Ranthia’s rank exam was a simple task, she just needed to complete a B-Ranked job solo. Reportedly, roughly a day’s journey from Sardonia a group of goblins had established a camp and harassed the miners and freight haulers that worked in the outer reaches of the mining claim. The best estimates from witness reports suggested that there were six to eight goblins.
Ranthia visited an alchemist’s shop, the one that she typically patroned after her relationship with her ex had soured, to buy one special extra tool before she set out from town. A day’s journey wasn’t exactly a brief jaunt, though at least the privacy granted her another opportunity for training.
Once she was clear of town, she generated the ‘male’ image, which she had decided to call Amaus (hey it was high time she found some use for the first bit of her ‘official’ name that she had abandoned, he could have the Ama-). [Reflective Motility] was still a skill that she struggled with sometimes, so she devoted headspace to having him jog alongside her. It was good practice and, occasionally, she discovered further little tweaks that she needed to make to his movements to keep them realistic—making his masculine chest stop reacting to motion like her breasts proved particularly finicky—but all her practice with complex mental images had made her other skills feel significantly easier to use. It was the difference between something finicky and something that would have given her a headache a year ago. Though it would probably still manage to give her a headache over time if she was splitting her focus to channel at the same time.
That night she snared a wild rabbit—proof that she wasn’t going to miss [Crafting Traps & Alarms]—and created a simple perimeter alarm with her camp cooking set after she ate a simple field-cooked rabbit stew. Then she curled up in her new travel cloak under the stars and fell asleep while Amaus ‘stood watch’.
The next morning, Amaus was gone. Ranthia actually wasted more bleary, half-awake moments than she cared to admit searching for him out of sheer drowsy idiocy before she caught herself (honestly, it wasn’t like her images had their own will). After, she took her perimeter alarm down and stowed everything while she ate some scavenged berries and a travel biscuit for breakfast.
It was about then that she realized that she’d come closer to death than she’d ever known while fighting the ankylosaurus. If her images disappeared when she slept… She had come so close to falling unconscious when she succumbed to the extreme headache she had developed during that grueling battle! She hadn’t been in her true body; had she actually blacked out or fallen asleep…
…She probably wouldn’t have ever woken up, since her true body would have been lost.
Ranthia needed a moment before she got moving.
She continued her journey, with the recreated Amaus at her side. At long last, close to lunch time, she finally arrived in the right area and a few miners were able to point her—at least after she used [Echoes Reflected] on Amaus and had him ask in a distorted tone that made him sound sick (the miners were eager to hurry them along after that)—in the right direction for the goblins. Ranthia began to channel after they left the miners behind, in hopes of having her mana restored by the time she arrived. Amaus moved considerably worse while she was distracted—yet another thing she needed to practice more, which meant more pointless headaches—but that probably wouldn’t matter.
The goblins had infested a sinkhole at the bottom of a rocky hill. There was a crude implement that wasn’t wholly unrelated to a ladder, crafted out of vines and dried strips of flesh, that was secured to a boulder near the sinkhole. A certain twisted part of Ranthia was tempted to destroy the ladder, shove the boulder into the sinkhole, and see if that was enough to end the threat.
Cruelty aspects aside, that plan risked the goblins escaping or having a tunnel somewhere underground that they could also use. It wasn’t like she was equipped to sit there for a week or two to see if they starved to death either.
At least there didn’t seem to be any guards stationed and Ranthia hoped that she hadn’t managed to catch the goblins while they weren’t at home. The problem with staging an ambush in their own home was the very real risk that it’d work out poorly for her if they caught her unawares or entered in an unexpected fashion.
After a bit of stealthy searching, Ranthia found a little crevice within range that offered her real body a bit of shelter and positioned Amaus nearby as a guard-slash-distraction. Ranthia knelt and tucked herself into the crevice, as out of sight as she could manage, then created a new mirror image of herself closer to the sinkhole and concluded her channel so she could shift into it.
Her new mirror slowly crept toward the sinkhole, with [Shadowed Steps] making her approach less obvious. Once she reached the opening, she crouched down and carefully peeked into the sinkhole for a brief moment before she withdrew, wishing that she had gotten there early enough that the sun hadn’t been directly overhead.
There was way too high a risk that they’d notice her head blocking their light if she took more than a quick peek!
[Identify] seemed to be absolutely refusing to cooperate with quick peeks, but she wasn’t about to repeatedly try until she got caught due to the blasted skill. In the end, they were goblins.
The goblins seemed to all be home. They were all sitting around eating meat that Ranthia really didn’t want to think too much about. She had only gotten a glimpse, but she had a sickening feeling that she knew exactly what it had come from.
At least her newfound anger helped her feel far more justified in her next actions. With anticipatory glee, she carefully removed the little alchemical concoction she had bought then struck flint against one of her knives to ignite the little strip of oil-soaked cloth that stuck out of the clay vessel. Then, the instant she was certain that it caught, she hurriedly flung the vessel into the sinkhole toward where the larger cluster of goblins had sat.
Ever since Ranthia had first seen the alchemical firebombs on display she had been wildly tempted to buy one. She had accepted that she’d never be a spell-slinging battle mage—at least unless she somehow defied Remus standards and ever attained her third class, at which time she’d revisit it—but the idea of throwing something that unleashed a devastating blast still just… spoke to her.
…Very possibly it was just the teenage part of her, but it still spoke to her.
Unfortunately, the blast wasn’t devastating. Honestly, it was a pale shadow of what a middling classer could do. Ranthia was especially disappointed that she didn’t even get any kill notifications. But it was still a fiery blast in the middle of their home. Chaos was born amid the goblins.
She followed the underwhelming firebomb up with half a dozen mirror images sent one-by-one into the sinkhole at semi-random locations, each set to perform a few different mundane actions. Further chaos. Ranthia studied that chaos and, a heartbeat later, she locked her gaze onto a goblin that seemed to be screaming in a way that—maybe—was meant to direct the others.
Ranthia launched herself straight at it. She wanted to throw an image next to it, shift, and bury a knife or two in something soft and vital… but the mana costs were kind of prohibitive. She needed more mana than a single mana potion could provide to recover, which meant she needed to indulge in some recklessness.
She was only in a false body anyway. They were expendable, so long as she had the mana to get out if things went wrong.
Ranthia’s feet collided with the goblin in the most impressive flying kick she had ever even seen. Her weight and force smashed the goblin into the ground. Her knees screamed in protest, but she still followed it up by slashing the goblin with her knives.
And now she knew why she’d never seen anything like what she had done. Bones be damned, her legs hurt! But it had worked and her body wasn’t yet spent.
[*ding!* You have slain a [Goblin Warband Leader] (Spore, level 137)!]
