We seemed to fly through the gently rolling hills of the Riverlands after enduring the punishing conditions of the Dragon-Spines for long weeks.

  By the way Vera, Jorge, and Nathlan had talked of The Verdant Land, I had expected green pastures split by hedgerows and stone walls, pleasant copses of trees scattered about to house the giant flocks of starlings that would fill the sky with their murmerations. Instead, my eyes were met by a hundred shades of brown.

  The Riverlands was a large kingdom that spanned from the Dragon-Spine Mountains all the way to the Leviathan coast, and butted up against the Sunset Kingdoms far to the West. It was a rich and fertile country, courtesy of the meltwater that spilled every spring from the high mountain glaciers, but this extraordinary fecundity was the very thing to blame for the sad brown mess that I now saw.

  The uplands of the Riverlands experienced a double harvest – once in late summer and again in early spring. Swedes, turnips, carrots and other root-bound vegetables were sown during late summer and laid dormant throughout the mellow winter months before bursting to life as the days lengthened and the sun returned. It went against everything I knew about farming, but given that I didn’t know much to begin with, perhaps that was no surprise.

  In any case, fields of brown mud spread below me, punctuated with small green shoots and fronds from the vegetables crawling their way to the wan winter sunlight, and from my position far above it seemed as if the earth had been split into straight lines by some god-like being.

  My perception was enhanced further than it had ever been before, similar to the rest of my attributes, and I felt like the entire world opened before me. I had steadily increased my perception with the bounty of my levels as we travelled, but the jagged topography of the Dragon-Spine Mountains prevented me from truly seeing the magnitude of the increase until now.

  The winding rivers that gave the land below us its name spread outwards over the segmented fields and brought to mind a comparison to veins threading their way across a great compound eye, impossibly vast, that glared unblinking back at the stars that danced above during the night.

  I marvelled at the view before speeding up to catch the others as they descended down easy switchbacks ahead of me, my body responding fluidly to my commands. We had spent near enough a month traversing the mountains, and I had grown substantially in power. 15 levels in the 2nd tier gave me more attributes than the preceding 30 in the 1st tier, and while attributes weren’t everything, I knew I was a significantly more dangerous fighter now.

  My skills were lagging behind the rapid growth as far as I was concerned, though that was the way of things in the 2nd tier, even for a combat-classer like me. Every single skill had seen at least one increase in level, with a few levelling twice, and Break-Step three times thanks to the amount I used it for fun as well as violence.

  Ancestry: Titan-Forged Human (evolved)

  Level: 59

  Class: Blood Of The Mountains

  Titles: God-Touched

  Attribute allocation:

  Strength: 125

  Agility: 105

  Endurance: 75

  Perception: 70

  Cognition: 60

  Available attributes: 0

  Current skills:

  A Frozen Pyrre: Level 2. Passive.

  Axis-Shift: Level 3. Active.

  Stride The Edge: Level 4. Passive.

  Break-Step: Level 5. Active.

  End Of The Hunt: Level 2. Active.

  Myrmiddion Spear: Level 3. Passive.

  Shatter Point: Level 4. Active.

  The Mountain’s Gate: Level 2. Active.

  Jorge and Vera hadn’t levelled as far as I knew, but that was to be expected, and they weren’t slowing us down anyway. My speed, due to a massive increase in both strength and agility and a modest one to endurance, had nearly doubled and I practically flew over the ground when I let myself go.

  Nathlan had earned himself just as many levels as me, possibly even a few more, and his was the greatest increase in power amongst our group. He now matched me for attributes and had a lifetime of swordsmanship to draw on as well. He still lacked the instinct for using his newfound physicality that I seemed to have, and privately I was beginning to think I had a knack for fighting – the mentality of it, the desperate struggle, seemed suited to the way my mind worked and I had little trouble bending with the flow of battle where Nathlan himself appeared to sometimes flounder – but his greater skill was more than enough to overcome that small distance between us, and I found myself routinely beaten in our sparring. It wasn’t an entirely one-sided event though when we fought, and I could sometimes edge my way to a clean victory or pyrrhic defeat.

