I woke with a start. Bright sunlight shone down on my face, blinding me, and I winced and squinted against the sudden glare. I was laying on something slightly soft, but whatever it was kept poking me in the back, like a dozen tiny needles were stabbing me. My head felt foggy, and my thoughts were thick and slow.
“Where the hell am I?” I groaned as I sat up – or tried to. The moment I moved, a wave of pain swept through my body. My back tightened up, my arms trembled, and me legs burned. The dull ache in my head became a sharp spike of pain, and I dropped back to a sitting position. “What the fuck happened to me?”
“You massively overworked your body, John,” a voice spoke, startling me badly. “Plus, I think you’ve been poisoned somehow.”
I shot up, ignoring my body’s protests, and rose unsteadily to my feet, looking around anxiously. I was in the middle of a forest of some kind, surrounded by trees that had oddly purplish needles. I spun in place, staggering as I looked for whoever was speaking. Poisoned? How had I been poisoned?
“Relax, John,” the female voice said soothingly. “It’s just me, Sara.”
I blinked in surprise. I knew that name. “Sara?” I thought, my brain still woolly and my thoughts fuzzy. “Wait, what’s going on here?”
“I think that the scratches from the Undying last night – the ones you called zombies – were venomous. There’s some kind of magical neurotoxin in your bloodstream that I can’t purge.”
“Zombies?” I half-laughed. “Who is this? What the hell are you trying to pull?” Even as I said the words, though, I knew that something was wrong with me. I’d been drugged once with a combination of ketamine and alcohol, and this felt similar to how I woke up the morning after that. My thoughts had been fuzzy then, too, I’d had a screaming headache, and I struggled to remember what happened. Maybe I had been poisoned, somehow, and it was giving me an auditory hallucination…
I sat down heavily on the forest floor. The sunlight felt good on my back, and I tipped my head up to feel it soaking into me. The warmth seeped into my muscles and seemed to flow through my body, spreading out into me. I could almost feel it creeping through my veins. My blood felt cold and icy for some reason, and the heat of that light began to melt the ice in my veins. I blinked as the aching in my muscles receded slightly, and the throbbing in my head faded from a stabbing pain to a dull ache. A fog lifted from my thoughts, and the events of the night came rushing back to me.
“Sara?” I said confusedly. “Wait – what just happened to me? Did you say I was poisoned?”
“Yes, but this is interesting. Something in the sunlight is detoxifying you. The poison seems to be hurt by sunlight the same way the undying are.”
I rose back to my feet and tilted my head back, letting the sunlight bathe me. I could still feel a chill in my veins, and my muscles trembled with weakness, but the burning pain in them eased, and my thoughts were steadily clearing. It felt sort of like when I cultivated celestial energy, except that when I tried to draw the power in, nothing happened.
“That’s because this body doesn’t have meridians or a dantian, John. Or if it does, you don’t know how to use them. Still, there does seem to be some sort of magical energy in the sunlight.”
A sudden bark disrupted my thoughts, and I turned around as quickly as I could, looking for the source. The cry sounded similar to a dog’s, but the tone was deeper and more resonant, almost the timbre of a tiger’s roar. A second sound rang through the forest from my left, and I spun to face it, moving to put my back against a tree. The zombies were gone, but I had no idea what sort of predators existed in this world. For all I knew, I was in more danger now than I had been overnight.
The trees overhead blocked much of the sunlight, but plenty of it fell to earth in dappled patterns to illuminate the forest floor. The lack of underbrush made it easy to see a flash of movement in the distance; a gleam of white moved between two tree trunks, revealing itself briefly. I reached down and grabbed the hatchet at my side, hefting it. My arm trembled with weakness, and the axe felt heavy in my grip, but I ignored the messages from my body and dropped into a crouch, readying myself.
A dark gray shape bounded out of the trees and raced for me. It looked to be about as tall as my chest, bounding forward on four muscular legs. Its body was wide and powerful, and it held its massive, canine head low to the ground. Its face looked like a cross between a mastiff, with a wide muzzle that drooped flaps of skin to each side, and a wolf, with pointed ears and a heavy ruff around the neck.
