The shriek of bone grinding against rock set my nerves afire, and I relished the feeling of strength provided by the adrenaline coursing through my bloodstream. Indomitable Prey activated, greedily sucking mana from my core even as it refilled with the abundance of the sacred grove. The mana density was even higher down here, for some reason, and my core drank ravenously even as it poured power into my pathbound skill.

  The simian creature scuttled towards me on its strangely curved legs, giant centipedes waving from its skull like the silk ribbons worn by the barbarians to denote their clan affiliation. Like that, except horrifying and covered in clacking pincers.

  If I had activated Heart of the Hills, it may have granted me enough clarity to realise I held a good position, nestled into the hill as I was. Angles of attack were limited for the creature if I stayed with my back to the root-bound wall of mud. Alas, I hadn’t activated that skill. The very moment I had seen the waving centipedes emerge from the creature’s hollow skull; fear had filled me.

  There was something about the pincers and the shining segmented bodies that repulsed me on a primal level. Anything that scuttled on many legs was already a problem, and add to that the antennae and claws and pincers and…well, the fear was understandable.

  It bloomed in my chest like algae on a pond, determined to choke the life from me. Indomitable Prey activated in response, the skill unwilling to see me cower in the face of an enemy, no matter how I felt about it. A sense of burning outrage filled me, smothering the fear and filling my soul with urgency. Rather than wait for the creature to close on me, I advanced in turn.

  It was moving quickly, only half a dozen meters away by now, raising a thickly muscled arm behind as it readied a hefty blow. I caught the flash of evening sun reflecting off cruelly bent claws of bone, and then I was moving. I backed up a step, planted a foot against the wall of roots at my back, and pushed forwards.

  40 attribute points in strength propelled me forwards, and I dove into a powerful lunge. There were a few heartbeats where my body flew almost entirely parallel to the ground, every limb aligned in purpose.

  And then we crashed into one another, and the impact shook my very bones.

  My spear took the creature in the left shoulder, spinning it around with the momentum of my strike. Despite the impact, its long arm came arcing around, bone claws flexing to rend my throat. It slashed through only air, as I twisted into a roll before sliding across the ground.

  I regained my feet as the creature completed its spin and had to duck under the haft of my own spear as it swung through the air, blade still embedded within my enemy. I had released it during my fall which had allowed me to flank my opponent, but the bristling chimp was faster than I’d anticipated, and now I was simply a weapon down and back in the same place.

  It reached up and gripped the spear in one hand, bone clacking against wood. A wet squelch and a geyser of blood flew as it wrenched the weapon out, the glistening gash leaking blood even as it stood there. It lifted the spear to its face, and one of the centipedes darted forwards, gripping the spear just beneath the head. It wrapped overgrown mandibles around the thick wood and I heard a crack echo. The haft dropped to the floor alongside the blade, though both were now separated by a clean cut.

  I shivered as the insectile creature seemed to look at me. No matter that it had no eyes of its own as far as I could see, I still felt like it was measuring me. Eyeing me up like a lion might a gazelle. Indomitable Prey roared back from within my soul, and I felt steel take my limbs once more. This creature, this beast of bone and flesh, would die like all the others that sought to consume me.

  I darted over, quick steps giving me time to change my direction if needed. A judicious use of Check-Step allowed me to sway out of the way of a flurry of claw strikes, and my arm rose, fang-knife in hand, whistling towards the throat of the simian beast.

  It twisted, and I scored only a small slice across it’s thick neck rather than the goring I had intended. I had to leap backwards quickly to avoid a retaliatory strike from the waving insects that made their home in the skull of the beast, and that put me back in range of its large sweeping arms.

  Claws scrabbled against my shield, and I flooded mana down the activation link to the artifact. A section of the shield retracted, and the creature took the opportunity to shunt forwards, straining to grab and split my flesh. I took a breath and wrenched my arm downwards, spinning the shield’s edge and therefore the creature’s arm in the process. There was a distinctive crack and a pained squeal as I broke its wrist, and I completed the movement by putting all my weight behind my shield and shoving forwards and up.

  My shield bash took it full on in the face, and it reeled backwards, a thin crack visible on the pale off-white of its skull. I followed up the attack, pouncing on the creature and shoving my dagger into its chest. The third strike hit something vital, and I fell to the floor atop the animal as the strength left its body.

