Mia’s bruises still ached a bit by the time she finished breakfast the next morning, but those aches had faded surprisingly quickly. Rationally, she knew it likely had something to do with her higher Body attribute boosting her natural recovery, but it was also undeniable that forgetting her aches was much easier when she was nestled comfortably into Camie’s side.
The evening, the day before, had been nice; it was all too easy to convince Camie to kiss Mia’s pains away. Long, loving kisses that had her toes curling and took her breath away served her much better than silly old painkillers. Now that she’d spent a night resting, she only felt sore with the bruise on her left hip being the only one stubborn enough to still ache.
“Y’all are heading out of the city, right?” Mark asked once everyone had their plates clean and people started to leave the table to get ready for their day.
“Yeah?” Mia said, raising an eyebrow at her friend.
Mark frowned, looked visibly hesitant as his gaze flicked back and forth between Mia and Carmilla. He gave a grunt, then reached into his pocket and threw something on the table, flicking it over to land before Camie.
“There, you should probably have that to keep this idiot safe out there,” Mark said, staring at Camie with an intense look.
“Hey-!” Mia huffed in indignation, then her eyes landed on the piece of crystal on the table just as it came to a stop. She paused, blinked and then tilted her head. “What’s that?”
“A Skill Shard?” Gabe asked curiously, leaning over from his place next to Mark. His eyes widened. “A Unique Primary Skill Shard? Damn, where did you get something like that? Shit like that goes for a fortune, like, a king’s ransom kinda fortune and not figuratively. Is it good?”
“Fuck me if I know, the description sounded useful,” Mark grumbled, crossing his arms as he leaned back. “Some kind of presence concealment should be handy for sneaking around. As for where I got it from? Do you remember that freaky goblin that almost gutted you?”
“Eh?” Mia startled when the dwarf’s eyes landed on her. She quickly went through her memories and- Ah, that little bastard. “The Unique monster we met? It dropped that thing?”
“If by ‘dropped’ you mean I dug it out of its chest cavity, then yes, it did drop it,” Mark said.
“And you kept it all this time?” Mia asked.
“Yeah,” Mark said with a shrug that was meant to be casual, but clearly wasn’t. “We couldn’t use it anyway until we got to Rank 1, and the only one that it suited was Red over there … but I wasn’t going to give her the perfect creepy stalker Skill before I was certain she wasn’t a danger to you.”
Mia just stared at him, her mouth opening and then closing without a single sound leaving it. Her brain wasn’t cooperating, and no words were forthcoming in response to what she’d just heard.
“And you trust her now?” Gabe asked a bit too intently, and if Mia wasn’t too distracted, she’d have kicked him under the table for it.
“I’m willing to take the gamble now,” Mark said, still staring at Camie, who was staring back at him, looking very much like a deer caught in headlights. Mark snorted, breaking up the tense atmosphere. “Hell, she has more self-control than me- a lot more. Mia’s clinging to her side like a love-starved koala at least 12 hours a day, and she hasn’t so much as kissed her until they were both Rank 1? I’d have folded in minutes if a woman clung to me like that. So yeah, I’m hoping this will somewhat make up for me staying behind and help you keep this idiot alive. Think ya’ can do that, Red?”
“Y-yes, I promise,” Camie said, swallowing thickly before she spoke, her voice quivering a little either from anxiety or emotion. Mia couldn’t really tell. When her hand reached for the small crystal, her fingers shook before she grabbed it, clutching it tightly. “Thank you.”
Mia wasn’t sure what she should be feeling, annoyed at Mark for not trusting Camie? Happy that he apparently accepted her now? Annoyed that he hid that Skill Shard for so long? Thankful that he gave up a supposedly priceless treasure just because … he wanted her to be better protected?
Yeah, that one. That last one would be good, she decided, even if all the other emotions still simmered under the surface, gratitude still won out in the end. “Thank you.”
After she gave herself a few moments to just process, she realised it made sense. She'd have felt the same way if their roles were reversed and Mark somehow picked up a man-eating werewolf girl or something. It made sense why he'd be wary and go with the wait-and-see approach, and the fact that he cared enough to do that for her warmed her heart.
“Bah, it’s worthless to me, it’s a Skill for someone who likes skulking about, and that’s not me,” Mark grumbled, arms crossed, as he looked away. Despite his surly demeanour, Mia knew him well enough to tell that he was just embarrassed and super awkward about being on the receiving end of someone’s heartfelt thanks. Even the bushy beard covering more than half of his face couldn’t hide it from her eyes. “Red’s the only one of us who can make good use of it.”
