++Vagrancy is a sign of spiritual corruption, of weakness and enfeeblement of the soul. It is easy to pity the Vagrant, to caress the wretches with sympathy and tenderness. Do not. Had they not fallen so far from God’s light in the first place, He would not have denied them chance to walk through life with one of His Classes.++

  Grimwoods were, apparently, something of a new feature in the world’s geography. Reggie couldn’t comment on that, this ‘new’ feature was still over a thousand years old and he was not an elf. What he could say, though, was that it was easily the creepiest piece of that geography that he’d ever had the displeasure of seeing.

  It wasn’t like a normal forest, not even a normal dark one, nor, even, like a normal, dark one in winter. Every tree was a leafless skeleton, branches outstretched like the fingers of a drowning man. More than that though, they felt wrong, as if there was some intent to the darkness, some cognition lurking behind it.

  “Keep focused,” Ludvich snapped. His words came sharp as a punch to the jaw and dragged Reggie’s focus back onto the Witchfinder.

  “What?” he gaped.

  “Concentrate on your surroundings, don’t let the atmosphere of this place get to you. Keep your wits about you. It’s not the forest you need to be scared of, not on the outskirts at least. It’s the things inside it.”

  Reggie swallowed at that, but didn’t have a hard time keeping his focus up. If nothing else, the threat of being surrounded on all sides by nasties did wonders for concentration, and who needed courage when you were holding a gun big enough to beat a horse to death?

  If only it’d be horses attacking them here…

  Mists clung to the ground like sagging skin on bone, rolling out and bunching, seeping down to fill dips in the earth and killing visibility at any range greater than a dozen paces. At full speed, Reggie could sprint a dozen paces in less than two seconds.

  At full speed, a great many creatures could sprint it faster still.

  So they were never far from an attack.

  Ludvich was silent as they walked. Freakishly silent, despite the armour, his every step coming swift but making all the sound of a windless night. Reggie, by comparison, was a drunkard stumbling his way through that night while shitting himself and angrily demanding more booze.

  That’ll be the difference between Celerity at 15 and Celerity in the mid-20s. Bitterness was too distracting right now, so he stifled it.

  Following at Ludvich’s pace was agony after more than a minute, Reggie almost jogged just to match the other man’s brisk walk. He sustained it, though, and he didn’t complain in doing so. Fortunately they came to a halt before his legs could ignore the brain attached to them entirely and just collapse.

  “What do you make of this?” the Witchfinder asked him, somewhere between his tenth and eleventh pants for breath in half as many seconds. Reggie had to fight so he could focus on what the man gestured his eyes to.

  A crater in the ground. Wait, no, not a crater. Reggie leaned close. It was a dent against the earth, maybe six inches across and…shit, with claw marks at the tip.

  “Something big stamped its foot down here?” he guessed. “A bear?”

  “Good guess, but not a normal bear. See how deep this is? The strength behind that stomp wasn’t anything a natural animal would do, not without a mark anywhere else.”

  So they’d be tracking an unnaturally strong creature with feet the size of a bear’s. Perfect. Reggie tightened the grip on his gun.

  “Any idea what it is?” he asked the Witchfinder.

  “It probably is actually a bear, though my money’s on it being rabid.”

  “I just guessed a bear,” Reggie frowned.

  “Not a rabid one. No points for half-answers.”

  Rabid bears. Lovely. They continued walking, and Reggie focused on breathing deeply to give himself something to do besides screaming and running back for Norvhan.

  [You’re going to get him killed.]

  Shut up, demonic voice that lives in my head.

  It was actually one of the less concerning demonic entities Reggie had to deal with at the moment, which if anything else was a refreshing novelty. He decided not to voice that fact to Ludvich though—a reminder of his possession would probably not bolster the Witchfinder’s confidence in him.

  Reggie got twitchier as they moved, hearing numerous scratches and hisses around the forests. Demons, obviously. The problem he was now realising he faced, though, was that there was no great way to differentiate between the ‘normal’ ones that he saw just going through life, and the ones that might come exploding out of that mist to rip his arm off.

  Then a demon exploded out of the mist to try and rip his arm off.

  It took Reggie a second to realise what he was seeing, that this wasn’t a phantom manifestation, that it would do more than just leer and screech at him from afar. Ludvich was much quicker in turning to combat it, and Reggie followed his example by bringing up the heavy gun to his shoulder and squeezing off a shot.

  He missed, because of course he did.

  Ludvich didn’t though, and the Witchfinder’s shot smashed straight into the face of what Reggie now recognised was an upsettingly humanoid creature. A peeler, he realised. Undead, once human and now something much less—or much more, if one went by physical abilities. It came sprinting at them like a damned racehorse.

