A few days later, Vina and Nori found their way to an encampment. It was a large camp consisting of basic tents and a large fire in the middle. There was a rudimentary fence made of logs, but no significant effort was made to secure the area. Most curiously, the camp was butted up against a hillside with an obvious cave entrance dug out from it.

Vina was wearing her kaliter armor once more. She was shocked to discover that Haco had been right. After Ebba had nearly ripped it in two, her armor had begun to repair itself over the last few days. It was not entirely fixed yet, but it was wearable once again. She was confused on how it could fix itself when the item description didn’t say anything about that.

Armor: Light Armor of the Kaliter (Hardened, Indestructible) Rare Required Attributes: Strength 12, Dexterity 16 Armor: 16 Bonus: Crushing and piercing damage reduced by 10% Acid damage reduced by 2%.

This light armor was created from the scales of a Kaliter. The armor has been hardened by a blacksmith and provides increased defense. This armor has been exposed to acid and has gained resistance to it. This armor was nearly destroyed and has become indestructible.

She was surprised to see the differences. The armor amount provided had gone from 14 to 16 and was now marked as indestructible. Its durability was gone as well. “How is it doing that…?” she wondered to herself. She asked Norimor, but had gotten a laugh in response.

Over the last two days Vina focused on leveling her skills, but she had unfortunately hit a roadblock on throwing and juggling. Whatever she did did not seem to progress them forward. When she had asked Nori about it, she had said, “Combat skills require combat to level. Repetition won’t always be enough.”

Seeing as she couldn’t make much progress there, Vina decided to focus on her other skills. Now that she had specialized her running skill, Vina would go on a stamina free ten minute run each morning and a periodic run during the day. She found this made leveling her skill far more comfortable than it had previously been and she soon reached level five in the skill.

Skill Level Up: Running has reached level 5. Running currently burns 11.2 times more stamina than walking. You can run at 6.8 miles per hour. You have gained a skill point. You have gained 75 experience points.

Vina had spent her skill point on an ability called Sprint. It allowed her to run for a period of ten seconds at twice her normal speed for only half the stamina cost. The other options were mundane and she didn’t even see a reason to consider them. When she wasn’t running, she continued foraging the area around her, and soon reached level ten.

Skill Level Up: Forage has reached level 10. Items foraged from the wilderness are 18% bigger and foraged items will taste 45% better. You have gained a skill point. You have gained 150 experience points.

Where would you like to spend your Forage skill point? Option 1: Improve Forage: Forage can now detect rarer plants Option 2: Healing Forage: Foraged items will heal you for 15% of your health over 24 hours Option 3: Value Forage: Foraged items are worth 10% more when sold.

Vina didn’t even think twice. She selected Healing Forage for the improved healing bonus. It had saved her life earlier when she was alone in the wilderness. She knew mixtures existed and had even purchased a few for her own use. They sat now in her backpack. Despite that, having the ability to pluck a healing fruit from a tree was too good to pass up.

They had arrived at the encampment, and Nori did some quick reconnaissance. When she returned, she reported there were twenty soldiers in the camp and probably more guarding a cave. “I didn’t go in there”, she said, “Stealthing through a tight enclosed space can be risky and I didn’t want to get caught alone.”

Vina nodded her understanding. She was not eager to kill people today, but at least she knew what she was up against. She decided now was better than later to allocate her nine remaining stat points. Taking Nori’s earlier considerations into mind, Vina made her selections. She placed three points into strength, one more into endurance, one into charisma, and three into vitality.

She could immediately tell the differences to her strength and health. Her arms were detectably stronger than before. She could see some definition beginning to form and she was certain her veins looked larger. “Is that the strength or the vitality attribute?” she wondered to herself. She could definitely tell now that vitality was improving her complexion, teeth, and senses. She swore her eyesight was better. Her blood sense was telling her she had more blood pumping through her veins suddenly.

“What? How does that make sense?” Vina loaded up her character page that had more information than she thought she would ever need and quickly found the blood page. “Blood type… B negative. Quantity…” She looked at the number, unsure if it was a lot or not. She didn’t have the internet readily available to check how much blood the average human body had.

