had saved her Battle Points instead of buying [Fallen Realm Seeds], she could have bought the [Aspect Seeker Scroll].

Not that she was unhappy with having all five seeds for Mundane rank. She wasn’t looking forward to how much the Copper variants would cost though.

The difference in recovery was significant and further improved the healing effects of food.

If I ventured a little farther, I could find better hunting. Something that might actually test my mettle.

Despite Mel’s frustration, the growth of her four aspects had come a long way. Which only proved to her that they could have gone much further if she wasn’t holding herself back.

With another cavern cleared out, Mel dropped down onto a jut of stone and brought up her status, wondering when she’d find that last aspect.

[Mel Harper]

Race: Human

Standing: [#N/A] Exile (G-League) [1st Echelon]

Class: Mystic

Rank: Mundane

Next Rank: Copper (90%)

[==Attributes==]

Strength [No Aspect Bound]: Mundane (Grade 0)

Agility [Mist Aspect]: Copper (Grade 3)

Vigor [Blood Aspect]: Copper (Grade 2)

Sense [Serpent Aspect]: Copper (Grade 3)

Arcane [Omen Aspect]: Copper (Grade 2)

[==Aspects==]

[Mist Aspect] (Copper Rank) (Grade 3)

●       [Hidden Mist] (Grade 4)

[Blood Aspect] (Copper Rank) (Grade 2)

●       [Sanguine Coat] (Grade 2)

[Serpent Aspect] (Copper Rank) (Grade 3)

●       [Gaze of the Serpent] (Grade 4)

[Omen Aspect] (Copper Rank) (Grade 2)

●       [Omen Mark] (Grade 2)

How much of her day was spent searching caves with nothing in them? How many hours did she give up searching for a way back to her starting plateau instead of hunting monsters and seeking out quests?

I gained and completed more quests in the first seventy-two hours than I have in the last week, she thought to herself. It felt like she had run face first into a wall.

Pushing herself to her feet, Mel exited the cave and dropped [Gaze of the Serpent] to judge the distance of the sun. “I’ve got a few hours left before dark,” she said to herself. A look back at the section of cliff told her that there were more caves to check out.

Most were only a few feet deep, little more than alcoves. To her naked eye, they seemed unappealing and unlikely to offer anything of worth.

Activating [Gaze of the Serpent] again, however, showed a very different picture. The third cave was significantly deeper than the others. Mel immediately set off for it, taking out some dried [Catfish Jerky] Maddie had made. And yes, it was as gross as it sounded. Mel chewed her afternoon meal all alone as she searched for a path back to the starting plateau.

Away from progress and strength.

Chapter 26 – Homeward Bound

Mel burst into the camp, startling Shane. He dropped the bowl he was carving.

“Mel! What’s wrong?”

The others emerged from their various duties, gathering around the red-faced young woman.

“Is everything okay?” Sabrina asked, her hopeful tone belying her concern.

“She found it,” Bernard said with a grin. “You did, didn’t you?”

“Way to go ruining it, Bern!” Mel said with a smile. “Yeah, I found a way up. Way easier than the way we came down. If we pack up right now, we can be halfway back up the plateau by the time night falls.”

Sabrina looked taken aback. “Really? Right now?”

Mel clapped her hands together, forcing a cheery smile despite her own personal misgivings. “Come on, hup-hup! You can kiss all this goodbye and say hello to a nearly identical forest!”

Nobody would meet her eyes for a moment.

Okay, Mel thought, that might have been laying it on a bit thick.

Sabrina stepped up, reaching into her beat-up leather satchel and taking out a faintly glowing scroll sealed with red wax. “Before we go, this is for you.”

Mel frowned, taking the scroll. She gasped as soon as she noticed what it was.

[Aspect Seeker Scroll]

(Copper Rank, Item)

(Rare)

A yellowed parchment scroll sealed with the wax insignia of the Raiders Company. The magic contained within directs the wielder to a bindable aspect of any rarity located within the area.

Imprint: Break the seal with mana to activate. One time use only.

“How?” Mel asked. “This thing costs a thousand BP!”

“I haven’t bought anything since we started,” Bernard said. “We would have pooled together our points if it was possible, but sadly, it was not. All the hunting we did together added up. Not to mention…the other stuff.”

Mel nodded. Many of the zealots had been slain by Bernard’s marksmanship.

“You need this more than me,” Mel said, though she could tell before the words were out of her mouth how they would be received.

Instead of grimacing, Sabrina and the others laughed. “You know how we feel about fighting now. We’ll do it to stay alive, but we aren’t playing this game. Think of this as a gift. A ‘thank you’ for all you’ve done.”

Mel looked at the scroll, sorely tempted. “I don’t know how long this’ll take me to find.”

“Take all the time you need,” Sabrina said with what seemed like a forced smile. Little by little, the people she had first run into had returned over the last week. This, however, was like Sabrina before the Bloodtide Covenant. “We’ll stay right here,” she assured Mel.

“You’ve hunted all the monsters into oblivion,” Shane pointed out.

Bernard motioned around. “Listen to how quiet the forest is, Mel. My grandma could take a stroll out here safely without worry of a monster or vicious animal harming her. We’re safe enough until you return.”

“We’ll be fine, Mel,” Shane continued. “Take as long as you need.”

“It could take me days,” Mel argued weakly.

“Then it takes days,” Maddie countered. “We have plenty of food from the pond. My catfish noodling is better than ever.”

There were groans all around the camp. Eating catfish day in and day out was tiring.

Still better than simple berries though. At least cooked catfish had some minor buffs to stamina and health.

Mel broke the seal with her thumb.

The scroll unfurled and floated in the air. She immediately saw a streak of light race off to her right. It zipped through the forest and disappeared into the green foliage.

Mel blinked in surprise, worried that the trail would fade, but it stayed just as strong. It was leading her to an aspect.

She longed to follow it into the wild, magical unknown.

“Does it work?” Sabrina asked hopefully.

Mel turned back to her, surprised she couldn’t see the glowing trail. “It does.” It was everything she ever wanted. An adventure. The end of which promised power and new strength, the likes of which she couldn’t imagine.

After the last several days of listlessly searching for a path away from power, Mel couldn’t deny that she needed this.

Sabrina could obviously see how torn she was. She stepped up, wrapped her arms around Mel, and kissed her cheek. “Stay safe, Mel.”

Maddie came forward with a small pouch stuffed full of food. “I know it’s not the tastiest, but it’s something you can eat on the move. Get that last aspect, Mel.”

“You deserve it,” Bernard said gruffly.

Shane held up a small, badly carved hunk of wood. “I’m not super good at this, but here’s a carving I made.”

Mel took it, turning it over in her hands. “Uh…what is this?”

“Can’t you tell?”

“Nobody can tell,” Nathan said.

“I figure, what with magic being a thing now, once all this blows over, I can become a crafter. Make things for you. It’s supposed to be a badger. Because…y’know, you remind me of a honey badger.”

“Honey badger don’t care,” Mel said with a grin.

