Sylas moves along the forest's edge, searching for a straight tree that isn't too thick. His gaze falls on a maple tree that, contrary to its neighbors, still retains much of its reddening leaves. It appears to be six meters high and under nine centimeters thick with a dozen branches. Ether inhabits its wood, getting in the way of the threads Sylas draws to himself.

"This one will be tougher; it absorbed Ether," Liliana comments.

"I wonder what fed it," Sylas ponders aloud.

"There is something under it that leaks Ether," Liliana explains. "It's pretty deep, and my best guess is that it’s the corpse of some monster."

"I didn't sense that at all," Sylas admits. Placing the pelt down, he unsheathes his sword and lowers himself to strike at the tree's base. With a twist of his entire torso, he embeds his blade halfway through the trunk.

"Don't dull your weapon to cut down a tree. You might need it later," Liliana quips.

"With the metal it is made of and the enchantments I put on, I really hope it won't lose to it," Sylas retorts. He slashes back at the gash he cut with another attack. The tree tilts until its branches crack against a pine tree, pushing it back the other way. Sylas moves aside, avoiding the trunk as it falls towards him. He remembers too late that Liliana was behind him and turns to see she moved out of the way.

"Melee Weapon (Long sword) leveled up."

"Do you want help dragging it back?" Liliana asks.

"I'll make it easier," Sylas says as he cuts off the branches. He moves along the trunk and swings down to cut two one-and-a-half-meter lengths for bows. He cuts the rest of the tree into smaller chunks for arrows. "Can you take these ones? I'll carry the other two."

Liliana grabs the three shorter logs and the pelt before walking back towards the cavern. She turns to make sure he follows and asks, "Do you have everything you need?"

Sylas looks around, searching for what Liliana may have fought under the guise of double-checking what he needs. Finding nothing, he hefts the two logs over his shoulder and follows her. "No, I'm all good."

As Sylas enters the cavern, he places the two longer logs near the fire and inspects them under the light. He unsheathes his blade and places it against the edge of a log to cut out the bark. Done, he repeats for the second one.

"Your sword is wickedly sharp," Liliana comments.

"It's enchanted with B-ranked sharpness. And the metal I used to make it comes from Mount Silverveil; it holds quite a lot of Ether," Sylas reveals. He sits on a rock with the first bow-to-be held with his legs and draws his blade along it.

Shavings curl away from the log, falling at his feet and filling the air with maple scent. Soon, Sylas forms the trunk into an even rectangle on which he marks his carving goals with charcoal.

Liliana tends to the fire as she watches the cavern's entrance, occasionally glancing over his work. She seems tense, her carefree demeanor and mannerisms replaced by a cold gaze directed outside.

Over the course of an hour, Sylas loses himself to the rhythm of carving. The limbs done, he uses Liliana's dagger to carve out nocks for the strings and arrow notches. The edges feel rough, but without files or rasps, he cannot smooth them.

"Looks good," Liliana comments with a yawn.

"Thanks." Sylas grabs two logs from their firewood stock and places them upright on opposite sides of the embers.

"What are those for?" Liliana asks.

"The wood needs to dry before it can be bent. Normally, bow wood should be dried over several months before being carved." Sylas sets the bows above the fire, using the logs to raise them fifty centimeters higher than the flaming embers. With a stick, he shapes the fire to give it more length, assuring heat is evenly affecting his creations. "It will hasten the process; I just need to turn them over in a few hours. And hope they don't crack."

"I guess you're planning on unraveling some of our rope for the strings," Liliana comments. She drags the bag to her and pulls out the thick rope.

"Yes," Sylas confirms, taking it as she hands it to him. He cuts a length and unravels its many strands. The untwisted strands in his hands, he starts using a reverse twist to remake them into a string that forms an integrated loop at one end.

"I can do that," Liliana says. She holds her hand for him to give her the strands. "You still have the arrows and quivers to do."

It strikes Sylas that he overlooked the need for quivers. He hands her the strands and grabs the hide to sprawl it on a flat rock. It pains him to use untreated hide to craft anything, but they cannot realistically carry arrows in their hands all day.

