She continued onward, wincing as she stepped on a dry stick. How long would it take for the Holy System to give her some sort of woodcraft skill? If a big bear of a man like Alfred could move silently through a forest, then she should be able to as well. The system definitely wasn’t fair sometimes.
Alfred shook his head at the noise and then continued forward. His own bow was held at the ready, and he could nock and loose in a split second. The man’s archery skill must be incredibly high.
“It looks like you’re right.” Alfred stopped and poked a discarded sack with his toe. “They must have fled before dawn.”
“Do you think they’ll be back?”
Alfred nodded. “Most of the redcaps were likely young warriors looking to gain levels. Their family members will swear vengeance against whoever did this to them. There will be war in the mountains.”
Piper swallowed nervously. The last thing she’d wanted was another angry group of high levels trying to track her down. Her plan had seemed perfect in her mind, but she was learning there were a lot of unintended consequences to her actions.
She walked over to a nearby crater and realized it must have been where Gorebark’s [Demonic Mark] had detonated. An unpleasant smell lingered in the air, and she could make out the remains of the redcap she’d hit.
“Do you think they know I did this?”
“Ahem,” Gorebark said. “I believe this was all my doing. Unless you can make magic arrows explode?” When she didn’t answer, the bow continued. “I thought not.”
“Does that thing ever shut up?” Alfred asked, giving the demonic weapon the side-eye.
“Only when I gag it,” Piper replied in a fake cheery tone. “Something I’m thinking about doing right now.” She fought down a grin as the bow clamped its mouth shut. While she could keep it gagged permanently, she needed the bow on her side.
After a moment, Gorebark started talking again. “I guess you don’t want to hear about my new skill, then? That’s too bad for you.”
Piper knew it was bait, but she couldn’t resist learning about what the new ability was for her bow. With a defeated sigh, she turned Gorebark so she could look him straight in his wooden eyes. “Alright. Out with it.”
“Out with what?”
“You know what,” she whispered urgently, glancing over at Alfred, who was looking more annoyed by the second. “What new skill did you receive?
“Oh, you mean when I leveled up? Something I probably should have done months ago? But you just had to stuff me in the rafters of the barn, didn’t you? Do you know how hard it was to watch those plump and stupid cows wander around below and not be able to kill any of them? It was torture! Torture, I tell you!”
“I’m sure you’ll have plenty of things to kill soon,” she said darkly. “Now tell me already.”
“After killing the redcap, I reached level 2,” Gorebark said. “Now I have the skill [Infernal Bowstring].”
She raised her eyebrows. That didn’t sound nearly as good as [Demonic Mark] which had a habit of blowing up her enemies. Not that she liked the aftereffects, though. The nearby crater—with what looked like hamburger meat scattered along its edge—was the perfect example of that.
“How does it work?”
“All you have to do is feed some mana into me to summon a bowstring,” Gorebark said. “It will scale with your level to provide more power to your draw and will add magic damage to arrows.” Gorebark gave her a wicked grin. “Feel free to lavish me with praise now for being so amazing.”
Alfred placed the end of his bow against the ground and leaned on it. “That’s not a bad ability, you know.”
“It’s not?” Piper replied. “It sounds pretty basic to me.”
“It’s going to be hard to keep our bowstrings dry in the mountains, with all the rain and melting snow. It would be handy to have a bowstring you could summon at any time.”
Piper decided to try the new skill and took a moment to unstring her bow. Then she lifted her weapon and focused on the [Infernal Bowstring] skill. After a second, she felt a concerning amount of mana pouring out. In fact, it felt like a torrent. How much did the spell use?
Her mana solidified into a bowstring made of crimson sinew on the bow. She gave it a test pluck and felt immense resistance. Assuming she was strong enough to draw it, she could probably launch arrows an incredible distance with the new skill.
“That’s a lot of mana!” she gasped, checking her character sheet. “You should have warned me it took so much.” Summoning the bowstring had cost her more than half her mana. And while they were in no immediate danger, she didn’t like being that low.
Gorebark stared at her with a flat expression. “Did you not hear me say it used mana? Are your horns growing into your ears or something? If you would get rid of that ugly pink ape illusion, I could check to make sure you don’t have any manure in your ears.”
“I am not ugly!” she retorted. “You take that back!”
“I’ve seen demons who had been melted into puddles of flesh and organs, and they were all more attractive than that hideous illusion you’re wearing.”
Piper knew she should ignore the bow’s insults, but being called uglier than a melted demon stung more than she cared to admit. Before Gorebark could say anything else, she stuffed the gag back into its mouth. She would remove it later when she’d calmed down a bit.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“It’s about time,” Alfred grunted. “I don’t know how you listen to that thing.”
Piper shrugged helplessly. “It has information that I need.”
“If only you’d gone to the spirit realm,” he muttered. “No one ever came back from there with evil talking bows.”
Piper wanted to reply that the bow had been useful in holding off Ransford, but she knew that Alfred was just worried about her. She was starting to become a bit concerned, too. The Crimson Guard—immensely powerful and ancient vampires—had been fearful of her bow. What if they were right, and it was corrupting her in some way?
But right now, she needed its power. Once they crossed the mountains and reached the safety of the Arissian Empire, she could put away the bow until she learned more about it. There must be someone she could ask about the weapon there—preferably someone who wouldn’t immediately burn her at the stake for being a demon.
After poking around the camp for a few more minutes, Alfred waved over Ethel and Ophelia, who were hiding in a nearby copse of trees. The woman and her daughter emerged with the heavily laden horse.
Piper watched as the two of them neared their position, and she rolled her eyes as Ophelia casually tried to circle around her back. As usual, her friend was clutching a stick. If Ophelia didn’t get the stick wielding skill when she awakened, Piper would be shocked.
