After enjoying her meal, Sam settled into a cross-legged position on the ground by the fire and closed her eyes. She wondered why she had not received a safe zone notification. Still, she figured it might have something to do with her conversation with Alice. She listened to the conversation happening around her as she meditated.
“Is she asleep?” Arron’s voice was a whisper.
“No, only deep in meditation,” Alice answered. She didn’t bother to whisper.
Arron hissed but didn’t speak after that.
Sam had two mana threads pointed at each of them, ready to attack at any sign of aggression. She barely managed to keep from jerking when Alice reached down and grabbed one of the threads next to her. Sam felt a strange tug in her mana core. It felt to Sam like Alice was trying to draw mana from the thread in her hand. After several failed attempts, the woman released the thread and lay down on her bedroll as if nothing had happened. Alina, who had woken up again to eat, also went back to sleep. Arron stayed up with Sam and kept the fire stoked.
Sam kept a careful watch on all of them for the next few hours until morning.
***
When the sun climbed over the horizon to begin its slow arc across the sky, Arron asked Sam, "You wouldn't happen to have some more of those steaks, would you?"
Uncrossing her legs, Sam produced four steaks and handed them to Arron without responding.
They sat in silence as Arron cooked their breakfast on a camp skillet. Sam poked the lightly snoring Alice, waking her up for breakfast.
Handing her a steak on a wooden plate, Arron cleared his throat before saying, "I am truly grateful to you for saving us, Sam. I'll not lie; Last night was likely going to be our final night alive if it weren't for you. So, um, thank you…again."
“Pretty sure this isn’t the second time you thanked me,” Sam said with a wry smile.
"Oh, uh, isn't it, though?" Arron acted surprised.
"Nope. You just told me to stay away, and when that didn't work, you tried to swindle me out of a dozen or more kills," Sam smiled at Arron; it wasn't a friendly smile.
Arron sputtered and mumbled a few things that Sam ignored. She was thinking about how her linguistics skill had translated the word 'dozen.' What she had actually told Arron was, "You swindled me out of two more than two past an even ten kills." There was no magical translator; she was speaking the language. Sam summed that interesting tidbit of knowledge up in one brilliantly enlightened thought, “Huh.”
"I'm sorry, what?" Sam realized Alina had asked her a question while she was lost in her musings.
"Thank you, Miss Samantha…for saving me."
"Oh, don't mention it. I was kinda of impressed at how long you stayed on your feet after losing an arm. When my arm was bitten off the first time, it sucked," Sam said absently, not really into being thanked for being a decent human.
Alina stared at her, “the first time?”
Alice snapped her fingers, causing some grease from the steak she was eating to spatter on Sam's cheek, "that's right! You were missing most of an arm after your fight with the alpha. I didn’t see when the beast bit off your arm, but I bet it was awful.”
"Oh, that’s the second arm I’ve lost this week. And it didn't bite off my arm. I cut it off for a reason that I am not going to share, so don't ask," with that said, Sam bit into her own steak, letting the delicious grease dribble down the sides of her mouth. She ignored the open-mouthed stares and enjoyed her meal.
***
The party headed out shortly after breakfast. It would take a day and a half to get to the closest road, and from there, it would take the same time before they arrived at Helms Peak. Arron did warn Sam the last five kilometers were up a winding path through a mountain pass.
Sam was on edge traveling with these people but was still excited; she would get to see her first city in this new world.
When they stopped for a midday meal, Sam decided it was time to get some answers to some of the questions that had been plaguing her since arriving in this new world…like the actual name of said world. She picked the person who seemed most likely to talk.
"So, Alice, where are all of you from? Helm's Peak?" Sam asked, moving beside her as they hiked and matching her pace.
After a furtive glance toward Arron, who nodded, Alice answered, "We aren't. We are just passing through and needed some coin, so we took a beast culling job from the local guild hall."
"The contract didn't mention an alpha, much less an elite," Arron gruffed.
Making sure Arron was finished speaking, Alice continued. She told Sam a quick version of how they were on their way to a tournament that would be held in roughly six months on an island kingdom called Makaria.
Sam was secretly zooming her map around as Alice spoke and was pleased to see that the names of the two forests, the river, and the kingdom they were in had been updated. She zoomed out as far as she could. Still, unfortunately, neither Helms Peak nor Makaria could be seen in the obfuscation covering the untraveled portions of her map. She wasn't really interested in the tournament, but the island kingdom sounded nice. “I wouldn’t mind chilling on a beach for a while after the shit I’ve been through lately.”
