The sun rose and Brivaria bid farewell to her friends. She’d considered leaving as soon as Trixie was awake but decided to wait until sunrise to wish her friends a proper goodbye. The Second Sword had been good to her. She wished them all the best in their dungeon delving.

Leaving Keaton was anticlimactic. The angel passed through the Keaton gates wearing the same white tunic and leggings she’d arrived in. There were no questions, no interrogations, and no last minute stops. The guards simply wished her well as she passed and that was that.

The trappings of civilization didn’t vanish immediately. While the center of the town was around the two gates, there were farms and ranches nearby that extended far beyond the town’s gated border. She would be seeing farm houses, barns, crop fields, and pastures for hours to come. Smelling them too, in the case of the last one.

“Hey Trixie, I’d like to fly. Can you follow me if I do that?” Brivaria asked the dog. Trixie heard her name and looked up at Brivaria. The golden dog was happily walking alongside her. The angel knew Trixie didn’t really understand what she was saying. The dog knew her own name and was always listening but was, ultimately, a dog. She was a very well-behaved dog and pretty smart so Brivaria decided to test it out.

“Let’s try,” she said aloud while enlarging her wings. Her mana reserves plummeted as the change took place. Lesser Shapeshifting could change things gradually at very little cost but making a big change quickly was expensive. The angel could have waited but she felt no need to conserve mana at the moment. Plus it was good to see how much mana the change required. Knowing that it took 26 mana, nearly half her current total, was good though that was a bit more than she anticipated.

Brivaria flapped her wings and took to the air. She didn’t fly high but she did make a circle in the sky above the dog. Trixie’s head followed the angel through the air. Her tail wagged as the angel circled around. Sensing that the golden would continue watching the winged girl, she called out to the dog in passing.

“Trixie come on!” With those words Brivaria flew by the dog and down the road. Trixie sat there for a moment and then took off running after her. That was the beginning of four hours of trial and error.

Over those four hours, the angel learned a lot of things. Firstly, flying at such a low altitude was very hard. Lesser Flight allowed for a lot of otherwise impossible things such as during the fight with the plant monster in the dungeon but it didn’t make them easy. Brivaria had to flap her wings frequently to maintain altitude. She couldn’t go nearly as fast nor fly nearly as easily as she could high up in the sky where there were strong wind currents to make use of.

Next, Brivaria realized that Tailwind could affect both her and Trixie. Just having Tailwind active at low power sped up both her and the dog. It also reduced the amount of time spent flapping her wings. It was trading mana for stamina but that was a good trade and came with a boost in speed too. Even the dog ran faster when she was running with the wind. The angel did have to be a little bit careful as leaving Tailwind running too long caused the mana cost to increase dramatically.

Finally, the winged girl learned that she was the weaker link of the pair. Trixie could overtake her easily and the dog delighted in speeding past her which forced Brivaria to then go faster. Trixie was impossibly fast and she had a seemingly endless amount of stamina. By the end of the test period, it was Brivaria who needed to stop and rest rather than the dog.

When she finally landed, the dog barreled toward her. Trixie’s tail was going for a world record in WPM (wags per minute) as she nuzzled and licked the tired angel. A few minutes later, Brivaria was sitting under the shade of a tree and petting the dog as the two cooled down. She took a flask and a bowl out of her inventory. The angel poured some cold water into the bowl for Trixie then took a drink from the flask herself. That was when she noticed the System notifications.

You have reached level 14.

Gained +2 Physique, +1 Endurance, +1 Arcane, +2 Spirit, +1 Awareness, +2 Presence.

Gained one new skill selection.

She’d spent the last few days using Lesser Shapeshift, Bleak Radiance, Inventory, and Tailwind daily. Four hours of flying with Lesser Flight and Tailwind must have pushed her over the threshold for level 14. It was a good start but she’d need to start training much more rigorously. Trixie would be sleeping nights and Brivaria could use that time to work with various skills thus speeding up her advancement.

The skill choice was going to be fairly straightforward this time. She was taking Magic (Light of Decay). It would fold two existing skills into itself making each of them more powerful while granting her the use of three new spells for a total of five. She picked the skill and looked at the new spells.

