“How does training work if I don’t have nixstone skulls or the Leveling Jewel?” Tim asked S’Trace’s back while the Krow sauntered into the woods. The hem of his robe floated free of the dirt and independent of his sashay. “We don’t have time to go find one before tonight,” Tim continued. “Unless that’s where you’re—”
“No,” S’Trace said, smiling with grace at Tim’s ignorance. “There are no leveling inns or nixstone skulls here. My goal is to save my brother and use what Aeu sent with you to do it. You can still evolve skills within a month of a jewel or nixstone’s touch, longer possibly with a true leveling dose.”
Tim remembered evolving Mist after his Eq expired. “Okay. Can you help me evolve?”
“Evolution is more contingent on you and how you channel your aura. It depends on how you listen to the way it’s moving and where it wants an outlet. You also must maintain a core healthy enough to sacrifice the excess aura to evolve the new skill. Pursue those elements with everything you have and we’ll see what you can gain here. I’ll show you what I know and train you on how to use what you have. Then we pray we both survive long enough to find a leveling inn to advance the skills we have when we leave here. Did you bring the hiyer?”
Tim equipped the blue vial into his palm to show him.
S’Trace nodded and continued. “Keep that safe and out of sight.” He drew a circle with his finger to represent the whole forest. “Many eyes watch our path.”
Tim’s sight settled under the daylight, allowing him to focus more on the world around him. Everything pronounced light with a sharper intensity than the origin realm. Calling Vignyia his origin expanded the gap between him and home, where every step farther away was closer to the cliff where he’d have to accept his death to that world. My family is here, so this is home. That thought tied back to the danger they were in without him. “The Murphy is almost to the aura generator,” Tim added, confused at the man’s lack of urgency. “Jil said the sound pool could tune my aura, then Roz and Khempal would teach me how to manage my aura stamina.”
“You wouldn’t survive the Murphy.”
Tim kept going despite S’Trace’s lack of replies. Ripples of energy cycled through his mouth and face with every sentence, so he thought it might be helping to get some questions out. “What’s the hiyer for?”
“So you can sustain the vahkel’s lethal first strike.” S’Trace slowly shook his head at the thought, eyes distant to take in the possibility. “Somewhere in this forest resides my brother, Hur. The aura beast that he tracked to this enclave has a deadly venom. The hiyer isn’t exactly an antidote. Its design is aura strength and boosted Constitution. The maximum effect time is only two minutes. You’ll have to ensure taking it with that time to kill her. I’m coming too. Here’s a party invite so I can see your stats and best prepare you.”
Temporary party invite request from S’Trace, Level 18 M’bochen.
HP: 249
“Interesting. ODub is rare. You probably feel the strain in this realm. That’s partly the higher concentration of aura to oxygen. It’s forcing your body to sustain itself with less O2. You can breathe it in without being sucked in–your spirit thirsts for it, but is also afraid it won’t find its way back once it dives in. Don’t worry, when you return to the origin realm, your body–the part of you that requires oxygen, water, and physical nutrition will settle in without pushing your aura needs and… sorry, the word… It’s been so long since I’ve had an actual conversation. My mind is stumbling with… It’s clear this path is new, but if you’ve heard all this, I can stop.”
“Dryfu, my guide explained some. I’m all ears about whatever you can tell me though. It’s okay. I’m not the best speaker either. I kind of prefer solitary life and not having to verbalize my thoughts.”
S’Trace smiled. A bond of friendship grew into the aura interaction between them. He lifted a foot to rest on a log. The aura forms melded between this strange form of wood and nature and S’Trace’s being. It was as if his spirit and body had reversed position, putting the former on the outside like a reversible coat. His connection to the log touched the aura it also wore on the outside, and an intimate relationship reacted as smoothly as if it had always been that way between them. Wanderer meet resource. Welcome. My home is your home. We were both built for this.
The beauty of life simplified touched Tim in a way he knew would change him forever. “I feel that strain, yes, but I also see the wonder in this opportunity.” He set a hand on a branch, introducing himself to this world one ambassador at a time. It reacted as a good dog would to the hand of its owner, in its own way. Silently but present. The tree impressed upon him an agreement to offer supplies for his aura bow and arrows. It somehow read that Tim had sacrificed an upgrade to those so that his team could afford better gear. Now the tree, as an extension of the forest, entreated him to use its resources to rid them of the monsters who’d turned their home into a den of carnage.
