Things moved rapidly after Alaunvayas and I formalized our agreement. I was shown to a comfortable room in the temple, while everyone else around me erupted into action. I took the opportunity to lie down for a bit, not having slept for several days as I hid out in the city. I was invited to eat with the priestess and other members of the temple. The food was interesting and filling, mostly various forms of prepared mushrooms, but there were also a few types of meat prepared in sauces. I didn’t ask too much about the meat. I speculated throughout the meal how a temple full of the seemingly undead ate regular food, but I was too sheepish to ask.

  After two days, Alaunvayas found me in my room and let me know they were ready. The temple hid its preparations as best as it could, but when I left, it was “night” and a hundred or more wagons were being prepared in front of the temple. Each wagon was packed with supplies and was being swarmed over by workers, both dark elves and the other, smaller races. Pale guards stood watch, scanning the nearby rooftops for signs of any enemy dark elves that might attack them. Given the number of people and wagons in front of the temple, it was hard to hide the commotion from the ever-observant dark elves that scoured the city every night. I could sense several watching us from nearby rooftops even now.

  Alaunvayas led me to the front of the wagons, where a team of soldiers and priestesses were ready. Alaunvayas herself led the way, and the wagons began to creak and groan as they were pulled forward behind us. The large beetles hitched to each wagon moved without complaint.

  “This is our first squad,” Alaunvayas told me as we walked, gesturing to the people around us. “They will clear the tunnels in front of us as we move. We will have several more squads ready to clear side tunnels and protect our rear and sides as we move. I can communicate telepathically with each of my squad leaders, so you and I will be in the center of the wagons. That way, you can alert me to ambushes as we move. Does that work for you?”

  “This is a lot more people than I had expected,” I told her, looking over the wagons. Each wagon held numerous dark elf men, women, and children and an uncountable number of smaller monsters that eagerly followed the dark elves on foot. The total number of dark elves alone escaping with us had to be several hundred.

  “These are our loyal workers and their families,” she told me. “We couldn’t leave them behind. It had to be this way. These are all good people. They are trustworthy.”

  “I understand,” I said quickly, not wanting to give her the idea I didn’t support her saving their lives. “I’m just concerned my perk may not reach far enough to protect the front and back at the same time. With so many wagons, we will be stretched out a long distance.”

  “Do you have a better idea?” she asked me. “I’m open to hearing anything you suggest.”

  “Well,” I said, “this was one of the reasons I asked for a non-combat and combat class. And I promise, I’m not just raising this now to try to take advantage of you. I did not believe we would have so many people, but if you had a non-combat class that would unlock the perception attribute, it would magnify the range and power of my perk considerably. It scales based on my perception, which I don’t currently have, so it’s more limited.”

  “I believe you,” Alaunvayas said with a small laugh. “If I had known such a thing would assist you in detecting the spiders, I would have arranged for you to receive such a class right away. One second.”

  From the paranoid dark elves I had seen in most of the city, I assumed my request for a class right as her people were dependent on me for survival would be seen as a clear power grab. They were at their most vulnerable, so of course now was the time to take advantage, I imagined most of the dark elves would think. I actually felt bad even asking for the class, but I honestly had expected twenty or thirty dark elves at most, not this long train full of wagons and families. The fact that the priestess didn’t doubt my word when I said I wasn’t trying to take advantage spoke well to her own trustworthiness, I felt.

  “Alexander,” the priestess said, waving over a male dark elf dressed in leather armor. “Follow Ryld here. He will unlock a class for you.”

  The man stepped forward and led me toward a nearby wagon. We jumped on the back together and he sat me down next to him.

  “I’m going to unlock the non-combat class Dark Elf Stalker for you. It is our version of a hunter.”

  He explained the nature of the class, which did not sound much like a non-combat class to me. I mentioned that to him and he nodded gravely.

  “Not many of our non-combat classes are really non-combat,” the dark elf said. “We don’t exactly live in the safest place down here. And we don’t hunt deer, if you know what I mean.”

  I didn’t know exactly, but I had an idea of what the dark elves hunted down here. Eventually, he explained enough about the class for it to unlock for me.

  Ryld the Dark Elf Stalker wishes to share the non-combat class Dark Elf Stalker with you. Do you accept the class?

  I accepted immediately and felt the class unlock inside of me.

  Class unlocked: Dark Elf Stalker.

  New attribute unlocked: Perception.

  Pooled experience detected. Experience applied to your Dark Elf Stalker class.

  I felt a flood of information rush into my mind from the new perception attribute. In designing my body, I had spliced in several different genes of animals in order to increase my senses, but with my new perception attribute, I realized I had been practically locked in a dark, silent room up until now. The world rushed to me, my senses perceiving everything a hundred times more finely. I heard every conversation through the entire length of the wagon train. I smelled each dark elf nearby, able to distinguish them by their individual smell somehow, and I knew I could track them like a bloodhound if I wanted. My eyes, already able to see in the dark, suddenly felt like a shader had been removed from them. Colors had been distinguishable but muted in the dark, but now I perceived a thousand new things I had never noticed before. I could even hear my own slow, steady heartbeat, a calming sound that resonated through my body.