Bleak Radiance (Skill-Spell)

Emit light from the user’s body or create a small globe of light which can be focused in a direction of the user’s choice. Enemies of the user will suffer a reduction to all attributes. Cost and intensity scale with arcane, modified by presence.

Bolt of Decay (Spell)

You may channel mana into a projectile that flies unerringly toward a target of your choice. Upon striking a creature or object, the subject of the spell begins decaying and suffers a reduction in all attributes, if applicable. Cost and intensity scale with arcane.

Infusion (Light) (Skill-Spell)

You may infuse equipment and objects in your possession with light skills or spells. Strength and duration of the infusion scale with arcane, modified by presence.

Luminous Desecration (Spell)

You may disrupt the natural flow of mana in an area and desecrate location. In doing so Bleak Radiance fills the location causing all of your enemies to suffer its effects. Cost and intensity scale with arcane. Area and duration scale with arcane and mana expended.

Withering Ray (Spell)

You may project a small beam of light that causes immediate degeneration of any creature or object it touches. If this spell or other wounds cause a creature’s health to reach zero while under this effect, the creature dies. Cost and intensity scale with arcane.

It was a good set of spells, the winged girl decided. They were combat-focused but the class was combat-focused so that was no surprise. Upgrading Bleak Radiance and Infusion (Light) to skill-spells would make them stronger. Bolt of Decay was yet another way to further reduce a target’s attributes. She assumed every separate source of Bleak Radiance would affect a target but it would need testing… somehow.

Bolt-type skills and spells were extremely common. Most offensive magic skills had a bolt in their list. Force Bolt, Fire Bolt, Ice Bolt, Freezing Bolt, Lightning Bolt, and so on were in the repertoires of almost every combat mage Brivaria had met. Before the incident, she’d had Healing Bolt, Holy Bolt, and Light Bolt. All three were useful. Bolt spells were common, easy to use, and had a plethora of skill upgrades if one chose to focus on them. In short, they were a good foundation for any magical skill set.

Withering Ray was a killing spell. With combat as her primary type of intervention, Brivaria had plenty of killing skills and spells previous to the incident as well. This one wasn’t as dramatic as using a light beam to put a hole straight through her target and was extremely slow acting compared to most combat magic. Usually slow-acting skills made up for that aspect in other ways such as increased potency or being more mana efficient. The angel would have to test it.

There was one spell she had somewhat mixed feelings over—Luminous Desecration. The angel had never possessed a desecration skill or spell before. Those were the tools of her enemies. Spellcasters focusing on death magicks particularly loved them but demons and similar also used them. The angel had been on the opposing side of them often enough to see their power but this would be a first for wielding one herself.

Consecration skills, which Brivaria was much more familiar with, overlaid themselves onto the natural mana in a given area to produce a new effect. The more frequent effects were healing, warding, or granting some sort of beneficial boon. As an example, an area consecrated to ward off undead would prevent undead from entering. The Holy Field skill could consecrate a wide area granting regeneration to friendly creatures within and greatly empowering angels. Consecration skills were a bread and butter skill for her people.

Desecration skills were similar but far more destructive. Where consecrated areas left the environment alone, desecrated areas wholly destroyed the natural mana flow then replaced it with a new one of the desecrator’s design. In practice, this made desecration more costly to perform but also more difficult to counter or undo.

Brivaria could imagine her angelic comrades frowning upon her possessing such a spell but she considered this an absolute advantage. Luminous Desecration was a powerful spell in the long run. She was going to have to face multiple foes at some point if she remained an adventurer. Having a spell that could affect all of them was powerful. Also, while the spell was damaging to the land’s natural mana flow, that mana flow would recover in time. Like grass regrowing after a fire, the mana flow would heal over time. It was no more harmful than a stray fireball, the angel reasoned.

She was basking in her level up and already looking ahead at other skills her class offered when something wet and warm licked her face. She unfocused on the System windows and found Trixie standing and looking at her. Trixie’s big, brown eyes lit up as soon as the angel looked her way and her tail began wagging.

“Sorry girl, I didn’t mean to get lost in the System,” the angel reached out to hug the dog as she spoke. Trixie let out a little bark and her tail wagged faster during the hug. Sadly a single level up wasn’t nearly enough to while away an hour let alone four hours. The timer on the Rest skill ticked by as they waited. The angel wasn’t keen on wasting three or four hours of daylight on resting but she didn’t want to encounter trouble on the road with empty reserves. It was a necessary evil.