Patches of fat and muscles cling to the underside of the pelt. He would risk cutting into the leather if he used something as sharp as Liliana's dagger. His gaze sweeps the ground outside the cavern's mouth, searching for rocks he can turn into tools and arrowheads. After a minute, his eyes settle on large flints and a round rock.

Grabbing them, Sylas strikes one of the flint's corners with the rock, chipping away to refine its edge. Sparks fly every few hits, and the stone takes on a sharp, almost regular edge.

Sylas grips the flint in his hand and presses it against the hide, scraping away the fat and bits of muscle as he slides it. Flakes shed away from his tool, slowly dulling the edge as he works. As he finishes, the hide turns clean and pliable.

He cuts rectangular pieces out of the hide using Liliana's dagger and folds them into cylinders, the fur outward. He punches holes in the seams and stitches them with strands of rope to form the quivers. Using strands of pelt, he attaches a strap to each of them.

"Didn't you say you needed to tan it first?" Liliana asks.

"I think I will still be able to once we are done with the exercise. Worst case scenario, I'll make new ones; that would be a waste, though," Sylas answers. Passing the strap of a quiver under his belt, Sylas finds himself satisfied with the height at which it drops along his leg.

"A bit shorter for me, please," Liliana says, pointing at her thigh five centimeters higher than the quiver would rest at.

"Sure," Sylas confirms before shortening the strap of her quiver.

Done with them, he grabs the shorter logs he cut earlier and carves them down into elongated, square pieces. One by one, he shaves their corners with his blade until he's left with thirty cylinders.

"What do you want to use for fletching?" Liliana asks. "I've seen discarded nests near the lake, but I don't think you'll find many good feathers."

"I forgot about that," Sylas admits. Making them with raw pelt would be a terrible idea. Another way would have been parchment, but they have none of that.

Liliana skims a flame with the strings she made, burning off the loose strands jutting out of them. She rolls them and places her finished strings beside Sylas. "You could use the leaves of the tree you cut. They are still in good condition."

"Good idea," Sylas praises. He goes outside the cavern to fetch some of the branches he discarded. Looking up, he realizes how late, or rather, early it is.

The two moons shine almost fully above them in a dark sky. Small shadows fly above, making the stars flicker behind their erratic paths. The tree line feels oppressive, shrouded in near-total darkness.

Sylas drags two branches back and realizes that Liliana watches over him from the cavern's mouth. He comments, "You seem awfully protective and concerned. That wasn't the case before we got attacked; did something happen?"

"It's just late," Liliana deflects. "People get nervous when they don't get enough sleep."

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Sylas sits back down and cuts the most flexible leaves to shape before binding them in trios to the shafts using strands of rope. Having no glue, he cuts incisions perpendicular to the shaft into the leaves to bind them in half a dozen points.

"It looks pretty," Liliana comments. "It would be hard to find feathers that begin green and fade to orange and red along their length. At least it wouldn't be cheap."

Sylas grabs a flint and his oval rock and smacks the edge of the flint. Chunks fall down, one of them big enough to make an arrowhead out of. Sylas cleans the shards, sets aside his first arrowhead in the making, and repeats.

Using the wolf's tooth, he shapes the flints. He chips at them, smoothing the edges into pointed tips. He cuts himself a few times; nothing serious for a craftsman.

Liliana watches him, arms crossed, her sheathed sword resting point-down against the ground. "You look like you know what you are doing. Did you hunt for your village?"

"Bows are an easy… toy to make when you are a kid. The arrows? We had a hunter who couldn't be bothered to make his own or to catch anything really," Sylas explains. "He didn't have money, but he was annoying, so we made him some from flints. At first I tried with all kinds of rocks, but it's by far the easiest one to work with."

"Too bad it's brittle; you can't reuse the arrows much," Liliana comments. "There is also obsidian, but I doubt you would have found any around your home."

"What does it look like?" Sylas asks.

"It's a black stone," Liliana answers. "Its chunks can be extremely sharp, but they break easily."

Sylas cuts slots into the shafts and fits the arrow tips into them before securing them with rope strands. One by one, he finishes the arrows by cutting nocks the width of the bowstrings.

"We should at least get a deer with that many if your bows are any good," Liliana comments.

"Enchantment," Sylas mutters. A window appears in front of him.

Enchanting

This arrow can hold one E rank enchantment.