  Congratulations, you have received enough experience to level your Dark Elf Stalker class. You are now level 1.

  Please choose a level 1 class skill:

  Mark Your Prey: You may select one target. You will know its location at all times, and you slow your enemy slightly while gaining the speed stolen from your target, increasing your coordination once a day until you catch your prey.

  Harvest Your Prey: Anything that you kill will have its most valuable or useful parts highlighted, and your intuition will show you how to properly harvest and utilize anything you kill.

  Stalk Your Prey: You move silently and are nearly invisible to the naked eye. If you strike while undetected, your wounds cause bleeding that cannot be healed by non-magical means.

  Sense Your Prey: Your perception is increased by 25% and you are better at spotting stealthed or hidden things.

  Kill Your Prey: Mark a target for death. Any wound you inflict will cause a slow, debilitating poison to infect your prey, causing weakness, paralysis, and eventually death if your target is inflicted with enough of your poison.

  These were the “hunting” skills of the dark elf class? This was basically a combat class, except you only gained experience from actually hunting things instead of just killing monsters. But how different was “hunting” monsters from just killing them normally? This was basically a combat class. Ryld wasn’t kidding; they must hunt more than just deer down here. This class was designed for killers.

  I could tell that Kill Your Prey was magical in nature, so I couldn’t select that skill, but the rest were all physical skills. The clear choice for right now was Sense Your Prey to help the dark elves escape, but I also had to think about what was good for me in the long run, since there was no way to take back a skill once it was selected. I was very tempted to take Harvest Your Prey since I would gain a lot of currency from learning how to properly harvest the monsters I killed. Mark Your Prey and Stalk Your Prey were interesting, but I already had a stealth skill, and Mark Your Prey wasn’t immediately useful to me since I didn’t regularly hunt things over long distances.

  That left Harvest Your Prey or Sense Your Prey. Following my plan of enhancing my attributes when possible, I decided to go with Sense Your Prey. It would help in this situation and it scaled with perception as it grew, and I could learn Harvest Your Prey through actual mentorship by someone that knew what they were doing, either from a dark elf like Ryld or from someone back in the city.

  I closed my eyes and took several deep breaths, trying to regain my equilibrium now that my senses were so powerful. I slowly filtered out sounds, smells, the sensations of my body, and then all the other new data my body was sensing. Then I slowly focused on each one, imagining I was an audio engineer dialing the sensation back and able to adjust the volume at will.

  It didn’t quite work, but the overload of information was bearable for now. The most important thing was that my Monster Hunter perk was working great. I could easily sense all of the dark elves around me, both in the wagon and in the city. I could even sense the spiders that were currently attacking the far side of the city, as well as several more ahead of us in the tunnel that surrounded the city.

  “I’m ready to go,” I told Ryld. He nodded without a word and left the wagon. I returned to Alaunvayas and let her know I should be better able to help now. She smiled at me gratefully.

  “C’mon,” she told me, leading me back to the center of the wagons. “We have bribed the guards on the gate to allow us to leave tonight. We will practice our plan as we move.”

  I followed her and we set up in a central wagon protected by high wooden walls. I looked closely at the wood of the wagon, surprised to see such an abundance of lumber underground. Alaunvayas must have noticed me looking at the wood.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  “There are vast underground forests down here,” she told me, brushing her fingers against the wood of the wagon as we settled down inside. “Our people traded with the deep dwarves for wood when things were better.”

  “What exactly happened that led to the spider problem? I heard rumors in the city but nothing for certain.”

  “The rumors are mostly true,” Alaunvayas said. “Aranea, the goddess most of our people worship, is the goddess of spiders. Some of our houses raised the large spiders and began experimenting, trying to find a way to fuse their own forms with the spiders, thinking they would become avatars of Aranea. The experiments angered Aranea, who is a jealous goddess. She freed the spiders, and once free, they bred in the tunnels and began to attack our hunters and traders. Years passed and nobody did anything to stop the spiders until they began to block off our tunnels. When we realized the problem, several groups tried to fight back, but the spiders were too numerous and too canny by then. Our hunters were ambushed and killed, our soldiers overwhelmed. Without the backing of the houses, we never organized enough to win.”

  She shook her head sadly. “That is why, even with your ability, we never really stood a chance. It is too late for the rest of my people. We can just hope to save a few of the less foolish amongst us.”

  We spoke more as the wagons approached and began to exit the city, the guards on the gate turning a blind eye to us as we left. I was curious what it was like being a monster, and Alaunvayas told me about her people and how they survived for this long.

