Will waited until night to start his approach. The world was pitch black except for the rare pools of light in the village. The Hunters sentries wouldn’t use the light. They probably had darkvision skills or something like that. And so Will was careful as he snuck toward the village. Will used manasight instead of darkvision, which seemed to outline the world in odd colors. The shadows clung to him as he passed, obscuring and darkening his form. He made it to the outermost buildings with ease and started to look around. A problem immediately arose. Nothing had been left out and about. Given the weather, it seemed that everything was locked up tight. Not that this should have been a surprise. Will wanted to steal clothing and food, things that would have been locked up anyway. The problem was that if he entered any of the buildings the occupants would immediately know. He was stealthy, the icy cold of the outdoors was not.

Which meant that he had to choose from the buildings that did not have smoke rising from their chimneys. It was an annoying development. How many pieces of clothing would be left out of the living areas? Will may need to come back during the day.

Will wouldn’t waste this opportunity, and so he made his way to the closest unoccupied building. He carefully worked the door, which had been frozen in place. It took a few judicious punches to free it from the ice and get it open. As Will expected, it was a storehouse. It held a lot of frozen carcasses, a few dozen large animals of all kinds hung on meat hooks from the rafters. But on one side of the room were shelves with crates. He found a variety of foodstuffs inside, but the crates were nearly empty. It seemed that the hunters were running low on their food stores. They would likely have to break into the meat they hunted if they didn’t return soon.

The thought made Will perk up. If they were leaving soon, he might be able to follow them to more habitable lands. Smiling, Will opened another crate. Clothing! The crate was filled with gloves and mittens that seemed to be meant to be used together. They were made of an off white wool, and Will remembered the Hunters wearing them. Some of them seemed to also have some sort of fur hand wrap as well, but Will hadn’t gotten a good look. Will took a few sets to be safe. It was the least the hunters owed him after they tried to kill him. The next crate held heavy woolen scarves, and Will took several of those as well. Will didn’t expressly need boots, but his were not meant for heavy use and were already starting to show the wear. And so he was disappointed when he didn’t find any. He did find some heavy undergarments however. They were the old kind, a giant onesie with a flap at the bottom. Will wasn’t keen on these, but he knew he would need the extra insulation. He didn’t have thermals, and would need them when he finally got to turn off his concept. He took several sets.

Will left the warehouse after setting everything back the way it belonged, and moved to the next building. It seemed to be a processing plant for the carcasses. Will didn’t need anything here, but grabbed a long knife just in case.

The next building was a jackpot. Inside there was equipment of all kinds, and more of those gloves, scarves, and undergarments. Will especially salivated when he found the weapons. There were several spare bows, plenty of spare strings, and a ton of arrows. There were also spears galore, and a few swords. Will grinned and set to. He set aside a quiver of arrows, as well as a bow and a handful of strings. He also grabbed a few spears that met his fancy. What he was really interested in however, was the swords. There were five. One was absolutely massive, too big to be used normally. It had to stand taller than Will, who was 6’2”.

Will took it. He also took a really short one that kinda looked like the movie rendition of sting. The blade was about the length of his forearm from the tip of his fingers to his elbow. This one he strapped to his waist, while setting the long one with the other items.

Will looked around one more time, and found a couple more crates. He found socks, which he took, as well as boots. His excitement turned into disappointment as he found that all the boots were too small. Still, he had gotten good enough as he tied the bundle of weapons together with some leather straps he had found laying around. He slung the bundle over his shoulder, and went to the final building.

It was a workshop of some kind. It seemed that leather goods were made here, probably from the fur of the beasts they killed. And speaking of fur, a large fur coat was laid out on the table. It was laid fur down, with the leather exposed to the room. Stoppered bottles of ink were scattered across the coat, and Will could see that designs had been inked into the leather. He could see it because the lines glowed with mana. The design was incomplete, but Will could see how the mana would flow through the lines and imbue itself into the cloak. He couldn’t say what it would do, but there was one thing for sure, this was magic.

Skill nucleation detected.

Stabilizing…

Stabilizing…

You have gained a new skill.

Skill: Inscription

Level 1

Will stared at the notification. Shadowmeld was one thing, he had actually manipulated the shadows. He had just stared at this. Suddenly, Will heard a shout from outside, and panicked. He went to a corner of the room between the wall and a large cabinet and squeezed himself in. He then activated shadowmeld. A few minutes later, someone burst through the door, looking around frantically. Upon seeing the room had not been disturbed, he sighed in relief, and went to the fireplace. In another couple of minutes, a fire was stoked, and the room began to warm. The man set a teapot over the fire, and then went to sit by the coat. He lifted it, examining every inch of his work and the fur on the other side. With a start, Will realized it was the fur from the wolf he had killed on his first day.

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It took the man nearly thirty minutes to finish his inspection. When he was done, he removed his own fur cloak revealing an older balding man still wrapped up in woolen clothing. He sat down, pulling out what looked to be a tattooing gun. He picked up a bottle of ink and poured it into a reservoir near the top of the gun, and started to work on the lines in the cloak. Will watched in fascination as the man worked, wishing he could get closer.

Only about ten more minutes passed before the door burst open again, and another man burst in through the door. The door slammed behind him, and he immediately started to rant and shout. The older man spoke calmly as he continued to work, and slowly the new man calmed down. Eventually he too removed his fur coat, revealing a much younger man beneath. Except this man didn’t stop with his coat, stripping to bare skin, though thankfully only above the waist. He sat down, offering his right arm to the old man who sighed, seeming to pray in his foreign tongue. The old man turned away from the coat and started to work on the young man.