Speak the name of the enchantment you want to bestow upon the arrow. Enchantments may fail if attributed to slots of insufficient rank.

"Durability," Sylas says. He repeats the operation for each arrow under Liliana's increasingly surprised gaze. Her growing stupefaction at the quality of his craft, denoted by E and F slots, makes Sylas smile. Few would expect makeshift arrows to be any good, but Sylas has had years of practice.

"Crafting (Arrow) leveled up," the system says.

Once the last arrow is enchanted, Sylas feels a shroud taking over his mind. He stands but tumbles, his body suddenly weak and clumsy.

Liliana catches Sylas as he falls to the side. She moves under his arm and sits the both of them back. Resetting the fallen blanket, she blames, "I knew it – you have no idea what you are doing. Enchanting is hard on your soul; you can't just do it like that."

She continues grumbling, but Sylas' sight darkens as her voice grows distant.

Dazed, Sylas flickers in and out of consciousness at the sight and feel of the darkened, cold cavern. He wonders if the day has come but cannot find the cavern's mouth, his body protesting him turning his head. The blanket weighs on him like lead, hindering his every move.

A low growl reverberates through the cavern. The sound freezes Sylas and sends his heart racing. The growl grows into a snarl as thundering steps echo, approaching him.

Sylas turns his head towards the sound, simultaneously struggling to reach his blade. His hand doesn't find its handle as he rummages through the blanket.

Two red eyes glow in the darkness, staring down at Sylas. They descend, revealing the external, tusked skull that surrounds them as it wraps its toothy maw around Sylas' neck.

Sylas wakes up, grasping his pounding heart through his chest. The blanket falls off him as he bends forward, uncovering Liliana, who's leaning against him, her eyes closed.

Sylas swallows, suddenly aware of how close she is. His right arm is stuck behind her neck, serving as a pillow instead of the rock it's resting on. His heart doesn't slow down; he looks away, trying to distract his mind. The fire still holds evenly scattered embers from logs added after he dozed off, and the bows have been turned over.

"Because of your recklessness, I couldn't sleep," Liliana whispers. Knowing her habit of prolongating waking up by countless five-minute additions, it's likely she wasn't sleeping at all.

"I'm sorry," Sylas apologizes.

"Don't do it again; that's all that matters," Liliana whispers back. "You shouldn't enchant more than a few low-rank items a day until your soul is accustomed to it."

"I fainted because my soul got tired?" Sylas asks.

"I'm not surprised – that's not something you'd learn outside a noble's house," Liliana begins. She draws a human figure in the dirt with the tip of her sheath. "Souls are bound to our bodies from the day we are born to the day we die – they are our memories, thoughts, and instincts. When enchanting, you dialog with the object's soul and exert yours to strengthen it."

"Objects have souls?" Sylas startles.

"Everything has one – humans, dogs, fishes, swords, spears, even rocks do," Liliana confirms. "When you modify an object, like the flints and wood of the arrows, it weakens their souls because they are no longer what they… think they are. In those weakened states, before they fuse as they realize they have become an arrow, you can mold their souls by force into a stronger arrow."

"So, I what? Give them part of my soul?" Sylas asks.

"No," Liliana denies. "It's more like talking to them. But that weakens your soul like exercise strains your muscles. And just like you can wound your muscles, you can damage your soul by overexercising it."

"I thought it was like using life force for a moment, but it sounds less dangerous," Sylas comments.

"How do you even know about that?" Liliana asks. She severs the arm of the figure she drew. "It would be using part of your soul as fuel. But using life force is reckless and extremely painful. Even if you can do it, which concerns only a fraction of the population, it causes immense pain only a madman could endure."

"You said souls hold our memories and more. What happens to them if you use life force? Do you forget stuff?" Sylas asks.

"They are also in your brain. As long as your soul is attached to your body, it will regrow. But if you die having expended life force, your soul will be damaged forever, or even destroyed," Liliana explains. "No afterlife for you."

"Well, that's scary," Sylas comments. He moves out of the blanket and dons his dried gambeson. "Thank you for turning them over."

"It's nothing," Liliana says. She folds the wool blanket and stashes it in their bag before checking her armor's straps.