“Honey badger don’t give a shit,” Shane added. “See? I told you she’d get it.”

“Personally, I think Mel is more of a jaguar,” Maddie admitted, missing the point entirely.

“Nah, she’s clearly a basilisk!” Nathan said.

Sabrina smiled and stepped back.

Mel pocketed the gift. “You sure you’ll be fine here while I’m gone?” Something didn’t feel right.

“You’ve killed everything,” Sabrina reiterated. “We haven’t seen any other living human either. Everybody has likely already moved on to more powerful areas. You killed all the monsters. Why would they stay when there’s nothing to hunt?”

That did make a lot of sense. If Mel came across an area devoid of monsters, she’d move on too.

“All right,” she said, turning to look at the line of light racing away toward the promise of power.

Hugs were shared one after the other. A few more gifts were exchanged to help Mel on her way so she could return faster. Without needing to worry about food or water, she could keep moving.

It wasn’t like they needed their leather canteens with a source of water so close. And they could always catch more fish. Maddie really was quite good at catching them.

And then Mel was on the move.

She found herself backpedaling, keeping her camp and her friends in view. This had been the longest in the trial that she had stayed in one place. It was the only safety she knew. “Don’t die on me while I’m gone now!”

Sabrina cupped her hands to her mouth and shouted back. “I should be telling you that! We’ll try not to be killed by the gnats you haven’t slaughtered yet!”

And then the camp was hidden by a screen of trees and brush. Mel found herself recalcitrant to look away, but eventually she had to admit that this was what she wanted.

Bit by bit, the tension between her shoulder blades fell away. She began to feel free to explore without worrying about her friends.

Mel picked up speed. With so much deadfall in this section of the woods, her [Rustwing Boots] improved her speed further, allowing her to vault over shallow dips and dells. It was a shame she hadn’t been able to raise their rarity.

[Rustwing Boots]

(Copper Rank, Armor)

(Uncommon)

A pair of well-used boots belonging to the Rustwing Company of old. Known for their swift flanking maneuvers, the Rustwings served the Old Lord with grace and skill until they were betrayed and cut down by the very lord they served. An echo of the past wearer’s Deeds has been instilled in these boots, improving their parameters.

Imprint: Raises movement speed on difficult terrain.

Mel hurried through the woods, feeling the wind in her blonde hair and, for once, feeling free and unburdened. This was entirely different from just a few hours ago when she was still out looking for the path back to the plateau.

Now she could finally hit Copper and get her last aspect. She followed the line of light unwaveringly, her mind summoning up all manner of aspects that she might want.

Flame aspect would be of great use, but so would Ice. She lacked something as free-form as an elemental aspect.

She also wouldn’t say no to an aspect styled after one of the mythical Kindred or one of the Olympians. Zeus aspect would be badass, but not as awesome as Stygian or Hades aspect!

Mel slowed down, reminding herself that she needed to pace her progress. There was no telling how far away the aspect was, and if Bernard was able to get an aspect seeker scroll, then other people would be able to as well.

She couldn’t help the grin that blossomed on her face though. A small part of her hoped that she’d see Warren or Jimmy there. Without the fear of her friends getting in the way, she wouldn’t hold herself back.

Even if they weren’t there, the odds were high that somebody else would be looking for the same aspect as her. Which meant she needed to keep some of her strength in reserve.

The farther she went from her camp, the more monsters she would run across. She didn’t want to bog herself down by getting into protracted battles. Not when an aspect was on the line.

On the way back though…we’ll see.

The glowing line wound through the trees, slowly curving to the right where the forest abruptly ended.

Suddenly Mel’s boots were hovering over the edge of the plateau, overlooking the fantastical landscape of disjointed planes segmented by sheer, stony cliffs. The horizon was a blend of color from elemental magic and biomes mixing with the weather.

Walls of shimmering light, like an aurora erupting from fissures the size of city blocks, created a tapestry of varying arenas. There was no other word for it in Mel’s mind.

Each area separated by those walls of light was so distinctly different that it had to be on purpose. Some plateaus and arenas were only a dozen or more feet below or above another, while others were the height of skyscrapers.

She saw blizzards ravaging one plateau, while another was shrouded in black murk, another looked like it was raining blood on a corrupted land of flesh and bone. A distant giant dragon wheeled above a smoking volcano, breathing fire into the air.

Far to the north, Mel saw the largest mountain she had ever witnessed. It seemed to touch the very heavens.

Rather than being daunted, Mel was more energized than ever. The Convocation opened up into ever more insane landscapes, and Mel loved it.

Everything was plunged into greater chaos than ever before. There was no mistaking it. The difficulty of the Convocation was increasing the deeper she went.

Plateaus rose or fell before her eyes, joining arenas that would otherwise be impossible to gain access to. A grinding sound below Mel’s feet dragged her attention to the ledge of her own plateau.

A series of stone slabs erupted from the side of the cliff, making an easy way down to the next plateau. One of open fields and rolling hills with large monsters the size of minivans roaming around.

If there were any people there, Mel couldn’t see them. However, the aspect scroll’s line of light led straight through that plateau. She would have to go through it if she wanted her aspect.

Mel grinned to herself, took one tentative step forward to test the strength of the stone, then hurried down the steps before they could vanish.

She had no idea how long they would last, and all thoughts of how she might return to her camp had flown from her head as soon as she saw what lay beyond the rolling plains.

A plateau of constant electrical storms filled with craggy spires and pillars hidden in a haze of mist and rain. She couldn’t see where the line went beyond that as it got lost in the labyrinth that was the storm-lashed plateau, but Mel was excited all the same.

She was finally free and unburdened by worry. Her friends were safe up on a plateau far from the fantastic and terrible things before her, but to Mel, this was heaven.

It was like a theme park for fighting monsters.

The moment her feet touched down on the soft downy grass, the stone stairs retracted into the cliff face, leaving her stranded.

She had just enough time to turn and see a strange creature rushing toward her, the thick triple horns on its head aimed to impale her against the wall of rock behind her.

Mel grinned and summoned her twinblade in a burst of silver ash.

Now this is what I’ve been looking for.

Chapter 27 - Pyresouls

“Are you sure you want to do this, Brina?” Nathan asked.

Sabrina took a steadying breath. “Yes, I’m sure. Mel wouldn’t leave us behind otherwise. This way, we won’t be holding her back any longer.”

Mel was a true warrior. Somehow, she was built for this sort of life. Thrived on it even. That much was plain.

The rest of them weren’t. They didn’t ask for this.

Playing video games and reading books about magic and powers was a fun break from work. Being taken away from everything you ever knew and thrust into this world of carnage and destruction was too much to handle.

Nobody actually wanted a real life Pyresouls.

There were enough horror stories from the world being stitched back together. Nobody had wanted to live during the events, if even half of what was written about was true…god help them all.

Sabrina looked over at the others. “You know, I used to be able to see the Savior.”

The others looked over at her. Sabrina tucked a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. “Just an outline, you know. I always thought it was so weird nobody knew who it was. And then…the longer I’ve been here, the more my mind’s eye has started to change that silhouette into–”

Shane nodded. “Mel.”