  The only thing that saved me then was the heightened bloodlust brought about by my aura skill. My enemy was defeated, but I was still on edge, eyes wide and unblinking, casting around for something else to fight. That’s how I caught the flicker of movement as a red-frilled antenna swayed in the air.

  I was already activating Check-Step once more as the two creatures lunged from their resting place. Red and deep black flashing against yellow white as the centipedes darted from the eye sockets of the now unmoving chimp.

  They surged towards me even as I fell backwards, legs scrabbling on the floor to propel me further from the scuttling horrors. I knew I wasn’t fast enough. No matter how heightened my reflexes from my class skill, no matter how many attributes I’d invested into strength and agility, I still couldn’t outpace the explosive surge of those two insects.

  Luckily for me, it didn’t matter. When I was no more than a meter away and I could make out the many tiny serrations along the inside of their pincers, their charge faltered, and they flopped to the ground. A hundred legs scrabbled against rock and moss, and they scuttled back to their shelters, hissing all the while.

  I stood quickly and circled then, eyes peeled for any sign of movement. I was more confident of avoiding another charge, but still wasn’t keen on closing in close enough to use my dagger. They were frighteningly fast, and I’d already seen the damage their pincers could do. I also didn’t want to feel their smooth carapaces and many legs on me. I really hated insects, and centipedes were the worst of all.

  I took a few steps away and cast around for something to use. My spear – what was left of it, anyway – was on the ground beneath the corpse of the chimp, and I didn’t fancy getting close enough to potentially be skull-fucked by a centipede. I shuddered at the grim thought and backed up to the hill a few meters away.

  I felt the ambient mana increase once more, and began to follow the feeling. Pausing after only a few steps, I made sure that the creatures weren’t following. They stayed in place, waving their disgusting feelers out into the world from the safety of the bleached eye sockets of the creature I had killed. Although no system notification yet…perhaps they were the controllers? Some parasitic creature that nested inside-

  I cut off the unhelpful thoughts, and backed away further, determined to keep at least one eye on the creatures even as I followed the trail of slowly increasing mana in the air. Before I had to make a choice about whether to let them out of my sight, I found the edge of the trail.

  My mana senses had grown more acute over time. The more I took in from the world, the more closely I regulated the flow to my various skills, the better sense I got for the power that hid within every crevice of this world. It was like an everchanging tide, flowing and eddying around certain points of significance. Deeper in some places, shallower in others, but always there.

  The section of the hill I now stared at was much like any other. Almost a wall of mud and detritus, bound together by the great roots of the forest above, the life-giving tendrils wrapping the earth in a comforting embrace. But the mana was strongest here.

  I activated Faultline after a last glance back at the corpse on the floor, and brought my stone-sense to bear. The earth before me was too heterogenous to count as stone to my senses, but the bedrock this hill rested upon was certainly within the purview of my skill. I could sense the solid weight of the forest baring down on the unyielding stone, but just before me, behind a meter or so of earth and roots was a strange gap.

  No pressure in a meter wide radius bore down upon the rock. Instead, it seemed as though a hole in the hill existed on top of that section of rock. I hesitated again, glancing back one last time to confirm that the centipedes weren’t creeping up on me, or simply leaving. I wouldn’t sleep for a week if I knew they were still around somewhere, no matter how much distance I put between myself and this place.

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  Satisfied, I took a breath and sent a brief apology to the trees above. I then reconsidered and sent a more sincere prayer to the World Tree and its children. It wouldn’t do to rip apart the tangled bed of roots forming this part of the hill without at least explaining myself.

  Clods of earth fell free as I ripped and cut through the carpet of wood and mud that shrouded the strange hole in the hill. It took me near a quarter of a bell before I was finished, and the light had dipped further still, only a few pale beams of evening sun piercing the sinkhole’s depths.

  I pulled away one last root thick around as my wrist, requiring all of my enhanced strength to prise it from its position. A veritable shower of earth was dislodged with the action, and I gasped in shock as I saw what I had unearthed.

  A cocoon – for there was no other word for it – filled the hollow I had felt with my stone-sense. Smooth bedrock supported a beautiful sapling, its trunk golden and tiny leaves tinkling in the breeze. It was a willow, and its branches reached only a meter or so off the floor, their bounty of golden leaves resting against the smooth bedrock, leaving ripples in place.