Mia felt a burst of some strange energy from Camie’s hand, just barely catching it as it flashed through her girlfriend’s body. Camie’s gaze went distant, her ruby red eyes staring into thin air as small flakes of glittering dust floated out of her hand. When she uncurled her fist, there was nothing inside.
“Mark, I have conducted the divination ritual you asked me to,” Gabe said, his voice and expression both turning grave, and Mark stared at him for a moment, only for his eyes to widen when realisation dawned on him. His face blanched at Gabe’s severe tone, because the expression he wore was not the one of a person delivering good news. “The 1st Rank divination spell I used to find Mia had failed, but that doesn’t mean anything. My own blood is a much more powerful catalyst than yours, and we share a Bloodline, so it was greatly enhanced beyond its usual parameters. The ritual, which I used to enhance and basically overclock the spell, was also crude, and while it didn’t return an absolute negative … it wasn’t certain either. The results I got were contradictory and confusing.”
“The fuck does that mean, Gabe?” Mark said gruffly, though Mia could hear his voice quivering slightly as he spoke, and she wanted nothing more than to rush over and give him a hug. That would come later, once he had his answer. Mia feared her friend would break down if she did that now, and he never liked showing that more fragile side of himself to anyone but his closest friends. “Give it to me straight. If my parents are d-dead-,” he took a deep breath, steadying himself. “I want to know.”
“That’s the problem, I don’t know,” Gabe said apologetically. “I’m no master Diviner, hell, I’m not even an expert. What I’m using is basically an overclocked cantrip. The results I got back could mean many things; for example, the spell could have locked onto an uncle, aunt, cousin or someone a bit further from your direct bloodline. It could mean that instead of your Dwarven Bloodline, your parents awakened some other one that sleeps dormant in you, and that’s why the results came back strange. Or, it could also mean that they’ve been in a Rift or a Dungeon and the dense ambient miasma there is throwing off my spell. It could be any one of those, or something else that I’m unaware of.”
“I see.” Mark took a shuddering breath, looking both relieved and frustrated in equal amounts. Mia could empathise; he had wanted certainty more than anything, and yet all Gabe could give him was more hope that might prove to be false.
“I will check on the two closest signatures the ritual had locked on to; they were both somewhere up in the Alps, so it should be a quick few hours round trip for me if I fly at top speed,” Gabe said, and Mark gave him a deep nod that held more gratitude than any paltry words could convey.
*****
[Primary Skill: Unknowable (Unique)]
Subskills:
Stealth Specialist: Increases the potency and effectiveness of all Stealth-related Skills and Spells by 200% + 100% per Rank.
Stealth Mastery: Mistakes made while actively attempting to blend in and/or hide from detection will be prevented by bursts of instinct.
Unknowable: Your presence will be removed from all supernatural perception senses of anyone with a Spirit lower than yours.
The effect is reduced by 10% for every 10% of your Spirit your foe has over yours.
The effect is nullified when your foe has Spirit twice as large as yours.
*****
“This is so weird,” Mia said, unable to take her eyes off of Camie as she walked next to her. She was there, Mia knew she was there. She could see her, she could hear the leaves crunch beneath the soles of her boots, smell the slightest hint of her scent, but she couldn’t feel her. To her Spiritual Sense, which she’d come to trust and rely on more than her actual physical senses lately, Carmilla might as well not have existed. Where the vampiress’ familiar magical presence would have been before, thrumming with power, now there was nothing. She was a ghost.
“I can’t sense the difference,” Gabe noted with a curious hum from a few metres back, where he followed after the group as they hiked up a serpentine forest path leading up the mountain.
“It scales with Level,” Camie said, shifting awkwardly under Gabe’s scrutiny.
“Makes sense.” Gabe nodded, and that was all he’d said about that before turning to Lina. “Sorry for making you wait, but I’ve also repeated the divination ritual with your blood sample, and I’m certain that one of your parents, the one who shares your Bloodline, is alive and well in Vienna. The other, I’m mostly certain, but like with Mark’s parents, I’ll have to check on them to be sure. Dormant Bloodlines are much harder to track, so the results came back inconclusive, but unless either of your parents lived with their siblings, I’d say there is an 80% chance they are both alive, considering the second, less certain signature I detected was nearly on top of the certain one.”
“Neither of my parents has a sibling,” Lina said, closing her eyes for a moment as she sighed in relief. “Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it,” Gabe said, waving her off. “In that case, it seems the odds of both of them being alive have jumped up to … 90%? Roughly somewhere there, if I had to put a number on it. I’ll check up on them just to be certain, one of these nights, Vienna is an hour round trip for me. It’s the least I can do.”