Ignoring the [Ambush Detection] warning, she waited for the imminent attack. Then she felt a stick jab her in the ribs. She knew with her vastly improved stats, she could easily have stopped Ophelia. But her friend deserved to get her sometimes.
“I got you, foul demon,” Ophelia crowed. “I’m definitely getting a demon hunter class when I awaken.”
Ethel placed a hand on her hip. “Not unless you can cook meals and tend to a farm with it.”
“I told you that I’m going to be an adventurer!”
“Over my dead body.”
Piper smiled as she watched them bicker. The more Ethel pushed her daughter, the more Ophelia wanted to become an adventurer. And Piper was pretty sure anyone who battled an ooze—with little more than a kitchen knife—was going to get a pretty great combat class in the Spirit Realm.
“…just for that, I’m taking a berserker class.”
“Oh no you’re not!” Ethel said, her voice rising slightly. “They don’t have any defensive skills.”
“When you’re as good as I am, you don’t need them.” Ophelia slashed the air with her stick. “I get Piper all the time, and she took out that vampire lord.”
At the mention of Lord Ransford, the mood of the entire group soured. Ethel’s face darkened, and Alfred’s expression fell.
“Enough,” Alfred said. “We don’t have time to stand here flapping our gums. The longer we delay, the closer the Crimson Guard get.” Without another word, he set off up the hills leading to the mountain.
Ophelia scowled and marched over to the nearby patch of grass. Once she reached it, she hacked at the long stalks as if she were cutting down a horde of redcaps.
Piper didn’t know what to say—her own thoughts returning to that terrible day on the farm—and instead followed Alfred. If he ran into anything, she wanted to be close by to help. Not that anything dangerous should be near the redcap’s camp. According to Alfred, they would have hunted any aspect beasts or awakened animals in the area.
A few seconds later, she heard Ethel sigh and glanced back to see the woman moving to corral her daughter. Meanwhile, the horse stood there in the middle of the clearing, looking bored. For an animal that had been through so much recently, it sure didn’t look bothered by it.
Piper continued across the rocky ground until she reached the far side of the clearing. A narrow path wound its way up the hill, the trees becoming sparser as the elevation rose. It wouldn’t be long before they left the forest completely.
She marched up the trail, pausing periodically to make sure that Ethel and Ophelia were keeping up. While she was having little trouble with the rough terrain, she probably had more physical attribute points than both of them combined.
Their little group continued up the mountain for the rest of the day, the sun crossing the sky before beginning its descent. Soon, the hike turned monotonous. At first, she’d been worried they would run into redcaps or other dangerous creatures. But when they didn’t encounter so much as a bird, she quickly grew bored.
Piper decided it was a good time to level up. She pulled up her character sheet and examined it.
Piper Ashcroft
Race: Shadeling, Level 17
Class: Deceiver (Epic), Level 13
Attributes
Strength – 66
Dexterity – 51
Stamina - 20
Vitality – 30
Perception – 3
Swiftness - 2
Magic - 17
Mana - 245
Mana Regeneration – 120
Free Attribute Points - 50
Racial Skills (5/10)
- Demonic Blood, Level 6
- Demonic Fury, Level 1
- Demonic Intellect, Level 6
- Quick Claw, Level 9
- Tail Strike, Level 9
Skills (10/10)
- Ambush Detection, Level 4
- Animal Caretaking, Level 5
- Archery, Level 8
- Cooking, Level 6
- Enduring Casting, Level 11
- Gardening, Level 1
- Identify - 2
- Running, Level 12
- Stick Wielding, Level 1
- Subterfuge, Level 2
Spells (4/10)
- False Face, Level 5
- Truth Shroud, Level 6
- Umbral Terror, Level 1
- Veil of Lies, Level 8
Her skill and spell levels had been steadily rising, though she really needed to cast [Umbral Terror] the next time she got a chance. In the battle with the redcaps, she hadn’t dared use it in case it consumed all of her mana. Hopefully, they could find an easier target for her to practice on in the mountains.
Piper returned to her character sheet and tried to decide where to place her 50 free attribute points. After testing Gorebark’s skill [Infernal Bowstring], she’d realized that she needed to increase her mana.
It wouldn’t hurt to increase her mana regeneration either. The battle against the redcaps had shown her that fights wouldn’t always be quick and dirty. And if she found herself in a similar situation in the future, it would be game over if she ran out of mana.
After mulling over her options for a few more minutes, she placed 5 points into Magic, 15 points into Mana, and an additional 15 points into Mana Regeneration. That left her with 25 points to play with.
She immediately added another 10 to Strength, simply because her new bowstring was difficult to draw. Plus, she secretly liked being strong. Who knew when it might come in handy again?
Then, to finish, she placed 10 point into Swiftness. In her mind, increasing her Swiftness was a necessity now every time she leveled up. There was no way she would ever neglect that stat again after almost being caught by the redcaps.
When she was finished, she noted that her Mana sat at 64 and her Mana Regeneration was 38. She would have liked it to be a bit higher, but it would have to do for now. That was the problem with hybrid classes—she couldn’t just concentrate on a couple of stats. But it seemed to have worked well for the powerful shadeling demon in the vision she’d witnessed.
As she was busy leveling up, they’d arrived at the mouth of a mountain pass. The dense forest had transformed into a handful of stunted and twisted trees. Soaring snow-capped mountain peaks towered on both sides of the corridor, and a biting wind gusted down the slope, making her cloak flap around her shoulders.
Alfred walked over to her and placed a large hand on her shoulder. “Through there are the Dragonspine Mountains. And beyond that is the Arissian Empire.”
Piper stared down the pass and couldn’t help but feel a sense of foreboding. She knew almost instinctively that there was something ancient and powerful dwelling among the peaks. All she could do was pray that they wouldn’t meet it.