“Yeah. Is that weird? She couldn’t possibly be the Savior.”

“I don’t think so,” Nathan said, packing up his supplies. They didn’t have magical inventory like Mel, so they had to make do by strapping things onto themselves or in makeshift rucksacks. “She’s been our Savior in more ways than one. That’s why we’re doing this, isn’t it?”

Maddie hadn’t moved a muscle since Mel left more than an hour ago.

“You heard what Mel said,” Sabrina told her. “We could be halfway to our old camp by sunset.”

“It’s not right.”

“Maddie, please, we’ve been over this. Mel would stay with us out of guilt for what she did. She still thinks that she is the one who dragged us into that…that horrible place. It’s not her fault, but you know what she’s like. She’s obstinate and stubborn. She’d argue until we saw it like she did.” Sabrina shook her head, tears falling free from her cheeks. “I don’t want to see her as anything but the hero she is. And more than anything, I do not want to be a burden.”

“She’s destined for greater things,” Shane added, packing up the small collection of knives he used in his poor attempts at whittling. “How far did she come in just a few days? We’ve been here a week, and because of us, she’s not much stronger.”

“It’s still not right,” Maddie insisted. “Doing this behind her back. It feels wrong. We didn’t even get to say a proper goodbye. She deserves that much.”

“And then she’d find a reason to come along with us,” Sabrina countered. They’d been over this a thousand times, slowly working out the best way to lure Mel away so she didn’t feel any guilt about separating from the group. “There would always be another reason. Eventually, she’d become just as disenchanted as us, or come to resent us and leave. Do you want that?”

Maddie shook her head silently.

“It would be wrong,” Bernard said, looking toward the direction Mel went. “Like putting out a Pyre.”

The others nodded somberly.

“Now, are you going to pitch in, or are we going to have to walk through the scary forest at night?” Sabrina asked.

Maddie slumped her shoulders. “You’ve finished the note?”

Shane held up the large plank of wood and propped it against the shelter where Mel would easily find it. “Right here. All that’s missing is carving your names.”

Maddie held out her hand. Shane slapped a small knife into it, and one by one, they all signed their names and added a final, personal farewell.

After that, it was a whirlwind of activity as the group hurried to pack everything up. They left a small supply cache for Mel, looked back at their home for the last week, and headed on the path that Mel outlined to the cave.

With no monsters wandering about thanks to Mel’s excessive hunting, they would make record time.

Maddie kissed her fingertips and touched the board in a final goodbye. “This is the only way, girl. Thank you for all you’ve done. We’ll meet again, I’m sure of it.” She turned and hurried to catch up to the others, who were already discussing when they’d see Mel again.

“I bet she’s going to be some sort of Convocation star,” Sabrina was saying. “We can say we knew her when she wasn’t even a Copper. Maybe she’ll remember us and say hello.”

It was a bittersweet thought.

“I bet she’s going to make the trial her bitch,” Nathan said. “Honey badger was a good spirit animal for her. She’s as fierce as they come.”

Shane chuckled. “It was a good gift. Not as good as Bernard’s but…”

Bernard bumped him with his shoulder. “If she comes back with a purse full of gold coins because I was the one who helped her reach super stardom, I’m not going to complain. It’ll be wild to catch up with her once this is all over.”

Maddie hung back and listened to the chatter, smiling to herself. When this was all over, she’d find a little town or village or whatever they had here and settle down. When Mel came to visit, she’d bake her famous apple pie.

With warm thoughts of friends reunited, the five ex-adventurers made their way back home to ride out the competition.

***

Mel put her foot on top of the rhinodon’s dead head like she was a trophy hunter. “You sure looked a lot tougher than you were.”

Would you like to loot the [Rhinodon (Copper Rank)]?

(10) [Copper Rune Coins] have been stored in your inventory.

(1) [Rhinodon Hide] has been stored in your inventory.

(1) [Rhinodon Horn Fragment] has been stored in your inventory.

Mel grinned to herself and dismissed her twinblade at the same time as the monster’s body vanished into streams of light. She had figured the fight would take a lot more out of her, but she was practically energized by the bout.

Looking around, she saw a lot more of the reddish brown skinned creatures milling about on the grassy hills. The line of light leading her to the next aspect slipped in and out of sight as it went over and around the hills.

Even with her enhanced speed, Mel had sorely misjudged the distance. The grass wasn’t considered difficult terrain, so the boots didn’t grant the enhanced movement speed that they did in the dense forest.

She could force it to be difficult terrain, but that would present a massive drain. Using both [Hidden Mist] and [Gaze of the Serpent] was hard for her to sustain for long.

On the other hand, it made it easier to avoid encounters should she wish to. Maybe the time savings on speed would offset the need to rest more frequently.

“Only one way to know,” Mel said, summoning up the mana to use [Hidden Mist]. At the very least, it would be good practice. The more she pushed the limits of an aspect skill, the stronger it became. And the more she grew.

Icy patches coated the grass blades, weighing them down with thick frost that turned to hardened ice. Mel picked up the pace, using [Gaze of the Serpent] once more.

She was thankful that [Sanguine Coat] didn’t require constant mana to upkeep.

With three of four aspects constantly in use, Mel felt like a superhero. Her infravision allowed her to spot snakes and other creatures that liked to ambush from the knee-high grass in places.

The rhinodons were easy to avoid without her vision turning them into brightly glowing bonfires of light. The only thing concerning was the wolf that howled in the distance. Wherever it was, [Gaze of the Serpent] wasn’t picking it out of the background.

The difference between Grade 1 agility and Grade 3 is crazy!  Mel thought as she jogged at a speed that would have made her an Olympic gold medalist. It was a large step up with each Grade.

Her skin was harder to cut or break open, as if it was made of boiled leather, and yet it felt just as soft and supple as she remembered. Her hunger and thirst bothered her less, but they didn’t go away just because she had Grade 2 vigor.

Instead, her body seemed to be significantly more resilient and needed more time in between eating before it affected her. Then again, when she did eat, she ate more than double what anybody else in the group did.

Sense and arcane were a little harder to quantify. At Grade 3, she could hear like a bat and see better than Bernard with his [Owl Sight] class skill. Arcane she was pretty sure–mostly from her memories as a Magi–allowed her to better feel the emanations of mana in the world.

Her memories were coming back slowly but steadily the farther she went on her own. Battle and danger seemed to dredge them up, as if she was realigning herself to who she really was.

Or the added energy from the runes is repairing something wrong with me, Mel thought. Hofler’s Identity theory suggested that the more magically aligned she became with her old self, the more she would become like she was, melding the person she used to be with the person she is.

Not unlike normal people who learn and grow and become (hopefully) better people over time. Mel’s instincts were becoming more finely honed. She no longer wondered why or how she knew something, because she had a memory to explain it.

Still, there was nothing in her life to prepare her for a competition that was as wide and far-reaching as a Shardrune multiverse. She still couldn’t quite believe the breadth and depth of the Convocation.