Lina nodded again, thankfully, and that was all they spoke about it while the others remained silent. Gabe lagged behind their group again, falling silent and floating soundlessly after them on a small disk of solid arcane mana. He’d had them begin on this path, but left trying to detect all the dangers lying in wait for them.
So far, Mia had caught a wild boar that had turned into a magical beast and a squirrel, though the former wasn’t doing anything to hide as it had charged through a bush, and the latter dropped down on her head from a branch and tried to drive an acorn through her skull for some reason. Thankfully, she had Mage Armour on, so it bounced off, and Camie backhanded it into a nearby tree so hard it turned into a red smear. Still, a squirrel tried to kill her with a nut. A nut. What the fuck was wrong with it!? Since when did squirrels become so bloodthirsty? It wasn’t even a monster, just a magical beast!
Other than that, the hike was turning out to be surprisingly nice. The scent of nature filled Mia’s nostrils, the musky scent of pine trees, the refreshing smell of oaks and wide grassy fields filled with wildflowers carried by the wind. She heard songbirds chirping, insects and small animals scuttling about, while other larger creatures prowled the woods, avoiding their group. She’d heard yips and yowls of forces, even a howl or two from some distant wolves and the growl of a bear hundreds of metres away as it rubbed its back on a rough tree trunk.
They stayed mostly silent, letting Mia and Camie listen to the sounds of nature, giving them the quiet they needed to parse the subtler sounds for any signs of danger.
It was almost like one of the family hikes Mia had been on years ago, just her, Mom and Gabe climbing up a hiking trail, surrounded by nature. They would reach the top, have a nice picnic, then head back down after enjoying the views from the mountaintop or a watchtower open for tourists. If she ignored the fact that they were here to hunt down dangerous beasts and test themselves against wild monsters, Mia could almost delude herself into believing this was just another one of those hikes. It was nostalgic, and she wondered whether it would have happened at all without the apocalypse.
The first family hike in a while, but with the addition of her new girlfriend. It would have been a nice bonding experience, Mia mused to herself before shaking her head. As much as the Apocalypse had ruined, it also gave her much; it allowed Carmilla to survive her sickness and led her to Mia, it allowed Gabriel to return to them and make their family whole again, and it gave her magic, a means to be better, to become more, to become safe even in this horrible new world.
Still, being in a forest again, surrounded by nature and a sea of green, left her with a permanent smile on her lips. She felt unduly content, and she had to wonder whether that was natural, just pure nostalgia or another of her newly awakened Fae blood’s quirks. It would make sense if it were either, but it's more likely a mix of both.
For a few minutes, she daydreamed about what it would be like if, instead of getting Anachreon’s Arcane Bloodline, she’d gotten something more in line with the elf archetype. Something aligned with nature, archery, druidic magic, something like that. She felt like she’d have enjoyed wielding powers like that, even if she was fully content being an Arcane Mage.
Mia paused a step, eyes narrowing and ears twitching as she frowned. “Ambush, five monsters of some sort. Two to each side of the path and one above on a branch.”
She listened intently, noting the small noises of bodies shuffling. She caught the distinct sound of wood touching wood and metal clinking against metal.
“Tool-using monsters,” Mia added as the group tensed up, preparing for combat. “High Level 10s.”
Meaning, ranging between levels 16 and 19.
“Goblins,” Camie said in a voice barely above a whisper. “I smell them.”
Mia blinked incredulously, struggling to reconcile the image of goblins she had in her mind with Rank 1 monsters she would still have to approach carefully, even after all she’d grown. She shook it off quickly; she had known that monsters could grow as well, of course, intellectually, but … goblins. They were firmly stuck under the ‘weakling’ label in her mind.
Stupid. A goblin almost gutted you. Mia chastised herself as she checked over her Mage Armour and her pre-cast Arcane Shield. Now that she had so many new pages in her Spellbook, she could allow herself to have two different versions of that spell imbued into it. One was the regular one, given a rank 1 enhancement to make it tougher and 50% wider, while the other had been made available for pre-casting.
Essentially, the spell was put into stasis at the moment before it would be actualised and currently sat clinging to her mana core, ready to be called upon in a blink without any effort on her part since all the preparations and the casting process were both already done. The only other spell of its kind that she had at the moment was Arcane Explosion, that spell that released an omnidirectional shock wave of concussive energy.
Why did she waste a page on such a thing? Well, she’d been planning to scrub the spell right up until Gabe recounted one of his early Rift delving stories when he almost got buried under a literal sea of swarming insects. That was the moment where Arcane Explosion went from a trash-tier spell to absolutely crucial in Mia’s mind. Luckily, her core was powerful enough to have two pre-cast spells clinging to it at the same time, but that was it for now. Apparently, she could only have one precast spell for every ten points she had in her Spirit attribute.
