As Faye stalked forward with Maggie, Hoza, and Taveon at her side, she was not exactly in prime health. She felt each movement with an ache, and a general sense of fatigue and pain pervaded. None of that really mattered, however.
Three Primalists stood arrayed before them, each one hiding behind the children crowding together for mutual comfort.
She tried to smile at the kids, but they were not paying attention to anything beyond their immediate circle right now.
Clamping down on her emotions as much as possible, Faye shifted her grip on the short sword. The blood of the man whose life she had just taken still stained the blade. Strangely, the idea of taking out these people was much easier than it had been the first time.
Turns out that the only thing Faye needed was to see them kidnap children. Her internal furnace of mana and rage boiled.
The Primalists were waiting. She was not sure for what, but she knew that giving them the time to do anything was stupid.
“Taveon, Maggie, throw spells at the leftmost one. Coordinate your spells. Take them down one at a time. Focus your attacks.”
Taveon and Maggie murmured the affirmative.
“Hoza,” Faye continued, gesturing a little, “they’re going to threaten the children. We cannot let them get hurt.”
“Agreed.”
“Take out briars as fast as you can.”
“Got it.”
Faye had sensed that her system was trying to tell her something earlier, but she had suppressed it in the middle of the fight, but this brief respite was enough for the system to start insisting on being heard.
Shut up, will you?
~ Warning! System Notifications suppressed temporarily ~
She grinned. That was useful.
“Are you willing to surrender, and let the children go?” Faye called out to the Primalists.
The three figures, covered as they were in fronds of fabric or strings of beads in front of their eyes, she could not see their expressions, but as one they shook their heads.
“Alright, that wasn’t creepy at all,” she muttered, “unfortunately, that was what I assumed. Let’s go.”
Without further deliberation, Faye launched herself forward. She skirted the group of children to their right. She could not count on them to move fast enough, or stay still enough, for her to move through them without hurting them. The next best choice was to avoid them.
The spells from Maggie and Taveon slammed through the air, smacking into the far left Primalist with loud claps of force. He went down in a tangle of limbs. She doubted it had been enough to kill, but he was, at least temporarily, disabled.
Lesser briars emerged from the various piles of plant matter at the edges of the courtyard and swarmed inward. Faye had been expecting that, so she pointed her sword at them and shouted out for Hoza to take care of them.
She just hoped the militiawoman was capable of that.
Of course, there was something that Faye had forgotten about the games she and her friends had played back home. If the briars were summoned monsters, then taking out their summoner should make them dissipate.
At least, that was how it worked in various games.
She gritted her teeth as she slid forward, spinning to the left to avoid the dancing blast of green energy that one of the Primalists sent her way.
Activating [Swordfighter’s Sense] when she got within a dozen feet, the children huddled to her left, Faye’s sense of the courtyard battlefield crystallised and became a part of her. She could feel the location of every enemy, and by proxy where her allies were, as well.
Slashing down to her right as she ran, without looking, she knew that she had taken out a lesser briar as it emerged newly formed from some vines.
The Primalist had drawn a kris, its wavy blade harsh and jagged but no less sharp than her own blade. She screamed at Faye as she drew near, and with wide slashes came forward to meet in blade-to-blade combat.
Or, she might have if Faye had not known what the woman was planning a split second before she did it.
[Swordfighter’s Sense] was able to translate every tiny movement and bunching of muscle in the Primalist’s body to project what she was about to do. The skill enabled Faye to flash out a [Fire Dart] at the last second to dazzle the Primalist before she stepped to the side and slashed down into her neck.
As her blade bit deeply, the Primalist snarled and tried to scramble toward her attacker. Faye cursed and danced backward, pulling the sword free with a jerk that sprayed blood in an arc from the devastating wound.
Despite the deadly wound, the Primalist was coming for her still, the dagger in the Primalist’s hand waving erratically. The woman’s crazed eyes had opened wide and showed the whites.
As the Primalist charged forward with reckless abandon, Faye stumbled back. She had expected her opponent to go down quickly. Her heel caught on a vine, and she began to fall.