  I learned that when the dark elves first appeared on Earth, they came through a portal to establish a new colony. Her people came from another world, one dominated by the dark elves. She didn’t consider herself a monster, of course, just another person, much like a human. But the system here classified them as monsters, and they had no way to alter that. It was strange, because according to her, the dark elves had classes, monsters, and experience on her world as well, which suggested that the gods of this world hadn’t been the ones to create the system that existed here.

  It was a fascinating conversation, and I learned a lot about how this world worked. The dark elves were likely one of the least friendly of the races that had come here. I wondered if there might be some that were genuinely friendly toward humans out there, just waiting to be contacted.

  We practiced alerting her squad leaders through her mental connection with them. I would act like I had detected an attack from a certain location and her squad would react, grouping together and defending the wagons within seconds. She had worked out a smart way to utilize my perk, and I was thankful to have such a competent ally. I shuddered to think what would have happened if I had stayed with the Baeniryn house and tried to solve this quest with them. They would have likely poisoned me or mind-controlled me, trapping me here forever and only using me for their house wars until the city was overrun with spiders.

  Once we approached the tunnel that the Lamashtu followers planned to use to escape, the squad in front of the wagon ran forward and began to cast a spell that shot purple flames into the tunnel, burning the webs that blocked the way. I could sense several spiders congregating in reaction to the burning, and I alerted Alaunvayas to an incoming attack.

  The squad in front stopped clearing the webs immediately and stepped back, readying themselves for an attack. The spiders stopped as well, not expecting the dark elves to be prepared for their attack. I alerted Alaunvayas to what was happening, and the mages stepped forward and began to clear the webs again.

  The spiders attempted to trap several of the mages with their webs, but the other squad members were waiting and stepped forward, activating a shield that stopped the sticky nets the spiders propelled out of their tunnel. I sensed the spiders retreating when they realized they couldn’t stop the mages. They scuttled upward and sideways around the tunnel entrance, preparing an ambush for when we pushed inside. Several more spiders began to arrive as well, joining the ambush and waiting perfectly still in the tunnels in front of us. I alerted Alaunvayas and she notified the soldiers.

  I continued to give Alaunvayas real-time updates, which allowed the first squad to anticipate the ambush, turning it on the spiders and killing them easily. The mages immediately went back to clearing the webs, and the squad pushed deeper into the tunnel in front of us.

  The train of wagons slowly entered the tunnel behind the lead squad. I turned when it was our turn to enter, watching as the dark elf city faded behind us. I wasn’t sad to see it go. It had been a disturbing place, and it deserved the fate it had brought down on itself.

  We made slow but steady progress. Thanks to the system Alaunvayas had set up and my perk, we were able to turn every one of the spiders’ ambushes and made it out of the spiders’ territory without significant harm after several hours of travel. Many of the members of the squads were hurt defending us, even with my advanced warning, but nobody died or was taken by the spiders, which Alaunvayas said was a remarkable victory. The spider attacks had become especially desperate as we approached the end of their territory. Waves of spiders tried to overwhelm the squads with pure numbers, but the dark elf priestesses kept everyone alive and got them back into the fight very quickly.

  Once the way was clear, Alaunvayas slumped down in the wagon, clearly exhausted from the mental communication she had been carrying out. I handed her my canteen, offering her a drink of water, which she accepted gratefully.

  “Now,” she said, “we follow the underdark toward where you showed me your city is. It will be just as dangerous, if not more so, but thankfully we won’t have to worry about the spiders or the remaining dark elves. Thank you for your help. I know it may not seem like much, but we would not have been able to do that without you.”

  At first, I wasn’t sure how useful my skill really was, but as we had continued on, I realized it really was essential. The spiders had webbed over the tunnels so effectively that they could ambush the dark elves from any direction, including above. They even built false walls, hiding behind stone that they had cleverly used to disguise hidden passageways. My perk allowed me to easily sense them behind the walls and alert the squads, the same way I could sense when a group of spiders was above a squad preparing to drop down on top of them. The spiders were ingenious when it came to devising ambushes, and I could see why a fractured population such as the dark elves couldn’t fight back enough to stop them.

  The wagons continued to roll nonstop, the beetles seemingly tireless. People slept on the wagons in shifts, and the guards seemed to never need to sleep as they kept watch the entire time. Alaunvayas and I stayed mostly in the center of the caravan, my perk still allowing me to sense monsters and alert her squads in case of an attack from any non-spider monsters. She considered the largest part of our bargain fulfilled and began to tell me about the classes that her people had unlocked as we traveled.

  “We have seven classes at this time,” she told me. “Some would require you to become a devotee of Lamashtu, which I think is unlikely on your part, but the offer is there. The others may be suitable for you. The ones that require devotion to my goddess are the Priestess of Lamashtu class and the Devotee of Lamashtu. The former is what I am and gains magical power through prayer and communion with our goddess. The Devotee is a warrior version, similar to your Paladin, except ours is a darker warrior that utilizes the power of our goddess in . . . unique ways.

