It was a possibility that Sturgis wouldn't keep his arm. He'd live thanks to his brother, but his arm had nearly been ripped off. Crue had managed to reattach the limb, but the damage in that area was extensive. On top of his other wounds, Crue had to triage Sturgis before helping Illia and Lotte with the plan for the Cave Bear.

The time in between the first healing and now had started to see Sturgis' arm turn color. Apparently, this wasn't a good sign. What was even worse, Sturgis hadn't woken up and developed a high fever. Crue was beside himself trying to heal his brother.

"Care to tell me what that was all about?" Lotte confronted me.

"No," I said simply. I didn't want to tell her about my magic and she didn't need to know.

"Fine," she crossed her arms and sighed. "Good job, whatever that was."

"Illia come help me make a stretcher." Lotte touched Illia's arm and they both wandered off into the trees.

"Crue, we all gained a lot of Exp. I can use it to up your healing some more. It might help."

"I... I must not be thinking straight. Yes, do that. Though I'm running out of MP to work with."

"There is still some in my Succuba Star and you can try Illia's, but honestly I don't know how you leech from them." I opened Crue's stats.

"I think I've figured it out,"Crue muttered. I checked my Succuba Star and it was empty.

"I've leveled your Water Magic and Healing Waters to 8," I told him. "Let me know if you want to go further."

He nodded assent. I leveled up Healing Hands to level 5. I could at least use what MP I had left to fix the surface wounds while Crue worked on the deeper issues. I began to feel dizzy again after I closed a particularly ragged patch on Sturgis' stomach.

We needed more MP, but we were all tapped out. What did we do?

Amisi nudged Sturgis' good hand with her head. She was sending me images of dead deer.

"He's not gone, Amisi, just injured." She sent me an image of a bee with a crooked wing.

"That's right." She was pretty spot on with that image. A bee with an injured wing couldn't fly and would die. Would Sturgis be able to survive if he lost his arm? He might be able to work as a Surveyor for the Guild full-time, but with his good arm gone would he be able to defend himself in case of an attack?

Amisi buzzed again. Her harness studs caught the light of the fire. Succuba Harness. Did it work like Succuba Star in that way too?

"Amisi, can you try to store your MP into your harness?"

Crue looked up at that and glanced at the bee. A look of hope flashed across his face.

Amisi sent me images of bees flying in circles. Confusion.

"You should be able to push your magic into your harness to store it."

She sent me an image of bees making and keeping honey.

"I think you have the idea. You store your magic in the harness to use for later. However, if I'm right, we may be able to access your stored magic and use it to help save Sturgis."

"Please try," Crue whispered.

Amisi buzzed in a circle and did an odd shuffle bee dance. Then she went still with only her antennae twitching. She finally gave a short buzz and laid down in the grass.

"She did it!" Crue laughed.

"You can get her MP?"

"Yes! I didn't know her harness worked like our stars."

"Well, it was something Amoris forgot to mention."

"Doesn't matter, Amisi has a lot of MP for such a little bee. I might be able to actually do something." Crue shifted over and gave me a hug. "Thank you."

"It wasn't me it was Amisi. She's the star of tonight's show. After all, she's the one who dealt the final attack on the Cave Bear. Who knew if we would have been able to kill it if it had continued to heal."

"Right. Thank you so much Amisi," Crue reached over and pet her head. She gave a short tired buzz.

"Here you deserve these." I placed a handful of berries in front of her. She buzzed a bit then slowly began eating them.

Crue began to work harder on his brother. I could slowly begin to see Sturgis' arm go back to a normal color. That was probably a good sign. Crue was really starting to sweat and he began to shake. I checked Crue's MP. 32! Shit.

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

"Crue stop, we can't do anything if you both pass out" I put my hand on his arm.

"Just a little more," Crue muttered.

"No, let's wait until we all recover some MP then you can continue. Look, his fingers are twitching. That's good. You've reversed the color change. I think he will be ok for a short while more.

"Here eat this, sugar should help a little bit." I handed him a chocolate bar. I took one out for me as well. I had promised that I'd stick to my diet, but these were emergency rations.

Crue had stopped trying to heal Sturgis. So I took a second to check on Amisi's MP. She'd stopped feeding her harness at 50. That was probably wise. She had given enough to help, but still be able to maintain herself. Unlike Crue who had used up all his MP, what we'd had left in our Succuba Stars, and Amisi's 575 MP.

In a way, Sturgis was lucky. If it hadn't been his brother, who was connected to us, and some other healer he would most definitely have lost his arm. He wasn't out of the woods, but it was looking far better. I could see how combining MP could be incredibly useful.

Right now though, I had to worry about keeping Crue's new healing skills a secret. I'd really bumped up all our skills during the attack, but Crue's skills would read as super human. Mastery of a skill started at level 5, that would mean that Crue had a six skills he was a master at. Normal people were only able to master one or two skills.