  Sadrianna had gained a few levels as well, though not as many as us. That was both a function of her higher level to begin with, and therefore the greater experience requirements, but also due to her hanging back and letting Nathlan and myself engage in most of the fighting that we managed to hunt out. Jacyntha had gained no levels herself, being already at the peak of the 1st tier, but she was working with both Jorge and Vera to reshape her class into something that could work with the ritual literally written across her body rather than be entirely supplanted by it.

  As our tiny warband left the grasp of the snowbound peaks and reached the flatlands below in earnest, our purpose became more clear. A new sense of urgency, one that we had somewhat lost in our trek through the high mountains, began to appear in our steps once more, and the air felt like it was charged with thunder.

  We stayed the night in an abandoned bothy and the next day saw us trekking past muddy fields, waving at the occasional farmer and drawing curious looks from each, until we emerged onto the bank of a great river.

  It was one of the many that we had seen fleeing the freezing mountains and rushing towards the sea uncounted miles away. 40 meters wide at the least, it cut through the earth, wending this way and that. With the sun shining off its reflective surface, it resembled a great snake slithering its way through the countryside.

  We followed it for a time, eventually emerging onto a well-travelled road, gravel surfaced, the raised sides paved with heavy river stones. Now and then, horse-drawn carriages trundled along – like the palanquins of the Copper Canyons but drawn by shaggy-maned horses rather than people – and in a new experience for me, I saw soldiers for the first time.

  Not city guards, criminal enforcers, or a bodyguards to wealthy nobles. Actual soldiers in matching uniforms, armour glinting and polished, tramping across the road six abreast in a chain many hundreds of meters long. I was shocked.

  Jorge had explained that while he had previously told me that large standing armies didn’t really exist as such on the continent of Tsanderos, likely due to the gods’ creation of the system, that did not mean that smaller armies weren’t still in use. This was a fertile land, and the Riverlands as a kingdom was heavily concentrated, though power was divested to many feudal lords rather than a single administration, and so larger than average armies were able to be sourced, fielded and equipped.

  They would collapse quickly in the face of the mountain barbarian’s upper echelon of warriors, and the same was true of other powers like that of The Leviathan Coast, but the Riverlands had their own powerful classers to safeguard the sovereignty of the area. These soldiers were for internal control.

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  Being an agricultural exporter to a wealthy and powerful neighbour like the Leviathan Coast – one with access to ocean trade, no matter how diminished – brought with it wealth and prestige, but that all hinged on the cheap and accessible transport that was provided by the flatlands and, more importantly, the rivers that slithered across them.

  The chief danger to the Riverlands was banditry, and thus a standing army of 1st and 2nd tier soldiers was required. Farming was hard work, after all, and many a young man or woman could be tempted to take up a blade and ply the busy trade routes rather than break their backs in the fields. Especially so considering the bountiful prey and mild weather making for an easy life out in the forests far from settlement and order.

  It was the regular presence of these small travelling armies that allowed such busy roads to flourish, traders of all kinds travelling by foot, horse, carriage, and boat along the arteries that the rivers marked out.

  We were soon to find out how necessary such soldiers were.

  We came across a port town before the day was through. Great paved roads lined the river on either side, and a massive stone bridge connected both sides of the town across the yawning water between them, reaching over a dozen meters into the air at its zenith. Jetties stuck out into the river on either side at regular intervals, turning the waterside settlement into a colossal centipede, many legs splayed over the surface.

  Another, smaller bridge made mostly of thick wooden scaffold was in the process of being erected at the other end of the town, and two low stone walls ringed the settlement. These walls didn’t look like they could bare a charge from Vera, let alone a horde of wild beasts. Even a human no more than halfway into their 1st tier with a support class would be able to leap over it with ease if they spent their attributes carefully. It seemed to me more like a demarcation than a true barrier, but given the soldiers I had previously seen, perhaps when manned it became a truly defensible position.