It made abandoning her dreams of placing in the top 10 all the more painful, but she had a duty to uphold. Besides, based on what the Convocation said, this was just the first trial.

There would be many more.

Once her friends were safely out of the trials, she was going to make the biggest comeback story the Shardrune had ever seen.

Mel had lapsed into her own thoughts and nearly stepped right on a snake that had slithered into her path. She pivoted, not wanting to step on it and yet expecting that the snake was going to bite her anyway.

Instead, the snake raised its head a little and seemed to incline it at her.

I must be seeing things, Mel thought, continuing her steady jog. That snake did not just bow to me.

By the time the sun was starting to set, Mel wasn’t even winded thanks to her Blood aspect enhancing her vigor.

I wonder what would have changed if I picked different stats to bind my aspects to? They don’t directly appear to change any stat. I don’t feel like I have more blood for instance, nor do I feel like I have all the senses of a serpent.

Mel shrugged, wondering if she would ever figure it out. Odds were good that some nerd wrote a book or two on it in this reality. A visit to the library might just be in order once the trial was done.

Eating and drinking while she jogged, Mel didn’t stop for anything except to rest and recover her mana wherever she could find a secluded spot.

Hollows between hills were the best, but a few times she camped out on top of a grassy hill and watched the stars pinwheel overhead in all their glory.

Then she was back up again, eating up the miles with her steady gait.

Chapter 28 - Ratings

It took Mel two days to cross the grassy hills and make it to the border.

On the second night, she received a notification about the Convocation that twisted the knife in her gut.

Convocation Update

Ratings are now unlocked and may be accessed via [Status]. Ratings are the total amount of Battle Points gained, multiplied by various factors unique to each individual and their methods of acquiring said Battle Points.

Placing in the following brackets will gain specific rewards. Rewards are cumulative with lower brackets.

Top 1: (1) [Golden Voucher]

Top 3: (1) [Revival Scroll]

Top 10: (1) [Kindling Branch (Legendary)]

Top 25: (2) [Fallen Realm Seeds (Copper)], (100) [Iron Rune Coins]

Top 50: (10) [Aspect Coins (Epic)], (100) [Copper Rune Coins]

Top 100: (10) [Health Potions], (100) [Copper Rune Coins]

She would never place in those brackets at her current pace.

“What the heck is a kindling branch?” Mel asked aloud. A darting rabbit with antlers looked at her as if she was insane.

Ah, that’s right. I’m alone again.

Technically, she wasn’t entirely alone. There were a group of people fighting with each other nearly a football yard's length away.

Mel glanced at them. For the most part, it was a bunch of Defenders bashing each other with big shields. Sometimes they fell over, sometimes they didn’t.

Unsurprisingly, it seemed to be amounting to one of the multiverse’s slowest, most boring battles ever.

Unfortunately, the system didn’t bother to explain what any of the items were. The potions and coins were things she understood. The branch was anybody’s guess, but for hitting top 10 that had to be something good.

Something directly to do with advancing, maybe?

Obviously a scroll to revive yourself would be a hot ticket item for one of the three people out of who knows how many. Thousands at least, from what Sabrina could tell me. And a [Golden Voucher] brought the mental image of Willy Wonka’s golden ticket to mind, but better.

How was it better? Mel had no idea, but she was keen to find out.

She pulled up her status, curious where she stood.

[Mel Harper]

Race: Human

Rating: [#188] Exile (G-League) [1st Echelon]

Class: Mystic

Rank: Mundane

Next Rank: Copper (90%)

Mel snorted. Maybe I do have a chance after all?

She could check how far along she was when she got her fifth and final aspect. As far as she understood, there wasn’t any BP awarded for getting an aspect or else she’d have gotten a lot more from the Bloodtide Covenant.

However, the system did say that a person’s BP was multiplied by various personal factors. Getting stronger had to rank somewhere in there as an extra bonus, right?

Mel was glad that it was total BP gained and not something like her current BP, which would mean buying anything from the Emporium would have lowered her standing.

A cloud of unnatural darkness descended upon the distant Defenders. The shouting and general noise they were making cut out.

With more interest than before, Mel looked over. Before long, the darkness dissipated, and a figure clad in unnatural shadow strode away from the group of downed Defenders. Some kind of assassin, she guessed.

Mel clenched her jaw. Out of curiosity, she checked her rating again.

It went down. Just a single spot, but it still moved. She was at #189 now.

Fighting people more than likely earned Battle Points, there didn’t appear to be any rules mentioning that you couldn’t steal a person’s BP by killing them. Mel had noticed that killing the Bloodtide had awarded a lot more BP than she would have gotten from a monster.

Some of those downed Defenders were stirring on the ground, so maybe taking human lives wasn’t necessary.

That’s good, I don’t fancy being a murderhobo to get to the top. Not unless I really want to.

It still would offer more Battle Points though, if Mel’s theory was correct.

In fact, if you could steal all of a person’s BP by killing them, the smartest, most devious people would wait until the very end. Let others kill monsters while they assassinated those who were left.

It would be a risky gambit.

On the one hand, the assassin stood to gain tremendously. On the other…the people still left at the end of the 56 day trial would be pretty damn strong. Assassinating them would not be easy.

That did make her worry for her friends, but nobody in their right mind would backtrack to the start if they were trying to place in the top 100.

As much as Mel wanted to see what sort of darkness or shadow powers that person was using, she couldn’t afford to be distracted. She stood less than 100 yards away from the thunder plateau in front of her, a darkness plateau to her left, and far to her right was a soggy marsh that she could blend right into with her [Hidden Mist].

Unfortunately, the guiding light from her aspect seeker scroll split into three distinct paths. One to each of the plateaus.

“Are you kidding me? I have options?” Mel threw her hands up in annoyance. “How am I supposed to pick?”

There would be no answer, but now that she was alone Mel found it easier to slip back into the habit of talking to herself.

I gotta work on that.

If she was a betting woman–and she was–then her bet would be that each plateau had its own aspect or aspects related to its power. Clearly that put the marsh plateau out of the question.

She already had a Mist aspect, and anything a marsh might give her was unappealing. That left Advanced Darkness and the stormy plateau of towering pillars, blustery storms, and lightning strikes aplenty.

“Edgelord or Stormlord,” Mel thought aloud to herself. “Well, that kinda settles it doesn’t it? Nobody wants to be an edgelord.”

With her choice firmly in her mind, the other two lines of light fizzled and faded away, leaving just the one.

Mel marched up to the aurora of light that separated the plateaus. For once she didn’t have to worry about the height difference. She pressed a hand to the light, surprised that it passed through so easily.

The air tingled on this plateau and her blonde hair began to lift slowly into the air before the rain hit her and settled it back down.

Up close, the plateau was like a maze of gray stone pillars covered in moss and lichen. Figures both large and small moved across her path, down adjoining corridors of stone, and beyond.

A flash of purple lightning struck the ground nearby. The boom was deafening. Mel swayed on her feet as the ground heaved, then settled.

This is more like it!