Again Will watched in fascination as the image of a wolf was tattooed into the man’s right arm. It was situated so that the hand came out of the wolf’s mouth, the snout extending onto the back of the man’s hand and onto his palm. Will could see the magic being laid into the man’s skin. Eventually, they were done, and the young man stood grinning. He reached out, and Will saw the magic surge as the aetherial head of a giant wolf appeared over his hand and snapped down with incredible force. Will’s arm twinged as he remembered how much force was behind that strike.

The man dressed and left, grinning as the old man went back to working on the coat. It wouldn’t be long before he was done, and will had an idea. The commotion was dying down outside, and Will thought that they might be off to hunt him. Which meant that he and the old man wouldn’t be disturbed. The old man finished after another hour of work. He stood and grabbed another fur, one much shorter and buttoned it into the coat, as well as two sleeves which he also buttoned inside. Each piece had already been inked intricately, and the man held up the coat to admire it. When he set it back down, Will was there, holding a single finger up to his helmet in a shushing gesture.

The man’s eyes widened and looked like he was going to call out, but Will flexed his cold aura and the man fell into his chair, pale as a sheet. Will walked toward him and took off his helmet. A confused look passed over the man’s face as he saw Will’s. His eyes widened and he muttered a few words to himself. Will glared and the man closed his mouth with a click. Will took off his jacket, and then he pulled off his shirt. He sat in the same chair as the man before and offered his right arm to the man. The man hesitated, but lept to work as Will pulsed his cold aura. The process stung, but not as much as Will thought it would. It went faster too, far faster than any tattooing on earth would have. The entire sleeve took only a half hour to finish, and when it was done, Will could both see and feel the magic coursing through his skin.

Activating the skill was intuitively easy, and Will caused the wolf’s head to manifest about his hand and comp down. He could feel the mana become somewhat depleted from the use, and easily charged it back up by connecting it to the springtime star within him. He gave the old man a smile, and a look of relief passed over the man’s face. He then picked up the white fur coat, and put it on, and the look of relief vanished from the man’s face.

As a final thought, Will snatched the man’s own coat from the wall and walked out, coat on, weapons bundled over his back. He left his trash helmet behind and only regretted not having some good goggles as he put on the scarf and gloves and mittens. Will didn’t actually want the old man’s coat. He left it hanging off a peg on one of the buildings. He just needed the man stranded long enough for him to get away.

And getting away was easy as the village was completely deserted save the old man.

Will hurried to where he had left Koma, who jumped for joy at his return. Will had expected the pup to be cold, or having returned to his normal coloration, but that was not the case. Will only then noticed a small cold aura about Koma. Koma must have gotten a concept of his own. That was fortunate. Will wouldn’t have to worry about him freezing to death. He played with Koma for a few minutes. Koma was a wolf pup, not a dog. Playing with Koma, though they seemed to have bonded, was quite different. Koma didn’t understand the boundaries that normal dogs had bred into him, and was perfectly willing to ignore Will even when Will knew full well that Koma understood.

Will had never trained a stubborn animal before. His only experience was with his German Shepherd, Zeus. Zeus had been a professionally trained protection dog. And so while Will knew a whole load of commands, he had no clue how to get Koma to follow them. This would be a problem soon. Koma was already noticeably larger than on that first day, and Will had no doubt he would be as large or larger than his mother. Whose skin he was now wearing.

On that note, Will loved his new coat. It was plenty warm enough that he was able to deactivate his concept. It was a long coat, nearly ankle length, and had a mantle that came down nearly to his waist. Oddly enough the sleeves were not sewn in. they were buttoned in at two points near the shoulder, and could be easily removed. The sleeves were long, and were designed to cover the hands when they rested at the side, but then to fall away slightly when they were raised. The design was distinctly rustic, but every part of it was ingenious. No part of it would get in the way while shooting or fighting, even when the mantle seemed like it should. It bunched up in just the right way to get out of the way, and then fell back when the arms were lowered.

Moreover, the coat was strong. Will was horrified when Koma grabbed the hem and started to tug on it like it was a rope. But the coat was completely undamaged. Koma’s pee even flaked off in little ice crystals leaving the coat spotless. Will had to hand it to the old man. He did good work. He would have to repay the old man some time. Some time far in the future.

Will luxuriated in the feeling of warmth the coat provided, and had fun playing with Koma, but only allowed the distraction to last a few minutes. He had seen a road leading out of the village and toward a set of mountains. He had only been able to see them from the village given the tree cover, but he figured that was where he needed to go if he was to get to civilization. He had even seen what he thought were ruins in that direction. Maybe that was where the repository was.

Will tried to open a status sheet, but got the same message that he had the ten other times he had tried.

Status sheet is currently unavailable. Please obtain Inspect Modules (0/64)

He figured he should move that direction as soon as he could. Of course that was after fleeing from more hunters. Arrows rained down around Will, and Will was pleased to find that they could not tear his new coat. They still hurt like hell when they hit, they just didn’t penetrate. Will could feel the magic of the coat weaken with every hit, and so he connected it to his springtime star, and allowed mana to flow into the coat. The coat became glossy, regaining a luster that had been lost in the tanning process, and the arrows no longer hurt when they hit. Will could see the hunters stumble to a stop as they saw their arrows have no effect.

One hunter came on though. The hunter wielded a longsword, and was big, several inches taller than Will, who was already pretty tall. He was also a foot wider at the shoulder and absolutely ripped. Will’s eyes widened and he ripped the shortsword out of its sheath and brandished it at the man. This only seemed to enrage the man more.

Will tried to fight, but the man outclassed him in every way. It was all Will could do to keep the sword away from the places it could pierce the coat. But it was no good. Will watched the sword come straight for his face, and was unable to get his sword up in time.