  But the bullet slowed it. Hit right above one cheek, seemed to break open the bones underneath, then exploded outwards from inside the thing’s mouth and took half its blackened teeth away in doing so. Reggie had just enough time to turn his weapon around and grip it by the barrel before the undead was on them. Ludvich, on the other hand, had already freed a sabre from his hip. Reggie caught a glint of metal and a whistle of wind, but both those only touched his senses after the undead had already been opened up. It stumbled and fell beside the Witchfinder, rolling to start rising right by Reggie’s own feet.

  That spurred him into his own action. It was a mostly instinct-driven response, which made it fast if nothing else. Reggie brought the butt of his musket down on the undead’s skull as it tried to rise; once, twice, ten times. He felt the shocks of each blow run right up his arms, and felt certain every one would be the last his enemy took. None of them were, until Ludvich stepped back in. His cutlass moved again, and once more Reggie’s eyes were left behind as the metal carved through old meat like it was no substance at all. This time both the peeler’s legs went out from under it, one of them hacked entirely off, and it collapsed in a heap.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Still moving, somehow. Reggie had heard more than a few stories of course, everybody was full of anecdotes and accounts of just how undying undeath got. Still, he’d never seen it before. Never known to believe it.

  Well now he did, because here was a slab of butcher’s scraps quivering, twitching and writhing around like every bit of its body was still connected to the rest and just didn’t know it.

  “Horrible fucking thing,” Ludvich growled, “know how to kill peelers?”

  “No,” Reggie told him honestly. The Witchfinder seemed somewhat surprised.

  “You’re taking this…well?”

  Oh, right. Most people needed to grow accustomed to horrible monsters screaming at them.

  “I’m robust,” he shrugged. Ludvich clearly didn’t buy it, but Reggie didn’t care.

  “Right. Anyway, you burn them.” Ludvich’s hand moved so fast, Reggie didn’t see the clay pot before it was already spilling its innards out over the undead. A moment later sparks were scraped from flint and tinder, catching the oil, burning the peeler. Heat washed out everywhere and made Reggie’s eyes water. What struck him wasn’t the smell, though it was strong, but the movement. The peeler kept writhing in exactly the same way, apparently unfeeling—or uncaring—even as the flames consumed it.

  He took his eyes off after a moment.

  “Don’t suppose you have a bag of chestnuts to roast?” he grinned. Ludvich just eyed him, face as blank as ever.

  “Reload your gun,” he grunted, “make sure you do that as soon as you can after every fight, never be caught with an empty barrel. And hurry up once we’re moving again. The sound of this fight and the burning will attract more creatures.”

  They kept walking after that, and though Reggie couldn’t exactly say there was any increase to the amount of silence, on account of the fact that making too much noise might get them horribly killed already, he certainly felt the quietude more densely now.

  [You’re going to die here. You’re too slow, too weak, too stupid.]

  He didn’t even tell it to shut up this time, couldn’t spare enough attention to do so much as that. Reggie just kept walking, doing his best to stalk after Ludvich.

  Attention, Attribute advancement.

  Reggie jumped so hard at the sudden System prompt that he almost domed Ludvich on sheer reflex. He forced himself calm only with agonized, deliberate breaths.

  Celerity +1.

  Name: Reginald Smith

  Age: 21

  Race: Human [Common Race, Tier 1]

  Class: None

  Attributes:

  Strength 13

  Speed 14

  Celerity 16

  Toughness 12

  Charisma 9

  Abilities: None

  Traits: None

  Well, there was a shock. 16 Celerity? Reggie hadn’t even known the Attribute got that high, not without a Class. Wasn’t he just the specialest guy in all the world? Well however fractionally his skill in coordination and reaction speed had been improved by this little ordeal, it made the straw-weight’s difference between two stat boundaries.

  It was just a shame to see such innate physical potential wasted on a body that didn’t have help from a Class.

  Ludvich didn’t bat an eye, despite clearly noticing Reggie’s screen. Reggie himself suddenly felt a spasm of fear run through him as he realised the incandescence of it might be giving away their position, then, a moment later, his mind settled. Ludvich would’ve clocked that before he did, obviously the creatures in grimwood couldn’t access the System. Humans could, and elves, though were limited to only reading the actual information on their own. If Reggie wanted to know exactly what another person’s Attributes were, he’d be limited to asking them or figuring it out through observation.

  Apparently, other species were even more limited than that.

  God’s gift afterall.

  Would’ve been nice to have God’s other gift, but you couldn’t expect everything in life. If nothing else Reggie had the option of hiding behind one of the deadlier Witchfinders alive, and that was no small thing.

  But it was far from a guarantee of survival. They crept farther through the grimwoods, wind scraping along trees and slithering through their clothes, every moment a mix between the body’s natural urge to shiver and the decidedly unnatural steadiness that came from a mind poised moments before the brink of death. Reggie had no idea how close their quarry was, and didn’t dare ask.