…Ranthia was, albeit briefly, dangerously distracted by the kill notification. If that had been the leader, then these goblins were all dangerously close to her level! With advanced elements to boot. She sorely regretted that she hadn’t checked before she dove amidst them, it was a blunder that she could only partially blame on how wildly unreliable [Identify] had become.
She had cost herself precious information that would have changed her strategy, but she had to roll with it. At least none of the goblins seemed to have taken advantage of her momentary lapse in focus.
Ranthia briefly took a moment while she surveyed the goblins to weigh her options. Channeling for [Reflections of Reality] was probably safer—especially with her legs already injured—but channeling required so much concentration she almost felt like she couldn’t afford the distraction at the moment. The more images she kept up and running in a believable fashion probably counted for more, at least at the moment.
Plan—grudgingly—set, Ranthia began to move, relying on her images to screen her. Soon she reached a pair of goblins that had previously been, probably romantically—gross—sharing a roasted leg… which proved her earlier suspicion, since it was difficult to miss the foot that was still attached to the dropped limb. The two had found their feet and were scrambling for nearby crude implements that probably served as their weaponry.
But Ranthia caught up before they were ready. [Blades of Darkness] could empower more than a single blade at once, and she drove both dark covered blades into the backs of both goblins simultaneously, straight through their hearts. Neither had quite grasped their weapons before they perished.
[*ding!* You have slain a [Goblin War Chef] (Inferno, level 141)!]
[*ding!* You have slain a [Goblin War Sapper] (Gravity, level 129)!]
…The [Leader] hadn’t been the highest leveled goblin?! Chefs were important but Ranthia struggled to imagine the chef was the highest level goblin in the group.
Oh Xaoc, what if the [Leader] had been new? It made a horrific amount of sense by Reman standards. Some newly appointed fool, given veteran troops…
She was getting distracted; she couldn’t afford that—she’d even decided not to channel to avoid distraction. She threw out four more mirror images—replacing the three that had been destroyed in the growing melee—while she took a brief moment to see what goblins were left. The information hadn’t just been incomplete, it was also fucking outright wrong. There were still nine goblins left in the cave, even after her three kills. One—which cut down her mirror images with ease no matter how she tried to have them dodge—wielded a battleaxe that was definitely human-made.
And yet [Identify] still refused to give her any information!
Ranthia drank a mana potion to try to ensure she stayed close to full mana while she fought. Someday she’d get used to the taste, she hoped.
Ranthia moved, sending new images as quickly as [Scattered Reflections] allowed. They were being destroyed with frightful efficiency, but the best she could do was try to avoid the thick of the battle.
Which was why her next target was a goblin that had begun to back away from the battle, one that had been burnt by the firebomb that she had thrown. Ranthia—and many of her images—entered into sprints at the same moment—more or less—and soon she shoved her [Blades of Darkness] empowered knife into its throat.
[Boosted Reflexes] never even saw the danger coming. Ranthia stumbled back as an arrow buried itself in her chest. A second followed it, but she managed to deflect that one with her knife.
Her breaths were weirdly shallow, the arrow had probably punctured a lung. She wasn’t dead, but she was on a timer. Ranthia abandoned her efforts to keep her images moving and focused entirely on her channel and her personal defenses.
One heartbeat. Two.
Another arrow, narrowly dodged. Perhaps a glancing blow. Irrelevant.
The third heartbeat happened during that. The fourth followed.
Another arrow. No space to dodge, instead Ranthia dropped. It still took her in the shoulder during her fifth.
Sixth. How the fuck was the goblin archer shooting so fast?! Another arrow was deflected with her knife—narrowly—before her seventh.
How long did she need?! Ranthia screamed in her mind, even as she finally hit the ground.
Eight.
[*ding!* You have slain a [Goblin War Priest] (Sound, level 167)!]
The goblin she’d cut the throat of finally died, not that she had any mental space to check the notification.
Nine.
[Reflections of Reality] was ready and Ranthia triggered the skill. Which began another countdown, the several heartbeats [Reflections of Reality]’s effects required. Another arrow sank into her stomach. Ranthia rolled, which allowed the arrows embedded in her to tear through her flesh.
And then, suddenly, she was in another image, just in time to watch an arrow pierce through the head of the wounded image she had escaped, shattering it.
Ranthia needed a moment, but she couldn’t take one. Instead, she gamely snatched up and consumed another mana potion, though she nearly choked on it when she paid more attention to the last kill notification.
The fucking beasts also came in outright higher levels than her too! The situation was kind of fucked, but she wasn’t out yet.
Her next several, long moments were spent throwing out scattered groups of mirror images while she choked down yet another mana potion. They hadn’t seemed to notice her currently inhabited body just yet at least. Though her mirror images were being shot down by that same accursed archer with dreadful speed.
Well since she was safe for the moment—and lacked the mana to start channeling again—Ranthia led the archer on a merry little chase. Images were cheap to make, compared to most other things she could use her mana for. Even [Blades of Darkness] could easily and rapidly consume more mana as it deleted the mostly still wind that surrounded her, which was why she tended to pulse the skill. She let the ugly creature think she was going for an escape, or however the goblins’ savage little minds parsed events.
But at last, the goblins were focused on a space far away and Ranthia crept closer with [Shadowed Steps] as quickly as she dared. It was hard not to obsess about the math—they were starting to destroy her images faster than she could create them—but she needed to keep their focus drawn. If she ran they’d notice her, no matter how quietly she moved. She needed cover, she needed care. She closed the gap, as the numbers of active images dropped rapidly.
And then she was out of fucking time!
The goblins were momentarily confused when the last image fell and in that moment Ranthia lunged for the archer. Her [Blades of Darkness] empowered knives pieced its back and side moments before she shoulder-checked it directly between its shoulder blades. They crashed into the ground as Ranthia continually slashed at the still alive goblin, relying desperately on [Blades of Darkness] and [Critical Strike].
[*ding!* You have slain a [Goblin Slaughter-Bringer] (Gale, level 191)!]
By all the gods this was a ridiculously dangerous job! Who knew goblins even became this powerful?!
The momentary distraction very nearly cost her everything. She only barely sensed the attack coming through [Boosted Reflexes]. She was horribly positioned. There was no time to dodge, there was no time to try to deflect—all she managed to do was get her arm into the path of death. The axe-wielding goblin sank its weapon deep into her arm. Pain blossomed through her very being, but she tried, desperately, to force it aside while she rushed to throw out more mirror images.
The goblin was distracted, which allowed her to narrowly pull away, even as the axe finished cleaving through her arm, then shallowly bit into her chest.