  Confused, I looked again, and that is when I realised that the rock was actually a few feet lower than I’d first seen. The sapling sat within a pool of perfectly clear water, the only disturbance on its surface that of its own leaves now rippling with the breeze.

  Around this tiny sapling was a twisted latticework of amber roots. These looked less magical in nature, like normal tree roots that had absorbed some of the majesty of this sapling over centuries, rather than inherently magical beings themselves. No doubt they had started out as brown and black as regular tree roots.

  No matter, for now they were transformed. Rather than gnarled and thin, these roots were smooth, the only blemish being whorls of darker hues hidden beneath the amber surface. They were in constant movement, protecting the beautiful sapling from the detritus of the world outside with an endless slither of amber wood.

  I watched in awe as the sapling seemed to shiver and turn towards the light. Its leaves tinkled again, a musical noise, like a thousand soft bells in harmony, and I recognised an intent within the sound. Much like with the giant, and possibly even the cave-bear long before, back when I first entered this wondrous world, I thought I understood an attempt at communication.

  Cold, it seemed to say. Not yet ready, I felt from that magical tree. I had a sudden urge to cover it back up, to stack mud atop it’s protective shell of ochre roots until it was warm and cozy once more.

  “I will, I will. Sorry for uncovering you! I’ll just tuck you back in. Hold on, “ I babbled. I’d wanted to find a weapon with which to kill the centipedes from a distance, and then I’d been overtaken by the idea of finding the source of the mana that I could feel fluctuating above the natural levels. I had no desire to destroy this baby tree now that I’d found it though.

  Why? I heard on the gentle breeze. Mother shifts, but it is not my turn, the tinkling leaves said.

  “Yeah I know, I’m so sorry. I never would have torn apart your home if I’d known! I’ll put it back, just give me a moment.” I tried to inject as much sincerity into my tone as possible. It was hard to do as I slapped mud back across the magical structure. Apologising to a tree for disturbing it, what has your world come to? I thought to myself, holding in a manic giggle.

  “I met one of your kind once, believe it or not. She was a fair bit bigger than you are now, but I suspect you’re of the same stock, you know? Could be a relative even. Big lady, looked like a tree?” I rambled quietly to myself, still grinning at the thought of speaking to a tree, and still half convinced that it was all in my head.

  On and on I talked, describing the meeting with the Child of the World Tree – the Subakir – back in that ancient rent in the earth beneath my ill-fated ambush on the Crimson Lions. By the time I had finished the tale, I had nearly rebuilt the door in the hill that I had ripped open so recently.

  As I pushed the last remaining root back into place – a normal tree root, this one – I felt a strange breeze disturb my hair. A sigh on the wind, a final parting thought, more experience than words; warm snuggles under a soft blanket. And then, thank you. I smiled softly, glad to have brought some comfort back to the magical being after disturbing its rest.

  Then the earth rumbled, and an amber root shot out at my face. I had no time to even activate Check-Step, my mana responding slower than the spear of wood flashed through the air. I had just enough time to marvel at the irony of dying in almost exactly the same way as Francis D’Sware, before the root reached my head.

  It shot past, and I heard a hiss and a strange whine, before the root clattered to the ground somewhere behind me. I whirled around and saw with horror that the root had pierced the carapace of one of the giant centipedes. I heard the scuttle of claws on stone and looked down.

  The body of the bone-clad chimp was being dragged along the floor, barely a few feet from where I stood, the one remaining centipede desperately clawing at the mossy ground to drag itself closer. I shuddered and leapt to the side, putting space between us.

  Further behind it I saw the top half of one of the centipedes, impaled on an amber root. I dashed over, kicking the corpse off the polished wood, and spun to face the final creature. The root was straight and narrow, more an arrow than a baton, but it would extend my reach at least half a foot more than my fang dagger would.

  I steadied my breathing and made to dash forwards before something tugged at my mana senses. I nearly discarded the thought as irrelevant, but it reminded me of the feeling my shield and spear gave off. I backed off a dozen more paces to give myself time, and dove into my soul-space. I quested outwards with my senses, straining to find the eddying patterns of ambient mana that might indicate something significant.

  After only a few moments I found it. I gripped with my will and heaved it into my soul-space. Within the light cast by my ever-refilling core, I saw a beautiful sapling made of light. Not quite a constellation like one of my skills, but far stronger than the weak light given off by my artifacts.

