Emily had always wondered what people were thinking when they caved to demands set by hostage takers. Just because one gave in to their demands, it did not mean they would have to follow through. She’d seen the tactic employed to great effect against heroes, hell she’d even had to use it herself a few times.

The outcome was always the same though, the bystander got hurt. There was only one way to avoid the outcome: to not care about the hostage in the first place.

So, when the roided-out man grabbed Gotan by the back of the neck Emily remained calm. The merchant wailed trying to smash his pot into the skull of the invader but got a fist through his jaw for his troubles.

When Gotan could not fight back he stared at Emily with a pleading look. The man spoke for the first time since entering the room. His wounds were visibly coagulating and she was pretty sure the one on his arms was beginning to scab over.

“Come here or I crush his neck”

Short, and concise, Emily could appreciate it, but her answer came in the form of another bolt. The blood bullet flew straight at his other eye, but he saw it coming and moved his one free arm in the way to block.

“Woman you’re testing my patience!”

The man then threw Gotan with incredible force against the wall, and the sounds of bones breaking echoed throughout the room.

Emily’s eye twitched.

The man then began to dash towards her again. Emily was out of weapons, and her energy was running low. To make matters worse Alex was here so she couldn’t retreat. Glancing towards the stairs she saw Kathryn appear in the opening. A trail of blood ran down the stairs behind her, and still, she crawled forward towards her little girl.

Shelly had pressed herself into a corner when the fighting started and Emily glanced over at her now.

A big mistake as it turned out, because the man pivoted on his heels and spotted her, making another mad dash for a hostage.

Emily cursed as Kathryn screamed.

“Baby, run!”

The little girl screamed as he got his hands on her, lifting her into the air by the scruff of her clothes.

Emily found herself taking a step forward to stand near the opening of the staircase.

“Okay, next one. Do you care about this one, woman? Or perhaps the one lying in the corner?”

The man wore a toothy grin, the flesh near his damaged eye squirming as it healed over.

Emily dropped to one knee clutching her broken arm.

Seeing this, the man’s mouth twisted up in satisfaction.

“Come to me, or I break this little bird's neck.”

As he said this he wrapped a meaty hand around her throat eliciting another cry of panic from Shelly.

Emily tried to keep her breathing in check as she glanced at Kathryn and lowered her voice to almost nothing.

“I can save her but it may kill you, choose.”

Kathryn had her hand pressed against her throat where the knife had cut her neck, but she glanced up at Emily with a determination that rivaled her own.

“Save… her.”

“Then take your hand away, and bleed for me.”

Kathryn stared with wide eyes, but she seemed to see Emily was serious. With a shaking hand, she removed the pressure holding her lifeblood in. The wound began seeping gore immediately, pouring out into the ground.

Emily's hand came down from her injured arm and rested in the pool of red expanding from Kathryn.

“What are you whispering about, get over here!”

The man extended Shelly out in front of himself as Emily pushed the vitality in her chest into Kathryn's blood. Causing it to lift off the floor and staircase, in a flash it collected into the shape of a scythe and cut upwards diagonally.

The man noticed it coming and with incredible reflexes, he moved Shelly in the path of the attack.

The blade continued forward and cut right through the little girl, only, as it met her skin the keen edge turned back to liquid, rushing around her form, and coalescing on the other side.

The blade had reshaped itself by the time it got to the man’s neck, cleaving his head from his shoulders. The body fell over with the girl still in its grasp.

Emily began panting from using such a large amount of life force all at once.

Crying filled the room as Shelly crawled away from the man's corpse.

Emily rushed to Kathryn and pressed her hand over the wound. The woman was still alive, but only just, blood loss was causing her consciousness to fade. When the human body runs out of blood, the heart continues to pump, but without oxygen and nutrients reaching the rest of the body, it quickly goes into shock and then cardiac arrest.

Emily didn’t have the strength left to repeat what she’d done for Alex. She looked over to Gotan, the man was lying unconscious at the other end of the room.

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Grunting Emily looked over at the girl.

“Shelly come here, I need you to keep pressure on your mommy’s wound. The harder you press the sooner she will wake up”

As harrowing as this all must be for the child Emily had endured worse at her age and she’d turned out pretty competent. The girl's mother needed her right now.

Shelly was already on her way tears pouring down her face. When she got there Emily didn’t give her a chance, directing her tiny hands to the neck wound and reminding her not to move them.

After that she moved to the dead man's body and began searching it, ignoring anything that didn’t look like the vial he’d drunk. When she found nothing on him she rushed down the stairs to the second body. A quick search was all it took to find a similar vial on the corpse's belt.

Emily grabbed and rushed back up the stairs but froze when she caught sight of Alex out of the corner of her eye. He was sweating profusely as fever wracked his body.

Emily paused as she glanced down at the only bottle left, her lips becoming a thin line.

Kathryn’s eyes moved from Shelly's face to hold Emily’s gaze. There was no regret in them just peace as her distant gaze tried to focus on her little girl.

The fight was about to go out of Emily's body when she looked back and spotted the corpse again. Her eyes fell past it to the door leading out of the hut, it was a long shot but there was just one more chance.

Pocketing the vial and unbaring the way, Emily rushed out into the snow in search of the creature she had seen before. She spotted the ox-like beast nearby with snow already collecting around it in mounds.

Its thick layers of fat and muscle made it perfect for this environment. Emily sprinted towards it, and upon getting there she pulled at the buckles on its packs and began scrounging through them.