Ranthia couldn’t look, but she was in agony even without knowing the scope of her injuries. Her mirror images attacked the axe-wielder ineffectively as she tried to draw its attention away from her. Another channel began—gods and goddesses she only barely had enough mana—as she tried to play dead.
Ranthia was in a strange haze of pain as she bled out on the filth-strewn ground. Her arm—what was left of it—hurt in a way she had never experienced. Her chest wound felt like it was ablaze. And her head throbbed as she desperately manipulated her images while she channeled. But if she faltered in anything she was dead. Not even an act of Xaoc Himself would save her.
The axe-wielding goblin carved through her images with nearly the same speed as the archer had before she had ended it. She couldn’t even count heartbeats; she had to focus so hard through the pain. One of her images stumbled when her focus dimmed enough that it tripped. She was failing!
Ranthia pressed her focus further. An image further away began to move better than the rest. The goblins ignored it as they shattered her other images with impunity. Had she been able to focus properly she probably could have replaced images faster than they could destroy them without the archer. But her eyes were watering. She was at her limit.
She endured. The channel finished, but she still had to keep her focus. Images stopped appearing—her mana was too spent—but she refocused her efforts on trying to keep the few images that were left upright. Evasion.
Her target was an image she had placed behind two goblins that had their backs to the ‘wall’ of the cavernous sinkhole. There was some sort of gap behind them and Ranthia was grateful that she had stuffed an image crouched into it back there earlier. Because when she finally shifted, she wasn’t convinced she could have even parsed out how to send out a new image into such a complex position.
Immediately Ranthia made several quick thrusts with her knife—fuck, she must have lost her second when she lost her arm—but fortunately these goblins weren’t too resilient. Both died before either could alert their kin.
[*ding!* You have slain a [Goblin War Butcher] (Water, level 138)!]
[*ding!* You have slain a [Goblin War Biter] (Poison, level 144)!]
Ranthia managed to grab both and lower them subtly before either dropped. None of the goblins seemed to have noticed.
She had a precious moment. And she had zero intention of using it to dwell upon how viscerally unpleasant a mental image a Poison aspected [Goblin War Biter] painted. Ugh.
Ranthia stayed crouched, hidden behind the dead goblins, while she drank her fourth mana potion. She was basically tapped out and she did not regenerate fast enough. She had a chance to breathe but she doubted she could stay hidden for part of the day.
What she was wedged into wasn’t a crevice. It was a small tunnel, and she could feel a refreshing cooling breeze through it. It confirmed that they had a second exit, but it also meant that Ranthia had a possible escape route.
…If she intended to abandon her knife and crawl, hoping the goblins didn’t murder her ass-first. Okay, no, she was still committed. With her images gone, the sounds of battle had receded. The goblins made strange noises, though Ranthia somehow doubted it was communication. The beasts were powerful, but they didn’t seem to be any smarter than the garden variety goblins she had previously encountered. They had fallen for the same tricks repeatedly, after all.
Ranthia drank another mana potion—hey, if they didn’t kill her when she fought the ankylosaurus… She was already probably well into diminishing returns though, even if that never seemed quite as severe as the potion maker had warned her.
Her head still throbbed but she was feeling better. The problem was her mana. She couldn’t shift again, not yet. It felt wrong but her best play was to sit tight in their escape tunnel until she heard a goblin approach, or her mana was as restored as it was going to get.
The good news—sort of—was that she was better than halfway through the goblins. She couldn’t relax though; she knew that any one of these monsters were dangerous enough to kill her.
Between the firebomb and the mana potions, she was close to what the job paid—not that it mattered. Only the stupidest of idiots traded their life away to save a few coins. Though she sorely wished she had more mana potions, she was getting dangerously low. Honestly, she had underestimated the job, had she known she would have stuffed her potion case as full as it got.
…Had she known she would have refused the job and called the Guildmaster a maniac, but that was beside the point.
More pressing was that [Identify] was just outright refusing to work, which was beyond ridiculous! She really, really needed the damned skill to work! The information might make the difference between whether she lived or died, but she was deprived of it. It wasn’t like she could just poke her head out between the dead goblins that served as her cover and stare for however long the accursed skill took to decide to function!
She couldn’t risk even a single peek, but she could hear the goblins searching the cavern. It sure didn’t sound like they had let their guard down. It was only a question of how long she could delay until they discovered her.
Ranthia drank another mana potion—she tried to convince herself that her tongue was almost numb to them—while she waited.
Her mana slowly ticked upward. The goblins neared. And then Ranthia had a thought.
…If any of them climbed the ladder while hunting for her they’d probably find her true body.
Immediately Ranthia peeked out and started to send out new mirror images, each aggressively rushing the remaining goblins. There were only five left, and thank Xaoc, they were all still in the cavern.
The axe goblin rushed her images and engaged them with glee. There was another goblin in hide armor that kept its back to their campfire. Another two were back-to-back—[Mages] that blasted gouts of flame or conjured stone at her images. Then there was another with some sort of crude bone sword that wandered freely and was almost as eager to fight as the axe-wielder.
Ranthia harassed the goblins with her images and tried to drive the [Mages] closer to her hiding place. Their magic wasn’t impressive, but she doubted either had a vast surplus of mana. Each image they broke probably cost them significantly more than it cost her. It was a gamble, but it was one that she was willing to take.
At last, the Fire-user seemed to run out of juice. Not being a complete idiot, Ranthia threw another mirror image at the fire mage’s side and used [Mirrored Moves] for the first time during the battle. The image lashed out with the appearance of [Blades of Darkness]. And she wasn’t even slightly surprised when the Fire and Earth [Mages] both unleashed powerful, short-range spells and utterly annihilated that mirror image while they stumbled clumsily away from it.
Directly into reach. Ranthia shoved past the goblin corpses that had sheltered her and lunged for the mages. She unleashed a [Blades of Darkness] empowered slash across the backs of both goblins, biting deep into their spines.
The [Mages] dropped. Ranthia began to channel while she glanced at the other goblins. The bone-blade one was picking up her knife! Ranthia started to move to rush it when she had a chilling realization: She didn’t have eyes on the axe wielder.
[Boosted Reflexes] screamed. Ranthia pivoted and barely managed to partially deflect the cleave from the fine steel axe while she stumbled clear. And she lost her grip on the channel, which cost her a couple thousand mana for no benefit.
Ranthia just gritted her teeth and tried to focus on the axe wielder. She needed to eliminate it, that goblin was the most dangerous threat left. She wasn’t even sure if she could take it one-on-one. It had to be a [Warrior]—not that she could check!—and it was good.
The problem was her combat style relied on two knives, and she only had one. Worse, she hadn’t gotten kill notifications from either [Mage] yet.
It was the wrong time to press the engagement.