Every day that passed gave them greater strength to pull life from the origin realm into ever wider seams between their realms. The forest hated being a vessel for this. The terror it evoked in its prey resonated deeply within the aura of this place, like a night spent shivering and desperate for the warmth of day, but forced to watch as darkness stretched its reach and pushed light exponentially farther.
The tree presented its wood, the location of a nest of birds and rocks in the soil around its roots, all needed parts of his aura arrow crafting to come. Their agreement commissioned their use to set their forest free.
“I’ll take those words to heart and try to breathe this in with less fear.”
“Good. I just meant it may feel like falling into the middle of the ocean, but when you return to the origin, your feet will find land once again. I hope this adventure changes you for the better, because it will change you. I share the same fear, even knowing what I’m telling you, after decades here, I can’t help but feel too far away to return to what I knew. Your fading issue could be less of a hindrance by your training here. This is teaching your channels to breathe and expand, to absorb and distribute with hyper focus and the freedom it doesn’t have when forced to share inherent needs with your physical body.
“I think I understand.”
“Good. Go ahead,” S’Trace said, indicating the log and the offering on the table.
Tim accepted their treaty.
Bark sleuthed off fresh timber, followed in the flow of aura with lines carving shafts for a hundred aura arrows. While this broke apart from their source, a branch holding the bird’s nest draped down to present three birds. Two parents and their young one, sacrificed for him? Their still forms emanated the peace Tim needed to accept their lives as a gift. His next poem would honor them and this forest.
Roots broke through the soil with similar presentations of the rocks he would use for arrowheads. Once they finished, S’Trace waved him to keep going along their dirt path.
“Aura Form, Mist, Constitution at 19…” S'Trace continued. “Uh huh. I can work with that. Put some oshi poison on your weapons. You have enough to spare and still save some for your Murphy advance.”
Tim dipped a finger into his oshi brick and smoothed it over the rock arrowhead he crafted. “Dryfu said you’re an aura beast hunter. Is that what the M’bochen class specializes in? I haven’t heard of it.”
“The m’bochen is a martial arts class with emphasis on “diamond strikes” and stealth. I have applied its perks to aura beast hunting, as my ancestors have since Zahalci. The diamond strikes pierce deeply and leave behind a mana draining thorn. My thorn level is sixteen, with +42 defense against removal, +31 attack and +9 aura drain. My stealth skill is second highest at fourteen. We m’bochen achieve stealth through blending in with the aura around us.”
Tim’s Ranger class did something similar on a physical level.
S’Trace drew his fingers together at his eyes. “Focus here.”
Faint translucent scales peeled off in the intersection between S’Trace’s aura and the air around him. Tim didn’t understand it. As though every graceful step peeled off the outer layer of a formerly invisible barrier. Then he walked through to peel away new ground in any direction he chose. Fascinating.
“This is called Peeling. Normally, this is restricted to our class, but your Oil and Water evolution could learn to replicate the gift.”
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Tim imagined his aura to become like a scythe he could control with his mind, slicing through the barrier between him and the world like S’Trace did. The scythe formed, and he tried to wield it like a farmer cultivating his field and his mana. His aura burned like muscle tearing from scalp to triceps, into his back and stretched into his hands, too. He pressed on against the opposing force, sweating and shaking with each step. Every inch of his body weighed with resistance against the barrier as it met his scythes. He fought against it, following S’Trace’s steps with the same unashamed, yet reverent persistence forward.
Congratulations! You have evolved Aura Form to gain the new skill: Peeling.
The resistance and difficulty of gaining an edge on the environment’s scalp eased by ten percent.
“Good. You got it. Keep practicing. All the way to the cliff.” S’Trace cut off the worn path and ducked under the roots of a fallen tree, swishing through the tall weeds. Tim tracked the horizon to a clearing of blue sky a few hundred feet away. A revulsion against heights churned in his gut. “If I Peel while falling, would that enable me to fall slow enough that I don’t break my legs?”
S’Trace chuckled. “We could try and find out. You first.”
Tim got the point.
“The goal of peeling is to go faster, and just like it will take intense practice and time to gain levels in speed, the same goes in reverse. Practicing and gaining levels in one does not equate to XP into the other. A high-level speed peeler will gain wisdom and a feel for the skill, which will help as he trains the slow peeling skill.
