After completing their mission, Vina and Nori continued on to a town she had never been to before. It was so small and obscure, Vina wasn’t even sure it had a proper name. They were given a single day of rest and left a note at the inn to report their success.

Mission Completed. You have received 750 experience points.

Vina Level Up: You have reached level 10 and have 3 more attribute points to allocate. Your agility has increased by 2, your dexterity has increased by 1, and your mastery has increased by 1. You have gained 10 health and 5 stamina. You have earned one class ability point. You have earned one skill specialization point.

In the morning, Nori had received a new note from the innkeeper. Together we settled back into their room and she began to read it aloud to Vina.

Mission: Investigate the City of Valanire The City of Valanire has been inaccessible for the last two weeks. As a significant trade hub, the impact is being felt throughout the area. Initial reports claim the city is covered in a dense fog. There are reports of people not exiting from the city once they enter. You are to investigate the status of the city, determine the cause of the fog, and remedy the situation. Failure to resolve the issue within 3 days will result in us destroying the city. Transportation has been arranged.

Mission Received: Investigate the City of Valanire. If you decline or fail this mission, you will be punished by The Twelve.

“Oh no. Not Valanire. Not again”, Nori said with a groan.

Vina gave her a cautious look, “What?”

Nori gave her an examining look and then shook her head, “It’s nothing. We need to get started on this before they destroy the city.”

“Can they really do that?” Vina asked in surprise.

“They would need most of the twelve to accomplish it, but it is possible if there was no resistance”, Nori answered. “It’s fairly normal protocol for the twelve to destroy anything they don’t understand or can’t take for themselves. There’s too much fear it will be used against them.”

“What do they mean transportation has been arranged?” Vina asked.

“Oh. They have a portal ring downstairs. I’ll be able to activate it for us”, Nori said.

Vina felt the innkeeper outside the door before he knocked. He soon led them down to the tavern’s cellar where, in the back amongst some barrels, rested a metal ring on the ground. Vina immediately recognized the runes carved into it. When she looked closer, she gasped. “That is my mother’s handwriting!” she thought to herself. She itched to get closer, but didn’t want to appear too eager in front of Norimor. The innkeeper quickly left and Nori knelt down in front of the ring. She tapped some of the runes and they lit up blue.

“How are you powering it?” Vina asked, curiosity burned within her.

“I’m using divinity. Let me focus for a minute. I don’t do this very often”, Nori answered.

Vina watched Nori struggle for a few moments. This portal ring was very different from the one she activated back in the cave when she first arrived. There was no keyboard, but rather the ring itself had runes scrawled all around it. She could see it was a far more rudimentary version of what she had seen her first time. So much of the activation process had been abstracted out through the use of a single keyboard in the one she had interacted with initially. She looked on at this one with some curiosity and fascination. For Vina it felt like looking into her mother’s past.

Her rune reading skill had increased significantly under Ebba’s guidance and she had little difficulty reading the most obvious runes. Her eyes quickly searched over the runes that made up the activation sequence, but she tried to look at the deeper runes that made everything actually work. The layered rune phrases were complex and she made no progress in understanding what her mother had done. Nonetheless, she could see exactly what needed to be done to simply travel to another portal ring. “I think you want this one. It says bridge link. You’ve dialed in the source over there and the destination on the other side. You just need to bridge them together, power the link here, and then activate the travel sequence.”

Nori looked at her, “You can read runes?”

“I can do more than that”, Vina said mysteriously.

Norimor got to her feet and stepped away from the ring. “You do it then. I hate these things”, Nori said.

Vina smiled, knelt down, and pricked her finger. She willed her blood to fill some of the runes. The portal ring immediately glowed bright blue and then died. Vina looked at it in surprise. She had last seen this in the cave with the big door. As soon as she added blood, the door had simply died too.

Nori eyeballed her. “Okay… Actually, maybe I should do it.” She knelt back down and Vina made room for her. Nori pressed her hand to the device and started trying to activate the runes again. “That’s weird”, she said and tapped a few more runes. “I can’t send it any divinity.”

Vina’s jaw dropped when she saw the power activation mechanism. The runephrase had changed from her mother’s handwriting to her own. She understood now why Ebba didn’t want her to be powering any runes in town with her blood. “I... I think when I use my blood, it changes the nature of the runes. They stop being classic runes and become a more specialized version. They become blood runes”, she said in amazement.

Vina knelt back down again and pressed even more of her blood into the ring as she powered the dialing mechanism, bridge link, source, and destination runes. After she had entered her destination, the power activation mechanism’s changed rune told her exactly how much blood it needed to form the portal. “Do further distances require more blood?” she wondered to herself. She had already refilled her Blood Lake ability within herself, so she had plenty of blood to spare for this work. She activated the travel sequence and a red puddle appeared, filling the inner ring. Vina thought it felt warm and inviting.