“So, how are we going to do this?” Mia asked. “They’ll probably notice if we dither too long. I don’t know how they knew to set up an ambush here, but it suggests they are some of the smarter goblins.”
Helene and Camie shared a glance before looking at Mia, and it was Helene who gave voice to their unspoken agreement, “Why don't you decide, honey?”
“Me?” Mia blinked, then frowned and nodded hesitantly when Gabe remained silent, only making a gesture of zipping his mouth shut when she gave him a glance. When Lina only shrugged and gave her an encouraging smile, it all but sealed the deal.
“Okay … then, Mom, send your sprite up ahead and have him ambush the goblin up the branches. Camie, you sneak up on the two hiding to the right of the path. They should be about fifty metres away, just a few metres from the path. I’ll handle the two on the left. Uhm, the signal to attack will be Mom frying the branch goblin. Lina, muffle the sound of our footsteps and keep our scent from flowing towards the goblins. Can you do that, or is doing both at once too much?”
It was a simple plan, less a plan and more a basic delegation, but it would have to do. Camie nodded, and her presence vanished as she jogged off into the forest, her footsteps light and swift.
"For a short while, I can do it easily," the blonde said with some pride in her voice, already at work. Mia felt the air mana flow into the shape of a small dome that covered their group. It was a bit janky and uneven at first, but then Lina did something, and it stabilised. It still wasn't a perfectly geometrical dome with a constant radius and perfect mana flow, but it was consistent.
“Okay,” Mia said, taking in a small breath to centre herself, deciding not to question what was probably Lina's new Class Subskill at work. “We will … act oblivious. We don’t want them to run, so fry the goblin only when we are almost under them, okay, Mom? And Lina, you’ll be responsible for making sure no projectile hits us. I don’t know whether they can make traps, but I don’t want to die to some action movie level forest trap like swinging logs or a pit trap.”
“Aya-aye, boss lady,” Lina said, an amused smirk tugging at the edges of her lips, and Mia turned away from her with a huff, trying to hide the flush of embarrassment that probably covered her cheeks. She really wasn’t built for being in command, but she’d do her best anyway. That was all she could do, do her best and hope it was good enough.
Sparkle was hiding inside Mia’s core for now, ready to leap into action, and Mia’s mental fingers were never far from her newest Subskill, ready to summon the Guardian and the Knight out at a moment’s notice. Summoning them wasn’t truly instant, but it only took a second, maybe two, from start to finish. Although a quirk of the spell was that when she summoned the Guardian, its tower shield materialised first in the first half second before the rest of it followed behind, so she wasn’t worried about getting wounded. Even if the goblins had something that could punch through her Mage Armour — a stretch, especially with her new Trait that made all solid mana constructs she conjured tougher and more durable — they would never get the opportunity to get close enough to use it.
They walked in silence, all three of them tense and trying to act careless. Neither of them managed to make the act look all that convincing, but for goblins, it would probably be enough. Hopefully.
Mia heard each of her footsteps distinctly, the mud squelching under the soles of her boot at one step, dry leaves crunching on another, and the soft thuds of feet landing on solid dirt. She heard the goblins, the small noises they made despite trying to hide, becoming more distinct and obvious with each consecutive step. Small shuffles, ragged panting that they tried to suppress, clammy fingers tightening around wooden grips. Mia heard it all, her heart picking up speed as the distance dimmed, her fingertips teasing on the back of her wand as she walked, not quite drawing it yet from its holster at her hip but getting ready.
Her runic model assembled a simple Arcane Bolt, the piercing variant, which only received straightforward general enhancements as it was pushed to Rank 1. It was faster, had a longer range and flew even straighter than before, with the added toughness that all that required and a bit more. Its damage and penetrating power probably doubled, if not tripled, from all those improvements.
Mia’s eyes zipped about, her gaze flowing over the thick greenery right at the side of the footpath. The hiding place of the goblins finally came into view, and Mia gave her mother a small nod as she grabbed her wand.
Lightning thundered above, the loud sound echoing in the forest, and Mia’s wand snapped up at the same time. A small spellcircle bloomed to life before its tip, and mana surged to fill it, then a pink blur zipped off into a bush. It tore through leaves and branches, then flesh and bones.
The goblin made a startled, pained gasp as the spell went straight through it, then tore a hole into an unlucky oak tree’s trunk three metres behind it before burrowing into the ground. The monster wasn’t dead yet, Mia could feel it, and the other one she was responsible for realised that the ambush had been seen through.