“To slow peel, you have to manifest a thickness and shape in your scythe that helps you control your speed by spreading it wide. When you fast peel, it’s a sharp cut to this precise perimeter of your body. This minimizes friction. Like a cookie cutter. One pop.” He formed a circle with his thumb and forefinger and slapped his hand atop it. “One cut. You launch into your fast peel, glide, land, launch, peel, glide, and so on. Each stride requires a peel that matches your body and the sharp strength in your scythe to not only make the precise cut, but also not to break in the collision. Every edge that breaks will slow you down. You’ll feel it too. Right where you broke off. It doesn’t hurt you physically, but the mana channel in that location could become so damaged that it blocks the flow to the area beyond. If it’s your elbow, you could lose mana channeling into your hand.”
Tim’s stride remained like normal, hands swaying, but now he was more aware of the shape and angle they took as they interacted with the peel. He had to keep focus on the whole of his body and exerted mana across the whole surface to try and keep his peeling clean. Similarly to skinning an orange, peeling atmosphere could skip off the undetected ridges overlapping the horizon between physical and aura.
“Aura Blades with your gotr weapons will be your key here,” S’Trace said casually, announcing his conclusion as though unfettered by what lie ahead. Or the difficulty Tim had moving and peeling while thinking about anything else.
Tim spoke calm words to his spirit, smoothing out the turbulence. Lord, guide me here, too.
S’Trace stepped around a puddle mottled with pink flies eating from its surface. Mushrooms with green and blue dots upon their beige tops activated a Foraging note: Ontigo mushrooms. Strong MP and aura regeneration, along with boost to channeling stamina.
“Too bad your brother’s not here,” S’Trace said. “The root skill would’ve been nice. Oh, yes, we’ll work on your Order of the Squire form and hand to hand. Aura items can be extremely effective, but they are a degree separate from direct content with your aura.”
“Is that why you walk barefoot?” Tim asked.
A white shimmer passed over the man’s feet. “Yes, though I don’t always. Over extended use of my protection film, it can dampen my overall channeling strength. Your high protection level could make the building on that skill less of a steep climb. You’re already storing experience into aura form strength by being in this realm. The aura infused into your gear allowed it to come with, and since you haven’t gained the touch skill yet I wouldn’t advise using it in battle. We’ll have you stick to your current skills then.”
They reached a cliff five stories over the basin of forest stretching for miles. Thick tree cover concealed the habitat occupants.
“Should I cast Danger Sense?” Tim asked. His HP bar was grayed out. Aura health felt pretty decent, maybe halfway to what it could be, and his MP at 63 and rising.
“Not yet. Your level is not high enough to avoid detection by the chints. They are similar to holler monkeys if they were also bottom part scorpion, tail included. The vahkel uses them for a defensive buffer. If they detect us, their hollers will alert vahkel and blow our shot for at least a few days. Maybe a week. At the right time, I’ll tell you.”
“Why’s my HP like that?”
“You are here purely through your aura and the strength of Aeu’s pool. The vahkel came through a gate from its home world and created this realm to breed safely. My brother hunted it here but never returned. I came to rescue him but used all my hiyer potions just to find where the vahkel was waiting. After this long, my faith in my brother’s survival is thin as the air under your feet. Before I came here, Aeu had just purchased his hiyer potion. I held about the same amount of faith in my brother’s survival as I have that Aeu would show up to help. Now that you’re here with his potion, I’m done waiting.”
S’Trace unraveled a thick roll of rope tucked in a tree, and carefully let it down the other side of the cliff. The knots appeared firm around the thickest bough. Tim guessed it was thick enough to hold both of their weight. And even being in this aura form he was no fan of the look down. A tree could break his fall, or one of the rocks jutting from the steep ravine. Either way. In this form, he felt everything, maybe even with more sensitivity than normal.
“If you die here,” S’ Trace said, “you’ll return to the pool… probably.” His confidence faded by the end of his statement, waking concern in how likely Tim would be to return.
“P—”
“and you can kiss any plans goodbye for a long time.”
“You said probably? Where else would I go?”
“Best you not worry your spirit about outcomes you can’t predict. Your aura is fully exposed here. It’s great for tuning and strengthening the aura, but far greater risk if you get hurt. I’ve been here for sixty-seven years. In your origin realm that timeline is well, it doesn’t matter. What matters is I’ve been training to do this myself but keep putting it off thinking Aeu would return with more hiyer potion. Your mind plays tricks on you when ten years could be a week for the person you're waiting on.
