Our departure didn't have much in the way of fanfare. No parades or ceremonies to see us off. Aerion and I left in the middle of the night, on empty streets, alone, with no one the wiser. We both wore hoods over our armor, but we’d have worn them anyway.

We’d meet up with our guards outside the city walls, within the nearby forest where we’d gone weasel hunting. To any onlooker, we’d just look like we were leaving the city along one of the main roads. There was enough traffic into and out of Basecrest at all hours that we’d blend right in.

With how well the enemy had been intercepting our teams, the caution felt warranted. We still didn’t know how or where our people were going missing, which was honestly more than a little terrifying.

We left the city in silence, each wrapped up in our own thoughts, navigating by the light of the lanterns we each carried. Without a moon, the nights were far darker here than I was used to, which made lights an absolute must for nighttime travel.

It wasn’t until we turned off the main road for the forest, a couple of miles outside the city, that Aerion broke the silence.

“We’re to cut due south and step a handful of paces into the forest. Someone ought to meet us. We don’t want to venture too far into the forest. Not at dark.”

I peered into the inky blackness. We couldn’t have been more than a couple hundred feet from the edge of the forest, but even my night-adjusted eyes had a tough time finding them. I felt like I caught the barest outline of swaying trees at the edge of my vision, only to lose it again.

“Wonder if a high Cunning stat gives you night vision,” I muttered, mostly to myself.

“I imagine it would,” Aerion replied. “I was thinking the same thing.”

“My world was a lot brighter, and even there, being able to see in the dark gave you an edge. Here, it’s almost cheating.”

“Shh,” Aerion said, gesturing for me to stop. “You hear that?”

I listened, expecting to hear nothing, but I did actually hear. My Cunning was a lot higher than Aerion’s, and despite a lifetime of blissful unawareness towards my surroundings, my stats were picking up the slack.

“Sounds like two people,” I said. “Pretty close.”

We looked around and saw no lights, which meant they’d been standing in the dark.

“Ho, there,” a tall, bearded man said, emerging from the brush. “Glad you made it safely.”

Samaul, the captain of our little strike force. We’d had some time to meet and greet the crew before our departure, mostly so they’d be able to familiarize themselves with our faces, but it was never a bad idea to break the ice a bit. These guys would be risking their lives to guard us. I figured the friendlier we were, the better.

“You as well,” Aerion replied, giving him a nod. I did the same.

The greeting was genuine, because as we’d learned when we met, they were all top-class individuals. As one would expect from guards handpicked by Baron Sinclair.

“We recommend you stow your armor,” he said, bringing out a handful of large cloth bags. “We’ll be traveling light and swift, and traveling through a forest in armor is no different from torture. With luck, we won’t see even a glimpse of combat.”

“Makes sense,” I said, “but I’ll have to insist that I keep mine on. I have my reasons, and I assure you I won’t slow you down. Suffice it to say I’ll be a lot slower without it.”

Samaul was about to counter, but Aerion spoke up in my defense.

“He’s right. Trust me, we’d be much better served by having him in armor. I’ve no such restrictions, so I’ll remove mine.”

Samaul looked at me, then back to Aerion, and upon realizing he wasn’t about to win an argument against a Blessed, threw up his hands. “Fine. If you do slow us down, however, I’ll have to ask you to remove it.”

“Works for me,” I said, helping Aerion strip off her cuirass. We’d gotten pretty good at it over the past week, helping each other out whenever needed. “How far do we plan to travel tonight?”

“A few miles,” Samaul replied. “There’s a camp near the other edge of the forest I’m hoping we can make. We’ll get a few hours of rest, and push on. By then, we ought to have lost anyone who might’ve been following us, and if not, we’ll have ample visibility over the plains as we cut over to the Dungeon. I’m afraid you and the lady might have to sacrifice a bit of sleep this night.”

“Oh, I doubt we’ll be getting much of that for a while,” I said with a small smile. “We’re more than ready.”

“Good,” Samaul said. “Then I’ll leave you be. Stash your gear in these bags, and my men will carry the load.”

I nodded my thanks, and soon, we had Aerion’s armor stashed in a bag.

As for me, I was looking forward to all the stat gains I’d get from my recently Initialized gear. While I’d improved nearly all of my stats over the past couple of weeks, I still had plenty of room to go, and my recent advance to E - 5 had brought with it a hefty increase in max Essence, for a total of 230, of which I’d used 210. That was good, because I’d had almost zero buffer before the level up.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, [Uncommon] equipment cost a decent bit more than [Common] items to enchant, so I’d foregone Initializing any more bits of my [Basecrest City Guard] armor.

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That was alright. I couldn’t be far from E - 6, when I’d gain another 30 Essence. At that point, I could Initialize another one or possibly even two pieces of armor. I intended to round out the Initializations in this way as I leveled.

Given where we were headed, I imagined it wouldn’t be long at all.