Vina shrugged. “Would a blood bar be valuable now that I can make blades and claws?” Vina tried it out and to her satisfaction a new bar appeared just below her health. It was different from the red health bar. The new bar was filled with liquid that swished around when she turned her head. She noticed it had a black line cut through it at the two and a half liter mark. She instinctively knew that if her blood was reduced to lower than that number, she would die.

“Are you ready?” Nori said, breaking Vina’s focus.

“I don’t want to kill anyone. I can kill creatures, but I don’t think I can kill these people”, she said to Nori.

“The Twelve aren’t giving us a choice today, Vina. These are soldiers, not bandits. From their uniforms I think they are from various local towns. Either we kill them, or the twelve might kill us.”

Norimor didn’t allow for any further debate. She laid out her plan, and Vina was convinced she was crazy. Vina thought she knew it too. “Is this the divinity playing a part?” she thought to herself, but she didn’t dare say that to Nori’s face. “I think I should stay up here and use your bow. I can shoot arrows down on them.” Vina said.

“In all honesty Vina, I’m not sure I can trust you to follow through on that. You already said you don’t want to kill these soldiers. No, we’ll walk into the middle of the camp tonight, together. We’ll start with silent kills and if we get discovered, we’ll switch to hand-to-hand combat.”

Vina protested, but she knew she had shot herself in the foot with her earlier words. Nori didn’t trust her to follow through. By the time night had fallen, Vina was feeling sick at the thought of killing people like herself. These people had done nothing to her and she couldn’t summon a motivation to justify it in her mind.

Nonetheless, she followed Nori into the camp, stealthed the entire time. She was impressed by Nori’s ability to stealth. Vina had trouble keeping her eyes on her even when she was looking right at her. She knew where Nori was, but it was like her eyes wouldn’t focus and her gaze wanted to drift to the side. She found the effect disorienting.

Together they first visited the nighttime scouts. Nori took one after another out completely silently. She would jab a knife into the side of their neck and cover their mouth. She’d carry the body away and stash it behind a tree or in a ditch. One by one Nori methodically disassembled the nighttime guards. Vina was horrified at the systematic and unfeeling way that she worked. She began to realize that this was just another day at work for Norimor.

When the nighttime watch were all killed, Nori had gestured to Vina to begin the same work in a nearby tent. Vina froze, memories of Ebba returning for her. “I’m not a killer. Sure I killed those creatures that hurt Milly and a bandit died on my watch, but I didn’t mean to kill him, did I?” Vina’s mind raced as she entered the tent, knife in hand. “I stabbed that bandit in the leg and he later died, but I tried to save him.”

Nori and Vina crouched over a soldier still sleeping in a cot. Vina held a knife in her hand, but she still couldn’t force herself to move. Her mind was still trying to justify her choices when Nori grabbed her hand with a grip so tight she couldn’t let go of the knife. Nori then controlled Vina’s hand like it was her own and thrust the knife into the sleeping man.

Vina squealed, but Nori covered her mouth and whispered in her ear, “This is how it's done. Do the next one. Now.”

Vina was shaking as she looked over at Nori in the darkness. Through the black veil that now covered her face, Vina could barely see that Nori’s eyes had gone completely white. For a moment Vina thought Nori looked dead, but blood sense told her otherwise. Still shaking, Vina removed her knife from the dead man before her and robotically moved to the next tent.

The night was a blur for her. She knew she had murdered this evening, but her mind didn’t want to remember it. She seemed empty until a window appeared in front of her.

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

Skill Level Up: Stealth has reached level 8. While using stealth you are 18% quieter, 18% more difficult to spot, and inflict 40% more damage. Skill Level Up: Daggers has reached level 4. Daggers attack 9% faster and inflict 9% more damage. You have gained 230 experience points from leveling skills. You have gained 2230 experience points from killing soldiers of various levels.

Vina felt like throwing up and soon did.

“The first ones are the hardest. It gets easier”, Nori said, trying to reassure her.

