Vyra dropped from the canopy, his purple-black hair fluttering, and landed next to me.

“Sure thing. Let me just check if there’s anything nearby before we walk into it.”

I watched curiously as he appeared to focus intently. It was vague but I could just about sense his lifeforce shift, flowing more strongly through his ears, then, a few seconds later, through his eyes before fading away. I'd noticed him stand still like that several times on the way to my tower, but I'd never looked close enough to tell what he was doing.

“Ok, doesn’t seem like there’s anything nearby.” The dark elf flipped open a small compass taken from his pocket. “That way,” he pointed, starting off.

We let the scout get a few metres ahead before following after him in our usual formation: Vyra, Stone, Dranner, Janet, Tear, Lupia, me, then Thora and Liz bringing up the rear.

As we walked, I thought about what Vyra had done. At a guess, I’d say that running lifeforce through one’s eyes and ears would increase the sensory organs’ sensitivity, but I couldn’t be sure.

“I’ll just have to test it to find out,” I muttered to myself.

With a bit of effort, I persuaded the tiny amount of lifeforce still available to me to flow from my heart up to my head. Due to the counterflow I didn’t have enough available to do both my ears and eyes at the same time, so I started by shifting it up to run through my ears.

Suddenly I could hear everything; the breathing of all the party, the slight rustling of their clothes, the slight shifting of leaves, insects moving through the undergrowth, the flap of a distant bird, a far-off swooshing sound similar to strong wind. Then a red-hot spike drove itself through my ear. I flinched and dropped the lifeforce flow.

“What d’ya say?” Tear repeated.

“Oh, nothing, just thinking out loud.”

Besides the last bit, that wasn’t too bad. Could be quite useful to increase my hearing like that, though it would be dangerous in combat. What’s the effect for the eyes?

What it was, was a bad idea.

I could suddenly see everything for 20m in every direction, including underground as though from every angle at once, from thousands, no, millions of different viewpoints, all in excruciating detail. Literally excruciating. My head felt like it was splitting... I watched myself trip and begin to fall in slow motion in slow motion from multiple angles... then intense clarity bloomed and I hurriedly rerouted the lifeforce just in time to catch myself before my nose hit the dirt.

“Y’alright?” asked Thora concernedly as I effortlessly pushed myself back onto my feet and continued walking.

“Yeah, I’m fine; was just distracted and tripped over this tree root.” Which was not technically a lie.

We quickly caught up to the rest of the group, allowing me to consider lifeforce boosting my eyes. I don’t want to do that again. How the hell did Vyra stand it?! Is there some kind of trick to it? Or could it be interacting poorly with my depth vision? Questions for when I have time to experiment.

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Talking of questions for when I get back to the Abyss Tower… my attention drifted up to the icon of an eye with many bright lines pointing into it, a big red cross pasted over the top of it all. Debuff: Sensory Mental Overload. Nullified by Title ‘Tin Foil Hatter’. …I really need to find out just what the hell my Titles do!

I was briefly pulled out of my ponderings by the rude intrusion of a monster. I actually recognised this one; it was a Giant Flying Fox, a midgame mob from Terraria. Janet and Liz riddled its wings with spells and arrows, and then the close combat fighters jumped it while Stone took its attacks. From what I could tell, it was Classic mode strength which was good cos they could pack quite a punch in Expert or Master. I wondered again what determined the enemies’ strengths. Ambient mana? Age? Some inherent property gain when they spawned from raw mana, or maybe one passed on through breeding? Yet another question. I seemed to be building up quite a list.

As the Giant Flying Fox died, my attention shifted slightly to the corner of my vision. For the first time since we had left the tower, my cell phone’s radar was reading ‘No enemies nearby’. I frowned. That was seriously weird. This entire forest was practically dripping with monsters, why the hell were there none nearby?

Janet placed the dead monster into her Item Box, and we were about to leave when Vyra went very still.

“What’s wrong?” Liz asked. He pointed. She looked. “Oh.”

A series of long shallow scrapes crossed the ground in front of us, looking not dissimilar to a well-skied piste. Vrya knelt by them, and the rest of us went to stand next to him. Looking more closely, the grooves weren’t continuous; the scrape extended a few metres, there was a large paw print, and the scrape continued.

“Wind Wolves,” Liz breathed, suddenly looking extremely nervous, “a whole pack. We’re dead if they find us.”

“Let’ssss not go ttthhhat way ttthhhen,” Stone indicated direction the tracks were heading, his tail lashing in a distinctly concerned way.

“Which way are they now?” Janet raised a very important point.

“And do they have any scouts that could find us?” I tossed into the mix.

The dark elf interrupted any further discussion. “Everyone be quiet, I’m going to boost my hearing, see if I can tell where they are.”

Silence fell as he closed his eyes, clearly concentrating. We waited with baited breath. Well, I didn’t, but I’m pretty sure I was the only one even close to relaxed. Some small part of me wanted to find out just what was so dangerous about them… and maybe fight a few… for research purposes of course. They might have interesting new materials to work with! I resolved to come find them anyway if we didn’t encounter them now.

The enemy count on my cell phone readout increased to one. Then two. Then three. Then five-

“Run!” Vyra commanded, rising from his crouch straight into a sprint.

Watching the adventurers run was a masterclass in lifeforce manipulation. Their efficiency was incredible, pulsing their lifeforce through their legs and linked muscles only as their foot came down, and as they took a step not wasting a single drop. Vyra was especially impressive, the dark eleven assassin bouncing off trees, lifeforce flickering all across his body at contact points, keeping ahead of all of us easily. I would have tried to copy them, but it would take at least an hour to shut down my lifeforce counterflow under ideal conditions, which these weren’t, so I only had access to the tiniest traces. I settled with making good use of my Terra Boots instead.

Lupia was keeping up better than I had expected, but Tear was clearly struggling, only just staying with the group. This was still impressive since she was relying solely on her own muscles and technique.

“Perhaps due to being a beastkin?” I wondered to myself, dropping back through the group to be level with her. “Sorry about this,” I apologised to her, lifting her into my arms and accelerating, catching up to Vyra.

“How’s it looking?” I asked, “think we can get away?”

“There’s a chance. *huff* If we can get far enough away *huff* that when they notice our scent *huff* they can’t catch us *huff* up,” the dark elf panted, “then we should be fine. *huff* At the moment we’re too close; *huff* far too close.”

“What if they do notice?”

“A slim to none chance, *huff* is what we have *huff* to survive. *huff* If nothing goes wrong. *huff* Then we’d definitely have none. *huff*”

A wolf howled nearby, the spine-chilling hunting call washing over us. Vyra swore.