  I spun out a string of mana from my core, and the connection snapped into place effortlessly. No longer was I flailing about trying desperately to force my intent upon an inanimate object. Instead, it felt like the artifact wanted to be connected with. It wished to fuse with my soul, and the moment my mana reached it, it grabbed on and bound itself to me in an instant.

  Understanding bloomed, and I jerked out of my soul-space and back into the real world with a grin splitting my face. I sent mana flowing from my core into the root in my hand, and it grew.

  From a foot long piece of wood, no thicker than two fingers, it swelled into a thick hafted spear as tall as I stood. The evening sun caught in the dull orange and brown of its smooth haft, and seemed to become trapped in the wood, bouncing around and giving the impression the weapon was lit from the inside.

  There was no head, just a brutal looking nub of wood, gnarled and twisted upon itself as if snarling at the enemies it would no doubt split apart. I raised it in hand and leapt forwards, taken by a fierce joy to have a weapon that could help me destroy the disgusting parasite before me.

  The centipede was lightning fast when darting out of its hole, no doubt able to coil its body up to act as a spring. When my staff split the chimp’s skull in half along the crack I’d made earlier with my shield though, it could do naught but wriggle pathetically until I smashed it apart in a few decisive strikes.

  Ichor spattered across the floor, and I finally heard the faint chiming in my head that heralded the end of the fight, this time in truth.

  You have killed a Parasitic Metamerite (level 73). Experience gained.

  You have reached level 40. Attribute points available for allocation.

  I grinned to once more see a level up after so many battles without any tangible increase in power. That wasn’t all though, as the ringing had barely subsided.

  Skill ‘Indomitable Prey’ has increased in level. Indomitable Prey – level 10

  Skill ‘Check-Step’ has increased in level. Check-Step – level 10

  Skill ‘Faultline’ has increased in level. Faultline – level 9

  Skill ‘Skirmisher of Antiquity’ has increased in level. Skirmisher of Antiquity – Level 10

  The bevy of skill increases was a welcome sight, though not unexpected. The downside of the combat class that balanced out the incredible attributes I received each level was that I literally couldn’t progress without violence and bloodshed. I had learned much about my skills and improved heavily, but without the danger of a real fight to the death, my skills would barely change.

  Now that I had fought something powerful and far beyond me in level? The skill levels came thick and fast. It made me shiver with excitement. A final notification awaited my acknowledgement though, soft bells pealing in my mind insistently still.

  Skill gained – Tilt. Open skill slots available, skill integrated.

  Before I could understand more of the skill I had just gained, Sadrianna’s voice distracted me.

  “Lamb! You still alive down there?”

  Her shout echoed off the curving walls of the sinkhole, and I took a moment to be impressed with the power of her lungs before I responded in kind.

  “Yeah, all good! My rope’s gone though” I bellowed back, even as I searched around the floor to find my spear head and the fang-dagger that I’d dropped when interfacing with my new weapon.

  “What?” I heard back, and when I tried to clarify again, I just got the same perplexed response. Guess my shout wasn’t quite as ear-achingly loud as hers. I gave the corpses on the floor a wide berth and scaled the small hill once more.

  Once I was at the top of the tallest tree I could climb, I tried shouting again, waving my arms to get her attention. She saw me, stood as she was overlooking the ledge and only about 20 meters above now.

  She frowned down at me but after a short exchange she managed to secure a new rope and hurl it down to me. I spent a few moments securing my belongings and then swung out into the void once more. I panicked a little as I swung towards the cavern walls, half expecting to be swarmed by a flurry of leaping parasitic centipedes, but alas no such drama occurred.

  Instead, I quickly climbed my way up the rope once it stopped swinging and emerged onto the top of the ledge with Sadrianna giving me a strong arm up. She raised her eyebrow at my dishevelled appearance, before her gaze locked onto the root I had strapped through my belt, now back in its smaller form.

  I caught her eye and sighed. “It’s a long story, and I want to get centipede blood out of my hair before I say another fucking word.”

  She cocked her head to one side before nodding. “Fair enough. Come on then, I set camp while you were down there – not far this way.”

  I fell in behind her gratefully, and my mind turned over the implications of the new skill I had gained.