“How good are you with that bow?” Julian asked Hannah.

  “I had a compound bow as a girl and would shoot targets in the backyard with my dad, but it’s been years since we stopped doing that. That demon hound was the first moving target I’d ever shot. I honestly can’t believe I hit it.” Hannah replied.

  “That’s good to know. I think we all need some practice with our weapons.” Julian added.

  As he spoke, the trio heard an angry roar off in the distance, causing them to gather a little closer as Harvey tightened his grip on his wand. Even with the adrenaline of surviving another encounter, they weren’t out of the woods yet.

  The moonlight shining through the purple canopy above them cast an otherworldly gloom on the forest, making the black trunks of the trees look almost like doors to the void. The darkness was oppressive, and the whistling of wind through the leaves meant the forest was never truly quiet.

  “On second thought, I don’t think we have time for basic training right now. Let’s get moving until we figure out where we are and hopefully find some shelter.” Julian whispered as he turned to keep climbing the hill.

  The three began walking up the gentle slope, hoping to find a vantage point and get the lay of the land. It didn’t take long before they heard snarling and tearing cloth. Harvey began backing away, but Julian and Hannah crouched low, signaling to huddle together. His instincts told him to keep moving, but the determination on their faces won him over.

  “Whatever that is, it’s not human. I don’t know what your stances on hunting are, but I think we’re going to need to level up more if we want a shot at getting out of here.” Julian whispered in a hushed tone, placing his hands on their shoulders and pulling them close.

  “I’ve always loved animals, but they’re hunting us, too. Kill or be killed, right?" Hannah agreed.

  “Or run. Whatever’s up there doesn’t sound like easy prey. Can’t we just go around it?” Harvey asked nervously.

  “I know it’s a lot, man, but the easiest way to solve a problem is to tackle it head-on. Just stick behind me and it’ll be ok.” Julian reassured him. “Let’s move as quietly as we can, and if we can sneak up on it, you can take a shot, Hannah. We may be able to finish this thing without much of a fight.”

  Slowly creeping around the tree, Harvey saw violent shaking as another hound yanked on the arm of a bloody corpse. A horrifying tear accompanied a spatter of brown blood as its meal ripped free. The corpse was a veilstrider, just like them. Harvey shuddered, grateful a zombie had found him before one of these monsters. His stomach lurched at the unsightly meal taking place in front of him, and it took everything he had not to retch.

  “Can you hit it from here?” Julian whispered to Hannah.

  “I can try, but be ready in case it doesn’t go down in 1 shot.” She replied, knocking an arrow from the quiver on her back. The wooden bow creaked as the string pulled taut, and whether from the strain of the draw or nervousness, Harvey noticed her hand gently shaking. She closed one eye and tilted her head to look down the shaft before letting the arrow fly.

  The shot soared wide to the right before embedding itself in the dirt. Hearing the whistle of fletching, the hound whipped around and bore down, searching the treeline for them as it barked. Awkwardly fumbling with her quiver, Hannah managed to pull out another arrow but accidentally caught the fletching of two adjacent ones, causing them to fall beside her.

  The second arrow sailed straight into the ground halfway between herself and her target, and the muted thud was like a starter pistol. It sprinted towards them, quickly covering the 30 or so feet separating it from the group. Harvey couldn’t look away from its hungry eyes, irises burning ruby, as it bared its bloody teeth.

  Julian bent down into an athletic stance, holding his shortsword tight in his right hand, ready to meet the charge head-on.

  Harvey felt time slow as the fangs drew ever closer, his mind screaming at his body to do something. With a thought, a bolt appeared on his wand, and he whipped it towards its head. It ducked, but still took the shot to its haunch, leaving behind a sickly purple bruise on the furless flesh and causing it to miss a step. The brief stumble sent its head into the dirt, hind legs flipping up over its body to tumble in a heap towards Julian. With a ruthless arc, he buried the sword in its neck.

  In moments, the fight was over.

  Harvey heard the ding of two notifications

  You have slain Level 2 - Bloodrunn. Essence Gained. 83 Merit Earned

  Your class, Arcanist, has reached Level 1. +1 Vitality, +2 Endurance, +2 Wisdom, +1 Willpower, +2 Free Points.

  As the adrenaline started to fade, the maze of black markings began to glow. Harvey felt a burn like sitting too close to a campfire. Not hot enough to cook you, but hot enough to be uncomfortable.