“The vahkel requires this environment to have babies. It is also most vulnerable here. But she is still a monster of the highest form, both in intelligence and what were already incredible hunting gifts manifest in a new form of attacks born from becoming a mother. She’s the first one to enter our world.
“In the origin realm, ten thousand of our elite could not destroy her. Childockia, Brecievancia and Witesbu collaborated on that battle. Here, she’ll settle for ensuring our certain doom. And it’ll be personal, because we hunted her and her babies. Our first battle set the southern rim countries back by a hundred years. In infrastructure and population. Some pieces of their culture will never come back. We are from Breceivancia. My brother and I are fourth generation vahkel hunters, and the first to find its nesting ground. Now you are first generation of your kin. Come, we must go. She sleeps in the day. I have traps I want to show you as well.”
“So we’re doing this today?”
“Oh no. We have a long way to travel. Don't worry, the time that will pass where your body is will be a fraction of what you’ll encounter here.”
“What does it mean for the vahkel if in the origin realm we’re passing time in seconds while it gets days, or whatever.”
“Pretty close approximation. Its pregnancy takes years. I’ve killed a dozen or more of her babies. My brother more. The key is taking them out early. From what I’ve tracked, I believe my brother fell into one of the vahkel’s traps. I never got close enough to find his body, but it’s hard to believe he’s still there and alive. The vahkel knows how to dispose of fallen prey.”
They didn’t talk again until Tim hopped down from the rope.
“Flee!” S’Trace whispered and took off into the trees. “After me!”
Tim activated Flee on a wing and a prayer. S’Trace’s Peel skill looked like the unsheathing of a fast lane out of thin air. Blue and yellow streaks lit around the arched tunnel-like stair light in warp drive. S’Trace didn't reach light speed, but definitely next level above Tim’s fleeting effort to keep up. Even with nearly every stride on point and him feeling increasingly confident in his Flee working efficiently, he would’ve lost S’Trace in seconds. Would have if he hadn’t turned that Peel speed into lethal first strikes.
S’Trace punched the chints in the mouth and left them stunned. Tim tried keeping up, following that first strike with double whammos, but the monkey scorpions concentrated their number with higher-level fighters.
S’Trace entered a Peel on a jet pack of speed. Two chints blocked his path to get in before the archway of lights dissipated. A stinger hooked at his side. Their monkey elements made adjustment mid stride a smooth, deadly adaptation. Tim cast Protection on his body. The stinger landed before he could do anything else. He had no choice. The pain shot to ten and sent him reeling. He hopped through an opening in the tree’s boughs.
Another stinger swept into view. Tim tried to block, but his right side was stiff as wood. The stinger struck him high in his chest. Poison flooded into his flesh, seizing him as he flipped backwards from the force.
Tim popped open a potion vial and drank it on his back, scooting under a log. Wet weeds soaked him in sticky sap and the soil’s saturation. Neon green markers signified value in foraging the weeds. The chint scaled the tree in piston cracking bursts of wood and bark. Tim ripped a handful of weeds and rolled free. He stuffed a mouthful and Kit cloud kicked his feet into a rigid path between trees and a boulder coated in forest green moss.
Pincer strikes from the chint’s chitinous limbs stabbed the ground and propelled its breakneck velocity at Tim.
His right side was still numb and on fire—go figure, it sucked, however he described it. And with two chints behind and a forest in front blotching together in the presence of his enemies, his only shot was to peel. Before the chint with the burned leg could block the last lane out. Now.
Tim’s disabled arm forced him to stretch the Peel like scythes out of his mind. Pain ripped across his forehead and hands as though unlocking instant ice fissures. The same power that spiked in him also carved a path forward. Fast as a rocket. Lacking control, Tim tried reigning it in.
Flee, Aura Blades, Protection and Spirit Memory have allowed you to evolve into the path of S’Trace and his Peel ability.
Tim only scanned the notification, trapped in the vibrating tunnel rocket ride. Heading right for the chint trying to block his path. He leaned hard into the Peel’s resistance—failed and collided with the chint. Sparks shot off its shell. An edge unresolved by the Peel sliced a long gash down his arm. The numb one. Another gash tore up his thigh and off his hip bone.
The Peel broke him through the clearing and into a lane lighting the forest in a wonder world of new detail. He thought it was beautiful before. This was slamming his life into the next gear.
The failed sections of his Peeling cast him sidelong into his glide. While the speed set him free, he now couldn’t see where he was going, and expected impact any—