Vina and Norimor traveled away from the town of Termily. Her escort seemed content to walk in silence and Vina was more than willing to comply. She was absolutely fuming. Vina tried over and over to calm herself down, but every time she felt she had her anger under control, it flared back up again. Every time it reached a peak, Vina felt her blood boil. Blood sense told her how her blood raced through her veins. Her anger and her blood fed each other in a cycle and she fought to try to calm herself down again and again.

Her companion was her complete opposite, calm and cold. At the times when Vina had control of her emotions, she noticed Norimor’s blood was mysteriously silent. It was almost as if she couldn’t sense it at times. When Vina focused her attention on Blood Sense, she could pick out hints of Norimor’s blood. Every time she relaxed, however, blood sense seemed to forget she was there. Vina suddenly missed the strong, sweet, and bright feeling of blood she had from her sisters. In a strange way, their blood presence was comforting to her.

She felt her anger rise once again, and finally Norimor spoke, “Your anger is not something to be suppressed, Vina. Anger is a tool that tells us something is wrong. It is an early warning that tries to force us to act. Acting in anger, however, is rarely the correct decision. We must use it to motivate us to make changes that are to our benefit.”

Vina looked at Norimor, examining her face. Norimor appeared only slightly older than Vina herself. “My anger is well placed and I’m not sure there is any action I can take to calm it right now.”

Norimor’s head nodded in her hood knowingly, “The goal is not to calm your anger. The goal is to use it for something productive. Can you think of nothing to satisfy your anger?”

Her calm words slowed Vina down. She looked inward at her anger and studied it. She was angry at the Twelve for taking her away from her sisters. She was angry because the world seemed so hostile towards the three of them. She focused on her feelings and a window popped up.

New Personal Quest: Kill the twelve (1/12 killed) New Personal Quest: Reunite with your sisters

Norimor spoke softly, “That’s how it’s done. This will go faster than I had hoped.”

“What do you mean? Do you know what I did?” Vina asked, but Norimor remained silent.

~~~

Vina and Norimor walked through the night, despite the darkness, and until the morning. In the morning Norimor paused to eat some food from one of her satchels, and Vina quickly foraged for her own meal. Norimor nodded to her approvingly, and they continued on for the rest of the entire day. By the evening, Vina was lagging behind and her stamina had nearly bottomed out. Norimor walked back to her when Vina sat down in exhaustion.

“Your stamina is very low Vina. Do you have any free attribute points remaining?”

Vina opened her screen and checked.

You have 12 unused attribute points remaining.

Vina’s jaw dropped. She had completely forgotten to use her attribute points. “Yes. I have twelve unused points.”

Even Norimor gawked at her, “That’s a lot of points. Why have you not been using them?”

Vina was unsure how to answer, so she was just honest, “I leveled up a couple times after a single kill. A lot happened immediately after and I simply forgot about them.”

Norimor considered her answer for a while, “I understand how events can overcome us, but if you want to survive, you’ll need to be more attentive to using all of your points almost immediately unless you have a good reason. As for your stamina, I strongly suggest you increase it. Every battle you experience will almost always be limited by your stamina. When you run out of stamina, you lose. When you lose, you die. Anytime you have more stamina than your opponent, you will win.”

Norimor got back to her feet, “Right now you need to keep up with me. We are on a schedule and if I cannot meet that schedule, I have been ordered to kill you. I intend to walk for the rest of the day and part of the night if that helps you plan better.”

Vina sighed, pulled a knife, and cut her wrist. She allowed a few drops of her blood to fall onto the ground. She turned on Scarlet Dance and watched her stamina regen increase. Norimor eyeballed her strangely.

“Do you cut yourself when you are stressed?” Norimor said as she looked at Vina’s wrist, which had already stopped bleeding.

“No”, Vina said firmly without elaborating.

Vina assigned three more points to Stamina.

Stamina 17: Your stamina is increased by 35, and your stamina recovery is increased to 1.35 per minute.

Vina checked her stamina and saw her maximum stamina had increased to 85. “Will it be enough to keep up with her?” she muttered to herself.

As Norimor moved away, Vina decided to do an experiment. She relaxed her blood call on her wrist and let a single drop bleed directly into her boot. She placed her foot back inside and walked around. To her great relief, the regen buff to her stamina continued. She decided to hold off on spending the rest of her points only because she had no idea what Norimor expected from her yet. Once she was clearer on how to keep up with Norimor’s schedule, she would allocate the rest of her points.

They walked for the rest of the day as Norimor said they would and only rested when the moon was high in the sky and darkness had fallen. Vina nestled up next to a nearby tree as she had done before, with her thrusting sword in hand. She draped a blanket over herself and was suddenly overcome with emotion. Her deep sadness at having lost her sisters weighed on her soul. Her own actions had sabotaged the relationships she so desperately tried to keep. The pain of loss she felt cut her deeply. She cried herself to sleep that night, but between her sobs she thought she could hear Norimor doing the same.

~~~

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The next morning Vina’s rage was back again. She packed her stuff into her backpack forcefully. Her anger caused her movements to be sharp and sudden. Vina recalled Norimor’s words from the day before. “Is there something else I can do?” she thought to herself as she gritted her teeth.

Vina wanted to slap herself when she realized she had skill points to use. She didn’t only have one point, but rather she had three! Vina opened her skill tree and saw she had some new options under Blood Recovery.

