"So…" Leo started. "That was interesting. Do you do that often?"

Bernard shrugged. "More often than I'd like to. Perk of my class I guess. The forest doesn't like voidlings, not even a little bit, and when one gets close enough the trees demand that I investigate. It's a bit… overwhelming when it happens. I'm just glad the range isn't any larger, I would hate to spend my life charging to and fro for miles in the rainforest to fight monsters until I die."

"Don't let him fool you." Henry panted. "He likes getting chewed on by things. Black caiman, big cats, giant centipedes, creepy giant spiders, if it has a mouth Bernie tries to get it to chew on him."

"Don't call me Bernie. And I don't try to get things to chew on me, monsters just think I'm delicious for some reason."

"Should we perhaps move somewhere farther away from this pile of bodies? What if the queen or whatever the one that spawned them is called shows up?" Leo cut in nervously.

Bernard shook his head as he awkwardly clambered out of his pile of corpses and moved to a clearer area. "All that would do is lead her to the others. I just told you, the forest tells me the general area of voidlings. She, or it, is already here. Or never left, however it works out."

"Where?!"

"Above us somewhere, I haven't spotted it yet, I just know it's here." Bernard was inspecting the canopy above him closely while he spoke. Something squirming on the ground drew his gaze and he realized that the webbed up cats were still alive. He made his way over to them and cautiously worked to free them while keeping an eye out for any more spiders. It was a pain to cut through the sticky silk since he couldn't use Thistle without risking poisoning the cats.

He didn't want to kill them if he didn't have to. It struck him as a bit strange to suddenly be concerned about the welfare of the big cats after having killed a few that attacked him. Logically he should eliminate them as a threat while they were helpless. By freeing them he opened up the chance that they might attack him or the others from the Exclusion Zone later. He used the thorns on his gauntlets to tear at the threads until they gave way. It was tedious, but the cats didn't struggle while he worked.

"That's right, you're okay, I'll have you free in a minute." He spoke softly, in a reassuring tone. When the first one was free it immediately bounded off into the forest, only to turn and watch him from the shadows at the base of a tree as he worked to free the second cat. "Mates?" He asked in the same gentle tone. "Don't worry I'll have… her free in a jiffy."

When the second cat was free he moved closer to the others, ignoring the looks they were giving him, as well as the shaking heads. They probably thought it was foolish to rescue apex predators that would likely have happily eaten him had their positions been reversed. It still felt right to him though. "A forest is more than just her plants. Birds, bugs, predators and prey, even monkeys," he spat the last word out as though it was a curse, "play a part in keeping it healthy and balanced."

It was right at that moment that a spider the size of a volkswagen beetle dropped from the trees to land nearly on top of him, causing his righteous speech to cut short with a girlish yelp. Pure instinct was all that saved his life, as Thistle's whole head was driven into the monster's gaping maw. It didn't stop it from crashing into him, nor from driving its sharp mandibles into his shoulders. It did stop it from putting Bernard's head in its mouth, and with the way the mandibles punched through his armor, it was readily apparent that his head would have been crushed like a melon.

It began to truss him up in webbing while he futilely waggled Thistle around to cause as much damage as he could. This particular spider-demon didn't seem to have any issues with getting its webbing to stick to him. He was halfway to being completely immobile when Henry arrived. Bernard grunted as the kid used his back as a springboard. He launched himself at the spider and drove his good fist into one of its eyes.

The sound it made when its eye popped elicited a deep-seated, primal terror in Bernard. The others as well most likely. The horrible chitter-roar caused him to freeze for a second. Almost simultaneously both Henry and Bernard launched a frenzied barrage of attacks as they desperately tried to fight their way free of it. Bernard had no doubt that had he not been so close to it and half-cocooned he would have ran. Without the option to run, he had to fight.

His punches did nothing though, and while Thistle could hurt it, it wasn't much damage. Henry was surprisingly effective though, with half of his frantic punches bursting eyes and sending streamers of goo and ichor flying into the air. It was almost like the kid had eyes in the back of his head too, the way he was dodging the spider's legs and mandibles as it tried to scrape him off. In a weird disconnected way Bernard was a bit miffed that the spider chose to completely ignore him to focus on Henry.

Leo finally joined the fight, his presence revealed by a row of stone spikes punching up from the ground to stab at the spider's abdomen. Ichor flowed from the wounds, but the spider didn't seem to notice. If anything it went into a frenzy of its own. When a couple more spikes pounded into its thorax it gave up on its efforts to remove Henry from its face. It was mostly blind and thoroughly enraged, and it began flailing madly in every direction with every limb it possessed. Henry was thrown clear by the bucking, and the spider did a huge amount of damage to itself on the stone spikes.

