“Is that what those green-robed freaks really are? From another world?” Heath asked, staring out into the wintry darkness.

Drifts of snow made strange shapes in Mel’s heat vision. “Did they have odd powers and talk about being part of a Covenant?”

“You’ve met them too?”

Mel nodded. “Red robes though. Seems they’re color-coded. How fun.”

“And I thought the world being stitched back together was bad enough.”

Far above, leathery shapes flitted across the night sky, swooping down to somewhere at an even higher elevation. The monsters screeched, tangling with some other foe.

“I need to find something to kill,” Mel said, her teeth beginning to chatter. She put a pin in that world stitching thing for later.

Heath took a few steps back from her. “You really know what to say to make a boy nervous, you know that?”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Mel said, bouncing in place to try to keep herself warm. “Now, find me something to kill!”

He smiled despite his earlier concern. “You got it.”

Mel hadn’t meant to be so curt with him, but it was just dawning on her how much colder the open air was than the frigid cave.

He loped on ahead, swift on his feet. He managed to stay on top of the thin crust of snow, darting so fast that his boots left only the slightest depression. Mel followed just as quickly. She found it surprisingly easy to mimic his light steps.

Mel could read the heat signature from his steps and focused on that instead of the dark blues and violets all around her.

“There,” Heath pointed, slipping between a stand of trees and thankfully out of the mourning wind of the icy plain.

Mel watched as a nearly indistinguishable shape moved through the clearing beyond the snow-laden pine trees. When it stopped moving, Mel nearly lost it.

Then it turned her way, and she saw the glowing red dots of a nose and eyes illuminating other parts of its face.

“A deer?” Mel asked quietly.

“That’s what you see?” Heath asked. “It’s definitely…deer-like. Its antlers are glowing with a beautiful light. Don’t you see that?”

“Nope. Let’s go get some venison.” She didn’t care how pretty it was. Not when a hollow pit of hunger gnawed at her middle.

Heath didn’t argue with her. What little they had eaten back in the cave hadn’t been enough. Nobody ate fish jerky until they were full.

They both went down low and swung wide in different directions in a pincering attack. Mel was surprised at how quiet Heath was. He didn’t make a whisper of sound as he darted to the side.

No wonder he’s survived so long. I wonder what his Convocation standing is.

Despite all of Mel’s agility and her delicate balance, the crunch of snow beneath her boots sounded like industrial machinery in the hush of the clearing.

The deer lifted its head, suddenly aware of the danger. Its antlers flared with heat so intensely the snow in a 10-foot radius was instantly vaporized to reveal green grass.

Mel summoned her stinger twinblade and launched herself at the creature before it could attack.

It didn’t attack.

It opened up a portal and jumped through just as Mel’s blade nicked its hindquarters.

Something fell to the ground, glittering in her infravision, but her attention was taken up by the portal it had leapt through. She turned and adjusted her footing to pursue, but Heath’s hand clamped onto her shoulder. “Don’t!”

Mel frowned, but she found herself trusting him.

“There are monsters coming through that portal!”

Mel couldn’t make out anything other than a sheet of white-hot heat, but she backed up and took up a position perpendicular to the portal. It was hardly thicker than a sheet of paper, its edge throwing off colorful sparks of heat.

Heath hurried into the shadow of a leaning tree, just outside the ring of grass. He crouched, daggers sticking past his knuckles.

Several large humanoid monsters appeared from the portal, snarling and baying for blood.

Mel waited a moment, sensing something she couldn’t put her finger on. Portals were well-documented and researched by Magi. They were one of the oldest phenomena known, and using them so frequently caused a faint connection to form.

Just as the portal sealed itself, Mel launched herself at the backs of the monsters. Her own screams of battle lust matched the hideous cries of the monsters.

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For much longer than he meant to, Heath watched as Mel tore through the ranks of monsters. For a moment, he wondered if she was one too.

His [Dark Vision] let him see clearly, as if it was a bright moonlit night. How Mel was able to tell exactly where a creature was, especially when one big gangly guy slipped behind her, was beyond his comprehension.

That twinblade of hers spun and swept around, a miracle of action economy that spiked a feeling of envy in the young man. When he wanted to attack again, he had to pull his daggers back and line up another strike.

Mel could attack on both her back and forward swing. He had never seen a weapon so ridiculous, yet so efficient. Only some things compared, like staves, beast claws, and spikeshields, but they still didn’t fill the same niche at all.

What sort of aspects does Mel have to create a demoness like her?

The system notifications clued him into what they might be, but the nameplates didn’t always align with an aspect. Heath had long since picked that up by observing multiple people fighting.

He learned a lot doing that and often found openings. Sure, it was opportunistic, but a large portion of those same people often had tried to kill him earlier.

You didn’t win a battle royale by engaging in every fight possible. You picked your battles, trying and planning for advantageous conditions. The winners took their prizes and holed up somewhere, watching and studying, while the rest duked it out.

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You’re doing that right now, the small insistent voice of his conscience told him.

Heath realized he was letting Mel do all the work. It was a wonder that, even when surrounded–perhaps especially when she was surrounded–the monsters went down swiftly.