  We stopped at an inn, had a good night's sleep, a hearty meal, ale and conversation. Jorge mingled with strangers, while I tried my hand at a game of knuckle bones in a corner. I wasn't particularly proficient when it came to gambling and I had little money to spend, but I did earn myself a few free drinks, until the weighted dice came out.

  I wasn't a fool though, and I laughed off the defeat with good grace and returned to the table where Nathlan, Jacyntha, Sadrianna and Vera were discussing the rising tensions between The Desolate Empire and The Leviathan Coast quietly in a candlelit corner. Nathlan didn’t think it would come to much, though Vera was a little more concerned.

  The two barbarians didn’t have much of an opinion on the affairs of lowlanders though and seemed to be engrossed in a conversation of their own about the clans. Sadrianna was theorising new schemes for intra-clan cohesion that Jacyntha would try to dismantle and find the flaws with, and both women seemed to be enjoying the talk.

  On the morrow we departed on a barge that shipped cargo down the river, heading all the way to the large port town on the edge of The Leviathan Coast. Jorge had paid for our fare, and we had a greatly reduced rate with the agreement that we would act as bodyguards for the barge.

  Bandits were apparently common in the area, preying on the lightly defended barges that ferried goods up and down the great rivers. Of course, the soldiers would root out any particularly successful and large operations, but small groups could strike in one area and vanish into the forests before retribution could be enacted only to crop up in another.

  I was looking forward to a good fight by this point though – weeks of hiking and battling wild animals and monsters had made me restless for true combat against an intelligent adversary. So while it was a pleasant journey for the first day, I couldn’t help but find myself wishing for something to happen. I had power boiling in my blood, and I had nothing to use it on. Us youngsters, as Jorge called everyone but him and Vera, sparred on the deck in front of the eyes of a half dozen guards – we were not the only ones hired to protect the cargo, after all, and would not be travelling the whole way.

  We all had attribute gains to adjust to and skills to work on. Nathlan and I getting used to our new classes, Sadrianna getting the most out of her skill levels and aligning them to her path, and Jacyntha working on some strange breathing and stretching exercises that Vera had given her. She was helping her focus her anger and self-recrimination into a more healthy direction, and Jorge had given her specific spiritual exercises to work on alongside it all, to help her connect to her once distant skills.

  The few guards the traders employed seemed initially hesitant and skittish around us. Most were in the late 1st tier, but there were two 2nd tier warriors, one the captain, and one the fourth son of a merchant house of minor acclaim.

  They were understandably cautious, knowing they couldn't protect the traders from two 3rd tier and three 2nd tier warriors, all heavily armed and clearly experienced. I doubted they could accurately tell exactly how strong we all were, but Jorge and Vera were clearly much more powerful, and the feeling I got from both guards was that I could defeat either if I needed to, so I assumed they knew we were out of their league.

  It came as no surprise when the bandits attacked on the second day. Jorge had strode up onto the top deck, with weapons and armour gleaming, and bellowed at the top of his lungs; “Bandits!”

  I heard Vera appear moments later, with myself, Sadrianna, Nathlan and Jacyntha arrayed behind. We stood at the bow, arranged in an arrow formation, while the guards were still gathering their weapons and shrugging on their armour in preparation for the fight to come. I had half thought that the bandits would leave us be, seeing such a host arrayed before them.

  The sunlight gleamed off our armour now that the heavy winter furs were removed, and though I hadn’t thought they’d run from our appearance alone, it should have given them some sort of clue that we were not simple guards. Maybe brief hesitation, maybe they’d even lay low and let us pass…no such thing happened though.

  Perhaps they were desperate, starving in the forests because of a crippling tax policy by a corrupt king. Perhaps they were simply evil, intent on committing violence, and not willing to settle down for a life of drudgery and work. In the end, it did not matter. They stood against us, sought to kill our charges, loot their goods and sprinkle the river with their blood and we could not allow such a thing. Their fate had been sealed the moment they decided to face us.