  Unlike the initiation, where the light felt like a burning blade carving his flesh, the gentle glow of his level-up felt almost euphoric as his mind and body grew stronger. It was only a minor change, but he felt noticeably more focused and clear-headed than before. Some of the existential dread even melted away, the constant buzzing between his ears quieting ever so little.

  “Congratulations, I assume you leveled?” Julian asked.

  “Yeah, this feels great. I see what you mean now.” Harvey responded with a smile as he placed both free points into willpower. He needed his head back more than anything right now.

  “I... I’m sorry.” Hannah stammered, picking the fallen arrows up off the floor before trying to awkwardly place them back in her quiver by jabbing them over her shoulder. “I missed.”

  “That’s ok!” Julian replied reassuringly. “That’s why we stick together. None of us were built for whatever this place is, and it is going to take some time to adjust. As long as we keep moving forward, the skill and confidence will come.”

  Julian placed a calming hand on her shoulder and smiled before grabbing the arrows she had been struggling to replace and guiding them back into her quiver. Flustered, Hannah met his gaze with an awkward smile before exhaling sharply, some of the tension leaving her shoulders.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  “I just feel bad we couldn’t get to this guy in time.” Julian continued as he turned towards the bloodied corpse. The trio walked over to inspect the body. It was a man with a slightly heavyset build and a gaping wound in his stomach. He wore the armor of a warrior, and emerald green liquid mixed with blood near his waist, where the Bloodrunn had crushed an endurance potion.

  “This is just gruesome.” Hannah gasped as she covered her mouth. “That could’ve been me.”

  “But it wasn’t, and we are going to keep looking and help as many others as we can. Right, Harvey?” Julian called back as Harvey had decided to step back a few feet from the body.

  “Yeah. Nothing we can do for this guy, but there’s gotta be others.” He agreed, avoiding looking at the shock forever frozen on the man's face.

  “Exactly. Nothing we can do. So, let’s take the potions and sword with us and find someone who can still benefit from them.” Julian said, hesitating as he bent down to fumble with the two vials still in the belt. With the two remaining health potions and the fallen sword in hand, Julian stood up and continued walking.

  The group crept through the forest in silence, meandering their way through the trees as they listened intently for any hints of creatures or survivors nearby. Occasionally, they heard roars in the distance or the pained screams of what they could only assume were other veilstriders meeting the same gruesome end as the man they’d found dead in the grass, but none were close enough to reach in time. Even Julian, the born protector with ice in his veins, was subdued as the dark forest began to feel suffocating.

  Shadows darted from tree to tree while strange, alien bugs skittered on the ground beneath their feet. Eventually, they stumbled upon two more corpses lying next to each other in a clearing, one with a shortsword buried in a sickly green boar that lay dead atop the veilstrider. A multitude of puncture wounds in the torso suggested that the obsidian black tusks of the boar had gotten the best of him before he could drink a health potion. The other had deep lacerations in her shoulders and bloody caverns where her eyes should be. He swore he could hear something dripping, like the drone of a leaky water faucet. He held out his open palms, trying to feel any rain falling from the sky.

  He held out his hands, feeling nothing, so it wasn't rain. Still, every few seconds, another drop. Under a tree, away from the bodies, he found the source. Thick drops of blood, falling down from the canopy above. Looking up, Harvey saw another impossible bird, looking more like a hawk than an owl, with blood dripping down its beak.

  Upon being discovered, it let out a ghastly shriek and swooped down at Harvey’s head, aiming to gouge his eyes out like the woman dead at his feet. Instinctively, he raised both arms to block his face, offering his forearms to its taloned feet. The claws sank deep, reopening barely healed wounds from the first carrionwing. Agony ripped through him, blood streaming down. Each lunge brought the half-rotted, half-bone face within inches of blinding him.

  With a burst of adrenaline, he tore his right arm free and pointed his wand at center mass. The force of his bolt ripped it away, but its talons left a painful reminder as they pulled free. It steadied its flight quickly, but not before Harvey hurled more bolts its way. The first missed left as the hawk flitted to the side, and the second missed high when the bird changed from diving towards his head to extending its sharp beak towards his gut.

  White-hot pain flared within him as the beak drilled into his stomach, but its embedded head made it an easy target. Pointing the wand down, he blasted. The bird crashed into the ground.