Throwing her weight to the side, Faye avoided falling into a patch of thorny briars, slowly coming alive as the Primalist’s magic summoned that crimson faux intelligence to the monsters.
Landing with a rough bump, Faye had bruised nothing but her ego at the mistake. But, raising her hand, she prepared a [Fire Dart].
Something hit the Primalist from behind, causing her to stumble, and Faye’s dart hit her in the face. The Primalist tried to scream but no sound came out as the flames robbed her of air. Faye rose to her feet and slashed with her sword again, and again.
Eventually, the Primalist died. Faye had broken her body, bloodied her, and laid her face down on the stone.
Faye stood for a moment, heaving breaths in and out that hitched. She had needed to hack at the woman’s face and neck for minutes before she died. Faye had no idea why or what the woman had been doing to stay alive, but she was shaking now with adrenaline and sickness.
“Fuck,” she whispered, as she pulled strands of hair away from her face. Her hand shook. “This is so messed up. Kidnapping fucking children.”
She tried to shake herself and push away the emotions. Lesser briars were crowding the children, but Hoza’s presence was too tempting for the monsters. Faye thanked the heavens that the monsters were not immediately ripping the children apart.
The other Primalists were throwing spells at Maggie and Taveon, but with the lack of aiming that was happening, Faye was not surprised that everyone was still standing. Even Maggie and Taveon were throwing mana around with abandon.
Then, with clarity that Faye cursed, she saw as one of the Primalists’ spells released too early, the bright green bolt of light driving into the back of one of the children instead of screaming over their head and into Taveon.
“NO!” she shouted.
She was running.
By the time she rounded the children, the Primalists had started scrambling away. They were not fast enough. Her sword was aflame already — did I do that? — and she swung it after the departing figures.
[Blades of Flame].
Small blasts of fire erupted from the swinging arcs of the short sword, flying after the Primalists as they moved, sluggishly, into the shadows of the courtyard.
The sluggish whirls of mana left in Faye’s inner source flickered and tugged at her fatigue, but the hot rage burning in her chest pushed her on.
The first couple arcs of flame hit the Primalists and knocked them aside like bowling pins. As she charged for them, they spun around and held up their hands.
“Please, don’t!”
“Mercy!”
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Incensed, Faye hacked the first Primalist to death. The screams of his companion a distant, background sound she paid no heed to.
When she finally turned to the final Primalist, she saw that Hoza was standing above him with her spear held at his throat.
“We killing him?” the woman asked, voice hot with rage.
“If you need to fucking ask…”
The spear came up and slammed down. The man’s screaming cries for mercy and help cut off with a gurgle.
He was not dead, but he could no longer speak.
Hoza continued her own grisly execution. Faye watched each strike, eyes taking in every moment.
It was done. Both women looked at one another and nodded. They left the bodies where they were for the time being and with trepidation, Faye turned to see what had happened to the children.
The child that had been hit by the spell was taller than the rest, a boy if his hair was any indication. She watched as Maggie spoke with the other children, gathering them up and checking they were all okay.
Taveon was carefully moving the boy’s body into a respectful pose.
Faye’s eyes blurred with tears. The boy’s skin was now a mottled green and black on one side. It wrapped around to the back, where he had been hit, and the veins and fingers of the spell’s mark were stark against his features.
“Bastards,” Hoza said. “Glad we got them before anyone else got hurt, though.”
Faye shot the militiawoman a dirty look.
How can she say that? A little boy just died!
“Faye!” Taveon called, sharply. He was glaring daggers at her. “Come, I need your help.” His voice was not as harsh as his look, but it did hold the note of command that teachers liked to use.
Her instinctive need to refuse that tone of voice warred with her opinion of the man for a moment, but she stepped forward and mechanically walked toward him.
She tried to look at something, anything, other than the boy’s unseeing eyes but she could not tear her gaze from the glassy orbs.
“Faye,” Taveon said, quieter now that she was standing before him. “Faye!”
She broke contact with the dead boy’s eyes.