Sam interrupted Alice before she could go into details about the tournament, asking, "Do you also call this planet PN4O9VSCA?" Sam had no idea what the number represented; it was the stupid code that stayed at the top of her damn map. The number or alphanumeric code was also etched on every System-generated piece of equipment she had, like a serial number of sorts. Even the items from her loot skill had it on them, except on those items, it read (S.A.M.) PN4O9VSCA in such a small print, the lettering looked more like a blemish than actual lettering. It was driving her nuts. She knew it had to stand for something but didn't have the first clue what it was.
Alice looked at Sam like she was an alien, which she technically was, before slowly shaking her head. “No, we don’t call it that. What a strange thing to call a planet. I cannot think of any reason why someone would want to call Hallista such a thing.”
“Yes!” Sam inwardly cheered. The lettering on her map now read: [HALLISTA] PN409VSCA. She now had a sneaking suspicion the number was either a point of origin stamp or her system ID.
Sam had an idea, “you wouldn’t happen to have a map of the region, would you?” she asked the group, “or any map for that matter. Maybe I can find something I recognize on it that will help me get back home.”
***
Unfortunately, the group didn't have a map. They had a journal in which they recorded their own map as they traveled. Arron reluctantly let Sam look through it. Sam examined it closely, comparing it to her map, but nothing updated. She figured it was because the sketches were too crude, or maybe her skill just didn't work that way. Alina mentioned the Cartographers Guild had an office in Helms Peak, so Sam decided to try going there once she was settled in the city.
As they hiked, Sam gleaned little bits of information. Helms Peak was a border town between Orlina and the Beast Lands. At the name, Sam assumed the beast lands meant it was a savage land full of…well…beasts; she was wrong. The beast lands were simply a region where nomadic tribes of beastkin roamed. There was even a good bit of coin to be made if you could convince the tribes to trade with you. That isn't to say it wasn't dangerous. Just the entry point of the region was level eighty to one hundred, and it wasn't recommended for under-leveled travelers to enter without a high-level escort.
Sam listened as the others discussed gossip they had picked up in Helms Peak about travelers disappearing from the road, snatched up by beastkin. Still, Alina insisted it was just the city guard or Adventurers Guild trying to frighten citizens and merchants into hiring adventurers as escorts.
When Sam asked why anyone would want to live in a border city if traveling outside the gates was dangerous. Alina scoffed, "Because of the coin, of course!" Came her quick reply. "I heard entry-level guards make a whole gold per month! And if they serve for five years, they are given a year’s wages and twenty acres of land!”
Arron interjected, "I doubt it's that much, but you probably aren't too far off." He hopped over a fallen tree and continued, "Higher pay means higher prices. In the end, the merchants and royalty always come out on top."
That statement left Sam confused, “aren’t you a merchant? Alice said you are a blacksmith.”
Arron smiled, “Aye, that I am. I’m just a little short on funds at the moment. I’m waiting on some investments to pay off.” He glanced at Alice for the briefest of moments when he said it.
***
The rest of their day went on uneventfully, and they hiked until the late evening. They found the campsite Arron's group had used on their journey the previous night.
“So much for LNT,” Sam thought when they arrived at the cleared area, complete with left-over rubbish and chopped-down trees repurposed into benches surrounding a still slightly smoldering campfire. “Not that I have been that much better, but at least I clear up my campsites and don’t leave trash or a smoldering fire behind.”
Seeing Sam's disapproving glare at the surroundings, Arron said, "We weren't planning to be gone that long, but we found the trail of some wolves when we were scouting and knew we couldn't waste time. Time is coin, after all."
Sam seriously doubted the validity of his words but didn't say anything. She instead moved to one side of the cleared area and produced her own firepit. She threw some of the firewood she had been gathering as she hiked into the stone ring and had a small campfire going in no time. It was clear she would not be joining them by their fire that night. Even Alice, who had so far stayed close to Sam the entire trip, had the good sense to realize she wasn't wanted. Sam really didn't care if the woman shared her camp but wasn't going to invite her over either.
Sam did not receive a safe zone notification even after she put up her lean-to. Alina had mentioned, in passing, something about them being too close to civilization for the system to activate a safe zone. The way the woman wouldn't meet her gaze when she said it made Sam suspicious. Too many questions, not enough answers. She knew tonight would be another sleepless night of meditation. That didn't bother Sam, and she relaxed by the fire as her steak roasted. Listening to the sizzling of the meat as it cooked, along with the sounds of the forest, put her mind at peace.