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Bernard wasn't thrown clear. Bernard was still attached to it by its own webbing. Bernard got to go on the world's worst carnival ride. He was flung around and battered against the ground, the spider's back, a few of its legs, and even once on its face before it finally died. The worst part about it was that he didn't get knocked out this time, and got the pleasure of feeling every impact.

When it ended he waited a minute before trying to get to his feet. Everything hurt, but he somehow, miraculously, didn't have any more broken bones. His ribs had definitely re-cracked, but he could feel that it wasn't as bad as the original break. "Stupid to go into a fight with partly healed broken bones in the first place." He muttered before checking for Aegis messages. He was beginning to think that, well, thinking about them after a fight was what triggered them to appear.

Congratulations! Your party has slain a level fourteen voidling queen!

Congratulations! You have earned enough energy to advance to level seven! Would you like to advance now? Alert: Multiple simultaneous level increases have been found to be hazardous to mental health, proceed with caution.

Leo was gaping at him. "How, how are you still alive?!"

Bernard looked down at his battered armor, blood leaking from between plates here and there, obvious punctures in his shoulders, and smears of spider innards splattered all over him. "I'm still awake, so I'm giving that one a six out of ten." He said with a shrug. The shrug made him wince. "Ouch. Word of advice: don't shrug when you have stab wounds in your shoulders. Unpleasant."

"What? No, I mean, you should be dead. Nobody should be able to survive being slammed around like that. The first impact should have killed you, let alone the rest of them!" Leo sputtered.

"If he died, he wouldn't be able to get chewed on by anything else." Henry said matter-of-factly.

Bernard stopped himself from shrugging again. "I don't know, but I'm not going to complain about being harder to kill. Come on, let's get back to the others, I'm starving and would like to level up." He looked around at the carnage surrounding them. "What do you think spider legs taste like?"

Leo and Henry answered simultaneously.

"Absolutely not."

"No way are we eating spider anything."

*****

It didn't take long to get back to the others despite their slower pace. Bernard was in agony by the time they made it back. The adrenaline leaving his system allowed his body to make him acutely aware of the abuse he just put it through. He also felt like he could eat a horse. He forgot his pain and suffering for a moment when they arrived and he spotted a small heap of dead spiders near the area they set up camp.

"What happened?" He demanded.

"After you were called away by the forest, Curupira, we were attacked by these demons. We were able to kill them all with only a few hunters getting injured." One of the hunters informed him. Peytah, Bernard thought, still trying to memorize their names.

"Alright, I need food and to level, do we have anything ready to eat?"

"We can begin preparing a meal right away, Curupira." A woman said quickly, before turning and speaking with a couple other women.

"Alright. I'm going to level real quick, you guys should do the same if you can." Bernard said to Leo and Henry as he sat down with a groan. He thought about leveling. He was promptly blasted by a euphoric wave of energy that made it abundantly clear why taking multiple level ups at once could cause issues. He could easily get addicted to the sensation.

Congratulations! You have reached level seven in your class, Arboreal Warden, you may select one of the following feats! Well-rooted, Gift of the Jaguar, or Iron Bark.

Two levels, but only one feat. It looked as though he would get a feat every odd level so far, with the only outlier being the one where he was awarded an extra feat on an even level. He wanted to take Well-rooted no matter what, but curiosity got the better of him and he checked Gift.

Gift of the Jaguar: See the forest through the eyes of the Jaguar. User gains improved eyesight, hearing, and sense of smell equivalent to that of a jaguar.

Well okay then. I'm definitely taking that one. To hell with the Well-rooted feat for now. No sooner had he thought it than the process was finalized and his eyes, nose, and ears burned. It only lasted a minute or so, but it was easily one of the most unpleasant things he ever experienced and it worked wonders to combat the addictive sensation of leveling.

Your ward has selected Way of the Rising Wind for your consideration.

Monks following the Way of the Rising Wind aim to become as free and fast as the wind itself. The culmination of this path is to be one with the wind, to follow the breeze wherever it roams.

Bernard accepted it. He trusted the kid to make well reasoned choices when it came to his class by this point, and he didn't know nearly enough about it to dictate what he took.

When he came out of the leveling cloud he blinked in surprise at the drastic difference in how everything looked. Some colors seemed muted, but everything was clearly defined and the world was considerably brighter than it had been before he leveled. He could also easily pick out distinct scents. He didn't know what each one meant or exactly what it was, but he could distinguish between them at will instead of one overpowering the others.

He could also clearly hear conversations that had just been faint background noise a minute ago. None of them were of any particular importance, so he ignored them, but his ability to eavesdrop was now unparalleled. He glanced over to Henry. "So, a new Way? Do you lose your other Way or do you keep them both?" Henry didn't answer, he just stared at him. "What?"

"Your eyes are glowing."