Vina glared at Nori, seeing her eyes and face were normal once again.

“Please don’t be angry with me. Be angry at this world. It’s horrible that we must do this to survive. But we can change it, together”, Nori said, with sadness in her voice.

Vina’s resolve slowly came back to her over the next few minutes. Her guilt at being a murderer battled with her dedication to reunite with her sisters. “I have to survive”, she told herself, but her own words felt hollow.

“We have to go into the cave now, Vina”, Nori said, coaching her.

With Nori leading the way, they went into the cave entrance. The cave was dark and wet and Vina had some difficulty navigating it. She was tempted to turn on her lantern, but since they were still stealthing, she knew it would not be a good idea. Soon a smell hit them both and Vina had to hold her breath to not throw up again. When she was close enough, Blood Sense told her exactly what was happening in this cave and she was horrified.

Blood sense told her that there were dozens of vibrances ahead, but every single one was wrong. They were erratic, inconsistent, and some were in direct conflict with each other. None of them were very strong, but their blood cried out in pain and suffering to her senses. She wished she could turn the skill off, but it continued to grate against her soul.

She whispered into Nori’s ear, “There’s something very wrong down there.”

Nori nodded her agreement and they slowly continued forward. The tunnel soon met with a large circular chamber about a hundred yards wide. Vina’s blood sense skill wanted to tell her about everything that lay in the chamber. She grabbed at her head, trying to shut out the information she was receiving. Nori stepped to the side and Vina could then see what her blood sense was hinting at. In the center was a massive pile of bodies and the room was completely filled with creatures.

Then a cage rattled beside her and Vina jumped. Inside the cage was something out of a nightmare. Vina looked at the thing, trying to make sense of it. It had seven limbs, but the bottom ones weren’t only feet and the top ones weren’t only hands. Each limb ended in a hoof, claw, or various kinds of hands with an unsettling number of digits. The heads were from various creatures and it moaned as it struggled to figure out which feet stand on. Vina used Examine.

Creature: Misshapen Level: 9 Unique There are no words for what has been done here.

Vina agreed with the description the skill provided her. She also had no words to describe what she saw. She looked away, but only saw more cages scattered about. The creatures within all looked different and were moaning or scratching in protest of their existence.

Nori spoke first, “This is bad. Oh very bad.”

As soon as Nori spoke, one of the free creatures in the room took notice of her and screamed. The scream was a mixture of several different voices and Vina shivered from the haunting sound. “We have to kill them all!” Nori shouted as the creature began to charge them. Nori moved into the room, knives in hand. She began to dance among the creatures, cutting them apart.

Vina didn’t have time to figure out her feelings on this. The creatures rushed her and she began throwing blood knives. She tossed her six knives out and launched one after another at a creature before recalling them. Sometimes the knives would stick in their bodies, other times they would puncture all the way through. When she saw her knives weren’t doing much to bring down a creature, she activated her Weak Points skill.

Soon the bodies lit up with little red markers and Vina took aim. She focused all six of her knives and launched them at a creature’s weak points. It went down in a single flurry. It was like a storm of blood shards had shredded the creature. She could feel the increase in her accuracy. It was like she couldn’t miss. Vina turned to the next that was charging at her and quickly brought it down as well. Vina entered into a flow, cutting down one creature after another. She had no idea what Nori was doing. At the moment, it was only her and her blood knives.

Blood was everywhere on the floor already and Vina activated Blood Dance to regenerate her stamina. When a creature got too close, she would focus on her avoidance and activate her blood claw skill in her offhand. It’d take a couple strikes, but Vina realized just how effective blood claw was on bare creature flesh. When a hoof suddenly swung at her head, Vina also discovered how effective the claw worked as a shield. She easily deflected the strike without the claw doing any damage.

Vina began experimenting with recalling her knives. Initially she would call them back as soon as possible. She started to realize that there was a timing to that as well. Blood call was almost undeniable in its flight back to her. The pull was so strong it could penetrate through these creatures' bodies. She began to wait for a creature to line itself up and then she would recall a knife. It would travel through the hideous thing and severely damage it.