Ranthia hadn’t been ignoring the axe-wielding goblin, it was the one that she had paid the most attention to throughout the fight. It was clearly their elite. Their brief clash made her fairly certain that it had more strength than she did and it was a skilled fighter…
But she was certain that she was faster. Ranthia dodged another slash, then launched herself into an all-out run straight for the goblin with her knife. It was focused on her blade in its filthy hand, with a stupid greedy grin on its inhuman face. Ranthia began to channel while she ran, since she wasn’t so hard-pressed any longer.
It never even noticed her until her knife—unempowered—flicked across its throat.
[*ding!* You have slain a [Goblin War Skirmisher] (Mirror, level 128)!]
Had she had the attention to spare, the kill notification would have explained a lot. Instead, Ranthia stumbled back as blood flowed from her own neck and filled her lungs with every failed breath. She had no experience with damage reflectors, but she knew of them. Not that she was focused on that.
She was dying.
The thought oddly seemed to dissipate her panic. Dying wasn’t dead, and she had a moment to address that.
Ranthia snatched her knife from the collapsing goblin as she waited for her channel to complete. How long could she survive not being able to breathe? Long enough, if her stubbornness had anything to say about it.
The axe goblin was still rushing after her, but there was a bigger issue. The hide armored goblin had run over to the two goblins and was bent over them and…
Ranthia would have screamed a curse if she could have done more than gurgle. The goblin was a fucking [Healer]! She had never even heard of a goblin [Healer], but there it was, magically stitching the flesh of the fallen [Mages].
But her channel completed and Ranthia sent an image behind the [Healer] and started the process to shift. Moments later she positioned behind the [Healer] and began to slash it with her [Blades of Darkness] empowered knives.
It wasn’t exactly surprising, but the accursed [Healer] proved to be stubborn about dying.
And, of course, the axe-wielding goblin was already closing in…!
Ranthia committed herself to the onslaught. She knew, in her heart, that if she failed to kill the [Healer] there was no way she could win the fight. The axe goblin required all of her concerted effort to even try to counter it. If the [Healer] survived, she needed to somehow retreat before the goblins managed to kill her.
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She would have to give up on becoming a B-Ranked Adventurer.
But she had just spent far, far too long flirting with failure. She had clawed her way out of despair and rebelled against failure itself.
She refused to give up again!
The axe goblin reached her. Ranthia parried the axe with her knife—no matter how badly the impact jarred her—then kicked at the goblin as hard as she could. It felt like kicking a rock, but it drove the goblin back for a precious moment.
And Ranthia used that moment to drive her other knife through the back of the [Healer]’s skull.
[*ding!* You have slain a [Goblin War Party Fixer] (Dark, level 174), [Goblin War Party Mender] (Water, level 112)!]
She spun and shoved the corpse between her and the axe-wielding goblin with barely a moment to spare. Goblin blood sprayed them both, but the damned axe clove straight through the corpse.
So much for her hope to get the weapon stuck. But it wasn’t like there was no merit to the maneuver, the goblin’s axe was out of position for a precious moment.
Ranthia lashed out for its chest, with a wide slash enhanced by [Blade of Darkness].
Her blade bit through the armor, but it seemed to deflect off the goblin’s skin! The Dark energy did some damage, but it was effectively superficial.
Ranthia was driven back. She stomped one of the downed [Mages] as she passed, but the other was trying to pick itself up.
[*ding!* You have slain a [Goblin War Mage] (Fire, level 130)!]
She was nearly out of mana. There was no way she’d be able to get to her mana potions—assuming she had any left, she’d lost track—while she was harried by the axe-wielder. She was on the back foot and things were looking bad. There were only two goblins left though!
Ranthia narrowly dodged the axe-wielder’s next attack, but its reach limited her options. Ranthia engaged the goblin briefly, as she struggled to reposition. Each clash rattled her bones, but she finally managed to get around the goblin and, once again, took off at a run.
The last [Mage] was upright and she had to end it before she died without ever knowing what had killed her.
Ranthia dodged around the first conjured rock that sought her head. She even managed to deflect the second with her knife, which was mildly impressive. The third clipped her side, but the wound didn’t feel too bad. The Earth [Mage] tried for a fourth, but she slashed her left knife down to shove its arm out of the way—amateurish idiot, [Mages] shouldn’t need to point at their targets—before her other knife skewered straight through the goblin’s left eye. There was no need to waste the mana on [Blades of Darkness] for that strike.
Ranthia continued past the goblin and kicked its dying body at the axe-wielder as she passed it. In the brief moment she had she opened her potion pouch and pulled out the last two mana potions her fingers found. A bit of clay and wax shouldn’t be too bad for her to pass, not with her vitality. Or at least she hoped. Ranthia shoved both bottles into her mouth and bit through the hard clay. The foul flavor of the mana potions blended unappealingly with metallic-dirt flavor of the clay, but she forced herself to choke the mess down.
It still cost her time, and the axe goblin reached her again. She only barely managed to dodge clear, though the axe carved a large swath of her leather cloak off.
That was a problem, it would be a dead giveaway of which body she inhabited. Even a beast as stupid as a goblin could probably figure out that the only image with the massive hole in its cloak was the real one. Her images got to keep the intact—albeit heavily patched—protective leather cloak as it had been, but the large section that had been removed would vanish the instant she shifted into the image. Not that she’d be able to shift again, her mana was still dangerously low.
Ranthia swore, loudly, and hurriedly backed away before the axe-wielder could remove her head from her shoulders. The goblin pursued. Once again, she was locked into a series of narrow dodges and partial deflections as she struggled to overcome her opponent’s superior skill and strength.
And vitality, apparently. That or a hell of a defensive skill.
[*ding!* You have slain a [Goblin War Mage] (Earth, level 162)!]
In battle, Ranthia tended to suppress notifications to avoid distractions. She had two different presets for the suppression. The first silenced all notifications that weren’t kills (and could be further narrowed). She had underestimated the goblins and had gone with her second preset, which silenced most notifications, except kills and new skills. Had she thought of it, she would have switched to the first when she took her break in the tunnel.
After all, distractions were deadly, but sometimes—when she could afford it—she wanted the opportunities to play with new toys on arrival.
[*ding!* For reaching level 100, you have unlocked the Class Skill [Cross Strike]!]
[Cross Strike]: This skill can be activated when you strike an opponent with a bladed weapon. Created a second impact of pure darkness at a 72-degree angle from the first, at reduced power. The power of this second strike is at 10% of the power of the original blow and the power of the strike increases by 0.01% per level.
[*ding!* [Identify] has evolved into [Divine-Touched Identify]!]