Four hours later they resumed their journey. This time Brivaria paced herself. Once again she used Tailwind to both speed them up as well as conserve stamina. It wasn’t a powerful application of the skill nor did she keep it active for long. She wanted to spread out the mana use for the remaining hours of daylight and have some in reserve for the evening just in case.

The two kept going even after the sun set with Brivaria’s own body lighting up the road. It was only when Trixie slowed down did the angel also slow down. The winged girl used the knowledge Rake had taught her to look for a small campsite. Once she found a suitable location, it was time to setup the camp. The tent was put up first. Brivaria didn’t sleep but Trixie did. If the angel wasn’t going to use the provided tent then the dog may as well.

Finally they ate. Trixie got some cooked but unseasoned meat along with a bowl of water. The angel grudgingly ate the silver ration provided by her people. Eating the unpleasant, silver rations a much more painful process than before. She hadn’t liked them before she knew what good food tasted like. Now that she understood how delicious food could be, they were a thousand times worse. Every bite was agony for her taste buds. She would reward them in a day or two for their sacrifice today.

The two stayed up even longer playing fetch with a good-sized stick until the dog was completely out of energy. Brivaria shrank her wings during dinner and fetch so she was able to fit inside the little tent with Trixie. She pet the happy but exhausted pooch until sleep came.

Brivaria completed a rest cycle while sitting outside the tent. The upgrade from skill to skill-spell let the angel have a normal light active without expending mana so she was able to rest and keep watch without an active fire going. Unfortunately, she was still terrible at keeping watch. Endurance and awareness were vying for her lowest attribute. Having a decent physique somewhat made up for endurance being low but there was no saving her terrible awareness score. She could see somewhat well in the gloom but the difference that made was negligible.

With little else to do during the night, the angel busied herself with training. She gathered a handful of rocks and tried out her skills. Ray of Withering caused sticks of wood to petrify and crumble. Small stones completely disintegrated while larger ones simply fell apart then started disintegrating. Bleak Radiance and Bolt of Decay had similar effects. Sticks became brittle immediately while rocks became so soft she could crush them with her fist.

Interestingly, a single rock got progressively softer when applying multiple decaying effects. If she used Bleak Radiance directly, Bolt of Decay, and infused her sword with Bleak Radiance before striking it then the rock would be affected by all three simultaneously. This was in line with the angel’s expectations but it was good to have it confirmed.

She was just about to practice casting Luminous Desecration when she heard a sound from somewhere nearby. Immediately the angel rose to her feet and looked around. She used Bleak Radiance to produce a beam of light and looked through the woods but saw nothing. After a moment of thought, she decided to start training slightly differently.

The angel began infusing small rocks with Bleak Radiance. Each one shed light similar to the lamps at the adventurers guild. At first she could only infuse five stones but with effort she was able to get six active at once by limiting the direction of the light the stones produced. Once infused, she arranged them around the tent. Each stone pointed away from the campsite illuminating the area around it.

The winged girl didn’t want Trixie to wake up on account of bright light shining at the tent but something was making her very uneasy. Maybe it was the fact that it was her first night in the forest alone but she had the distinct feeling that if she let her guard down then something bad would happen. Eventually she walked around and charged the glowing stones around the camp with enough mana such that she wouldn’t have to sustain them for the rest of the evening. This let her Rest skill start ticking down once more. With any luck, she would have all of her resources back by the time morning came.

Even then, she didn’t let her guard down once during the night. She stared into the woods with her sword in hand while her wings gradually restored themselves to full size. That ominous feeling remained with her for the entire evening.

Name: Brivaria

Race: Angel

Class: Decaying Lightbrand

Level: 14

Stats: Health 41/41, Mana 68/68, Stamina 50/50

Attributes: Physique 30, Endurance 21, Arcane 32, Spirit 34, Awareness 21, Presence 35

Active Skills: Healing Touch, Holy Bulwark, Tailwind

Passive Skills: Inventory, Lesser Flight, Lesser Shapeshifting, Rest, Traits (Angel)

Magic: Light of Decay