Arron, however, was not at peace. He was ranting about what he would do to the Guild master for posting such a dangerous contract with no level restrictions. He was right in the middle of a particularly graphic description of how the hot tongs he shoved up the man's ass would cause his bowls to explode when he abruptly stopped mid-sentence.
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
The sudden silence was broken by Alina’s scream!
Sam jumped up and looked at Arron in stunned horror. His mouth opened and closed like a fish, but no sounds came out. There was a bloody arrowhead protruding from his temple. Sam watched helplessly as his eyes, wide and full of surprise, became empty in death.
***
Even as Arron's lifeless body slumped to the forest floor, Sam detected another projectile flying from the trees in her mana sight, pulsing red with mana and heading straight at Alina. Sam tried to yell a warning, but it was too late, and her mana threads were too far away to deflect the arrow.
To her credit, Alina sensed the arrow and reacted quickly, dodging out of its path. To everyone's surprise, the arrow changed its trajectory mid-flight and hit Alina just above her collarbone. The arrow didn't penetrate much, and Alice, who had jumped behind Alina, grabbed it to pull it out.
Sam saw the red energy in the arrow glow brighter and screamed at the pair, "It's going to explo—" She hasn’t gotten the word out when the arrow did just that. It wasn't a large explosion, only sounding like a loud bang, but it was enough to blow half of Alina's head off and splinter some of her armor.
Alice was thrown to the ground by the force of the explosion. Her hand and most of her jaw was missing, and Sam could see shrapnel from Alina's armor in the woman's upper torso. So far, only seconds had passed, and two people she traveled with were dead. Sam was frozen in shock.
A voice boomed through the dusky forest, yanking Sam from her shock, "dammit, Lita! I said keep the fucking healer alive, you stupid fuck! Pip, get in there and kill the other one. Lita, go give the healer a potion, ram it down her throat if you have to! I swear if she dies, I'm taking it out of both of your pay!"
Sam saw two people appear out of nowhere on the other side of the camp from her. One was a pretty young woman with brown hair. She had a bow in her hand and was dressed in dark green form-fitting leather armor. She looked at Sam with a smirk and walked over to kneel by Alice. Producing a health potion, she started carefully pouring it into Alice's destroyed mouth.
“They were right there the whole time, and I didn’t even see them with my mana sight. I didn’t think that was possible,” Sam thought, then used identify on the woman.
‘Bing’ Ranger; [Level ??]; Hostile; Affinity: Fire; Gravity
The other person was a short, stout man with a scruffy blond beard and matching hair. He was also wearing leather armor; only his was brown. Dual bandoleers crossed his chest full of daggers.
‘Bing’ Rogue; [Level ??]; Hostile; Affinity: Wind
The rogue smiled widely at Sam as he approached her. He stopped when he was about five meters away and made a show of pulling out one of his daggers and licking the blade before pointing it at her, saying, "Don't worry, lass, this will only hurt for a second."
“Oh, you’ve got that right mother fucker,” Sam thought, fighting back the entirely rational fear that gripped her. “Am I just kidding myself? Can I really survive this? Maybe I can run…but I don’t know where the other one is.”
With a flick of his wrist, the rogue, Pip presumably, sent a dagger flying toward Sam's heart, surprising her. She wasn't surprised at the attack; she knew it was coming. What surprised her was how…slow it was. Come to think of it, the arrow had seemed slow also, not slow enough to dodge but slow enough that she had been able to track its flight. Watching the dagger fly toward her, realizing there was no way it would hit her, made her think, "Have I already become that much more powerful just from one fight?"
Sam held out her hand. Pip's dagger stopped just short of striking her outstretched palm. It was stuck in a construct Sam had been experimenting with to help her against Blade Tails if she ever encountered another one. She had created a sphere of ballistics gel, or at least that's how it functioned. It was her new defense against a kinetic force designed to absorb and dissipate attacks instead of blocking them outright. It was Sam's turn to smile at Pip.
“Shit! She’s a mage. Dale, get out here and deal with—”
Pip's words were cut short when his entire body was peppered by as many mana spikes as Sam could fire. Her attacks didn't kill the rogue but did make him retreat toward the ranger, holding his forearms up to protect his head with his bracers.
The ranger Sam assumed was Lita grabbed Alice's legs and dragged the healer toward a tree for cover. Sam turned her attention to Lita and started sending mana spikes toward her. The spikes didn't have near the effect they usually did when she was fighting beasts and only seemed enough to harass the two combatants. Lita reluctantly released Alice because of Sam's attacks and covered her face like Pip had.