As the beast rushed toward me, it let out another loud, resonant bark. The sound rolled almost visibly from its muzzle, shaking the pine needles around me and pushing against my chest. I felt the impact of it churn through my chest, and my veins briefly burned as the echo passed me. I pressed harder against the tree; if the trunk behind me wasn’t holding me up, I probably would have staggered back just from the force of that single bark.
I shook off the effects of the creature’s cry and lifted my hatchet. It simply stood before me, growling, its huge head held low. I was fairly certain it was about to charge and got ready to dodge, but before I could move, a voice rang out through the trees.
“What do you have there, Vikarik?” a high-pitched called out. I risked a glance away from the creature and saw a woman with gleaming, golden hair that cascaded past her shoulders in loose curls and large, dark eyes. She wore a simple, white shirt with a black, leather vest over it and loose-fitting black pants that tucked into her calf-high boots. Her face was extremely narrow, with a pointed chin and sharply defined cheekbones, and her neck looked longer than it should have been. She was very pretty in a girl-next-door fashion, but the heavy crossbow she held leveled at my chest was ugly as hell.
“Well, well, our midnight visitor,” she spoke with a thick, throaty accent that reminded me of a Slavic speaker. “Looks like you survived the night after all.” She kept the crossbow pointed at my chest, and I remained in a half-crouch, my eyes watching hers carefully. People’s eyes were a lot more expressive than most realized. A person without combat training tended to broadcast their intents through their eyes unknowingly. The moment hers narrowed or widened suddenly, I would dive forward. If I caught the animal by surprise, I might be able to kill or at least wound it swiftly, and hopefully it would take the woman some time to reset her bow.
Fortunately, she raised the weapon to her shoulder, shaking her head. “Although you won’t last long if we don’t get the naptrav out of you,” she sighed. “I’m surprised you’re still standing, considering all the cuts on your body. Come on, we’d better get you back to the village.”
I was tempted to ask what naptrav was, but I bit my tongue. A bit of context suggested she was talking about whatever poison those zombies had injected into me. I’d learned a bit from my time in Kuan; asking questions about things that people considered common knowledge raised suspicions. I hated an unsatisfied curiosity, but I’d gotten lucky in that last world, running into Jing and her family. I could just as easily have met someone who would have taken advantage of my ignorance – or killed me before I’d become strong enough to cultivate.
Which brought me to the fact that I didn’t know this woman at all, and she was asking me to go with her. Jing hadn’t exactly given me much choice in the matter, but I’d grown a lot stronger since then, even with my nerfed stats. I wasn’t sure how strong this woman was, but a quick scan of her and her dog gave me the info I needed.
Unknown Omeni Woman
Level 11 Hunter (Common)
Estimated Physical Stats:
Prowess: 8 Vigor: 9 Celerity: 8 Skill: 11
Unknown Animal
Level 10
Estimated Physical Stats:
Prowess: 15 Vigor: 16 Celerity: 14 Skill: 7
A Hunter, and one whose stats were roughly on par with mine. I examined her closely, my heightened Perception allowing me to pick up small details about her. Her clothing was functional, but it was heavily patched and had numerous tears that someone sewed shut with only moderate skill. She had a pack on her back that looked like it was made from animal hides and was just as battered as her clothing. Her boots were scuffed, worn, and stained with dark liquid, as were the cuffs of her sleeves. Her hands were scarred and calloused, and she had a thin, white scar long her throat that rose to just above her left jawline.
My eyes picked apart her animal similarly. The canine creature had numerous scars where its dark grey fur wasn’t regrowing, mostly on its flanks and around its muzzle. One nasty one crossed its right eye; that one looked like it should have put out the thing’s eye.
What I saw told me a couple things. First, the woman and her pet were used to hunting dangerous animals – and were still alive. That made them dangerous, too. If I was at my best, I thought I could probably handle one of them, but certainly not both. Second, despite all the damage they’d both taken, neither of them showed any signs of permanent injury. The dog for sure should have been missing an eye. That meant that they had access to some kind of healing, the kind that a poisoned person might need – and that made me even more cautious.
I shook my head, lowering my axe but not sheathing it. “Thank you, but I’ll be fine,” I told her. “The poison’s burning away on its own. In a couple hours, I’ll be fine.”