[Divine-Touched Identify]: You have revealed information about the world with impunity. You have sought to learn that which is never meant to be learnt. Now passively unveil the secrets that the world and its denizens would seek to hide from you. Increased range per level. Increased chance to pierce status veils per level. -928 Mana Regen Rate. Note: This skill is burned into and bound onto you, removal is not recommended.
Ranthia’s distraction nearly got her killed, but she threw herself back onto her butt and rolled clear.
It cost her the bulk of the leather from her cloak, but she managed to kip back up onto her feet and face the goblin again. There hadn’t been much time to review what she had obtained, but the gist of it was that she had a new attack skill for her [Warrior] class and that [Identify] was, hopefully, ready to work again.
Her gaze locked on the last goblin, and at last she learned what she faced. [Warrior – Water], the color was level 203. But beneath that was another tag [Warrior – Metal], with the color of only a level 99.
“So, you’re another dual classer… Bet that metal class is what stopped my cut before, but you know what? It’s weaker than my [Warrior] class is now.” A brutal, cold smile bloomed on her face.
Ranthia charged at the goblin. It charged at her, howling nonsense like the beast that it was.
Just before they clashed, she threw a mirror image behind it. The goblin spun to face the new threat—they really didn’t learn—which allowed her to land a [Blades of Darkness] empowered slash to the goblin’s back. The instant that the blow landed, she activated [Cross Strike] for the first time. In the aftermath there were two shallow slashes in, roughly, the shape of an ‘X’ across the goblin’s back. Its back had briefly turned silvery beneath the thick furred armor that it wore, but the beast took damage.
The goblin turned back on her, and Ranthia found herself in a duel that almost reminded her of her match against Pupius back when she first unlocked [Shards of Reflection]. Except, of course, this was intentionally deadly. Ranthia knew that an unlucky—for her—blow from that axe could potentially end her before she even realized what happened. If she lost her head or took an axe through her brain there was no chance of channeling, even if she actually had enough mana to shift. Meanwhile she was only able to chip away at her opponent, bit by bit, unless she managed to overload and break through its defensive skill.
Ranthia sent out mirror images in droves and fought gamely. When the goblin finally started to completely ignore her images (oh if only she could have used [Reflections of Reality] at that point!), she stopped bothering. Again and again, she used her dual weapons and dexterity advantage to strike the goblin as often as she could, using both [Blades of Darkness] and [Cross Strike] any time she was convinced her strike would land. [Dodging] helped her survive the slog of a duel, guided by [Boosted Reflexes], but she still took injuries. Her side was starting to burn too, from the wound that last [Mage] had inflicted.
But she wasn’t dead. Not yet.
Another notification chimed in her mind, but she immediately switched to the first preset and suppressed everything except kill notifications for dual classed goblins. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—allow even the tiniest lapse of concentration.
It was do or die.
More blows were traded, and it almost felt like Ranthia was striking the goblin non-stop in a flurry of attacks that was wholly impossible with her current speed stat.
She needed more. She dug deep as she fought on.
Her mana continued to dwindle. [Blades of Darkness] and [Cross Strike] got no benefit out of [Ranthia’s Covenant with Xaoc], and their combined mana drain outstripped her regeneration.
But the stalemate had to end, one way or another. And the gods—or perhaps mere chance—favored Ranthia.
With one particularly vicious [Blades of Darkness] empowered [Cross Strike], the goblin’s silvery skin abruptly returned to its usual, hideous greenish hue. Blood bloomed and gushed from the blow.
Six more exchanges later, the goblin made a sloppy cleave that she easily dodged. She took its arm off its shoulder in retaliation. Soon after that, it went down, never to rise again.
[*ding!* You have slain a [Goblin War Berserker] (Water, level 204), [Goblin Juggernaut] (Metal, level 106)!]
“Fucking jerk… leveled on me.” Ranthia wheezed out, as she stumbled back from the body.
She had been far too focused to notice during the duel.
Ranthia collapsed on the spot. Part of her pain-hazed mind wanted to just freak out. Scream and cry and focus on how close she had come to dying. Those were the first monsters she had ever slain that actually had both of their classes. And she had fought more than one. Monsters that out leveled her!
[Shards of Reflection] was supposed to keep her alive, but it wasn’t enough.
Ranthia nearly started to dry heave, but she was too exhausted to indulge in her terror. She shoved it to the side and forced herself back to her feet.
She was fine. She just needed to stay that way.
Gamely Ranthia climbed the gross, unsteady ladder that the goblins had crafted. It was a laborious process in her condition, but she reached the top of the sinkhole.
Ranthia’s strength was failing her, but she pressed unsteadily forward. Past Amaus. Then she reached her true body. And there she was forced to wait.
The sun was near setting before she shifted back—blessedly—into her true body.
She let go of all of her other images, even Amaus, and collapsed onto her back. She decided that she would see what she got out of that fight after she took some time.
Instead, Ranthia devoured every last scrap of food that she had carried and washed it down with every last drop of water. She would, no doubt, hate herself tomorrow, but well, that was a problem for tomorrow her. Right-then her needed the nourishment. After that, she wrapped herself in her travel cloak and passed out on the spot. Sleep was an urgent need with her belly’s immediate demands met; everything else would keep until the morning. Getting somewhere that was actually comfortable would have required far more energy than she had.
And her spent mind failed to even consider the risk of sleeping out in the open, right near a goblin den.
Sometime in the dark of the night Ranthia awoke. Something had stirred her from her slumber…?
Noise. Lots of noise that was rapidly closing in on her position.
Just before adrenaline managed to wholly chase away the fog of sleep that still hung over her, she heard a rather familiar voice and immediately relaxed.
“It should be somewhere near here, keep line of sight!” The Guildmaster’s voice called out.
With a few disgruntled noises, Ranthia stirred from her—in retrospect, wildly uncomfortable—sleeping position huddled up in a rocky crevice and shuffled out into view.
“I’m here, it’s okay.” She tried to call out, fouled by a yawn.
If they failed to understand her, that was their problem, she groggily decided.
She was surrounded in short order. There were eight B-Ranked Adventurers, including Bex. What’s-his-face-with-the-chin, the only A-Ranked Adventurer left in Sardonia. And then the Guildmaster atop a horse, which felt weird for reasons that she couldn’t be bothered to process.
The Guildmaster approached her and started saying entirely too many words. Something about a runner and colors and ranks. Ranthia was just far, far too exhausted to follow. Fatigue gave her the necessary gall to cut him off.
“The dozen goblins are dead, didn’t collect the ears yet. Figured I could in the morning. Situation solved. Can I go back to sleep now?” She pointed generally in the direction of the sinkhole while she spoke. …It was further to the left, but close enough.