Undaunted, Mel decided that her best bet would be to get a higher vantage point. It didn’t hurt that the line of light pointed straight up the nearest pillar.

Really wish I had an aspect for strength, Mel thought as she leapt up to the first handhold and pulled herself up. By her own reckoning, she was at least as strong as a bodybuilder would be, but she was still firmly in “human grade” territory.

The only reason she was at the upper end was because of the other aspects pushing her toward Copper as a whole.

With her greater sense, Mel could find holds that she might have otherwise missed. Her agility allowed her to twist and make previously impossible maneuvers to reach them, no matter how far or awkwardly placed.

The higher she climbed, the more she saw of the plateau, and the more she realized this was the only plausible way she would ever navigate the maze down below.

She had seen more people here than at any other time in her life. None of them paid her much attention. Most were too busy running to or away from a monster. The others were climbing like she was.

Mel picked up the pace. She had a bad feeling that she wasn’t the only person who had used a seeker scroll to get here.

Halfway up, a lightning strike blasted the pillar on her left. The poor soul that had been climbing with startling speed lost his grip and fell to a messy end.

Mel winced. “RIP buddy.” She kept going though. If whatever gods existed here hadn’t already smited her for the shit she thought and said, they weren’t going to now.

More than likely, they were arguing over who had the right to kill her. The good ol’ Constantine Defense was surprisingly effective when pissing off demons and deities alike.

Pulling herself up to the top of her pillar, Mel saw dozens of people already on their own pillars. The distance between them was surprisingly small, most were only a few yards apart.

Some people were launching themselves across the pillars one at a time, others were using tools to fasten ropes across.

Others yet had…altogether more interesting methods of traversal.

The most notable was a hooded necromancer riding a wave of skeletons from one pillar to another. She seemed so casual and relaxed about it until lightning cracked into the skeletons, knocking them to the ground below.

Unlike the other poor soul, the necromancer did get back up again. This time with significantly fewer undead minions.

“Surfs up, indeed,” Mel said. For some reason, she was unable to keep her eyes off her. She felt a strange magnetism to the woman, and then she was gone.

It was odd being around so many people, but they weren’t fighting each other. A few groups were duking it out, but it didn’t seem like it was the main event.

Mel took a moment to find the aspect seeking line, then followed it up into the lightning charged air. Purple streaks of energy grounded themselves in the many pillars–and the people unfortunate enough to be standing on top–causing the entire plateau to rumble.

Shading her eyes against the rain, Mel’s gaze climbed higher and higher to the taller pillars and the main event.

A dragon.

Well, not precisely a dragon. Technically a “long” so-called for their sinuous serpentine-like bodies that they used to fly through the air with the aid of magic. They had no wings, though they did have two pairs of legs and long barbel-like whiskers.

This creature had horns the size of great redwoods, each branch sparkled with unimaginable power. Mel didn’t miss that her guiding light was pointing right at its horns.

Because of course I’d have to fight a long dragon. Why not? Mel grumbled to herself.

Its long, sinuous body twisted gracefully through the air like a shimmering ribbon. Metallic scales gleamed on its underbelly as it lazily passed by with all the urgency of a turtle.

At least, from this distance it seemed slow and cumbersome. Mel knew firsthand how vast distance could distort perception.

Unlike most monsters, it didn’t seem to notice the crowd of people on the thunder plateau. That, or it didn’t care.

It literally radiated immeasurable power. Lightning struck one horn and was transmuted into a different element altogether.

A bolt of lightning became a twisting spout of water the size of a subway train, knocking down several pillars as if they were bowling pins.

Another bolt crashed into its horn and became a fusillade of boulders the size of cars, raining down on the pillars all around Mel, forcing her to run and leap for her life.

The pillar she had just been standing on crumbled like a pile of wooden blocks, throwing up a plume of dust and debris.

Better get moving, Mel thought to herself, eyeing the next pillar and taking a running leap. She nearly collided with another person who had just made their own jump, but she didn’t stop or slow down.

They went to the left while Mel went right, taking the larger leap that would get her to a taller pillar in three impossibly long jumps instead of five easy ones.

Bigger men and women tried to knock her down while she crossed their paths. It was hard to tell whether it was intentional or not, but Mel was looking for something to vent her frustrations on.

She tucked and rolled the first time a foot purposefully tripped her. Sticking out her leg, she smashed her foot into their ankle, forcing their feet out from under them entirely.

Mel was up on her feet, leaping to the next pillar before they got up.

As she leapt to the next pillar, Mel noticed the big bulky man from the pillar over. He was making no attempt at diverting his course away from her. With all the grace of an NFL lineman, he plowed several people out of his way and jumped with strength that was clearly enhanced.

Still sailing through the air, Mel used [Hidden Mist]. The cold fog spread, creating dangerously icy patches.

Seeing the threat ahead, the man tried to put on the brakes but had overcommitted by plowing through the previous group. When he made it to Mel’s pillar, his foot hit an icy patch and he went down hard.

Even though it had been her doing, Mel still winced in sympathy. That boy didn’t just eat shit, he ate the whole buffet.

Grinning to herself, Mel made the last leap and climbed the final pillar. When she pulled herself up to the top, the view was astounding, but she didn’t have any time to gawk.

Several groups were shoving and drawing weapons, while others were watching the dragon slip between the taller pillars. It reminded Mel of the otters at the zoo, gliding effortlessly underwater as they played.

The only difference was that people were leaping onto the long dragon’s back in a bid to reach its impossibly valuable horns.

Horns that Mel could now see were not magical themselves. Like barnacles on the side of a ship, the dragon’s horns were covered in aspect gems.

Mel grinned and readied herself as the dragon swooped by.

Chapter 29 - Dragon Riding

“What’re we doing back here?” Eric said, looking around nervously. He was so scared he was sweating beneath his hood, despite the chill. “The don said we weren’t supposed to come this way.”

It stirred up Jimmy’s rage something fierce that he couldn’t be sure whether Eric was terrified of disobeying the don, or that little girl Mel.

Jimmy turned and glared at the Archer. “We aren’t here. We never were here, got it? We’re hunting. The boss’ quest says we gotta kill groles, so we’re killing groles, aren’t we?”

“Not much hunting out here,” Lisa said, testing the draw on her bow. “It’s like somebody’s wiped ‘em all out. Might as well head back north. Even if the red-skinned ones are a lot stronger, we’ll at least be done.”

Jimmy stood up from his crouch and glared at his team of 12. It was a large scouting party, meant for one purpose: quest killing. Stolst would get quests, then hand them down to his lieutenants and captains. They would complete them, and the whole organization would profit.

Unfortunately, Jimmy’s glare didn’t have the same effect as the boss’. He grumbled and struck off toward the east.

It was clear to Jimmy that Eric was losing his nerve. He had been with the boss and Jimmy when they ran into those weaklings protected by that pint-sized bitch. He should have learned to show some backbone after getting bound and gagged by a little girl. He was a good soldier, loyal to a fault, but he didn’t understand that sometimes you had to bend the rules a little to protect the boss.