She snorted in derision. “Not unless you’re a Sorvaraji,” she told me. Again, I was tempted to ask what she was talking about, but her next words gave me enough context to understand. “Naptrav always feels better under sunlight, but you’ll need magical healing to drive it out. It’s another close moon tonight. If you don’t get that purged…” She patted her crossbow. “I’ll be looking for you again, but not in such a nice way.”
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I eyed her with a hint of suspicion. “And you can heal me?” I asked dubiously.
“Of course not. Look at my eyes; are they golden? I’m just a hunter. There’s a Sorvaraji in the village, though, with the Altar of the Sun, and they can put you to rights.”
“What’ll it cost?” I asked, still feeling hesitant.
“Cost? No Sorvaraji would ever charge to purge a fellow omeni.” She laughed. “If you want to be fed and to sleep indoors tonight, though, you’ll have to make yourself useful around the village. I’m sure Vasily, our Elder, can find things for you to do.”
“And if I’d rather not come with you?” I asked.
She shrugged and pointed past me. “Then do us both a favor and keep heading that way, away from the village. If you get far enough away before moonrise, I won’t have to hunt you down and kill you when the change happens. Otherwise…” She fell silent and patted her crossbow again.
I sighed and slipped my axe into the sheath. She might be lying, but I couldn’t see any benefit for her in that. In the state I was in, if she wanted to kill me or take me prisoner, she probably could. A bolt from her crossbow while I was tussling with her pet would put me down quickly. It was more likely that she was telling the truth, but only part of it. Maybe she wanted me to come to her village and get indebted to the sorv-whatever, or maybe her village needed extra hands or defenders.
Of course, it was possible that she was also just a good person who wanted to help. Wim and Dif were both like that, after all. Of course, they were so powerful that there was literally nothing they could have gotten from me that wouldn’t have been easier to do themselves, but they had just tried to help me, expecting nothing in return except that I do the job I’d come to their world for. Even so, the odds of me meeting someone else like that right away after entering a Doorworld were slim at best.
My instincts were telling me to turn the woman down, the same way my instincts had told me to be careful of Jing and her family. Those were the same instincts that insisted I couldn’t trust anyone but myself and that ties like friends and family were weaknesses. That part of my brain was screaming that this woman’s appearance was too coincidental, and that if I went with her, I’d be putting myself in her power – or the power of whoever she served.
The thing was, those instincts weren’t necessarily wrong. It would be stupid not to be cautious and mistrustful. I was on a new world, one that I didn’t understand yet. I had no idea what sort of culture the people here had, what their customs were, or how they treated outsiders. Healthy skepticism was, well, healthy. At the same time, the help that Jing and her family gave me had been invaluable, and I needed to learn how this world worked. Stumbling about blindly and hoping for the best would probably lead to a quick and painful death at the hands of the next zombie horde.
“Sorry,” I finally told the woman. “I’m just naturally suspicious, I guess. Please, I’d appreciate getting some healing at your village, and I’d be happy to help out in return.”
She nodded and tapped her thigh. Immediately, her animal stopped growling at me and trotted back to her side. “My name’s Renica, by the way,” she said, reaching down to rub the creature’s head as it sat beside her. “Renica de Borava. This is Vikarik, as you probably heard. Who are you?”
“Based on the names she’d given so far, here are a few suggestions, John,” Sara spoke silently, displaying a list of names in the side of my vision.
“I’m Ionat,” I said, picking one that looked like it was pronounced similarly to my actual name. Choosing a pseudonym that’s not too far from your actual name can be useful; when people shout it out, you’re a lot more likely to respond, for example. Of course, if people are looking for you under your real name, hearing something similar to it might grab their attention, too, so there are downsides as well.
“Moon’s Truce to you, Ionat,” she said in an oddly formal tone, then fell silent with an air of anticipation. I wasn’t sure what she was waiting for, but one response seemed pretty obvious.
“Moon’s Truce to you, Renica,” I said back. Instantly, some of the stiffness dropped from her pose, and she took her finger off her crossbow’s trigger guard.