Bloodshot Eyes: Your eyes can see what others would like to keep hidden.

Blood Aid (0/3): You may weave a bandage from your own blood. Blood Weaves heal wounds 200% faster and completely eliminate the risk of infection or any existing bleeding.

Bloodletting: If you are infected or have a disease, you may expel a portion of it from your body via your blood.

Vina considered the three new options she saw on the class tree. Bloodshot eyes sounded a lot like Observe. However, she could sense there was a difference. Where Observe would allow her to see things people would not otherwise see, Bloodshot Eyes would allow her to see things people intentionally hid.

Blood aid appeared to be a form of first aid. “I can use my own blood to heal myself? Isn’t that just a fancy scab?” she thought to herself. Nonetheless, the 200% healing rate would exceed any healing of recovery method she currently had. Turning a week of painful suffering into just a few days was not to be scoffed at.

Vina felt Bloodletting was fairly straightforward, but she wasn’t sure how valuable the skill was. “If I just raise my vitality higher, could that just prevent me from ever getting sick?”

Vina looked to her other skill trees. She considered the two other trees her class offered once more.

Ruby Claws(0/3): Drawing upon your own blood, you may condense it into a claw. The claw does 100% of your level + agility in damage.

Hemophage (0/3): Your blood can now make Hemophagic cells. Hemophages consume foreign red blood cells via phagocytosis. Phagocytosis reduces stamina recovery by 5%. Stacks 10 times. Hemophage is considered an infection.

Vina’s anger demanded action. Her previous hesitancy about changing her blood or gaining claws was gone. A logical part of her brain also still told her that she needed to explore these trees as well to see what lay below the top nodes. Vina placed one of her three points into Ruby Claws.

Vina felt a new sense forced into her mind. Like squeezing the toes on her feet, she suddenly became aware she could flex a new muscle and form a claw on her hand. Vina chose to have a claw appear on her right hand. She watched in fascination as blood seeped from her pores and covered her hand. It formed itself into a hard red crystalline material with sharp nails at the end. Vina watched in awe as it finished forming in only a second.

The claw was large. Maybe twice as large as her own hand, but it felt light to her strength. She held her hand up in front of her face as she tried flexing the claw. She felt some resistance from the hardness of the crystalized blood, and she wasn’t able to fully close her hand. She could press her thumb and index finger together if she wanted to hold something.

She got up and tried to swipe her claw at a tree. It took her some practice on how to do it correctly, but soon she was able to slice into the bark with very little resistance. The deep claw marks she left on the trees around her made it look like a wild animal had attacked them. Vina was breathing hard from her efforts, but she was impressed by the claw’s performance. “This feels good”, she thought to herself, “This feels right.”

Vina saw she had new options appear below the claw.

Condensement(0/3): Blood Claw gains 100% of your level in armor.

Raking Nails (0/3): Raking Nails causes Ruby Claw to do 10% durability damage to armor and weapons.

Blood Blades(0/3): Form a bladed weapon of your choice from your blood. The weapon does variable damage based on the type of blade made. Level 1: Small Blades

Vina was tempted to double down on the capabilities of the claw, but after her attacks on the nearby trees, her anger was momentarily sated. She decided to make a more mindful choice. She looked once again at Bloodshot Eyes. When she had first seen this, she felt she had gravitated toward it. After her experience with Ebba, she felt being able to immediately know what was true and what wasn’t would be very reassuring. “Would bloodshot eyes have told me about Ebba’s Aspects?” she wondered to herself. She paused for a minute more, considering if there were any other alternatives she preferred, but ultimately she chose Bloodshot Eyes.

Vina gave a sharp shriek as her eyes suddenly started to burn. She rubbed them as quickly as she could and her vision blurred. She looked around wildly, desperate to find relief. But as quickly as the change had started, it also resolved itself. Vina looked around, but couldn’t detect any difference in her vision. “Maybe… I need to be around people?” she said questioningly to herself.

Vina had just one last point left and she considered her claws once more. She really liked them, so she decided to delve deeper into that tree. “A claw was useful, but would a blade be even more useful?” she said. When she had been held down by Ebba and disarmed, this skill could have been exactly what she needed to get away. “Besides, who is going to imagine I can create blades out of my blood?” she said softly to herself.

Vina selected the Blood Blades skill and once more felt the same weird sensation of gaining a new sense. This was not much different than the claw sense for her. “I wonder…” she muttered to herself. She activated Blood Call and focused on her claw. The claw immediately melted away and back into her skin. Vina grinned. She had literal weapons flowing through her veins! She created a throwing dagger of blood in her hand and threw it at a nearby tree. Her blood sense skill told her exactly where the blade was even if she wasn’t looking. She activated Blood Call and the blade flew back to her hand. When it tried to dissolve, she merely told it to remain as a blade.

Blood sense suddenly told her that Norimor was off to her side. She was a mere six feet away, far closer than blood sense would normally let people get before alerting her. Vina stared at her in astonishment. "How are you doing that?" Vina yelled in surprise.

Norimor surveyed the trees and the numerous claw marks Vina had carved into them. She looked at Vina for a minute and then gestured at Vina’s blood dagger. “Do that again”, she said sharply, ignoring Vina's question.

Vina hesitated, but threw her blood dagger once more. She called it back again and waited for Norimor to speak.

Norimor gained an evil grin, “We will not be walking today. We have a lot of work to do.”