“Dale! Do something!” Lita shouted.
“That healer better not be dead!” The booming voice from before called out.
Sam was about to send a disk blade at Pip but had to duck and jump back when two spears of ice flew at her from the forest. Her only warning the attack was coming had been when the air around her grew significantly colder. The ice spears flew past with a zinging sound, leaving a trail of cold mist in their wake.
“I got her! Grab the healer!” Dale called out.
Several more ice spears came zinging in from the forest, forcing Sam to take cover behind a tree. She managed to stop one with a ballistic sphere. The temperature of the spear froze her construct instantly, and it shattered, sending the familiar spike of pain from mana backlash into her brain.
Sam was not exactly low on mana, but she knew she could not keep this up for much longer. “What am I going to do?” She was watching Lita and Pip with her mana threads. Dale had not shown himself yet, and that worried her. “He could be circling around to flank me. If I run now, I might be able to get away from them,” Sam closed her eyes and focused on her mana sight while trying to calm her breathing and enter meditation. She was going to fight, and she knew it. "If I don't do this, I will regret it. It's not even for Alice, I don't think. It's for my own peace of mind." She felt a spark of anger flare in her chest, replacing the lingering fear. These assholes had killed two people she had just saved and tried to kill her. Just who did they think they were?
***
Pip gulped down a health potion and threw the empty container to the side. He knew it was wasteful, but he didn't care; he was pissed. That stupid girl had nearly killed him. At first, he thought her attack was a distraction so she could flee. That is until he noticed his health dropping steadily. The bitch was bypassing his armor enchantment somehow!
He grabbed the healer and finished dragging her behind a tree while Lita watched the tree the little bitch had jumped behind to get away from Dale's ice spears. Lita held her bow at the ready.
When Pip finished dragging the healer behind the tree, Lita backed around it slowly, not taking her eyes off where the mage was hiding.
"What kind of a mage is she? Did you identify her?" Lita asked through her teeth, "That attack was killing me! And where the fuck is Dale?"
"She's a Pathfinder, whatever that is. She's only level nineteen, too." Pip responded to her first questions.
“WHAT? Level nineteen? How could she…never mind… Dale will deal with her. He’s probably circling around now.” Lita shook her head in dismay. A level nineteen had forced them to fall back. She hoped word of this never got out.
***
Sam drank a mana potion to speed up her regeneration time. She had decided to switch from spikes to bolts since the spikes weren't penetrating the leather armor the two were wearing anyway. So there was no reason to keep using the spikes at such a high mana cost, considering she was using all her mana threads to fire them, which put her at 180 mana per second, even with her large mana pool and high regeneration rate, that still put her at barely fifteen seconds of sustained attack. So now she would use little teardrop-shaped energy bolts only slightly larger than her thumb. They only took one mana per cast. She just hoped they had the same distracting effects as her spikes had.
After scanning the forest for the elusive Dale and finding nothing, she decided to attack the other two killers. She had found them hiding behind a tree with her mana threads. The ranger was standing beside a tree with her bow at the ready staring straight at Sam’s position.
“Here goes nothing.” Sam thought as she ran out from behind her cover, sending a bladed disk out from one of her threads to cut the ranger's bowstring. She started firing arcane bolts at Lita, who drew her bow and loosed an arrow just as Sam's blade hit the string.
Several actions happened in quick succession. The blade disk hit the bowstring, snapping it. The arrow Lita fired stopped in midair after traveling less than a meter. The ranger covered her head to protect it against the bombardment of arcane bolts just as her exploding arrow was deposited at her feet by Sam's mana thread holding one of her ballistic gel constructs.
Sam continued sprinting toward Lita, keeping up her barrage even after the arrow exploded, knocking the woman to the ground, where she writhed in pain. Sam ducked under a slash from Pip as she ran past him. She drove both of her fully charged arcane daggers into Lita's chest. Armor or not, the daggers slid easily into the woman, and Sam received a kill notification an instant later.
‘Bing’ Ranger [Lita]; Level 48 Defeated. Bonus experience awarded for defeating an enemy 20 or more levels above your own.
‘Bing’ Race Human has leveled up to Level 20, 5 free stat points received.
‘Bing’ Class Arcane Pathfinder has leveled up to Level 21, 10 free stat points received.
Sam had to roll away from an ice spear, barely dodging it in time. The spear was so cold she lost feeling in the upper part of her left leg when it grazed her hip.
Sam's numb leg prevented her from dodging a dagger strike from Pip when she came up from her roll. She felt a searing pain in her back when it hit home.