When a blade didn’t return, Vina would just make more from her blood. Sure, she could only manage throwing about six knives at a time, but she could make many more from her blood reserves. Her Blood Lake class passive provided a great number of blades if she wanted. Soon she had a dozen blades scattered around her in a circle at varying distances. When she needed one, she would call it. Her blood sense could tell her exactly where her blades were, so she was never left wanting for a weapon. Using this strategy, she carved out a safe area around herself. Any creature that entered would be shredded by six knives very quickly. Soon their numbers began to slow and then all of the moaning and shrieking had stopped.

Mission Completed. You have cleared the encampment of all residents. Report back for your reward.

Vina looked around and couldn’t find Nori. “Nori!” she yelled, looking around frantically.

“Over here.” Nori said. She was casually leaning against a wall wiping off one of her knives. “Did you believe me when I said it's very bad?”

Vina carefully stepped over misshapen corpses as she walked over, “Yes.”

“Yeah. I was joking. I wanted you to take it seriously though. I stopped helping you pretty quickly. You suck at killing paliternians, but you are impressive at slaughtering dozens of misshapen. You cleared them out nearly all on your own. How much experience did you gain?”

Vina looked away at that comment, but checked her prompts. She was shocked by what she saw.

You have slain Misshapen of various levels. You have gained 11360 experience points.

Skill Level Up: Throwing has reached level 11. Your current throwing distance is 45 feet. You can throw harder and faster. Skill Level Up: Juggling has reached level 10. Your hand and eye coordination is improved by 10%. You have gained a skill point. Skill Level Up: Ambidexterity has reached level 2. You can use your off hand 1% as well as your dominant hand. Skill Level Up: Daggers has reached level 6. Daggers attack 15% faster and inflict 15% more damage. You have gained a skill point. You have gained 485 experience points from leveling skills.

New Skill Learned: Blocking. Progress to next skill level 65% Quest updated: Learn Skills 3 37/75

“I earned eleven thousand experience points. I’m just seven hundred experience points away from leveling at this point. I also leveled multiple skills.”

“Most of these creatures are probably near your level. They’re weak and slow too. Perfect fodder for leveling. You did quite well. You were cutting through them so fast, I knew you would be fine on your own. I saw you developed some new techniques as well. Very impressive”, Nori said, giving her an approving look.

Vina nodded silently, not happy with the guilt she felt, “What are these things?”

“These…” Nori said, kicking one of the bodies, “... are the pet projects of one of the twelve. You might have heard of them. They’re called The Shaper.”

“Yes. Haco briefly mentioned.. uhm… them. Why are we using them? Shouldn’t it be The Shapers instead? Are they more than one person?” Vina asked.

Nori tilted her head to the side, “Well… I don’t actually know. The Shaper is one of the oldest and most secretive of the twelve. I’ve never actually met them. Them is the pronoun that Haco uses.”

“Which of the twelve are they and why are they making these?” Vina asked.

“They’re number seven. No one knows exactly why they do this, but they often make nests like this. They capture or buy creatures and then warp their bodies. If you look closely at the misshapen, you’ll see The Shaper is fusing them or something. Trina’s system calls them the Misshapen. Sometimes I get sent out to clean up these hideaways.”

“Haco warned me about The Shaper. They don’t like people who are my class. I guess they kill us?” Vina said.

Nori frowned at that.“Oh. You’ll want to avoid them as best you can then. You can see what they do to creatures. Imagine if they did that to you. Hopefully, Haco will keep them under control.”

Vina shuddered, “What about the guards out front?”

“Same thing. They hire guards to keep curious people away. The guards never listen to reason though. It always comes down to a fight. Sometimes I wonder if The Shaper has shaped their brains.” Nori said as she sorted through her knives and started putting each one away.

“How many of these have you cleared out?” Vina asked.

“Oh probably a half dozen or so. I’ve only met a few misshapen that are dangerous. Most of them are like these. Thankfully we don’t have to hang around for the clean up. Come on, we have to report in and get our next mission.”