Beth’s lips twisted in indecision as she looked at a small trail that she’d stumbled upon. A trail would be faster than going through the woods. It would also be much quieter. Despite her best efforts to move stealthily, even consuming darkness just wasn’t up to the task of consuming the sounds of a person smashing their way through the dense underbrush.

Who would have thought that I would be missing the sparse forests of Satrap?

She shook her head at the thought, but she didn’t set foot on the path yet. Instead, she began to chew on her lip as she considered the downside. There was only one, really: she would be more likely to encounter elves on the path. She could even be ambushed.

Even since she’d sworn vengeance and aligned herself with Durak she hadn’t feared death. She figured that she would regret dying, sure, but only because she wouldn’t see her vengeance on Technis come to fruition. After rescuing James and Bel she’d worried over their safety, but now she was alone again, just like how things were in the beginning.

So why is my heart beating so heavily?

Beth took a deep breath and plunged into her emotions. She’d learned long ago that she had to address these things as soon as they showed up, before they could worm their way into her subconscious and trip her up when a clear head was her best weapon.

So why am I so stressed about this? Is it because I don’t know anything about Skotos?

She pulled a dagger loose and cut at the unfamiliar leaf of an unknown tree as she thought about it. On the tree’s trunk, two strange insects tussled until they fell onto the forest floor where they continued their battle to the death. A deep breath brought in an extravaganza of unknown scents. The air was filled with the chitters and squawks of birds and arboreal animals. Was the unfamiliar stuff frightening?

No, she decided, the novelty is exciting. But maybe the fact that the threats are unknown is getting to me?

She tapped her teeth as she thought about it, and couldn’t help but recall the Dark Ravager’s paladin. The moment that his sword had cleaved through her arm replayed in her head and she flinched at the remembered pain. She clenched at her stump and grimaced.

Okay, maybe I’m less fearless than I used to be.

She turned back to the path and considered the choice. The idea that she was afraid of meeting some powerful elf on the trail rankled her. Fine, she decided, I’m taking the path. If I meet any elves I’ll stab ’em.

Decision made, she stepped out of the woods and continued her journey. Beth was making better time going through the cleared path than the dense jungle, but she over-energized her perceptive abilities and paused at even the slightest sound. Even with her increased vigilance, she still didn’t detect the attack until a person-sized raptor nearly sliced her open with a slash of its oversized claws.

Beth leaped backwards to avoid the tall bird-lizard, her eyes wide with surprise. Her abilities had given her enough warning to dodge by an arm length, but the second raptor waiting behind her nearly impaled her before she even knew it was there. It was only the rush of a small, furry thing moving away from the other raptor that alerted Beth to the possibility of a second ambusher before it was too late.

She forced extra energy through rapid reflexes and twisted under its grasping forelimbs. Beth stabbed back with her dagger, forcing the raptor back and giving her space to jump to the side and put her back to an enormous tree.

“Clever birds,” she muttered grudgingly. She cast a quick, nervous glance up to assure herself that there wasn’t a third one waiting in the branches above her before concentrating on the two threats.

The raptors didn’t move in immediately, instead taking the time to examine her as they slowly circled. One of them hissed and the other chittered back in response.

Beth frowned at the simple communication. It would better if they were a little more mindless.

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She examined the two of them in return, looking for any weaknesses. Raven-dark feathers lined their arms, backs, and tails, but Beth didn’t think they could fly. Their tails were long and sinuous, made for upright runners rather than flyers. Their arms were also too muscular, clearly meant for grasping rather than flapping, she Beth decided that she didn’t need to worry about more swooping in from above. Their muscled legs looked excellent for leaping and running though, and both their larger hind legs and shorter forelimbs sported wicked-looking claws that were easily as dangerous as any of her knives.

Beth crouched low, her favorite dagger clutched in her tight fist. If there was only one of them, then I would go on the offensive. I don’t like the idea of the second one at my back though.