“Yes?” she asked.
“Taking our anger out on the people around us is not productive.”
She swallowed a retort, then nodded. “I know.”
“Good. We have to move, the Primalists were encamped here. They will likely return. Help Maggie get the children ready.”
“What will we do with him?” she asked, looking down at the boy again.
“I have had honour of performing death rituals for Lóthaven before. I shall perform it before we leave.”
Not having a real idea of what a death ritual was for this town, and not really wanting to know right now, Faye just nodded and stepped around to go speak with Maggie.
Her eyes were still full of tears, and she let them fall freely as she went. Wiping them away felt disrespectful, somehow.
----------------------------------------
A few minutes later, Faye’s heartbeat was regularly rhythmic again, and did not feel like it was trying to burst through her neck.
A notification that had been incessantly pulsing in her mind pushed its way to the fore.
~ System notifications are no longer being suppressed ~
Congratulations! You have earned enough experience to level up. You are ready to advance to level 10.
Upon reaching the threshold of level 10, you must make a permanent class choice to progress. Without making this choice, you cannot progress further on your path.
You can make one of two choices, but you have all the time you need to make the choice.
~ Warning! This choice is permanent and can only be made once. ~
Do you want to choose your permanent class now?
[Yes / No]
Faye mentally selected ‘No’. The notification went away, so her mental view was no longer taken up by the text and information, but it was still there, nagging her.
“Hey, Mags,” Faye said, quietly. The other woman turned to look at her with red eyes. “My system’s asking me to make a class selection, if I do that now, will I be out of action for ages?”
Maggie’s eyes widened and she grabbed Faye’s arm.
“You’re already at the threshold? By the gods, Faye, I’ve never— no, wait, that’s not important. Uh, no. No, your system gives you the time you need but to the rest of us it will be as if no time at all has passed.”
Faye nodded.
Figures that the system would be literal in saying I have ‘all the time’ I need.
“Speak soon, then,” Faye said, mentally flicking the notification open again and selecting: [Yes].
----------------------------------------
The courtyard, with its rotten smell, broken and burning vines, human corpses, and the body of one, small life that should never have been in danger, vanished in a flash of impossibly white light.
That white light faded to a pleasant sunset orange.
Faye was standing on a flat plane of what looked to be white sand. She kicked a little of it and even bent over to take a handful.
It was warm as she sank her fingers into the grains.
Looking up, the landscape around her filled in slowly. It spread out into a wide-open space that was suffusing her with warmth and gentle light that seemed to take away her aches and pain. Even that horrible weight and despair that had been following Faye ever since she had arrived seemed to vanish under the light’s purifying rays.
Welcome, Faye Weaver.
The voice, notification, or words that she heard had almost faded into her consciousness in such a smooth way that she had almost been expecting them.
“Where am I?” she asked. Her voice was small, in that space, but she sensed something shift a little in response.
This is the Threshold.
She looked around once more. In the middle distance, the sand began to gently slope away. She saw now that she was standing on a strange island of sand. All around her were almost clear blue waters, the blue ever so slowly grew in intensity as she looked.
A warm breeze started up, pushing strands of her hair out of her face no matter which way she looked.
You make your choice here.
The notifications or voice continued, but it was not in a hurry. She felt no compunction to speed through this like she might have when reading or playing a game, back home. There were times that she had wanted to get to the action, kill the bad guys, skip the dialogue to sell her items faster…
Whatever it had been, her whole life had been jumping from one moment to the next, barely taking a breath at each step. Here, she realised she did not need to.
She slowly dropped to a sitting position. As she sat, she thought about taking off her boots. By the time she had sat comfortably, her boots were sitting beside her neatly. She smiled as she wiggled her toes in the warming piles of sand.
Closing her eyes, she stretched backward and lay down.
It is so awful here, she thought.
The space around her contracted a little.
Not here, here, she amended, the world. Lóthaven.
The space accepted that.
There had been one trial after another since she had arrived. It had been exhausting. She had not realised until she lay back on that pure white, calming beach that she had been tense for… weeks.