“That’s toward the camp we’re supposed to leave alone,” Eric said, causing several people to look his way curiously. Everybody had heard about the disastrous encounter with a group of Mages. Few knew the whole truth, however.

“Is this the Mage camp?” Lisa asked excitedly. “Are we going to get some revenge?”

“The boss said–” Eric began, but Jimmy was there in a heartbeat, towering over him.

“The boss ain’t here. I say we check to make sure they aren’t dead, got it? Could be a group of groles killed them all. Take your best scouts with you, Eric. Be unseen. Report back what you find. We’ll wait here.”

Eric looked like he was about to protest, but he swallowed the complaint and picked out his group. They faded into the thick underbrush.

Jimmy’s temper was quickly becoming the stuff of legend around the organization. He alone knew how to interpret the boss’ rules. Sometimes, as a loyal captain, you had to protect the don from himself at times.

No matter what Stolst wanted people to think, he was still just a man. And a man was fallible. He felt fear and anger, lust and regret. It was Jimmy’s duty to protect Stolst from himself when it became obvious he was letting his emotions rule him.

That strumpet who tugged on his heartstrings, tempting him toward a life of softness had been the first person Jimmy took out. It was easy to make anything look like an accident with monsters around every corner.

If only Boston had been like this, Jimmy thought to himself. We’d have had the whole city in the palm of our hand.

It wasn’t Jimmy’s place to rule. He merely wanted a seat at the table and the ear of the Emperor himself.

He was pulled from his thoughts of revenge, knowing full well that he’d need to move on from the area if that troublemaker was about. The boss wanted her head for himself. With all the dead monsters around, he could guess easily enough who had culled them.

Eric looked unsettled, which meant that he had either been spotted or the group was dug in more than ever.

If they were still there, he couldn’t risk it. Even with nearly two to one, Jimmy didn’t like their odds. That girl had taken out three of their best Archers without anybody noticing. She could have killed them if she wanted.

Just thinking about her made Jimmy grind his teeth so loud he missed what Eric said.

“Say again?” Jimmy asked.

“I said the camp is deserted. Best guess is they’ve been gone a day or more,” Eric repeated.

All eyes turned to Jimmy as he grinned viciously. The boss said the camp was off limits…but they weren’t at the camp anymore. Ambushing a group on the move made the numbers work overwhelming in his favor.

Against a fortified defense, he wouldn’t have risked it. But moving targets were easy.

“Can you find their trail?” Jimmy asked, not daring to hope.

Lisa, sticking her flat chest out like a preening bird said, “I already did, sir. They weren’t trying to hide where they were going. Might be a bit harder out on the plains, but I reckon we can find ‘em. What’s the plan?”

Jimmy’s grin curled the edges of his lips into a devilish smile. “We go hunting.”

***

Seeing her window, Mel leapt for the dragon. She screamed for good measure. Falling here would be bad, and the best way to banish fear was to be as loud and boisterous as possible.

It worked on roller coasters, fighting monsters, and potentially leaping to your death.

She hurtled in an upwards arc, bloody coat flapping like a banner behind her.

What she couldn’t account for was the blustering winds sheathing the dragon’s twisting body. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a man in light robes impact it before she did.

He was sent spinning away.

She was moments from that happening to her too. Mel summoned her twinblade in the hopes of using that to pierce through, but she wasn’t fast enough.

In a wall of rushing sound, the quasi-barrier of corkscrewing winds blasted her away.

Mel tumbled backwards end over end, miraculously crashing into the platform she started on.

Only this time, there was another person there. A tall and imposing woman in rough shape with a mane of flame red hair under a wolven hide hood. Tattered weapons were stuck into the back of her damaged heavy armor.

A lot of people had clearly tried to kill this viking and failed.

Aspect Skill: [Howl at the Moon]

The magical force of the viking howling like a wolf pushed Mel back before she could get to her feet. She slid nearly a foot before she stabbed her twinblade into the ground and used that as a piton to anchor herself.

The viking was building up momentum by swinging a giant ball and chain that was clasped to her wrist like a prisoner’s restraint.

Mel watched in astonishment as the woman did the impossible and launched the ball toward the long dragon. The chain snapped taut just as the woman noticed Mel, a surprised expression of recognition on her face.

It was gone a moment later as she was pulled through the air toward the long dragon. Mel got to her feet, watching as other people had devised their own ways through the wind barrier.

Aspect skills went off, puncturing the winds and allowing their users to land atop the sinuous body of the long dragon. Mel even watched a few bulky figures tossing boulders that were too heavy for the winds to break apart, leaving a gap for their throwers to leap through.

The viking woman clearly had the same idea. The metal ball at the end of her chain punched straight through the barrier, leaving a ragged hole.

Mel wasted no time leaping after her. She managed to slip through the hole right before it closed. The sudden collapse of the hole behind her forced her off course.

Sorry about this, Mel thought to the dragon as she once more used her blade as an improvised piton to secure her position. Using her superior sense and agility, she found a gap in its scales and stabbed with all her force.

Considering the dragon didn’t so much as roar or twitch in pain, it probably didn’t even notice.

Mel climbed aboard the dragon’s back and immediately rolled under a swiping sword.

A man with a scarred face stepped forward, shifted his weight, and brought his sword down, trying to split Mel in two. She snapped her legs together, kicked off his shin, and split them again so the blade banged harmlessly off the long dragon’s scales.

Before the man could realign his strike, Mel hooked one foot behind his ankle and tripped him.

While Mel’s agility allowed her to get to her feet easily, the strength-focused Defender toppled to the dragon’s rippling back and slid right off.

An arrow whizzed right past Mel’s ear. She didn’t bother to respond to the attack. She turned and sprinted, her speed enhanced by her [Rustwing Boots]. If a dragon’s undulating back as it flew through the air wasn’t difficult terrain, nothing was.

A man in heavy armor flew harmlessly by, a look of comical shock on his face at the heavy metal ball in his arms.

The chain snapped taut, ripping the ball out of his grip. He immediately dropped out of sight.

All along the dragon’s back, people were fighting on their way toward the head and the long dragon’s horns glittering with aspect gems. Its slowly undulating form gave Mel the rising and falling sensation of being on a rollercoaster even while standing still.

I’m really going to have to earn my last aspect, Mel thought.

The long dragon was going too fast for her [Hidden Mist] to be of much use. The moment she tried to summon it, the fog was shredded and whipped away.

Mel focused on evasion, pushing her sense and agility to the limits. Sometimes she was running flat out when the dragon’s long serpentine body dipped and she suddenly found nothing but air beneath her feet.

Other times the dragon’s body was undulating upward, pushing into her feet and making every step feel as if she was suddenly doing gravity training in DBZ.

Those without the ability to detect when the dragon’s body was shifting or the speed to react were thrown off. Others were killed by opportunistic people who were often killed themselves moments later.

As much as Mel wanted to join the melee, she ignored the many openings. It was a potential way of moving several spots up the ratings ladder, but it would slow her down too much.