But she didn’t want to let them set the pace of their fight. Instead of attacking, Beth feinted towards the larger one, on her left, before jumping back and falling into her guard position. The larger raptor planted its feet in the soft soil and eagerly spread its claws, ready for an attack that wouldn’t come. The smaller one struck instantly at her motion, it’s body moving too fast for it to stop even when it saw her ruse.

Beth prepared to face the smaller one, intent on killing it before the larger one could rush to its aid, but she felt a strange pull on her core. Trusting her instinct, Beth cloaked herself in darkness and tossed out a shadow clone as she ducked out of the way. Not an eyeblink later, the larger raptor appeared on top of her and its claws eviscerated the her shadowy visage.

Oh, hell no, she rebuked it silently. Shadows are my thing.

Beth pivoted her body quickly, sending out her unseen hand to strike a rapid core punch on the raptor’s exposed belly. She sent a silent prayer of thanks to Durak for the new ability as she stabbed the momentarily incapacitated creature through the thigh as she rolled past it.

She left the larger one to bleed out as she moved like fury to engage the smaller one. She threw her dagger, dealing it a glancing blow to the head, as she pulled her second favorite dagger free. The distracted raptor wasn’t prepared to get a blade through its throat, although its flailing claws managed to dig long, bloody paths into her side.

Beth hissed in pain as she stepped back to let the raptor bleed out and collapse from blood loss.

I’d have been fine with two arms, she complained internally. Stupid, damned paladin.

Beth eyed the larger raptor. Her dagger had been poisoned – of course – but the larger creature was still stumbling around. Its abilities were momentarily disrupted, but Beth didn’t want to wait to see if it had any way to fight poison when its core started fully working again.

She rushed over to it, this time leaning away from the rush of its claws before jabbing her knife into its heart.

Beth paused to catch her breath and waited to see if the fight had attracted anything else. Nothing showed up after a minute, so Beth took a quick look at her wounds. They weren’t deep – they had barely managed to get through her leather armor – but the creature’s claws had ruined her clothes.

“Why can’t some goddess give me a nice set of armor,” she complained aloud.

James would probably whine about the risk of infection, but her blood was poisonous. That probably made her immune to whatever her adopted brother was complaining about, although she couldn’t help but wonder if her cavalier attitude would catch up with her one day. With a resigned shrug, Beth knelt down and examined the dead raptor’s core.

“I think you used some shadow ability, didn’t you?” she asked the deceased creature. “Something that let you move through shadows, maybe? Something that I deserve for defeating you, right?”

Beth couldn’t help but feel that she was stagnating. Bel – assuming that the rebellious gorgon was still fine, which Beth didn’t doubt – had been rapidly catching up. Not that Beth was a competitive… no, that was a lie. She was extremely competitive and she knew it.

Beth eagerly searched through the core, but winced when she found the interesting shadow ability. That’s way too big and complicated, she lamented. She wistfully examined it with the lightest of touches before she finally broke the creature’s core open to absorb its essence.

As befitting of the dangerous beast, the shadows in her core wafted outwards with the influx of essence, completing her next threshold.

“Never enough though, is it,” she muttered. She quickly drained the second raptor’s core as well, before moving on from the scene. A quick treatment of consuming darkness and scent erasure would ensure that she wasn’t followed by any scent-trackers that stalked the forest. For all she knew, the raptors had friends.

It would have been nice to get more shadow abilities though. I still can’t believe that the only shadow skills they knew of in the Golden Plains were to cool someone down.

Beth snorted at the thought. What a waste of space.

The demi-humans had told her some interesting rumors about achieving mastery by concentrating similar abilities in a person’s core. Supposedly that would reduce the cost of a person’s abilities by joining related pathways, and could also make abilities more potent. Beth hadn’t heard anything about that in Satrap, but she imagined that all the best tricks would have been hidden by Technis’ priests.

And speaking of Technis, why the hell am I in the middle of a forest on an entirely different landmass from Satrap? Some days I realize that nothing makes sense.