Skill Level Up: Blood Runes has reached level 12. Blood runes can be drawn 55% faster and take 55% less blood to activate or maintain. You have gained 150 experience points for leveling a skill.

Nori cringed and backed away, “In Trina’s name, Vina. That’s creepy. There’s no way I’m going through that thing.”

“It’s not going to hurt you. It’s just my blood.” Vina paused, considering her words, “Okay. I guess that’s not very convincing. This is the only way, though. The ring won’t work with divinity anymore now that the runes have been changed.”

Nori shook her head, “I have some other business to attend anyway. Why don’t you take this mission on by yourself. I’m sure you’ll do great. If you don’t, we both will be punished, so do your best.”

Vina hesitated, but Nori handed her backpack to her. Vina put it on and opened her mouth to speak, “I really think we should stay toge…

Nori quickly, but gently swept Vina’s feet and dipped her into the portal.

~~~

Vina gasped as she fell through the red liquid. She had the same falling sensation as before when she entered this world. The falling motion was soon arrested. She began flying back upward and out of another portal ring. The portal stayed open for a moment and illuminated the area as she landed with a thud.

Vina rubbed her backside as she got back to her feet. “That bitch…”, her voice trailed off when her eyes saw the ring. The runes were still lit up red and she could see it was once again in Priya’s handwriting. She examined the ring and saw that although it was energized with her blood, the ring’s power action mechanism had not been converted on this side. “Is it being powered from the other side?” Vina wondered.

She looked around and saw she was inside some kind of shack. When the blood portal vanished, it got darker, but not too dark for her to not see. The next thing she noticed was how quiet it was. She could only hear the wind blowing through the gaps in the planks that made up the structure.

She got to her feet, opened the nearby shed door, and looked out. She saw someone had made a crushed rock path. Sure enough behind her was a wooden shack that looked to be incredibly old and all around her was a vast blue grass field. She looked far in the distance and could see a thick mist had blocked a portion of the view.

Vina activated her quest markers and she soon saw where the yellow mark led. “Looks like the path leads straight there,” she said softly. “Before that though, I guess I better go through all of my points.”

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

Where would you like to spend your Daggers skill point? Option 1: Piercing Daggers: All daggers you wield ignore 10% of armor Option 2: Hidden Daggers: Daggers hidden on your body are 10% more difficult to find Option 3: Improved Stab. The first three stabs done with a dagger will increase damage by 25% on each target.

She blanched at these options. “They only improve my ability to wield the dagger. Not when I throw it”, she mused. “What would Etana do…”, she thought to herself and chuckled, but her mood quickly switched to sadness. “Really… what would Etana do.” Vina considered the purpose of her daggers when she wielded them. What did she want them to do? “If I need to use a dagger, then it means something has gotten way too close to me. I guess I want it dead if that happens.” She considered what she had done to the misshapen that had gotten too close. “I took it out with my claw as quickly as possible. Would a dagger be faster with this skill?” she asked herself. She took Improved Stab.

Where would you like to spend your Juggling skill point? Option 1: Recovery: Any juggled item you would normally drop will automatically be caught three times per day. Option 2: Movement: You may walk while juggling. Option 3: Juggling is 10% more entertaining and earns 5% more in tips.

“Recovery or movement?” she asked herself. She snapped her head to the side when she heard something moving out in the tall grasses. “Whatever it is… it's big”, Vina thought. It was, however, too far away for her Blood Sense skill to pick up. She looked back at her skill options and selected movement. If she ever dropped a knife from juggling, she could always create another one near instantly in her hand or call it back again. Moving while throwing and juggling could be a life saver.

“Now for class abilities”, she said. She looked around herself warily, careful not to be too focused on her windows. She had grown up in a city and the vast sea of grass was making her nervous. She had no idea what lived out in the fields of Palitern.

She opened her skills tree and looked at her selections. She saw she could still add two more points to her Scarlet Dance active skill. In the tree containing Ruby claws, she had already selected the Blood Blades. She could add an additional point there and increase the size of blades she could make. After already adding one point, she could see another node appeared below Blood Blades, but she assumed she had to add the full three points to find out what it was. She could also choose Condensement which would improve the armor of her claw or Raking nails which would cause her claws to damage armor. She had not chosen any skills from the Hemophage tree and she still wasn’t certain she ever would. In her final tree containing Blood Recovery, she saw she could take the skill again and improve her ability to produce more blood from 25% to 100%. “That’s a really big leap”, she muttered to herself.