“Er, yes. Wait did you say—”
Ranthia had tuned out the world after the yes. She clambered back over to her crevice, curled up like a cat, and promptly… failed to fall back asleep for an obnoxiously long time, in spite of how exhausted she was. Though sleep did, finally, return to her while she struggled to tune out the sounds of entirely too many other people.
Apparently, at some point the sun had risen in spite of Ranthia’s wholly unspoken request that it not. She really could have used a bit more time to sleep, to become properly rested. Another few weeks should have done it. Though, to be fair, it wasn’t the sun that woke her. What actually stirred her from her slumber was her traitorous stomach, which was enticed out of hibernation by entirely too appealing aromas from tantalizingly nearby.
Ranthia—still bleary, groggy, and many other redundant words that no doubt all individually applied and multiplied the effects of one another—sat up slowly and forced her eyes open. Just a little.
Starting just ten or so paces away there were multiple fires that merrily burned, with an adventurer or two at each. A small cauldron simmered over the nearest and her nose knew exactly what treat was hidden within it. At other campfires adventurers fried strips of pork belly or toasted bread and nuts. They were quiet, respectful enough of those sleeping—though she only saw herself in a position that even suggested sleep—to not disturb them. Nearby, the Guildmaster had converted a large more-or-less flat rock into a field desk.
The man was in the middle of nowhere and he was still fiddling with scrolls. There was a joke to be made there, but it was far, far beyond the limited capacities of Ranthia’s addled mind.
Once someone—maybe Bex—noticed Ranthia awake, they ladled some of the rabbit stew from the cauldron into a rough metal bowl and brought it to her. She immediately inhaled the stew, without even waiting for it to cool. Whatever questions her slow to wake mind might have been forming could wait.
Conversations slowly bloomed with her awake. Ranthia’s bowls of stew were replaced as soon as she emptied them until, six bowls later, she finally found herself slowing down enough that her curiosity demanded indulgence. The nearest Adventurer to her was the A-Ranked guy, feasting on a large plate of fried bacon—and only fried bacon—so Ranthia picked him to speak to.
“What are you all doing here?” She asked.
“Loving life right now. The Guildmaster got a runner from the miners out here, that the goblins they reported had at least one goblin somewhere around level 140. He freaked out over sending you alone to deal with ‘em. He made an emergency job with A-Ranked pay, took me and some of the better B’s. Can’t believe the man actually came out here himself. We were ready for the fight of our lives. Instead? You solved the problem. We’re all getting paid well to have run hard to get here just to play campout. So, thank you, sincerely.”
The man chuckled, then pushed a few strips of bacon into her bowl. She crushed them with her spoon and mixed them into her rabbit stew. It wasn’t a half bad flavor combination actually, at least while the pork belly remained crisp. She had never been a fan of soggy bacon, so she decided to focus on polishing off the bowl.
A short time later, everyone gathered around the bodies of the twelve goblins that Ranthia had fought. Someone had carried them out of the sinkhole overnight, apparently. The Adventurers eyed them boredly, while the Guildmaster surveyed each closely. He then looked to Ranthia and began to speak.
“I won’t ask for your report in front of everyone, but this was hard fought.”
Several Adventurers looked dubious, since Ranthia had no visible wounds. The bruise she had given her arm while she slept on top of an unnoticed rock wasn’t visible under the travel cloak that she was still wrapped up in. The Guildmaster eyed the disbelievers with disdain.
“Ranthia, what was the lowest leveled goblin from among these?”
Ranthia paused for a moment as she consulted her kill notifications.
“Level 129 [Goblin War Sapper]. …Oh, wait, sorry, no it was the level 128 [Goblin War Skirmisher]. Two had dual classes, which I didn’t even know goblins got.” Ranthia pointed at the four goblins in question in turn as she addressed them.
Mutterings came from the other adventurers. The Guildmaster produced the battleaxe that the nasty goblin had used and held it up for everyone to see.
“I recognize this axe. It was owned by an Adventurer that went missing months ago from a different city. He was A-Ranked. It was in the grasp of the goblins.” The Guildmaster announced.
The muttering and mumbling intensified.
“Ranthia has accomplished a great deed here. I will get the specifics from her in private and will later share what I see fit to, but I can already confirm that this job should have been an A-Ranked small group at a minimum, possibly a medium group. Yet she soloed it!
“Adventurer Ranthia, on my authority as Guildmaster of the Sardonia Adventurer’s Guild I hereby promote you to Rank B!”
The Guildmaster got… some glares at that, from some of the B-Ranked Adventurers that Ranthia was friendlier with.
Seriously, that wasn’t enough for them?! Bex and some of the others… Ranthia had thought they had accepted her. The betrayal stung. But then the Guildmaster raised his hands defensively, after he set down the axe.
“I know, I know. If I could jump her directly to Rank A I would, but that’s just not done, and her level is still too low. No other branch of the Adventurer’s Guild would acknowledge her if I did it. I will be sure that the other Guildmasters know of what she achieved, which should smooth her path forward from here.”
Ranthia blinked multiple times. They glared because they thought she deserved to—somehow—skip an entire rank and become what might have been the first sub-200 leveled A-Ranked Adventurer? The concept baffled and flattered her in equal measure, but she personally agreed with the Guildmaster. It was better to do things properly in this case; it was preferable to being challenged constantly by everyone that balked or assumed she got some special privilege. Acceptance was a hard road, and shortcuts never helped it.
Bex stepped forward, with a smile and raised her fist.
“A great deed has been accomplished!” She bellowed.
A roar of approval.
“We might not be [Bards], but we have our own tradition that can immortalize this deed!” Bex continued.
…Wait… NO! Ranthia tried to protest, but she was a hair too slow.
“Let all our peers know her… The great Slasher of Goblins!” Bex concluded.
Ranthia just cursed while everyone else cheered for her. That was not a good alias!
In the aftermath of the cheering for her new—terrible—alias, the Guildmaster released the other Adventurers after he promised that their payment would be provided as per the job shortly after he returned. He requested some privacy with the newly promoted Adventurer to get her full report, which would require a small delay.
Still, the other Adventurers seemed to be in high spirits while they hurriedly broke down the campsite and left, though one of the B-Ranked [Mages] grumbled incessantly about having to walk. Apparently, he had gotten to ride the horse down, before the Guildmaster claimed it, not that anyone felt sorry for him.
A while later, Ranthia found herself on the back of the horse, perched awkwardly in front of the Guildmaster while he managed the reins. It was her first time on a horse and riding was… weird. She wasn’t sure that she approved of the sensation and, if she was honest, she would have felt far more comfortable with her feet on the ground. Worse, the horse moved at a slow trot that she could have easily kept pace with, free of the extreme awkwardness that she felt between the bumps of the saddle against her and the not-a-cuddle with the Guildmaster!
