The attack was anticlimactic: a single level 8 ratapua that had split into eight level 1 ratapua.

It was a terrible strategy. Wyatt wasn’t even able to test out Devour on any of them before Bailey had wiped them out.

This was partly because he couldn’t figure out how to use Devour on them, and partly because she’d taken them all out in less than a minute.

Her Murderer skill certainly lived up to its name. The visual effect it had was more obvious than anyone’s but Lena’s skill: Bailey’s features morphed, soft curves becoming hard edges, her eyes taking on a subtle purple glow. With the skill active, she no longer looked like the cute, sweet, stoic girl he knew. She looked like a stranger. She looked, like a murderer.

She’d dashed from one ratapua to the next, tearing them apart with her bare hands, oblivious to the damage this caused to her from their spikes.

She was a storm of death, blowing through the monsters and leaving a trail of demolished corpses in her wake.

The speed and savagery with which she dispatched the ratapua was wholly unlike her, and Wyatt suspected the skill was altering her personality in addition to her appearance.

Now, barely a minute after the attack had come, the group all stared at a panting and filthy Bailey as she stood among the carnage, blood splattered across her clothes and face. She wore an almost demented smile, a look of primal satisfaction at the devastation she’d wrought.

Then she lit up with golden-green light as Camila used Restorer on her, and the light from her own skill blinked out as she ran out of Energy, her features instantly snapping back to normal, becoming soft once more.

Bailey shook herself, blinking as if waking from a nightmare.

She looked down at her blood-soaked hands, her expression warring between wonder and revulsion.

“Wow,” Brandon laughed. “You’re really living up to your Bailey the Monster Murderer name.”

“Guess I got a little carried away,” she said, her voice unsteady. “Didn’t mean to go full psycho on them.”

“Are you kidding? That was awesome!” Brandon said, filling in for Tyler’s role of cheerleader. “You were amazing! Those spiny bastards didn’t stand a chance.”

Bailey shrugged, but had the hint of a pleased smile tugging at her lips.

“Next time be a bit more careful,” Camila said. “That took a lot of Energy to heal your hands.”

Now Bailey did smile as she glanced at Camila. “I knew you could handle it. You’re more amazing than any of us. I can kill, but you can heal.”

Camila looked at Tyler, who was still unconscious. “Not well enough.”

“Can you use your skill?” Akira asked. “Your eyes looked like they were glowing. And you looked different.”

Bailey shrugged. “A girl needs to know how to take care of herself.”

“Hell yeah,” Grace agreed. “When do I get my power?”

“Once we get some Augment Orbs,” Wyatt interrupted before anyone could further question Bailey’s sudden skill use, which both Patrick and Brandon looked like they wanted to do now that attention had been drawn to it.

He stepped forward, placing a hand on Bailey’s shoulder.

She met his gaze with a complicated expression he couldn’t parse, her breathing quickening and her eyes beginning to glisten.

Maybe her shoulder hurts?

Wyatt dropped his hand from it.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“You did good,” he told her quietly. “The skill is everything I hoped it would be.”

She wiped at her eye, leaving a smear of blood. “Yeah. Thanks.” She started to say more but her voice choked off.

“Are you okay? Did… using that drain you?”

She snorted and shook her head. “Yeah. That’s totally what it is.”

🞠

Hours passed, but no more attacks came. The sun didn’t move.

The ratapua yielded only shards.

One of the ones that had attacked with the giant had given an orb, and Wyatt wondered what made it different from the others.

Maybe because it split? Is that what shards are? Split orbs?

He used his upgraded Analyzer on one of the shards, and it yielded a bit more information than the last time he’d tried:

Shard

An undifferentiated shard of power. Combinable.

Level: 1

Crafting potential: Low

No prompt to use an Essence Orb for more information anymore.

The crafting potential hadn’t been there the last time he’d inspected one. Nor had the combinable bit in the description. But when he tried to combine two of them with his Reformation Orb, he got the same message as the first time he’d tried to use the orb on a shard:

Invalid prototype for desired action

It made more sense this time since he knew the prototype was augmentation. He wondered what prototype would be required for combining things, and if it was possible to add it to this Reformation Orb, or if he’d need another one.

His upgraded Analyzer skill was able to give him a bit more information on what crafting was, at least.

Crafting

Use a Forge to form new items.

Exactly what it sounded like, but he couldn’t get information on what a forge was.

That was two things now that had the crafting potential: shards, and the scroll Jasmine’s skill had created.

He reexamined the scroll—which he was able to do without removing it from the inventory—but nothing about it had changed.

It was unfortunate they didn’t loot any more Augment Orbs. They really needed to get the rest of the team powered up and using their abilities. Especially David and Maria. Possibly Akira and Faith as well. David’s skill was Tanker, and they were sorely in need of a tank. And Maria’s Berserker sounded very much like an offensive skill. Faith had Vitiator, which seemed like it would be a damage-over-time skill. Wyatt wasn’t sure what Akira’s Retaliator would be, but he hoped it was some kind of reactive attack skill, or maybe a buff that caused enemies to take damage when they attacked.

Wyatt had tried everything he could think of to use Analyzer on their skills, but there was simply no message for him to analyze, and without that he couldn’t get anything to appear.

Maybe once Analyzer ranked up again…

He still didn’t know how to make a skill rank up, but it seemed related to discovering something about the skill.

Which reminded him about Emma’s skill, so he asked if she discovered anything about it when it had ranked up.

She studied him for a long while. Mysteriously.

He was about to say something when she finally spoke. “I think it reached D-Grade when I realized I had to break their intention.”

So D-Grade by discovering something. It made sense, the messages had all been straightforward if uninformative, and the message just before D-Grade was about discovering permutations.

“Was that a permutation? Did you get a message about discovering anything?”

“I don’t think so.” She shrugged. “Not sure. Feels like forever ago.”

“Do you have permutations in the skill’s message?”

“No.”

“Are you lying?”

She snorted. “What? Why would I be lying?”

“You’re still mysterious.”

“You’ve mentioned that.”

“You seem like you know things.”

“I know lots of things.”

“About what this all is. That you’re not telling us.”

“I’ve told you everything I know.”

🞠

Jasmine finished cleaning up the clearing of ratapua corpses with her Waste Eater skill, Chekotae staying glued to her hip.

Wyatt tried analyzing the little creature again, but still couldn’t.

Her skill had produced some interesting items, but none that they could use, and none that made him want to waste a genesis seed on to see if upgrading it would allow him to use it. He had essence seeds he was willing to waste, but they all gave missing formula.

Jasmine was sitting with the group now, talking about things that didn’t seem germane to Wyatt, even though there were still tlilcoatl corpses she’d yet to eat.

They still didn’t smell, and despite the heat, didn’t appear in any danger of rotting. Maybe they’ll just disappear after some time limit?

With Analyzer, Wyatt could tell Jasmine wasn’t out of Energy, so he wondered why she had stopped.

“Why haven’t you eaten those?” he asked her.

Jasmine stopped what she was saying to turn around to look at him. Despite having been interrupted in the middle of conversation, she smiled at him. “Can’t. Says too high level. Not sure why, their levels aren’t higher than other monsters I’ve eaten.”

“What’s the highest level you’ve eaten?”

She shrugged. “Haven’t—”

But Wyatt didn’t hear the rest of her answer, as a glowing path appeared in front of him, stretching out into the jungle.