“Follow me,” she said, gesturing with her hand. She looked down at Vikarik and made a pair of hand gestures. The beast trotted off into the forest, vanishing quickly in the shadows beneath the trees. I walked tiredly over to the woman, being sure to keep a safe distance between us. As I approached, my stomach growled loudly, reminding me that I hadn’t eaten since – well, technically, I supposed that this body had never eaten. No wonder I was starving.
Renica looked me up and down appraisingly. “It’s over an hour’s walk to Bolava, my village,” she told me. “Will you be able to make it?”
“I should,” I nodded. “The sun helps a lot. I could use some food once when get there, though, if that’s not too much trouble.”
“Not while the Moon’s Truce holds,” she shrugged, slinging her pack off her shoulders and digging into one of the side pockets. She produced a strip of what looked like dried meat or jerky. “Here, chew on this. It’ll help.”
“What is it?” I asked, taking the strip of tough meat from her hand hesitantly.
“Just dried vascar meat,” she shrugged. “It’s tasteless but filling.”
I looked dubiously at the meat. Again, my instincts were shouting at me that it might be poisoned, but I ignored those. If she wanted me dead, she wouldn’t have sent her pet away. As far as the meat itself, I had no idea what a vascar was, but I hoped it was something like a cow rather than a monstrous creature. I bit into it, tearing off a hunk with my teeth and chewing it. It felt like biting into leather, but after a bit of chewing and some saliva to moisten it, I swallowed it down. She was right; it was tasteless, but that single bite calmed my stomach a bit.
We walked in total silence. Her eyes scanned the woods constantly, and she moved carefully and quietly. Deciding to take my cue from her, I moved as quietly as I could, using my Stealth skill to muffle the sounds of my movements. As I did, my eyes swept around the forest, looking for signs of anything dangerous. I quickly spotted my own tracks; I hadn’t exactly been trying to move without a trace last night, and my headlong flight had left an obvious trail of dried blood, disturbed needles, and the occasional boot print where the ground was soft.
I also saw numerous signs of places where I’d stopped to fight, and those were even more obvious than my normal trail. The zombies left clear paths of their movements, their shambling run sweeping aside needles and leaving bare earth exposed. Their bodies left dents in the earth where they fell, and anywhere their blood spilled, the needles were shriveled and blackened. Part of me had wondered how Renica found me, but seeing the obvious tracks I’d left behind, I thought I had my explanation. If she was a hunter, she probably had no trouble following my trail of blood and violence.
“I followed the path you left from the village last night,” the blonde woman said in a low voice, as if reading my thoughts. “You faced a small horde of the undying. Did you manage to kill any?”
I glanced over at her, seeing her eyes fastened on a blackened spot on the ground where I’d shed the blood of one of the zombies. “A few,” I hedged. If she was actually a tracker, she would have been able to guess at how many undead bodies I’d put down last night.
“A few,” she repeated, shaking her head. She fell back into silence, and I let my thoughts turn back inward.
“Sara, how many of those zombies did I kill last night?”
“Well, technically, none, since they were all already dead,” my AI guide replied with a chuckle. “However, I know what you mean. Over the course of the night, you destroyed thirty-four of them.”
“Thirty-four? I don’t remember fighting that many!”
“With the poison in your system and your extreme exhaustion, it’s no wonder. I can assure you, though, that you killed exactly thirty-four. I can replay the kills if you’d like me to.”
“No, I believe you.” I realized that a notification was blinking in the side of my vision; between my foggy head and meeting Renica, I hadn’t really paid attention. I pulled it up and couldn’t help but smile.
Profession: Undead Hunter has gained a level!
New Level: 2
For every level of Undead Hunter, you gain:
Perception and Skill +1
2 Skill Points
Apparently, thirty-four zombies were enough to level the Undead Hunter profession. “How does that work, anyway? I thought that you had to siphon off life energy or something to turn into XP.”
“Well, sort of. What I’m siphoning is a combination of magical energies. Those undying aren’t alive, but they’re filled with energy, and that energy flows out of them when you destroy them. I just tap the outflow. I can’t siphon as much as I might normally, though; I have to process the power quite a bit before you can safely use it, and that limits how much I can draw from one creature.”
“I’m okay with that. I really don’t want a bunch of undead energy flowing through me, Sara.”
“No, John, you definitely don’t. It would not be good for you.”