Surprisingly, it broke into a dead sprint, trying to escape without any hesitation. It was already ten metres away and rushing deeper into the forest by the time Mia’s next Bolt was ready.
‘Catch the runner,’ Mia said, and felt Sparkle leap out of her core and zip off after the monster twice as fast as it was running.
She approached the bush, her wand aimed roughly where she could sense the monster's being. It was still moving, crawling under branches and probably trying to hide-
It leapt out of the bush, uncaring of the brambled branches scratching across its skin as it snarled, a wicked dagger held in hand, its tip aimed at Mia’s stomach. The other batted her wand aside, much to her shock, causing the spell she released to shoot into the ground.
Mia saw those familiar beady black eyes full of malice, the too-wide mouth stretching in a grin from ear to ear, showing far too many teeth. Why did goblins have shark-like teeth anyway?
Maybe a month ago, she would have frozen, gone stiff from the surprise or the monster unexpectedly swatting her hand aside. She’d been expecting to have to hunt the monster down, not for it to pounce on her, and that unexpected surprise would have cost her back then.
Not now. Not after facing the unexpected so many times, not after having her plans and expectations be turned on their heads again and again. The spars with Camie and Gabe’s pet elemental had been particularly good at getting her to learn how to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances at the drop of a hat.
Mia turned into a Wisp, just long enough to feel the goblin’s body passing through her ethereal form before shifting back. Her free hand lashed out, raw chaotic arcane power covering her hand like a gauntlet, a trick not unlike the one she’d seen used by Gabe’s elemental.
Her knuckles struck it across the side of its head, skin and flesh practically dissipating under her touch before the force of her blow sent the little monster crashing into the ground face-first. Her Strength might have been crippled, but the goblin was barely tall enough to reach her hips when it stood on its toes and with barely any flesh on its bones, a teenage footballer could have sent the little cunt flying into the stratosphere with a well-placed kick with how light it was.
It scrambled back to its feet, snarling and growling like a wounded beast and was about to leap at her again when Lina slammed it into the dirt with a blast of Air. Then the Black Knight stepped forward and swung its blade, cutting the monster from shoulder to hip straight through.
Mia turned away, feeling its death with her Spirit Sense and swept the surroundings with her senses. Sparkle was already returning, so that was two dead, three with the addition of the goblin her mom had blown to bits and … Camie’s two were dead as well.
“Well, seems like that’s it?” Mia mused, sending a smile to Camie as she wandered out of the thicket, fresh blood dripping from her right hand.
“One ran away, no?” Helene asked with a frown, one which faded away when Sparkle zipped out of the part of the forest she was staring at.
“Nope,” the sprite answered smugly, puffing out his tiny chest with pride. “I got it.”
“Well done,” Mia said, dispensing the obligatory praise, which only caused the tiny sprite to preen even more. “The only thing I don’t know is how they knew to ambush us here.”
“Goblins have deceptively good senses; those freaky black eyes see well in the dark, but what matters is their hearing and smell,” Gabe said. “They were downwind from us, so it’s not that much of a surprise. This is also partly a game trail, so they probably had one or two nearby to hunt animals, then called more when they sensed us. I’d guess it was only five of them because they didn’t want to split the spoils more. They are greedy creatures, even while maddened by miasma, but not greedy enough that the one that tried to get away wouldn’t have roused the entire colony to kill us. Greedy as they are, it pales in comparison to how vengeful they can be.”
“I guess it was a good idea then to make sure the runner wouldn’t get away,” Mia said, looking questioningly at Gabe, who just nodded in affirmation. “Alright … we should probably try to be less noisy about our approach from now on.”
Mia shifted her steps easily, moving silently through a forest was almost second nature to her, another quirk of her bloodline. Once the will was there, her body shifted gears and her feet fell in places where they would make the least amount of noise, and she rolled on her soles in a way that muffled them even more. Camie had once said it made her look ethereal, as if she were flowing through the forest like the breeze.
In comparison, Camie was methodical, like a humanoid machine moving with utmost precision. There was also something predatory in the way she moved, a tenseness that raised Mia’s hackles.
Lina was entirely silent despite not changing the way she walked in any way, but she had a film of Air magic covering her feet to make up for it. Helene was unfortunately the worst off, practically stomping with each step when compared to the other two, but in a few seconds, Lina extended her silent-step trick to cover her as well.
“I can’t hold this for long,” Lina said in a whisper. “Twenty minutes tops, it’s much more taxing to do on another person.”
Mia just nodded seriously. “Just hold it for a bit, we’ll decide whether we need to remain silent in fifteen minutes.”