Its massive claw awkwardly swung toward me, promising a crippling strike. My Evade ability triggered and the AI took over to assure I dodged the attack. It collided with the wall of the Inn, tearing a hole into it and scattering black bricks across the ground.

  The monster staggered backward and hit the first of my electrical wards. Arcs of electrical energy shot up its body and it stood stunned for a long moment. Darting in, I plunged my blades into the back of its knees, wrenching them free and sending more gouts of contaminated blood flying out onto the stones.

  It fell to one knee and turned its head toward me. Before I could react its stomach bulged and then a gout of black green bile sprayed out of its mouth and drenched me.

  My health plummeted from above half to twenty five percent and my poison condition raised to ten health per second. The Weeping Hammer that I had given to Not Smart collided with its head and the beast recoiled backward. I charged in and slashed into its too-long throat again spraying myself with more blood. It tumbled backward with a piteous screech as it fell onto another trap.

  More ranged attacks fell on it as it struggled to recover. I took the time that it was downed to drive a blade into each of its twisted clawed feet, dance to the side and leave two deep gouges on its thigh.

  The creature got struck again and again by incoming ranged weapons. With a worried glance at my falling health I stood back and whipped my Ritual Dagger into the beast every time it reappeared into my hand.

  It was struggling to stand again when I threw the blade into its chest and the creature slumped back against the ground, letting out a rattling gasp before finally laying still.

  “Branded Brute Defeated!

  2010 xp gained!

  105 additional xp gained for destroying a creature far above your level!”

  Staggering back, I sat down next to the wall as my poison damage dwindled. Eventually, my regeneration overcame it and before long the debuff vanished all together.

  The guards gave a muted hoot from the roof and I gave a thumbs up to them as they descended. With that I checked my impressive list of notifications, prompting Lydia to read them out. There were numerous skill level ups and while most were just simple increases there were several standouts:

  “You have gained 2 levels in the Dual Wield skill.

  You may now choose to become an Expert in the Dual Wield skill!

  Note: You may only choose to become an Expert in ten skills! Choose wisely!”

  Surveying my skills I locked in Dual Wield with an affirming nod. My AI continued in her typical drawl:

  “You are now an Expert in the Dual Wield skill!

  New Ability, True Ambidexterity!

  All negative modifiers for using an off-hand weapon are removed.

  You have gained the Poison Resistance skill!

  You have gained 4 levels in the Poison Resistance skill!

  Poison Resistance

  Rarity: Common

  Requirements: None

  Training Level: Novice 5

  Key Ability: Vitality

  Description

  I would ask how an undead chucklehead found out how to poison himself but honestly… tracks.

  Effect: 1% of Poison Resistance per skill level until Trained skill level.”

  I advanced to seventeenth level. Fifteen supplied me with a couple of point increases for stats which I went ahead and applied to Agility and Charm this time.

  As level sixteen was a multiple of four I also got a choice between three new Blood Dancer abilities:

  “Mesmerizing Dance: While in your Crimson Dance stance all enemies within fifteen feet of you must oppose your Charm with their Spirit or suffer a -10% to all damage.

  Sanguine Song: You begin to sing while in your Crimson Dance stance. All creatures within 40 feet who hear your song must oppose your Charm with their Reason or be unable to cast spells as they start to sing along.

  Surging Blood: Deplenish your Essence reserves by 75%. For ten seconds (by your perception) you move so quickly that your enemies stand still. You can still attack and cast spells while under the effect of Surging Blood.”

  The mist drone guards took up positions at the ends of the alley as I considered the three options. I discounted Sanguine Song immediately. It did not fit the idea I had in mind for my character. Mystal rounded the corner, her mist swirling around her and coiling around the legs of her drones affectionately. The guards completely ignored her. She crouched down beside me, the leather of armor creaking, and gave me a girlish finger wave, mouthing the word, “Hi.”

  Giving her a tight smile, I turned back to my two options. Would I find myself in groups more often to take advantage of Mesmerizing Dance’s tanking ability or solo and needing the speed that Surging Blood would provide? Combining it with the effects of my Blazing Boots would make me a blur capable of applying as many of Slice DOTs on my targets as I could seconds into a fight.

  Accepting Surging Blood I raised my head to look at Mystal, “We are going to have to be careful about this, but I think we should clear out as many mutants as we can and then head back and get Valerie and the others before we continue.”

  She smirked, “Whatever you say boss.”

  She glanced at the body and whispered, “Can I eat this?”

  “It did poison me.”