Wasn't level 10 considered 'god like' skill? Was that really true though? Somehow I didn't see Crue's level 8 skill as anywhere near 'god like' and he probably had the Exp for me to bump them both up to 10 if he wanted. Was it possible to go past level 10? Would that be considered super mastery?

*Incoming Message. Please check your inventory.~

I opened up the message. Part of me half expected what it would say.

*Dear Eri,

So I may have forgotten to mention one small detail.

Amisi's harness is similar to your Succuba Star, but since it doesn't pierce her body, it's far less effective. She will still receive some bonus' from Party, just not to the same extent as the others.

Of course if you level up Party she will gain more from the bonus.

As you may have noticed, you can access her stats via the harness and your Gamer Glass. You can distribute any Exp when she earns it and when you eventually get around to learning Skill Stone Activation from a priest you'll be able to activate her passive skills as well.

Keep in mind that she's still a baby, and you shouldn't overwhelm her with too many new skills at once. This is why her Special Skills are not yet active. They remain inactive until the bee is fully mature enough to handle the skills.

Also, I wouldn't recommend trying to push your levels above 10 just yet. It is possible, but only a few have managed it. That is only after years of dedication. Crue's grandfather was like that. Your Hidden Among the Masses skill would cover for you on paper, but it would be difficult to hide the effectiveness of certain skills from others if you were to raise the levels above 10.

Crue's healing would be hard to cover up. He'd be fine on paper, but people would begin to wonder why his hidden level 5 healing ability was so much better than other healers at level 5. You understand? I hope so. It would be very difficult for him to not heal someone if he has the skill to do so, but it's rather important you keep your skills hidden. That means keeping your friend's skills hidden as well. I'll be sending similar information to Crue and Illia.

I would suggest leveling out your base stats and raising some of your level one skills. Get Skill Stone Activation as soon as possible so that you can activate Crue's and Illia's passive skills. They've got a few accumulated.

I'm glad you survived. I won a favor from Esaias. So great job!

Xoxo

Amoris~

Crue had his head tilted to the side. He was listening to Amoris.

*Illia Title Gain- Oracle of Amoris~

Well, Amoris was making oracles everywhere. I hoped Zyanthis was ok with it.

"You need to level up Hidden Among the Masses," Crue told me after he was done receiving his message.

"I did earlier, but I don't really have a gauge for how effective the skill will be at certain levels."

"Better safe than sorry."

"True." I was at 40 now. How far should I push it? 50, 80, or even 100? I began to feed Exp into the skill. At 150 I got a notification that sent chills down my spine and broke me out in a cold sweat.

*Hidden Among the Masses-150 With this ability, your status screen can be altered. It allows one to blend in among the dominant race of the area. It is a race-specific disguise ability that will fool even the All Seer. Currently receiving a Title power boost from Emissary of Amoris, Devotee of Amoris, Oracle of Amoris, Devotee of Edomael, Oracle of Edomael, and Grateful Petitioner. Your current gender alteration is male. At level 150 you can alter your gender. Would you like to change this now? Yes/No~

"Hey, are you ok? You went all pale." Crue patted my back, but it sounded as if he was speaking to me from the far end of a tunnel.

I knew I was able to change my Race/Species. I'd been given that information from the beginning. Thinking back on it, I think it had said something about male not being able to be altered at this time. So now I could change it? At level 150 I could become... a girl?

"Eri? Hey!"

I selected no, but a queasy feeling worked it's way up my gut. What did this mean for when I became a real Succuba? What were the ramifications of this?

"ERI! Breathe!" Crue slapped me across the face, not hard, just enough to get my attention.

"Um," I muttered. I was still a bit spacey but I sucked in a breath.

"Eri, what happened? Are you ok?" Crue was looking at me with concern. Oh, look there was a small bit of chocolate on the side of his mouth. Messy, messy.

"Focus! What is wrong?" Crue shook me a little.

It was too much. It was all just too much. Today had been too much. Hell, the last week has been crazy. This wasn't real. This didn't happen to sane people. Was I mad? Have the white coats take me away! We're all mad here. I began to laugh hysterically, but I could feel tears running down my face.

*Status Anomaly- Mental Instability~

Crue was talking and Amisi was sending me images of bees and sunflowers. I blocked them out. It was just all too damned much. I didn't want to be able to be a girl. I didn't want to be a Succuba. I wanted to go home. Home, where life made sense.

What had I been thinking, befriending a Death Bee, taking on a crazy strong monster in a foot race to the death? I was insane. No wonder my actions were so unpredictable. I was crazy. Lunatics were all unpredictable.

"What is wrong with him?" Someone said from that far off tunnel place.

"No idea, he just started to laugh and cry and won't answer me."

"Did you slap him?"

"Yes."

"Hard?"

"No."

"Well here it goes. No hard feelings, ok?"

A fist came from nowhere and knocked me backwards. Good thing I had been sitting the fall would have been a bad one. As it was, I just felt like I needed to sleep. I was so tired all of a sudden. Yes, sleep was good.