She couldn’t help but be reminded of Mario Kart. If you were in dead last or the first few spots, you were fine. In the middle of the pack was where every goddamned shell, bomb, star, bullet bill, and banana peel managed to hit you.

It was nothing short of chaos.

Once Mel pulled ahead of the in-fighting pack, she found the going much easier. Several others had the same idea, sprinting as fast as they could toward the prize.

A few looked her way as she overtook them, but nobody was stupid enough to try attacking her. The bloodthirsty savages behind them were too close. A few seconds fighting instead of running was all it would take to fall back into that mess.

The wolven viking surged out of the pile of savages, her fierce silver eyes filled with determination. And yet that fanged grin suggested she was enjoying herself.

Same, Mel thought to herself.

The viking began to catch up with surprising speed, even with some poor bastard clinging to her neck.

The dragon’s neck arched as Mel ran up it, the long dragon’s glassy scales glinting gold and copper. Her footing grew precarious, and Mel once again resorted to using her twinblade to keep moving instead of sliding back like many of the others.

There were a few people ahead of her who had similar ideas, though one man cloaked in shadows simply walked up the scales as if his feet were glued to them. Other climbers used knives or short blades to wedge into the gaps between scales.

Undead skeletons obediently braced the necromancer from earlier, who was reaching for an aspect gem radiating green esoteric symbols. The gusting winds threw back the hood of her tightly fitting dark purple and black robes, revealing a violet cast to her black hair and eyes as blue as polished sapphires. She studied the glowing source of magic with fascination.

Mel could almost touch the horns now, but she found herself staring at the necromancer instead. She had the strangest urge to call her “princess”. At first glance, she looked nothing like a princess, but the closer Mel looked, the more regal the woman appeared. Tall and graceful where Mel was short and fierce, the necromancer looked the part of a princess who got tired of waiting for a knight to save her and took up the sword her damn self.

Shaking her head, Mel focused on her prize. She wasn’t the only one. The lure of the aspect gems was too great for anybody to take advantage of Mel’s lapse. Any animosity between the people here vanished. Everybody—except Mel, apparently—only had eyes for the aspect gems.

The source of most magic in this world.

The shadow cloaked assassin made it there first. With one hand doing a fist pump, he touched a single aspect gem burning with a cold dark energy that drained all the color in a pocket around him.

He disappeared into a swirling portal of light.

Mel adjusted her plan as she hastily searched for an aspect gem that resembled anything that appealed to her.

There! A cloudy jewel crackled with lightning near another that was haloed in an opalescent aura.

Dismissing her blade into ash, Mel reached for both aspect gems at once. The moment she touched them, they vanished into twin streams of light.

(1) [Storm Aspect Gem (Ancestral)] has been stored in your inventory.

(1) [Divine Aspect Gem (Ancestral)] has been stored in your inventory.

Beside her, the viking grasped a jewel billowing upwards with crumbling, purple-laced rocks.

She tried to say something to Mel, but her words were lost in the wind. What truly caught Mel’s eye was the knotted symbol attached to her half-ruined pauldron.

The symbol of the Magi.

Before Mel could say anything back, she disappeared into a portal of frosty light.

Chapter 30 - Frozen Beneath

Mel felt a tug right behind her navel as she was pulled through the planar portal. Her instincts and training told her to shut her eyes and curl up into a ball as the sensation of rapid movement reached a crescendo and spat her out.

She rolled and crunched across a blanket of cold snow and fetched up against a stalagmite of blue ice.

Mel snapped her eyes open and summoned her twinblade, its swirl of silver lost in the plumes of snow thrown up by her tumble through the soft powder.

There were no threats that she could find, aside from the cold already seeping into her clothes.

She took stock, making sure nothing was broken, and tried to get her bearings.

An ice cave?

She vaguely recalled an area closer to her starting location than the stormy plateau that had been ravaged by ice storms and blizzards.

The cave glittered majestically. Sunlight was finding its way inside, but Mel couldn’t tell where from. The effect of the refracted sunlight was dazzling and disorienting. It made it difficult to make out what was a tunnel and what was a sheet of ice.

Squinting, Mel used [Gaze of the Serpent]. She wasn’t sure how useful infravision would be, but the aspect skill surprised her with its depths.

Her vision was filled with dark violets, purples, and deep blues instead of the typical oranges and greens. It was no less beautiful, and it rendered the cave in a vibrant tapestry of cool colors that allowed her to make out details the dazzling sunlight obfuscated.

With the overwhelming light no longer a factor, its heat barely registering as a blip on her infravision, Mel counted three tunnels branching off this small room filled with stalagmites and stalactites of blue ice.

New Quest: Frozen Beneath

You have been transported to a frozen cave. Survive the cold while finding a way out before the temperature drops even further, inviting in monsters from the depths that thrive in arctic conditions.

Objective: Endure the cold and escape (0/1).

Reward: [Armor Bracers (Rare)]

New quest, oh how I’ve missed you.

With no idea where she was, or how to get out, Mel made a circuit of the chamber looking for any sign of the monsters that the quest mentioned.

Nothing for now, she thought, settling down on a cushion of snow that crunched beneath her seat. She took out both aspect gems and held them each in one hand.

[Storm Aspect Gem]

(Aspect Item)

(Ancestral)

A distilled manifestation of Storm Aspect in the form of a raw gem. Storm clouds roil beneath the spherical surface, drowning a lush realm captured within crystal.

Imprint: Use to bind Storm aspect to an attribute.

[Divine Aspect Gem]

(Aspect Item)

(Ancestral)

A distilled manifestation of Divine Aspect in the form of a raw gem. Waves of golden light flow beneath the smooth surface, blessing a desert realm captured within crystal.

Imprint: Use to bind Divine aspect to an attribute.

Mel wasn’t a fan of gods. They were useful things at times, but she wasn’t big on worship or following any specific god. It was hard to believe in the gods as something greater when you’ve had a peek behind the curtain.

In her mind, they were closer to forces of nature that had been summoned up by people than anything worthy of worship. The Kindred were a little different. They were the sort of heroes to look up to. Still far from perfect. Some were pretty dark too.

Having two aspects to choose from for Mel’s last aspect wasn’t something she expected.

If she couldn’t bind both, which she wasn’t sure about, then at least she’d be able to give it to somebody else.

Both aspect gems were the same rarity, making the choice easier instead of harder. If the Divine gem had been a higher rarity, she would have been sorely tempted.

What would Divine aspect do to me anyway? Make me some kind of demigod?

Mel wasn’t sure how she felt about it. Having Divine aspect mixed with Blood, Omen, and Serpent felt a little sacrilegious.

Then again, when the hell did I ever care about gods and their rules?

It felt like a golden opportunity.

But storm…

While she didn’t know exactly what rarity did, the skills she learned from Blood and Omen were vastly better than anything she received from Mist or Serpent.

Judging by the halo of power surrounding each gem, Ancestral must be beyond Legendary in terms of strength.

Mel was about to put the Divine gem into her inventory, then stopped. Am I really doing this?