  Her nose wrinkled and she said, “It might taste bad but I think I can still eat it.”

  Nodding and standing smoothly I said, “Let me gather some crafting materials from the corpse and then you can dig in.”

  As I snipped crafting materials off the creature and threw them into my inventory she asked, “After that?”

  With a smirk I gestured toward the open city, “We go hunting.”

  –

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  My dagger dug into the stones below me slowing my skid after the hit from the Branded Brute sent me flying. The world around me was in slow motion. A combination of Surging Blood and my Blazing Boots power had turned the melee around me into a diorama of slow moving statues in a sea of mist.

  The creature across from me was vastly different to the first we had killed hours ago. Instead of the single, massive clawed arm it had too large forearms ending in huge fists with a slender, small, atrophied body that hung between them as it used its arms to walk with surprising speed. The little withered female figure hanging between the massive arms babbled in a gibberish language only occasionally screaming about ‘The Lady’ and ‘The Flames of Purity’.

  This one had come accompanied by a pack of tiny child sized Branded called Hunters. Most of them were similar, hunched over pale creatures whose hands had been replaced with long sloth-like claws and heads that appeared remarkably like an innocent child’s until they split open to reveal four flesh ‘petals’ covered in teeth. Most of them were between level nineteen and twenty.

  One of them was still screeching over the corpse of one of the rapidly apparating Mistguards. Stupid One had led the charge of ambushing guards and suffered the alpha strike of the first Hunter. His death rallied the other guards into action. Smart One charged in and had so far, in slow motion, promised to, “avenge Gregor,” which was a funny way for me to discover Stupid’s actual name.

  Several of the smaller Hunters were screeching and stumbling nearby after getting caught on fire by the Minor Fire Wards I’d crafted after the last fight. Two of the drones were tossing hammers that were still in mid air on their way to the creatures.

  Mystal had found the spot for this particular ambush. It was an empty park amidst a group of upper scale buildings that somehow still had short lilac grass growing amongst its benches. I ignored the giant Brute that had managed to clip me and danced between a pair of Hunters leaving wounds that turned into slow motion fountains of black blood in my wake. Some of it coated my skin and finally activated my Blooded buff.

  Feeling an attack approaching I jumped as the fist of the Brute crushed into the ground where I had been standing. I scaled the massive purple arm with a couple of graceful jumps and slashed into the babbling female body between them.

  The world sped back up as I dropped down in front of the giant creature. Nearby both of the thrown hammers crashed into the burning Hunters. The Brute pounded its massive fists into the ground in a tantrum fit for a child as its blood gouted out over me.

  Dashing away, I kicked a Hunter that was about to eviscerate one of the Mistguards it had pinned to the ground. The screeching child mutant tumbled into a heap and wailed as it struggled to stand. I charged in and buried both blades into its neck in a viscous ‘V’. Its flower shaped mouth snapped open wetly at me several times but its body rattled and shuddered beneath me before expiring.

  The Brute charged to catch me and I spun slinging my Ritual Dagger at it. The blade buried in one of its massive arms and vanished back to my hand. I advanced on the creature slinging the curved blade through the air at it every time it returned to my hand.

  Although the beast recoiled from my initial advance it finally chose to ignore the incoming blades and charge me. I met the Brute’s charge with my own, rolling under the legs of the dangling woman. Weaving a pair of slashes into the creature, its wounds reopened as I bounded away from a rapid swing of its fist. Threading a path between the just recovered burning Hunters, I left wounds on their sides as the mistguard hammers flew in again to harass them.

  Around me the Hunters were bleeding to death. The Brute staggered toward me, its naked form covered in a thick sheen of its own ichorous blood. It finally stumbled onto its own face with an earth shaking thud. Working together the guards and I whittled down the persistent little mutants. When all was said and done three of the guards had been killed and the remaining two were extremely wounded.

  The healthiest guard, who I’d started calling The Lady because she was the only female member among them, was holding her blood stained hands over the stomach wound of the only other survivor, Smart One himself. Mystal skipped into the park and I smirked and shook my head. With a shift of the constantly pervading mist the two of injured guards dissolved as if they had never been there at all.

  Settling on a bench to let my wounds heal, I eyed the girl as she surveyed all the bodies with a look of glee on her face, her mouth far too wide and filled with sharp teeth.

  I muttered a reminder, “I have to loot them, Mystal.”

  She paused in mid step, several tendrils of mist forming out of the mist behind her now frozen mid slither toward the corpses.