As it was, my cuirass alone had bought me headroom in most of the stats I’d previously maxed out. I hoped to train up my Vigor, Cunning, and Grace before we even reached the dungeon, and so far, the plan was working. The ordeal of quickly traveling through a forest at night had brought my Vigor, Cunning, and Grace all up by 1, putting my current stats at:

— Vigor: 39 (Max: 49)

— Order: 10 (Max: 10) (Max Trained: 11)

— Wisdom: 26 (Max: 50)

— Passion: 20 (Max: 29)

— Grace: 23 (Max: 27)

— Cunning: 21 (Max: 23)

— Dominion: 37 (Max: 74)

We started out, the chill of the nighttime forest making the perfect environment for exertion.

The guards at the front blazed a trail, bushwhacking with machetes, while the rest of us followed. For stealth purposes, we only had one lantern lit, and even that had blinders so it cast most of its light output in the direction we were headed.

Which was to say, it was nearly pitch black, and the only way we navigated was by resting a hand on the person in front of us.

It wasn’t exactly a sprinter’s pace, but it sure felt like it, given the lack of light. I really hoped our leaders were headed the right way, because if we got lost in here, our only recourse would be to wait until morning to try and find a way out.

With every ordeal comes a bright side, though, and my Cunning stat that governed awareness had jumped by another point when Samaul finally called for a stop.

“We’re already there?” I asked. We’d walked for a few hours, but I assumed we’d have hours left to go.

Lit by the lantern, Samaul put a finger to his lip. The team went completely silent, leaving only the sound of critters and the wind.

And something else. Footsteps in the distance, which I definitely wouldn’t have noticed without my Cunning stat. For the captain to have noticed it showed just how important skill and experience were in this world, even with the benefit of stats.

Still, while I heard it, I didn’t know enough about the local fauna to tell what it was. It was definitely large enough to snap twigs as it walked, so this was no rodent, at the very least.

I glanced at Aerion, who shook her head. She was just as lost as I was.

We waited there for several tense moments, before Samaul gave a hand command to his troops. I wasn’t versed in military signing, but even I could tell he was directing them to check it out.

Two guards hurriedly donned their armor, with help from the others. They’d already been wearing their undershirts and leggings, so in just a couple of minutes, they were steel-clad and ready to go. Samual handed his lantern to the guards, who disappeared—if not silently, at least quickly—into the forest, leaving us in pitch darkness for several minutes.

Maybe it was because of that darkness that my ears became extra sensitive, but I’d never noticed the sound of my armor above the sound of the machetes. Plate steel wasn’t the most silent thing in the world—likely another reason Samaul didn’t want us traveling in it.

We waited until the footsteps disappeared, and this time, all that was left were the normal sounds of the forest.

Samual then lit another lantern, which had the same blinders on it as the other one, and came up to us and whispered in our ears. “We’re about two hours from camp. The ones who left will draw off whatever it is that’s following us and join back up with us there.”

Aerion and I nodded, and we set out again, though this time, the light of the lantern had been restricted even further, and it felt like Samaul took every precaution to make as little noise as possible.

I had to admit, this whole thing gave me serious Jurassic Park vibes, but considering I was on another planet, Alien came to mind.

Nope. Not going there.

I banished that thought from my head the moment it’d formed. This was not the same. We were not going to be hunted down one by one until there was no one left—

Samaul motioned for us to stop once again. The moment he did, I heard it.

Footsteps. The same as before. Or… Not quite. It was a bit more faint. And…

Ah. There were more than one of them before. Multiple sets of footsteps. Now, there was only one.

“We’re being stalked,” Samaul whispered to us. “Change of plans. We make for the edge of the forest. No stopping. We’ll move fast. Keep up.”

We nodded back. Those Alien franchise thoughts were threatening to come back, and this time, I found them harder to ignore. We had the small group out in dark, unfamiliar terrain. We had the strange sounds and the hunter, too… Goddammit, why did I have to watch those movies…

To say the next hours were torture was an understatement. Samaul hadn’t been kidding about the weight of armor when trying to move quickly. Even with my boosted Dominion, after hours of continuous exertion, I was tired. And I was operating with no sleep.

I’d wondered why Samaul hadn’t donned his armor the moment we knew we were being stalked. This was why. It was why he’d only put on his breastplate and helmet, like the other guards. Aerion had done the same. I was the only one with the full set on.

At least I’d be more likely to survive when whatever monstrosity was hunting us showed up.

Those hours had allowed me plenty of time to think about our situation. Namely, that most animals that stalked their prey did it alone. Wolves and the like were a notable exception, but they also never ventured away from the pack. That we were dealing with a creature who could operate alone or as a team was concerning. It spoke to a level of intelligence I wasn’t entirely comfortable with.

The odd thing was that whenever we stopped—usually so that Samaul could check if it was still following—it stopped as well. By the volume of its footsteps, it was maintaining a constant distance from us.

Why, though? The question killed me. Was it waiting for the right moment? I found it hard to believe it hadn’t already had plenty of those. Especially as the sky went from black to dark blue, and we neared the edge of the forest, I had to think it’d lost its opportunity.

Which made no sense. There had to be more. There had to be…

We broke through the forest, and under the predawn lighting, I knew exactly why our stalker hadn’t attacked.

Fuck.