He was waiting for her to speak, but she distracted herself for several moments while she examined the Guildmaster’s polearm, which was securely attached to the horse’s saddle, where a saddlebag should have gone. The weapon looked like, well, a long metal pole with a crescent-shaped bladed hook at the end. She had never seen a weapon quite like it before, and she was a bit surprised to see a [Ranger] wield such a bulky weapon.
Still, she knew that she could only put things off for so long. The Guildmaster had requested a full rundown of the job and, while he was indulgent, his patience wasn’t eternal.
With a sigh, Ranthia began.
“Found the goblins easy enough, started with a firebomb but it… didn’t do much. Somewhat wounded a single goblin, but none of the others seemed to be hurt. In hindsight, there were at least four goblins that would have been nearly immune to it.
“…Relied on my class abilities and jumped down there and started picking off isolated goblins in ones and twos. Started with what seemed to be, and was, the leader. But it didn’t disrupt them quite as much as I expected. The axe-wielder was always on me, so I had to keep dodging around the cave. It was the highest level one in there, a level 204 [Goblin War Berserker] with a second class, level 106 [Goblin Juggernaut]. At least those were the levels when it finally died.
“Things went okay until I got to the final five. Two [Mages] that stayed back-to-back, a goblin that turned out to be a dual class [Healer], and the axe-wielder. Tricked the [Mages] into blowing their emergency reserves and then struck them down. The [Healer] tried to save them, but I ran it down. Then it was just me and the axe-wielder.
“Was worse than fighting Pupius. I only won because my second class leveled up and got a new skill that helped me deal enough damage to finally overpower its defenses. The jerk goblin’s second class had a defensive skill that made my strikes almost completely worthless until I finally broke through. Damned close call though, I was running on fumes on all fronts. I really need to invest in some arcanite when I get a chance.”
The Guildmaster had remained silent throughout the tale and seemed to let the details she omitted—including the Mirror aspected goblin, she just couldn’t explain that fuck up—pass. Several horse-steps later after she had finished, he finally spoke.
“I should have never rushed to give you that job. I underestimated them because they were goblins. Please allow me to offer you my sincerest apologies. Even if I still had my bonded companion and had engaged the goblins in the open, I’m not sure if I could have defeated that group safely. I truly am sorry, and I am grateful that you survived.”
Ranthia felt wildly uncomfortable and had no idea how to even engage with any of that. So, she opted out and instead just muttered something about checking her levels and focused on the notifications that she had suppressed, collected into her preferred class/skill order, rather than the order they leveled up in.
[*ding!* Congratulations! [Shards of Reflection] has leveled up from 164 to level 167! Per level: +1 Free Stats, +3 Dexterity, +4 Vitality, +2 Speed, +7 Mana, +9 Mana Regeneration, +7 Magic Power, +7 Magic Control from your class, +1 free stat for being human, +1 Mana Regeneration and +1 Magic Power from your element.]
[*ding!* [Mirror Spirit] and [Scattered Reflections] have leveled from 164 to level 167!]
[*ding!* [Reflective Motility] has leveled from 99 to level 133!]
[*ding!* [Persistent Imagery] has leveled from 57 to level 101!]
[*ding!* [Mirrored Moves] has leveled from 42 to level 50!]
[*ding!* [Reflections of Reality] has leveled from 26 to level 44!]
[*ding!* Congratulations! [Sudden End] has leveled up from 91 to level 104! Per level: +5 Strength, +11 Dexterity, +4 Vitality, +7 Speed, +2 Mana Regeneration from your class, +1 free stat for being human, +1 Mana from your element.]
[*ding!* [Dark Affinity], [Knives & War], and [Blades of Darkness] have leveled from 91 to level 104!]
[*ding!* [Critical Strike] has leveled from 63 to level 90!]
[*ding!* [Strengthen Blade] has leveled from 73 to level 102!]
[*ding!* [Cross Strike] has leveled from 1 to level 55!]
[*ding!* [Divine-Touched Identify], [Dodging], and [Boosted Reflexes] have leveled from 164 to level 167!]
[*ding!* [Ranthia’s Covenant with Xaoc] has reached level 41!]
[*ding!* [Fast Learner] has reached level 83!]
[*ding!* [Image Recall] has leveled from 26 to level 37!]
[*ding!* Would you like to evolve [Boosted Reflexes] into [Combat Awareness]?]
[Combat Awareness]: Instantly become aware of any attack or movement with hostile intent that comes within a fixed range of your body. Provides awareness of where the attack or action is coming from, where and what it will affect, and approximates probable damage. Increased range, accuracy of estimations, and increased probability to circumvent masking skills with level. -1024 Mana Regen Rate.
That was a lot to unpack. While [Shards of Reflection]’s level gains were disappointing, the gains to [Reflective Motility] and the notoriously obstinate [Reflections of Reality] thrilled her. [Persistent Imagery] had outright thrived on so many of her mirror images getting smashed by the goblins. Though, good news aside, she was legitimately kind of cheesed off that [Mirrored Moves] gained 8 levels when she only used it once during the entire battle! Oh, if only she had actually used it more, but she’d been too hard pressed while fighting the axe goblin to expend the necessary focus to use the skill!
[Sudden End] was the bigger winner, of course. 13 levels were nothing to sneeze at, though the gains felt hard earned. [Critical Strike] had got a nice boost, and she hoped it would start to pay off more; she had been kind of disappointed by the skill ever since it failed so badly against the ankylosaurus. [Strengthen Blade] was oh so close to getting capped, but that just made her feel guilty for how hard she abused her poor knives; she needed to do some real maintenance and care for them later. That [Cross Strike] received so many levels immediately felt absurd, but the skill had come in clutch. …Even if it was a bit of a mana hog, at least from her biased perspective.
Grudgingly, she liked [Divine-Touched Identify]. She wondered if the skill becoming a passive somehow explained why its formerly active skill pre-evolved form had gotten so unreliable. …It shouldn’t explain anything, but the skill had always been weird. Still, the new skill promised to be extremely useful, though it was a stern reminder of her prior self’s blasphemy. …Quietly she promised herself that she’d make some offerings to Xaoc. She could never atone for what the [Paladin] had done, but it at least eased her own guilt.
She was a bit surprised to see a level gained in her covenant. She had caused a lot of chaos, especially in the opening moments of the battle, but death was about as far removed from chaos as things got.
Similarly, she had no idea what the level of [Fast Learner] came from, but she wasn’t complaining. [Image Recall]’s gains felt… both fair and unfair. 11 levels was a lot of levels from one battle, but she also had created more mirror images than she could count, albeit all from the same stored mental image.