I checked out my skills and was pleased to see that Axe Mastery and Endurance had both gone up to Neophyte 4 during the night’s trial, while Tracking was at Neophyte 2. I added a Skill Point to my axe and Endurance skills, bringing them both a single point from gaining a new rank, then followed along behind Renica. I kept my eyes moving, determined to use the trip to boost my Tracking skill.
Unfortunately, we quickly left the winding, wandering path I’d taken through the forest. I kept looking around for signs of animals, but all my skill helped me pick up was the tracks of zombies. Those were perfectly obvious, of course, and I could follow them easily enough. When I tried to spot traces of other animals, though – things like rabbits or squirrels – I couldn’t find anything. I thought I would see things like gnawed bark, bits of scat, maybe even tracks in the few spaces of bare earth, but either there wasn’t anything like that, or we were moving too quickly to see it. Since we strolled along at a fairly leisurely pace that happened to be about as fast as I could handle, I doubted it was that second one. I wondered if the zombies had simply killed off any smaller creatures – or at least driven them into hiding.
I basked in the small bits of sunshine that filtered through the trees, stopping occasionally to enjoy the warmth when we passed through a clearing or open space. Renica waited for me when I did that, watching me curiously as I stood there with my head tilted back, soaking up the sunlight. I could still feel a deep chill running through my veins, trying to cloud my thoughts and stiffen my muscles, and those brief doses of sunlight drove it back, keeping my head clear and my aching to a minimum.
Even with that warmth, though, my strength was flagging after an hour or so of walking. My back ached, my legs felt tired and leaden, and the pounding in my head felt like someone hammering on my temples. I gamely pushed on, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other, until we finally exited the trees. I shivered as we passed out from beneath the sheltering pines; the air was cooler and crisper, feeling almost like Fall despite the blazing sunshine. I glanced up at the sapphire sky and saw the sun hanging above, shining down on us as we walked through a grassy field toward the cluster of solid, wooden houses. The blazing orb burned a brilliant white, but I swore I could see a golden haze shrouding it. I blinked as the light stabbed at my eyes and looked downward, trudging along behind Renica.
We passed people dressed in the same simple linen clothing as the hunter, but I didn’t really get a good look at any of them. My head was starting to spin, and I needed all of my focus just to keep staggering along behind the blonde woman. I knew my steps were dragging, and I heard mutters of concern rising from the people we passed, but I set my jaw and forced myself forward. I wasn’t about to make it this far and then collapse in front of everyone, after all.
Renica stopped suddenly, and I nearly crashed into her as my brain scrambled to tell my body to stop. I managed to keep my balance without hitting the woman, but my vision swam and my legs trembled beneath me.
“He lives?” a deep, raspy voice asked. I stared at the figure in front of me, but I couldn’t make out their features. Everything was too bright, and I squinted against the sudden brilliance.
“Obviously,” Renica laughed. “Although not for long if we don’t get him healed and fed. He came under the Moon’s Truce, Vasily.”
“Very well,” the raspy voice sighed. “Let’s get him into the Altar of the Sun. Hopefully, he’s not too far gone.”
I felt four strong hands grab my arms and half drag, half carry me across the village. We passed through a door, but oddly enough, the space beyond got brighter instead of darker.
“Lay him on the altar,” a commanding, matronly voice spoke. I didn’t like the sound of that – it made me think of human sacrifice – but I didn’t have the strength to struggle against the hands that pulled me deeper into the brilliance of the room. I felt myself lifted off my feet, and I felt a hard but oddly warm surface against my back. A face appeared above me, but all I could make out was the pair of gleaming, golden eyes that stared down at me.
“Naptrav,” the matronly voice spoke. “Far beyond a lethal dose, too. By all rights, you should be on your way to becoming one of the undying, young man.”
“Is he too far gone?” the raspy voice asked.
“No. He’s fought it off fairly well on his own.” The golden eyes looked away from me. “He’s sun-touched, Elder.”
“Sun-touched?” the elder repeated, his voice slightly awed. “Can you heal him?”
“I can.” The golden eyes looked back down at me. “Forgive me, young man, but this is going to hurt.”
I felt something press against my chest, and my entire world erupted in burning agony.