For a little while, Faye let her tears flow over. She had learned early in life that stopping her tears just made it worse when they finally did burst out. There had been some unfortunate instances at school, where getting frustrated with idiots had caused tears to burst forth rather than her anger.
Of course, thumping those idiots after school because of the way they had made her upset had made her feel better, too.
An indeterminate time later, Faye blinked her eyes open. She must have nodded off.
Sitting up, the calming, warm orange light of the sunset was still enveloping her little spit of sand in the middle of gorgeously blue waters.
She smiled.
“What choice am I going to be making?” she asked.
[Class Selection]
When ready, you will be able to select your permanent class. The class offered to you will be the same as the class you were given at level five.
Congratulations! You have been hard at work since reaching level five. You have been granted a second class to choose from.
~ Warning! Choosing an alternate class may lock current class skills as general skills. ~
~ Warning! Choosing an alternate class may use up multiple skill points. ~
~ Warning! Choosing an alternate class may change your attribute growth. ~
If you do not want to choose your class in this Threshold, you may choose to try to unlock another class option.
~ Warning! Choosing not to select a class will reduce your gained experience to base level nine. ~
The flood of words and information flashed across Faye’s mind. She took it in instantly, as if she had already known it and the system was simply reminding her. She grinned. Of course she had been working hard!
Nice to get confirmation of that, she thought.
She wondered how many people chose not to crest. It would not be much of a problem for her, of course. The Primalists and their monsters were perfect levelling material.
The thought did not spark the anger, disgust, or guilt that she had thought it might. She smiled at that.
I wonder what classes I can choose from.
No sooner had the words flickered in her thoughts than did her vision change and more notifications poured in. There was so much information, she instinctively asked the system to make it a little more concise.
[Swordfighter]
[Stat Growth:]
[Tier 1] Tou+2, Str+2, Agi+1
[Tier 2] Tou+3, Str+2, Rea+2, Agi+2, Int+1
Swordfighters gain skills dedicated to the blade. Supreme martial artists, Swordfighters are often seen at the forefront of battle and can hold their own against most enemies. Able to take and mete out punishment in equal measure, Swordfighters are also versatile combat specialists as they can choose to wield different blades for different circumstances.
The first choice was her current class. Swordfighter was a great option. It fit her background extremely well, and she knew that if this was the only class offered, she would have no trouble selecting it. But she had already been given the sense of the second option, and as its words came into her mind, she could not help but squirm in excitement.
[Spellsword]
[Stat Growth:]
[Tier 1] ~ Unknown ~
[Tier 2] Tou+2, Str+1, Rea+2, Agi+1, Int+1, Wil+3
[Attribute change:] Mag 1 > Mag 1.5
Spellswords gain skills dedicated to melding magic with the blade. Balanced between two worlds, Spellswords gain the ability to better utilise magic whilst sacrificing some of the capacity for absorbing punishment that other melee fighters boast. However, Spellswords are versatile spellworkers, able to weave magic into their displays of martial prowess in ways that no pure spellcaster can achieve.
Faye’s excitement had risen with the name of the class but finding out more about the class was intoxicating.
She absorbed the information for a while.
[Spellsword Class Skills]
Class skills vary from Spellsword to Spellsword. The most basic skills utilise a base spell and a base movement. Combined by the Spellsword to form a new class skill in a myriad of ways. Failure is possible.
That’s what I managed with the [Fire Dart] and a slash, creating [Blades of Flame], she thought.
~ Spell Info ~
[Tier 1]
[Blades of Flame]
[Active] [Fire] [Class]
[Medium cost] [Moderate damage] [Short range]
~ Description ~
Damaging blades of fire erupt from the point of casting and slice toward the target.
Damage of [Blades of Flame] is increased if target is [Ignited].
Low chance of causing [Ignited] on target.
Faye blinked. That was new.
Her system responded quickly to every thought and command. With ease, she was able to pull up her status, spell list, or skills.
“About time,” she said.
Are you ready to make your choice?
[Yes / No]
Faye smiled and thought ‘Yes’.