Beneath that she could choose Blood Aid or Blood Letting. Blood aid sounded nice. Being able to heal faster at the cost of her blood sounded awesome. Bloodletting was still off the table for her; she could just invest more into Vitality to get the same effect. Vina saw a new option extending off of Bloodshot Eyes.

Class Ability: Blood Stained Hands. When you lay hands on a creature or person, you cause them to bleed. Level 1 causes moderate bleeding rate.

“Blood stained hands?” She looked at her fingers, “Will they turn red too?” She shook her head. This branch of her class ability tree had directly changed her body. She was not sure she would be so willing to place points there again. She thought about it for quite some time and ultimately chose Condensement.

Condensement: Blood Claw gains 100% of your level in armor.

Vina had gained the Blocking skill and she felt that by adding armor to her claw, she could make it more effective. Between her high agility, avoidance, mobility, parry, and blocking skills, Vina was aiming to not be touched as much as possible. “Next time, we select Blood Recovery again”, she told herself. She was using a lot of blood lately and recovering it was taking her longer. Even now, her blood bar showed 72% full.

“Nearly done. Next is attribute points…” She said contemplatively as she opened her attributes page.

Name

Vina

Level

10

Health

180

Stamina

95

Experience

205/21000

Class:

Blood Weaver

Attributes

Points

Description

Strength

16

You can lift 75% of your body weight and weapons do 12% more damage

Endurance

18

Your stamina is increased by 40, and your stamina recovery is increased to 1.40 per minute.

Dexterity

21

Your body is 11% more likely to do exactly what you intend, you are 44% more likely to hit your target

Agility

27

Your movement is 51% faster, you are 68% more elusive, you can react 34% sooner.

Vitality

17

Your health is increased by 70, you clear poisons 35% faster, you are 21% more resistant to disease and infection

Charisma

12

People like you 10% more and you are 6% more likely to persuade someone

Mastery

21

You learn skills 44% faster. You are 11% more likely to learn a skill on your first try.

Divinity

0

Locked

Points Remaining

3

Skill Specializations Remaining

1

Vina immediately added a single point into Vitality. Although she was rarely hit in combat, adding the extra point increased the amount of blood in her body and somewhat increased the speed she could make it. Beyond that, she did not want to get sick in this world even if she did have some mixtures now. She then added a point to strength, still hoping to one day reach that goal of being able to lift 100% of her body weight. While she would never be the strongest person here, being able to lift her own body weight seemed to be the absolute minimum she should seek.

She was torn on where to place her final point. Although the benefit of any single point wouldn’t be extreme, her build seemed all over the place. “Do I need to start specializing?” She asked herself. She was so reluctant to add it to mastery, but she knew she had no options. Mastery didn’t make her feel any more powerful like the other skills did, but she knew it had compounding benefits. It was the only attribute that enhanced every skill she had. Besides, it appeared Aspects were out of the question. She placed the point there with a sigh.

“Lastly, skill specializing”, she said, feeling a bit better now. Vina opened her skills screen and viewed her highest five skills.

Blood Runes

12

Blood runes can be drawn 45% faster and take 45% less blood to activate or maintain

Throwing

11

Your current throwing distance is 45 feet. You can throw harder and faster.

Juggling

10

Your hand and eye coordination is improved by 10%.

Forage

10

Items foraged from the wilderness are 16% bigger and foraged items will taste 40% better.

Stealth

8

While using stealth you are 18% quieter, 18% more difficult to spot, and inflict 40% more damage.

The only skills she had not specialized among these were Juggling, Forage, and Stealth. While Forage was wonderful for surviving in the wild, Vina didn’t see much use for it to survive against creatures or helping her kill the twelve. Juggling was also a weird skill. It combined both offensive elements for her and worthless elements like entertainment. “If I specialize in that, would it even be a combat oriented benefit?” she wondered to herself. She considered specializing in another skill, but ultimately Stealth had to be her choice.

She was doing missions now for The Watch. Who knew when she might need to stealth to infiltrate or escape a situation. She had already used Stealth with Nori on the first mission and Nori’s skill seemed far better than her own. She placed her specialization point into stealth.

Skill specialization: Stealth. Stealth has gained passive: Hide in plain sight. Once per day you may try to stealth and any target creature or person thirty yards away or more will lose track of you.

Vina whistled. Once per day she could just stealth even if someone was targeting her. As long as she was 30 yards away they would lose sight of her. With her amazing agility, sprint ability from her run skill, and parkour ability from jumping, she should have no trouble gaining those 30 yards and stealthing away if she ever needed to.

“Speaking of running…”, Vina tossed her backpack on her shoulder and went for a run toward her quest marker.