Sylas grabs the bows, inspecting them in the morning light. He strings and draws the bows, noting any spots in the limbs that bend unevenly. The strings removed, he shaves off thin layers of wood from these areas and repeats. After several iterations, he's satisfied with the curvature of both bows. He turns to Liliana and asks, "Can I enchant them now? Or do I need more rest?"

"Two bows shouldn’t be too hard after sleeping the entire night," Liliana answers with a hint of discontent.

"Enchantment," Sylas mutters.

Enchanting

This bow can hold one E rank enchantment.

Speak the name of the enchantment you want to bestow upon the bow. Enchantments may fail if attributed to slots of insufficient rank.

"Did you expect it to be better ranked?" Liliana asks.

"Not really," Sylas begins. He presses on his cheeks to dispel the disappointed expression he bears. "I eyeballed every measurement, used weapons as tools, made them from undried wood, had no rasp to smooth their edges, and didn't do a bit of decoration."

"Making pretty weapons results in better enchantments?" Liliana asks.

"That's what Edgar told me," Sylas answers. He looks back at the window and says, "Durability."

"I'm sure you'll have the time to make one like you want," Liliana comments.

"I certainly hope so. If anything, I might build upon mine before we are thrown back into the wild for round two. I'll refrain from enchanting it for now; I'm sure I can do better," Sylas says. He hands her the enchanted bow.

Liliana draws the bow without notching an arrow. Her back muscles show through her armor, displacing the gambeson and leather breastplate. "I'd guess it's around forty, fifty kilos. High for hunting, but you never know what could attack us."

"Crafting (Bow) leveled up (x2)," the system announces.

"I hope we were the unlucky ones and that the kids didn't have to fight wolves," Sylas says.

"I wonder where it came from. Wolves inhabit the northern mountains, past Balmwood, but I've never heard of packs this south," Liliana says. "And the ones I know of are supposed to be smaller. But I wouldn't worry; this place causes a lot of echoes, and we didn't hear any screams."

"We should check on them," Sylas begins. He attaches the loaded quiver to his belt and sets the bow across his chest. "We don't have to eliminate them as soon as we see them, do we?"

"Knowing where they shelter will be plenty enough. If they are too confident to move by tomorrow, they'll deserve to be eliminated," Liliana comments. She draws an arrow without firing it. "The fletching feels weird, but it should do the trick."

"I'd need feathers to do it properly and some type of glue. Pine pitch would do it, but we don't have anything like a pot to melt the stuff," Sylas says.

"Speaking of pot, I'm hungry." Liliana stashes the longbow over her torso and steps outside. "I won't take long; I heard some birds earlier. Practice, or I'll be mad if you miss and hit me in the back."

As he watches her vanish into the forest, Sylas removes the tip of an arrow to avoid needlessly breaking it. He aims at a tree and releases the string, hurling the projectile forward. He misses by twenty centimeters, sending the arrow deep into the forest.

Sylas sighs and begins walking in the direction he shot at. Of course he would miss with a new bow; he should have fired into the cavern to avoid losing his arrow. Walking, Sylas thinks of a hot, stuffy breakfast of warm bread, sausages, and eggs as his stomach protests.

He finds his arrow stuck in between the two diverging trunks of a tree. "At least I hit a tree," Sylas comments. He grabs the shaft and pulls the arrow out before inspecting the notched tip; it's thankfully undamaged.

Sylas' breath catches as his gaze refocuses on the ground. Two fingers, their base enveloped in the remains of fingerless gloves, lie in the snow at the tree's foot.

Sylas looks around and realizes he's near to where he was attacked yesterday. He crouches and approaches with his hand to grab one of the fingers but stops himself as his stomach churns.

"I got us a partridge," Liliana calls from the lake's edge. She looks at him through the forest, her gaze locked onto his.

Sylas stands up, masking the emotion of disgust that threatened to overtake him. He puts on a smile and walks out; whatever happened, she's hiding it from him, and it makes him certain he shouldn't push it. His mind swirls as he tries to come up with a theory. If it was the village's attacker, or any unknown enemy, she would have told him… unless she thinks he would panic if he knew. He reaches her and says, "Nice. I don't know what he tastes like. Is it good?"

"It's quite tender," Liliana comments. The blood on her sword's locket is gone, cleaned up while he wasn't looking.

"Deception leveled up."