At length, Ranthia felt ready to focus on the proposed upgrade to [Boosted Reflexes]. [Combat Awareness], gave her a lot of mixed feelings. First, it was expensive. In essence, it doubled down on—and arguably perfected—the enhanced perception and imminent harm warning aspects of [Boosted Reflexes]. But she also relied heavily on the skill as a check against her read of the flow of battle from [Knives & War]. The fact that the System had asked her if she wanted to upgrade meant that the battlefield awareness—ironically—was absent from the new skill; the System never asked if a skill was a direct upgrade. If she accepted the upgrade would no longer have quite the same level of confidence before she shifted into a mirror image.
Though if she looked at it another way, the proposed evolution might just save her butt when she inevitably misread the flow of combat. An attack she hadn’t seen or an enemy skill she had misunderstood could get her killed, but [Combat Awareness] just might change such a fate. If she ‘saw’ threats before they struck her—and knew exactly how they would strike—and could use [Dodging] or other defenses to try to avoid or minimize the harm, or possibly just jump to another mirror image body.
Another major advantage to taking the upgrade would be that it promised to help protect her real body from a sneak attack while she was inside of it. She was getting spoiled with fighting by hiding her real body while she risked only mirror images, but that only helped when she knew ahead of time that she would be entering combat.
It was a bit of a tangent, but she also wondered if [Combat Awareness] extended to helping with thwarting thieves after her pouches. The bit about seeing through masking skills made it seem like yes, but on the flip side that wasn’t really combat. …Though she supposed a theft was a hostile action, technically? It was worth considering, since she planned to head to the capital soon.
In a similar vein, she was all but certain that the skill wouldn’t point out invisible people that meant her no harm, but she hoped that it might help with Mirage [Mages], given the bit about intent in the description.
In the end, she decided to take the upgrade, more or less on impulse. It felt like she had found more pros than cons and, more honestly, she was really curious about what the skill would and wouldn’t do. She wasn’t able to experiment with it if she never took it!
“Done. I… really, really wish I had used one of my skills more instead of using it as a trump card that I never got to play in the main battle. A single use of it against the [Mages] got it eight levels!” Her thoughts settled, Ranthia returned to grousing about that.
“Don’t you dare. We aren’t Remus’ Rangers; Adventurers don’t second guess ourselves. Adventurers should care nothing about efficiency or finding a better way. We trust our honed instincts when we throw ourselves at problems, do our best to overcome them safely, and get paid. You got out of that situation alive, and you should always take that over an opportunity to have gained a few levels that you’ll get in the future anyway. Chasing perfection is a fool’s errand, trust your instincts that work.”
Ranthia fell silent and just absorbed the Guildmaster’s lecture.
The man made a solid point.
By the time they returned to town, Ranthia’s thoughts had turned toward her plan to follow Tatius and Pupius to the capital now that she was, finally, a proper B-Ranked Adventurer. She had planned the different supplies she needed and where to get them. There was no way that she’d be able to travel as light as she would like; even just the money she needed to carry added quite a bit of weight, let alone the actual supplies. But her stats were getting to the point that she was confident that she would manage.
Of course, she was immediately derailed from her plans when the Guildmaster somewhat forcefully dropped her off at the tavern, where a modest little gathering was being thrown in her honor. And by modest little gathering she meant almost every Adventurer in Sardonia, most already drunk and wild, due to how slowly the horse had walked.
Ranthia was impatient to get moving—she missed the guys—but she accepted the spirit of her peers and ended up relaxing and enjoying her party. The food was great, though everyone seemed all too eager to ply her with drinks again. Beer was passable, though she doubted she’d ever seek it out proactively. Mead felt like something she would rather sip a small amount of after a big meal on the rare occasions that she actually had an interest in something sweet. Every type of wine she tasted was too something: too sour, too sweet, too strong, etc. Some of the drinks though were outright vile and she would have suspected them to be pranks if not for the Adventurers that drank the beverages down with glee. Alcohol was weird.
Maybe someday she’d get more used to it.
Drunken Adventurers meant that lines were crossed with impunity. Marriage proposals, whether direct or for a younger relative, were gross. Ranthia was especially repulsed when someone offered the hand of their as-of-yet unborn child that their wife was pregnant with. Sexual propositions bothered Ranthia significantly less, though she didn’t accept any of them, not even from the women. Also, seriously Bex?!
Eventually the party released Ranthia, deep into the night, and she crawled into bed with utter relief. Her head pounded from the alcohol and from entirely too much social stimulation. She was beat to the extent that she almost felt worse than she had after she finished her battle against the war goblins.
Ranthia gathered supplies after a late start to her day. First, she left her leather cloak with the local armorer so he could reattach some of the chunks that she had salvaged and maybe patch up what she couldn’t. Then once she had purchased everything that she figured she needed (goodbye, sweet coins, hello gross but life-saving mana potions), she dropped it all off in her room and visited the baths and her beautician one last time to say goodbye and get some final care that the road promised to swiftly and mercilessly erase. She also visited the temple, as promised, to make prayers and offerings.
She had made rabbit stew, just for the occasion, and gave every bit of it to Xaoc. It was the most significant act of penance that came to mind.
She then visited the Guildmaster to pick up her letter of introduction. The man surprised her by giving her a vest, dyed dark green, that was studded with actual stones of arcanite!
The Guildmaster claimed that it was a bonus payment provided by the mining companies for dealing with the goblin warband, though she somehow doubted that was the whole story. She still graciously accepted it, of course. Not only was it real arcanite, but the vest fit her well and was small enough that she figured that she could probably wear it under armor.
The rest of the day was spent with the Guildmaster while she reviewed the roads and routes she could take—and those she would—and got some final reading and writing lessons for things that the more experienced man suspected may be of value to her as she travelled.
She also introduced Amaus to the Guildmaster. The Guildmaster demonstrated not a single whit of surprise—it would have made for great revenge for all the times he had startled her—and instead simply told her that she needed to work on her masculine voice. Apparently, Amaus sounded noticeably too young for his appearance.
She also donated her mirrors to the Adventurer’s Guild. They were far, far too bulky to take with her. They had been extremely expensive, but, ultimately, she could only hope that someday they might be of value to another Adventurer with a Mirror class.
It was a busy but good day, as she said farewell to those that she felt any need to.
The next day, bright and early, Ranthia set out with her pack full and her more patchwork than ever leather cloak equipped, confident that she was ready for her journey. She strolled through Sardonia one last time with her head held high. She never even thought of her ex while she made her way out of town, nor did she even notice that the apothecary that the young woman had once lived in was boarded up with the building labeled for sale.
Ranthia was wholly focused on her next adventure.