'Bing' You have been poisoned with Cyan Death Toxin! -100 hp/sec for 300 seconds; -100 sp/sec for 300 seconds; -100 mp/sec for 300 seconds. Additionally, your mana is now toxic, and using it will result in health and stamina damage.
‘Bing’ Crystal mana channels have negated mana poisoning and mana loss from Cyan Death Toxin. All other effects remain.
Sam jumped away from Pip and turned. He was looking at her with a huge grin.
"You're not so tough without mana, are you? I bet I could walk over there and cut your pretty little—" Pip's words were cut off for the second time that evening when Sam grabbed him with all her mana threads and yanked them together. She thrust her daggers into his chest just as she had done with Lita and twisted. Pip's eyes were still wide with shocked disbelief when she jumped back to dodge an ice spear.
Sam fell to her knees. The toxin’s stamina drain was taking its toll. She felt a sustained blast of sub-zero wind wash over her and immediately lost all feeling in her extremities. As the wind continued, she felt her eyes freeze solid along with the rest of her body. It was both painful and numbing at the same time.
***
Pip was fumbling with a potion when Dale walked over to him, flecks of ice flaking off his blue-white robes. Pip's frozen fingers were making the simple act of removing a stopper almost impossible. Dale snatched the potion from Pip's hands and, popping the cork, helped Pip drink it.
Pip managed to get another potion on his own, and Dale moved away to check on Lita and the injured healer.
Once he had recovered enough to speak, Pip snapped, "dammit, Dale! What took you so long?"
Dale, who had already confirmed Lita, was dead and checked that the healer was still alive, forcing another healing potion down her throat. Was now staring at the frozen woman when Pip spoke. He ignored Pip and said, "She's still alive."
"Who is? The healer? Good, at least we'll get paid," Pip said, struggling to his feet. The dagger wounds in his chest finally healed enough to stop bleeding. "What the fuck is a Pathfinder? That bitch fought like a level fifty battle mage at level nineteen!" He looked where Lita had fallen and sighed, "damn bitch got Lita too. I have to admit, I would have never thought it possible she would go down so quickly."
“The Pathfinder,” Dale hadn’t taken his eyes off the frozen woman, “she is still alive.”
Pip took an involuntary step back, exclaiming, "Well, then fucking kill her!" To add action to his statement, he drew one of his daggers and started toward the woman, only to be stopped by Dale holding out an arm.
“Wait, I want to see what happens,” Dale said calmly.
"Dale! Didn't you see what she can do? There is no telling what she's cooking up under that ice!" Pip was exasperated that his leader was being so careless.
“Didn’t you poison her?” Dale asked, turning to Pip.
"I, oh yeah, I did hit her with the good stuff," Pip said with an evil grin, then frowned when he remembered, "and it didn't fucking work!"
"It could have worked, but she just powered through it until I froze her," Dale retorted.
"All the more reason to finish her now while we have the chance, Dale." Pip was almost pleading now, "Let's cut our losses, kill the Pathfinder, grab the healer, and…wait, where is the healer?"
Both men turned to where Pip was looking. Their target, which had been lying against the tree, was no longer there. Instead of a bloodied young woman in healer robes, there was only a pool of blood on the ground.
“She couldn’t have gotten far. Find her and bring her back,” Dale snapped. He was no longer calm. “I’ll deal with this one,” he said as he gestured to Sam.
Pip was already rounding the tree Alice had been lying against as Dale spoke. Seeing his orders were being obeyed, Dale turned back to the frozen woman. He didn't see the pale grey figure land on top of Pip, its clawed fingers digging deep into the rogue's throat, stifling his scream.
Dale only made it two steps when a grey blur slammed into his side, knocking him to the ground. He tried to wrestle the creature off, but it was too flexible. Every time Dale thought he had the creature pinned, the slippery thing managed to get out of his grip. He could also feel his mana being drained as they grappled; he couldn't even cast a spell at the damn thing.
The struggle ended moments later when the creature managed to latch onto Dale's throat with its mouth. As he lay on the ground dying, Dale's final thought was, “A Moonblight, but how?”
***
A short time after Dale stopped twitching, the creature pushed itself off of him, blood dripping from a mouth full of sharp teeth. Turning its attention to Sam's frozen form, it slowly stalked over to her and knelt. Jet-black eyes stared into the icy eyes of the Pathfinder. The creature leaned forward and sniffed, and a wide, toothy smile spread across its face.
The creature sat on its haunches, patiently waiting for its prey to thaw.