  Fortunately, he wasn’t left to wait for much longer. Unfortunately this was because they marched right into about the deadliest place they could have.

  Reggie, being a demonically-possessed Vagrant, did not have the knowledge to realise this at first, but Ludvich certainly did. He froze, slowly lifted a hand up to gesture Reggie into matching him, and guided his eyes over to a sight maybe two dozen paces ahead and just slightly to the left.

  At first, Reggie thought it was a weird tangle of tree roots, maybe with some felled trunk in the middle. A second more staring made him recognise what he was actually looking at.

  It was a spider.

  Those weren’t tree roots, those feet-thick curls and stumps, but limbs. Eight of them, which meant spider rather than insect—just one of the many things he’d picked up by reading stolen books. The spider’s actual body was so big Reggie hadn’t even registered it at first, looking as long from one tip to the other as his own was from crown to heel. Longer, really, and broader too. How much did that damned thing weigh? A ton? Two?

  Reggie wouldn’t find out, because Ludvich was gesturing again. This time for them to start backing away.

  Wolf spiders. Reggie stretched his mind for any relevant information on the things he might’ve picked up, and was pleasantly surprised by the wealth of it.

  They were horrible things, wolf spiders. Didn’t really fear anything—including the few things around Norvhan larger than them—and infamously deadly. Able to run down a sprinting horse in moments, their bite was venomous, of course, but rather unnecessarily so. Those dripping fangs were hard enough to rend through a steel breastplate with their owner’s biteforce, and the hooked claws tipping each limb made for powerful gripping tools as they ensnared a target to crush and savage them to death.

  It was pure bad luck to stumble onto one following the trail they had, and that bad luck might get them killed now. Witchfinders didn’t fight wolf spiders, not even with a five-to-one advantage in numbers.

  Reggie felt the heart beating in his throat with every step back he took from that creature, certain at every moment that he’d see those eight beady eyes shoot over his way, hear the scuttling of preternatural limbs on soil, feel steely fangs skewer his neck and flood his body with poison. He felt certain he was staring at his death.

  But he wasn’t, not now at least. Another few minutes of sluggish backing away and Ludvich finally relaxed, the wolf spider long out of sight.

  “Lucky,” he croaked, “that one must be sick, or pregnant, old or something. They’re normally active at night. I’d not have taken us this close to a nest if I’d thought it was home.”

  “Pregnant?” Reggie found himself imagining many more wolf spiders, slick with blood as they crawled from their mother. Could he fight even a single baby of that species?

  God no, not even if he ambushed it.

  They kept moving, but now Ludvich seemed less alert.

  “We’re not going to be attacked around this den,” he sighed, “so we can talk, it’ll be a while before we circle around it to keep following the trail anyway.”

  Speaking still felt off to Reggie, going against every instinct he had. Each word came with the certainty that it would attract some clawing abomination to bowl him over.

  Still, Ludvich knew best.

  “How did that bear get through the spider’s territory?” Reggie asked him, only thinking of the question that moment. It seemed impossibly obvious, now, but Ludvich seemed surprised himself.

  “That’s…a good question.” His brow furled and lips thinned in thought. “That wolf spider should’ve had it dead in two seconds flat, bears are some of their preferred prey.”

  Reggie watched the man think, waited for some explanation to emerge, but the Witchfinder’s frown only deepened.

  “I…don’t know,” he said at last, worried now, “which means this is more dangerous than I’d initially thought. We should—”

  —”I’m not going back,” Reggie snapped.

  Ludvich looked to be near arguing, then sighed and kept walking.

  “You should be more careful with your life,” he grunted.

  “We’ve been over this,” Reggie shot back, “this is me being careful.”

  “No,” Ludvich sighed, “it’s not. You’re not just joining a hunt here, you’re joining one that might get me killed. Do you have a death wish?”

  Reggie had never actually thought about that. Did he?

  [You should.]

  He didn’t, no. Not really at least. He wasn’t going to kill himself, wasn’t going to look for a chance to die, but…well.

  “If it happens, it happens,” he shrugged, “it’s not like anyone would mind except me right?”

  Ludvich’s eyes stabbed into him with an unexpected ferocity.

  “I would mind, how about that?”

  Reggie just stared at the Witchfinder, lost for words. What was he on about? Where was this coming from? Before he could ask, the man continued onwards and left him to stumble after in confusion. They ventured deeper into the grimwoods, and were past the safety zone afforded by the spider’s den sooner than any coherent response could form in Reggie’s mind.

  The good thing about his current surroundings, Reggie supposed, was that they made weird social shit like that—always his weakness—into a tertiary concern.

  Then the bear attacked them.