She held up the gem and stared at the sands shifting within. Hadn’t she been somewhere with black sands?

Dammit.

Mel switched up her decision last minute. It was just like her to suddenly pull a 180 about something so pivotal as her last aspect. She shoved the Storm gem into her inventory instead.

Worst-case scenario, she could barter with it if she truly needed. Anybody would want it.

Otherwise, she still hoped to find a merchant that she could sell it to. Money was clearly valuable here as a ritual component. She nearly bankrupted herself doing a few simple rituals.

What would the higher tier spells demand?

Unable to stop herself, Mel took the Storm gem back out and held both Divine and Storm in the palms of her hands. She focused, trying to send two threads of mana into each aspect gem.

Maybe if I can bind both at the same time, they’ll change into something better. What would Divine and Storm become?

She gasped. “Zeus.”

Of course, reality rarely lives up to our expectations, and Mel was met with a cold, hard truth: she could only pick one.

“Balls.” She put away the Storm gem and went with the only option available.

Being the last aspect she had to bind, the notification was slightly different.

Do you wish to bind [Divine Aspect] to the Strength attribute?

“Yep.”

Are you sure you wish to bind [Divine Aspect] to Strength? This choice cannot be undone.

“Yes, obviously,” Mel replied quickly, eager to bind a new power. “Not a lot of waffling to be done here, system.”

You bind [Divine Aspect] to your [Strength] attribute.

Your [Strength (Divine)] advances to [Copper Rank (Grade 0)].

You awaken the [Tempest Heart] Divine aspect skill.

Mel let out a little whoop as the surge of power flooded her veins, filling in the last missing piece. “Strength and Divine?” She gasped. “I can smite people now!” She surged to her feet and would have done a dorky little dance if the world didn’t start to spin and twist around her.

Too late, Mel realized that she should have expected this. With all of her aspects in place, and each of her attributes at Copper, it was time for her body to advance as well.

Her excitement clouded her mind to the very real dangers of advancement in such a remote and potentially deadly location. Waves of power radiated out from her middle as her body advanced from Mundane to Copper.

She reached into her inventory as fast as she could, pulling out the campfire scroll. Before she could activate it, her muscles seized and every cell in her body screamed in pain as the ripple of change pressed onward from the inside out.

Mel collapsed to the icy floor, wracked with pain. She curled into a tight ball. Time lost all meaning. She blacked out numerous times, each time coming back to consciousness more confused and disoriented than before, until darkness fully consumed her.

Shivering and fatigued beyond her worst nightmares, Mel struggled to open her eyes.

She groaned pitifully, though it was meant to be a scream of defiance, forcing her glued eyelids open. Frost dazzled her blurry vision. It took her a moment to realize that her eyelashes were decked in shimmering ice.

Heat.

It was the only word that she had room for in her wool-stuffed brain. She had done something to do with heat, right? She had something. But what was it?

Struggling to remember, Mel groaned again and tried to get into a sitting position. A dark vile goo froze her to the ground like black glue.

Mel squinted, squeezing her eyes shut. The only thing she wanted to do was go back to sleep. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she screamed at herself to get up. This wasn’t school. She wouldn’t just be late to class if she succumbed, she wouldn’t ever wake up again.

Even with that fatal threat looming, Mel couldn’t muster up much concern. The painful, bone-deep cold was slowly vanishing, replaced by a sense of calm.

Screw this!

Mel lifted her head, the only part able to still move freely, and slammed her head into the ice. The sharp crack of pain woke her up briefly, returning some of her senses. She struggled to push mana through her body in an attempt to warm it, but it seemed this world didn’t work like that. Nothing happened, and she didn’t have the luxury of time to keep trying.

She was already being lulled again by the siren song of hypothermic sleep.

Looking around the room, Mel found no help forthcoming. She was all alone. As usual.

I’m not going out like a bitch, she promised herself. Getting all of my attributes, advancing to Copper just to die? No way.

She only vaguely realized how cold it must be for a Copper to be so close to death. The light in the room was dim, barely enough for her to see by, but as she struggled against the frozen goo sticking her to the floor, she worked some feeling back into her right hand.

Paper?

Mel craned her neck to look at her hand. In its claw-like grasp was a scroll. She barely had enough strength in her limb to squeeze it until the wax seal broke.

Nothing happened.

Mel focused, examining the scroll.

[Campfire Instant Scroll]

(Copper Rank, Item)

(Common)

A furled bundle of parchment inked with the imagery of a campfire ringed with stones merrily burning beneath a bubbling pot.

Imprint: Spend (2) [Copper Rune Coins] to instantly conjure a campfire bordered by stones with a pot accessory. This item has a chance to be consumed with each use.

“Oh, come on!” she raged at the ice.

Mel summoned her inventory. A blue line of light split the air and rotated sideways to reveal her inventory subspace cubby. Unfortunately, she couldn’t move either hand. Her fingers were numb and barely twitched despite the screaming commands she sent to them.

“I can see it!” she yelled, though her voice came out as a faint whisper. “All my Talespin memorabilia for two friggin’ coins!” She could see her pouch of [Copper Rune Coins] no more than a few inches away.

It might as well have been a mile for all the difference it made.

Something thumped heavily nearby. The muffled sound was followed by a slow, scraping sound.

A monster!? How bad can my luck be?

The wet, hacking coughing painted a very different picture in Mel’s mind. It was hard to see in the encroaching darkness, but she was sure somebody else was there.

“H-here…” a young man’s voice rasped.

A trembling, half-frostbitten hand slid two [Copper Rune Coins] toward her.

“The scroll,” she instructed.

His bleeding hand shifted and touched the coins to the scroll.

A beam of light radiated out from the magical scroll, disintegrating it in her hand. For a moment, she held a beam of pure heat and life, then it fountained up and landed in the middle of the icy room.

Glorious heat sparked to life as a tiny flame appeared and grew steadily. A bed of black ash appeared beneath the strengthening flame until the ice was covered completely.

Stones conjured out of blue vaporous mana, flying into place around a campfire that surged with tremendous heat. An iron pot unfurled like a piece of paper above the crackling, popping flames, bubbling with an unknown concoction.

Huh, it actually made the pot too, Mel thought to herself as the heat washed over her. On the other side of the fire, something heavy fell to the ground, but Mel couldn’t see what was going on.

“You okay over there?” Mel called.

There was no response.

“Rude.”

The fire’s heat thawed her inch by inch, returning precious feeling and life back to her frozen limbs. Mel could see no source of fuel that the fire was burning, and yet it blazed with a welcome intensity.

By the time the sun fully set and the cave was a series of flickering reflected campfires, Mel had been freed of the black muck and was able to sit in front of the flames.

The cloaked, scrawny figure lying face down wasn’t so lucky.

Despite her weariness, she grabbed a fistful of the figure’s cloak and dragged him dangerously close to the fire.

As far as Mel could see, without a fuel source, there was nothing to create embers. The risk of the man catching fire was minimal. And she’d rather repay the kindness of a stranger now rather than later.

Mel cleaned herself up and settled in next to the fire to wait.