  “The other classes are, of course, the basic Dark Elf Warrior, Dark Elf Archer, and Dark Elf Mage, all very unimaginative but effective nonetheless. Then we have two more classes, a rare and a legendary class. Our rare class is called Dark Elf Necromancer and focuses on raising the dead, death magic, and controlling the undead. And our legendary class is called Spirit Breaker, which unlocks spirit magic and allows you to dominate and control the spirits of foes that you have defeated.”

  I thought over the different classes, ruling out the two that required me to worship her goddess, as she had suspected I would. The three basic classes held no interest for me, leaving the Dark Elf Necromancer class and the Spirit Breaker class. I asked her to tell me more about the two.

  “The Dark Elf Necromancer is an evolved form of mage,” she said, “that focuses on death magic. You can raise skeletons of recently deceased people or monsters and control them for a short time. You can also take part in rituals to make more powerful and longer-lasting undead, although those can be expensive. Death magic is extremely powerful, crippling and weakening foes and strengthening yourself with the stolen energy. Some necromancers focus on combat, choosing skills that emphasize draining and empowering themselves. One of our most powerful soldiers has combined both the Dark Elf Warrior class and the Dark Elf Necromancer class, allowing her to steal the life from those she kills and healing herself so she can continue to fight near endlessly.”

  “And the Spirit Breaker class?”

  “That is our legendary class,” she said, “and not many people know we even have it or understand what it does. I share it with you because of your greatest assistance to my people. Only two people have the class currently: myself and the woman that discovered it. She is elderly now and does not like to be disturbed, although she is around here somewhere.

  “The class isn’t based on your magical or physical attributes but unlocks a new attribute called willpower and gives you access to spirit magic. You will be able to perceive the spirits of the deceased and commune with them. Your willpower determines everything about your class. The class doesn’t have traditional skills, instead allowing you to dominate and control the spirit of one monster or person at level 1 and then another creature at every level that you would normally earn a skill.”

  “So no skills at all?”

  “None,” she said, “but the spirits you retain control all of their skills and knowledge from their past life and are compelled to serve you, so in some ways, you can gain many different types of skills depending on what spirit you break. But the more stubborn, intelligent, or powerful the spirit you try to break, the harder it will be. Your willpower will determine if you are capable of breaking the spirit’s will and compelling them to serve you. If you fail, you could become controlled by the spirit instead. Some spirits you can keep active at all times. But if you do ever capture truly powerful spirits, they will be a drain on your willpower, exhausting you quickly. Some of the most powerful you may only be able to summon for a few minutes at a time, although that will increase as your willpower and level increases.”

  “Interesting,” I said, thinking it over. “Anything else about the class?”

  “Well,” she replied, giving me a look that was hard to interpret, “I would say two things to you. First, you seem to have almost no magical power inside of you. Or you hide it remarkably well, which I find unlikely. Are you aware of this?”

  “Yeah,” I said, surprised she had noticed. “I’m in search of a class that might help me deal with mages for that exact reason. I find that I am particularly weak to them and need to find a way to mitigate that danger.”

  “I figured,” she said, smiling, “and willpower will be very helpful for you there. It will not help you with spells that physically restrict your body, but your physical attributes will eventually become powerful enough that you should be able to break those yourself. What willpower can do is help you against mental intrusions and spells that affect your mind. Your willpower will resist anything that interferes with your mental clarity and self-control. Willpower is the combined power of your inner self, and you naturally do not want to be interfered with. The higher your willpower is raised, the more you will be able to break not just spirits but spells that try to influence your mind.”

  She reached over and patted me companionably on the arm. “That is why I suggest you take the Spirit Breaker class, because right now, your mind is an open book, and while it is very sweet to see such innocence in a human, you would do well to protect yourself.”

  I flushed, realizing she had been reading my mind the entire time we had been speaking, even from the first moment we met. I felt a bit like I was caught naked on the toilet, but I was also grateful for her suggestion. The Dark Elf Necromancer class would synergize well with my current skills that allowed me to gain power when fighting many foes or for long periods of time, allowing me to heal myself or leech even more power from those I fought. But at the same time, it did nothing to shore up my weaknesses, and it sounded like most of the class was magic-based anyway, which would be useless for me. Plus, Spirit Breaker was a legendary class, meaning I could level it to level 80, which would give me more attributes over time.

  “Thank you for the advice,” I told her. “I’ll follow it. I’ll learn the Spirit Breaker class.”

  “A good choice,” she said. “Now let me teach you about spirits and spirit magic.”

  Class unlocked: Spirit Breaker.

  Attribute unlocked: Willpower.