  She pouted and put a hand on her hip, “Well, hurry.”

  Sighing, I stood from the bench to make my way around the creatures and loot more crafting reagents off the corpses. I found a leather headband on the tumorous and malformed head of the woman who had become the mutant brute. Snapping it up, I checked its statistics and Lydia described the item enthusiastically:

  “Headband of the Bar Brawler

  A helpful tool for avoiding incoming fists, holding your drink and speaking well despite it.

  Type: Light

  Slot: Head

  Requirement: Level 17

  Rarity: Common

  Tier: F

  Armor: 55

  Agility +9, Charm +4, Spirit +2

  Any character with the Poisoned: Drunk condition wearing this headband has a +2 to the Unarmed skill.”

  Tugging off my old tattered Hood of the Acolyte, I pulled on the Headband. I looked up to see Mystal practically bouncing on her toes as she watched me.

  Sighing, I waved a hand in the direction of her impending buffet, “Go ahead.”

  She giggled and the tendrils, which had waited patiently to this point, swept in and started dissolving the corpses of the monsters. I tried to tune out the gurgling and sloshing sounds behind me. Speaking out into the dive room, I asked, “Current time Lyd?”

  She answered smoothly, “It is three pm, Darlin.”

  Nodding, I tapped my foot as I glanced over my shoulder at Mystal. She was already reforming the dead guards from the mist around her and seemed to be humming a song. I smiled at her and said, “We’re going to try and wipe out a few more groups and scout the area.”

  She gave me a thumbs up as Stupid One, no… Gregor gave me a nod as if he had not just been nearly decapitated by a mutant.

  Sighing, I muttered, “This game is so strange.”

  As the level and skill ups rolled in each of our ambushes were easier than the last. I suspected that Mystal was also gaining some kind of heightened skills from our rampages. We found no additional gear for Mystal or myself but we found gear that might benefit Sakurai, Nomura and Valerie. As we dispatched roving packs of Hunters and lonely patrols of Branded Brutes I was able to narrow down a concentration amongst them. We had to canvas several blocks with mutant murder, building data as we went, but ultimately we found it.

  The center of the concentration was a low blackstone fortress deep in a district that seemed rife with theaters, dancehalls and taverns. With its defenses and the marshaling yard outside I suspected that it had to be some kind of barracks. While the mutants seemed to thrive in the area around it, the true sign that we had finally found some sign of the cult in the city were the dark robed figures and armored guards patrolling it.

  Taking out a makeshift map that Mystal and I had been making of the city I marked it. Turning to the five guards, many of whom had died many times at this point, I said, “Alright, we are headed back to the gate. We are going to hit this keep tomorrow with the whole team.”

  Gregor grumbled, “You heard the Captain.”

  That comment gave me pause. When did I become a Captain? I glanced at Mystal. It was probably her influence.

  She smirked at me and the small cadre of Mistguards and let us take the lead. With that we started our long journey back toward the city. If Sakurai and Nomura had logged in by the time we got back we could maybe range back out and tackle a few more groups of the roaming mutant beasts.

  We had to pause several times to avoid more packs of mutant Branded and to search a few buildings that were far too tantalizing to pass up.

  As we were cutting through a district that seemed filled with two story residences and cafes now dark and filled with ruin, I caught sight of the tower that Anaya suggested I keep an eye out for back in the mausoleum at the Auvarin Vineyard. A light misting rain had started to fall around the bleak spire with a clock that no longer had arms. Something had taken a considerable chunk out of the side of the tower. Maybe a siege weapon… or an overzealous Branded Brute.

  Pausing to catch the attention of the mistguards patrolling in the rain behind me I gestured in the direction of the tower and set off to scout our path. We made our way through tight streets that were barely two meters wide to reach the sewer entrance that my old ‘trainer’ had suggested would reach the Heartrose sanctuary. As we approached the sewer entrance she had indicated I found a disheartening sight.

  Someone had hung a cage from the damaged tower. Inside it was a skeleton figure, its limbs still covered in tattered clothing. Several spears had been driven entirely through the cage in a criss cross pattern through the skeletal body. A sign dangled from the bottom of the cage:

  “Die Remnant!”

  The grated entrance to the sewer had long since been torn open. Another sign hung on a length of black rope across the darkened tunnel. This one said, “Off-Limits”.

  Nodding, I looked to a concerned looking Mystal behind me, “Stay here. Hide, and if something comes I want you to use your guards to fight them while you run away.”

  She nodded and whispered, "Stay safe."