  He fired bolt after bolt until all that was left of the Carrionwing was a noxious mass of flesh and bone. The kill notification appeared in his mind.

  You have slain Level 2 - Carrionwing. Essence gained. 93 Merit Earned

  “Harvey! Are you ok?!” Hannah screamed as he clutched his abdomen and fell back to the ground.

  Incoherent groans were all he could muster as he fumbled to grab a health potion from the belt at his side. His hands, slick with his own blood, kept slipping as he tried to pull the vial from the loop. His vision closed in as more and more blood escaped. Just as his mind began to let go and accept his fight was over, the sweetest taste he’d ever experienced graced his tongue.

  A silky liquid transformed into pure life that spread through his entire body. It was like a mix of strawberry, sugar, and the heat of a perfect summer day filled him up, forcing out the shards of bone and dirt until his body was pristine. The sweet scent of strawberry milkshake lingered in his nose, and his vision cleared.

  Sitting up, he marveled as he inspected his previously flayed forearms before reaching down to touch his gut. His clothes were torn to shreds, and blood still coated his hands. But the pain was gone.

  “Thanks, Julian.” Harvey gasped as he met Julian’s eyes, empty vial in hand.

  “Don’t mention it. I didn’t even see that thing until it was clawing into you, and you had it on the floor before I could help.” Julian replied, exasperated.

  With bloody fingers and a steady hand, he pulled his own vial from his belt and inspected it

  Minor Health Potion

  A trace of Vitality in its purest form, fueling the body's natural recovery at peak efficiency

  “Amazing…” Harvey muttered under his breath before scrambling to his feet.

  “These two weren’t as lucky, and with all the screaming, it sounds like a lot of people are meeting the same fate. What is making the animals here so aggressive? It’s unnatural for a bird to attack a human.” Hannah lamented

  “Nothing about this is natural. Since when can dead bird skeletons fly? Any expectations we have about the world and how it works need to be thrown out the window. I don’t feel good robbing corpses and leaving them to rot, but we have to keep moving. Let’s take the potions and go.” Julian said, nervously adjusting his grip on his sword.

  The group took the three remaining Health, one Endurance, and one Essence potion from the deceased before leaving the clearing. It had likely only been minutes, but it was already starting to smell like a cemetery.

  As they walked, Harvey felt his body slowly gathering power from the world around him. Now that he’d used it, he could feel the essence used by his wand circulating through his body. Three short fights had left him with just above half what he’d started with, but he was relieved to feel his body recovering naturally. Three essence potions wouldn’t be enough if that were his only option for refueling.

  The gentle slope turned into a shallow mountain climb, and within the hour the group got high enough to peer down into the valley below, where they were surprised to see what looked like a dilapidated mining town straight out of a wild west movie. There was an array of wooden buildings in a small cluster nestled between a forest clearing and the mountainside. There were dirt roads overgrown with weeds and shrubbery with the same dark, unnatural colors of the forest. Things you would never expect from normal plant life.

  Of the 20 or so buildings in the cluster, fewer than half collapsed. It was difficult to determine their exact condition, but at least a few would be serviceable shelters. A large wooden barn and a few brick buildings near the mountain appeared mostly intact.

  “A ghost town in a haunted forest full of hellhounds and skeletal birds. Pretty ominous.” Hannah remarked as they surveyed the valley.

  “If I were alone in the woods and saw that place, it’s where I’d go. There may be something usable in those buildings, and it’s better than building our own shelter.” Harvey added.

  “Finding survivors comes first. The town can wait.” Julian asserted.

  “I know this sounds like I’m trying to bail on search and rescue, but I really think we’re better off clearing out the town. All we’re finding now are bodies. Anyone who sees that town is heading straight there. If we ignore it and something dangerous is inside, anyone who wanders in is dead. We’d be setting survivors up to die. If we clear it out, we have an easy rendezvous point and a foothold to launch our rescue efforts from.” Harvey argued

  “What if someone’s stuck out here and needs our help?” Julian asked.

  “What if someone strolls into town and meets an army of zombies? We know they’re out here. What else do we expect to find in a ghost town in a magic forest?” Harvey continued.

  “Julian, I think he’s right. We have no idea where the closest survivors are, might as well go where there’s a better chance of finding someone.” Hannah agreed.

  Julian deliberated for a moment before nodding his agreement. “Good point. Let’s check it out.”