At first, she couldn’t find anything resembling the green tonic but when she moved over to the other pack she found two additional vials.

Grunting in excitement, Emily pulled herself from the snow and rushed back into the hut. When she got to the top of the stairs, she ripped the wax seal along with the stopper and poured a little onto Kathryn's wound, the rest she emptied down her throat.

Color returned to her face almost immediately, as the wound on her neck began to knit closed at the same time.

It wasn’t quite at the level of her self-healing but it was fast enough to guard Kathryn’s life.

Emily’s eyes widened as she looked at the empty vial.

She checked the woman to make sure she didn’t miss anything, but only time and rest would tell if she survived.

Walking over to Alex she saw he’d been unaffected by the fight. Though his wound still looked nasty. Removing his bandage she repeated the process of applying the tonic, and all that was left to do was wait for him to wake up. The comfort provided by the tonic was immediately noticeable on Alex’s face. A sigh escaped Emily's lips and her shoulders drooped

Leaning back against the wall Emily dredged up what remained of her strength, using her gift to fuse the broken bone back together in her wrist.

Exhaustion ate at the edges of Emily's vision, she tried to push it away because she still had so much to do.

Shelly was still a mess, and at some point, she needed to get rid of these bodies. The door was barred but who knew if others were going to show up. Emily's mind churned as her eyes grew heavier. The quiet of the storm howling and gentle sobs were the last thing Emily heard as the world faded.

The sinking feeling was back as the shadowy world embraced her. The rushing stars above almost seemed happy to see her, dancing through the sky at her arrival. Laying down on the lush grass Emily watched their celebration expectantly. They didn’t keep her waiting because moments later the stars reshaped themselves into words.

‘9 - First threshold released at rank 10’

Emily was surprised she’d jump so much. She was about to complete what normally took a child ten years in three days. If she had to guess, the cragmother was a big reason her rank had jumped so much. One more rank and she’d get her first title, even for someone born in another world, Emily found herself excited at the prospect. She let herself wonder about what she would get as she sank deeper into a slumber.

The sound of screaming woke Emily up, bolting to her feet she brought her life force to her hands.

It took a second to realize the screams were coming from Gotan. The light outside had shifted to late evening and the storm had let up considerably.

Looking over Emily saw Gotan sitting up while holding his ankle and shoulder, his shouts had woken Shelly who’d come over to try and help.

At the same time, Alex shifted next to her and then opened his eyes for the first time in hours. They snapped open as though he hadn't just been battling for his life a few hours ago.

When he shifted into a sitting position, his hands fell to his weapon, none of which were present as she had removed them.

Emily was about to say something when she remembered Kathryn. The woman was still lying in the same position Emily had left her but the wound on her neck looked worlds better. It was raw but at least it was no longer bleeding, and she felt a healthy pulse. Emily wasn't sure how long the woman would take to recover but it had to be more than a couple of hours.

Gotan had bound his wound with something from his bag, grunting all the while and sweating profusely. A broken leg would probably make travel a deal harder but Emily wasn’t about to give the man her last life-saving tonic.

On top of that, since waking, he kept giving Emily strange looks whenever he thought she wasn’t looking.

Eventually Shelly came over to Emily. The girl's face was streaked with tears and her little dress was smeared with dried blood.

“Thank you miss for helping my Mommy.”

Emily grimaced and looked at the girl a warm feeling spreading through her chest.

“I just did what I wanted, Shelly, but I’m glad your mom survived.”

Shelly leaned down to give Emily a hug which caused her to flinch, unable to relax until the little girl went back to sit with her mother.

Emily turned back to Alex, to see what he thought of this all, but the guy was looking about the room with critical eyes as though working it all out in his head.

Emily decided to let Alex work through this one on his own, when he was ready, he’d talk. Heading to the corpses Emily moved to the lighter one first. Grabbing hold of the man's legs she began dragging his corpse down the stairs and out into the cold. She dumped him in the snow with the same care one would manure. The only thing of interest he had on him was a blade, though this one was longer than a dagger but shorter than those large swords she’d seen people using in movies.

Tying it to her waist she was not discouraged to only find the weapon, that ox probably carried a majority of their supplies.

Making her way back into the hut Emily put her hands on her hips. The gigantic body probably weighed twice that of the first and she was already short of breath. Using her abilities to move a corpse was out of the question.

Right now, she could probably only muster up two shots before she drained herself. Then a presence appeared next to her, a glance told her it was Alex. He grabbed hold of the headless corpse's legs and began to help without a word.

Grabbing the arms Emily helped them get it down the steps. His first words were not what she expected.

“Did you use blood magic to kill these two?”

Emily blinked, she didn’t know an ounce of blood magic but she supposed her abilities looked god-dammed identical to it.

Then it hit her as to why he was asking.

Gotan’s demeanor suddenly made a lot more sense now, had he seen something before he passed out? Emily’s blood bolts were quick and mostly dispersed on impact, but her final manipulation had been obvious.

There had always been stigma around her powers but she’d gotten so used to it that it hadn’t even crossed her mind.

“...Yes.”

“Right, then we should leave when this storm breaks. You’ll need to be careful who you show that magic to, and if you’re going to keep that blood mage’s book make sure it's well hidden…”

Emily blinked owlishly, the man had never given her so much advice at once, and by the looks of things he wasn’t done.

“Also… you could have left me for dead just about anywhere, but I’m alive… so, Thank you.”