Attacking from the outside of the ring, Heath’s daggers darting for vulnerable spots, the monsters were wiped out swiftly. Using [Fanning Ravens] back-to-back sunk his mana and stamina, but it was worth it when he didn’t need to rely too much on his other aspect skills.

The portal still hung in the air beside Mel. She breathed deeply, steam rising off her blood-soaked armor and from the dying bodies ringing her.

She really does look like a demonness, Heath realized, looking at the woman raising a hand over the bodies. He watched in interest and horror as droplets of blood were siphoned from their corpses.

The droplets formed rivers of blood that twisted through the air like tiny ruby dust devils. Sheets of blood formed on her shoulders, ran down her arms, and across her back in a red tide.

What’s happening to her? And then he realized.

Part of him wanted to be sick. The other part was deeply interested in what she was doing.

Once the blood-red coat materialized completely on her shoulders, he noticed the prompt.

Aspect Skill: [Sanguine Coat]

“Metal,” Heath whispered.

Mel turned and grinned toothily at him. Not a speck of blood stained her cheeks, hair, or body anymore. It was all in the coat.

And here I thought my [Dusk Cloak] was badass. I feel like a baby-faced tween going to his first heavy metal concert.

“Much better,” Mel said, straightening the bloody coat. Heath noticed she was no longer shivering.

“Keeps you warm?” he asked. Much to his embarrassment, his voice cracked. C’mon, Heath! You’re not a kid anymore. Mel will eat you alive if you keep acting like this.

“Quite well,” Mel said, studying the portal hanging there. “They must have had some sort of resistance to cold.”

Heath peered at the portal too. The twisted and horrible landscape it had once shown was gone. Now it was just a solid sheet of gold light.

Mel took another step back, putting herself behind Heath. Before he could react, she dragged him back several steps.

The portal exploded in a burst of color and light, but otherwise stayed completely silent.

When Heath’s vision returned, Mel was kneeling in front of something where the portal had been.

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Mel knew something was off with that portal. After pulling Heath free of the blast, she rushed forward to the chest that formed from the portal’s remnant energy.

It crackled with coppery lightning as she pushed up the lid of the treasure chest.

[Portal Chest]

(10) [Mist Coins (Common)] have been stored in your inventory.

(10) [Serpent Coins (Common)] have been stored in your inventory.

(10) [Blood Coins (Common)] have been stored in your inventory.

(10) [Omen Coins (Common)] have been stored in your inventory.

(10) [Divine Coins (Common)] have been stored in your inventory.

(1) [Kindling Branch of Dark (Yellow)]

(50) [Copper Rune Coins]

“That’s…a lot of aspect coins,” Heath said, kneeling at the coins that appeared at his feet. The loot must have been split between them. “A kindling branch too? That’s damn lucky!”

Mel looked at him. “You know what that is?”

“No!” Heath said excitedly. “But I’ve never seen it before, so that must mean it’s pretty rare.”

He seemed so earnest and genuine. It was hard imagining somebody wanting to hurt him. It would be like kicking an incontinent puppy.

He scooped up his items in his hands, studying them with clear astonishment.

“No venison though,” Mel said, scowling at where the portal had been. “I’ll get you next time, deer .”

“That wasn’t a–” Heath shook his head. “Never mind.”

Mel opened her inventory and took out the branch, curious as to what it was.

[Kindling Branch of Dark (Yellow)]

(Aspect Skill Item)

(Rare)

A charred branch from the Eternal Tree. Yellow embers flicker in and out of existence from its smoldering remains. Unsettlingly cold, the branch saps the life and warmth from all it touches. A vast dark stain has turned the branch brittle and jagged.

Imprint: Use to unlock a Dark type aspect skill of the Yellow variety.

Mel lifted a brow curiously. A fair amount of details jumped out at her. This was a piece of the Eternal Tree, something she wasn’t too familiar with and yet it was mythologically significant.

The Yellow color had something to do with chroma powers. All her aspect skills were a specific color, though she was still working out which color did what.

And then the realization hit her.

“Holy shit. Kindling branches give you another aspect skill!”

Heath looked at her. “Are you sure?” He sorted through the pile of coins until he picked up his own branch. It looked the same, only with Violet embers instead of Yellow.

“I always wondered if aspects only had one skill each, or if we’d get more,” Heath said, staring at the branch wondrously. “I’ve been watching raiding groups and more for the past week…and I’ve never seen anything like this.”

“Must be rare,” Mel said, slipping the branch back into her inventory. She didn’t need a system notification to tell her what she felt when she held the branch.

She could use it to unlock a new aspect skill, but it would be aligned to both darkness and Yellow. Not that she knew what that meant. Moreover, it meant that she’d need to choose one of her five aspects to gain a new skill. Not something she intended to rush.

Once she had a better understanding of how all her aspects worked together, she’d use the branch to fill in what she felt was missing.

“You’re not going to use yours? Do…you not want it?” he asked hopefully.

Mel spun on him. “You’d have to pry it from my smoking hot, dead hands.”

“That’s not how–” Heath started, but Mel cut him off.

“You can make a rash choice if you want. I’m going to take a bit to think on it. We’ve both got five aspects. Maybe you can make such an important choice quickly, but I’d like to weigh my options.”

Her stomach growled a few seconds before Heath’s.

They looked at each other. “Campfire?” Mel asked.

“Campfire,” Heath agreed.