  They were braver than I thought, and I marvelled as two tall trees on the other side of the bank suddenly hoisted black flags above. I squinted and saw a young lad in each tree frantically waving a black flag, crossed bones in white stitched into it. I leaned over to Nathlan at my side and whispered, “River pirates”, and he swatted at me.

  “Pirates are only found in the ocean, Lamb,” he retorted. “These are just bandits.”

  “They are attacking ships, and they have a gods-damned pirate flag. They are pirates, and I won’t hear a word against it” I answered back, and he shook his head, smile tugging at his lips.

  My attention was wrenched back to the treeline though, as a score of pirates emerged on either side of the river. Men and women with painted faces, bandanas wrapping their heads, necks, weapons and arms in a strange approximation of a uniform. They massed on either side of the bank and then I saw the grappling hooks whirling in their hands and gleaming in the sun.

  Ropes sailed towards us, thick metal hooks digging into the wood of the barge where they found purchase, some falling to the water but many striking true. The guards let out startled cries of alarm when they saw the numbers, but Jorge and Vera drew their weapons and rushed down one length of the ship, slicing through ropes before the pirates managed to snare us. The rest of us sprinted along the other side of the barge to do the same.

  My hatchet cut through one rope while Jacyntha's long knife cut through another. Sadrianna did the same with hers, and Nathlan's straight-edged blade sliced the penultimate one. I heard a few cries and turned to the group on our left to see one pirate sliding down from the tree with the flag 20 meters away, a wooden pole held above his head that slipped along the rope carrying him towards us, long knife clutched in his teeth and a bandolier of weapons jangling as he sped through the air.

  I summoned Resolution to hand, took a half-step and threw my spear. It took him in the chest, punching him from the rope, and even as I watched him plummet into the water below, Nathlan was there slicing through that final binding.

  The pirates looked shocked. Sure, they had backup ropes, but the speed with which we'd deconstructed their ambush clearly gave them pause.

  Jorge was not content to let them stay to prey on the next group though. He pointed to the left and shouted at us to take out the pirates on that embankment, before he and Vera dove into the river and headed to the one on the right, cutting through the water like sharks out for blood.

  I turned back to the guard captain and motioned to the hatch that covered the stairs heading down into the bowels of the ship where the trader and her family were secured.

  “Protect them should we miss any,” I said, and then I, like my companions, dove over the side of the barge. Some of our armour was heavy, but we had the strength to push through the water even so. I found it difficult to swim easily with both hands, given my shield that was strapped to my left arm was strangely buoyant, but I managed to one arm stroke my way to shore easily enough, and halfway there I found one of the ropes that had been severed. I pulled on it and heaved my way in quickly.

  Sadrianna was already springing up onto the bank and bearing her weapons, her spear taking one of the surprised pirates in the throat. Jacyntha appeared next, green runes flaring to life on her scarred skin and with a roar she was among them like a wolf among sheep. Nathlan and I emerged at similar times and set to the slaughter as well.

  Clean strikes, quick deaths. The fate they would face were we to capture them and bring them in to one of the port towns littering the Riverlands would be worse than a quick death by blade; hanging, or potentially something worse to prove a point or appease the populace, and we saw no point in prolonging their suffering.

  It didn't take long. It was over in less than a tenth of a bell, the clanging of steel on steel giving way to a weighty silence. No laboured breathing, no cries of pain. We had killed quickly and efficiently, hardly even needing to use our skills.

  Jorge and Vera were finished even quicker than us, and had faced the brunt of the enemy besides. There was only one 2nd tier on our side of the river and he had fallen easily to Sadrianna’s spear. Her initial charge – Markhor’s Rush lending her speed, implacable power, and ghostly mana-wrought horns– had scattered most of the pirates, and with their line broken they were easy prey for our superior weapons-work.

  I dismissed the notifications even as they arrived, not interested in seeing their levels and classes. This was a practical matter, done to safeguard the lives of others, not for the purpose of my own advancement. Given there had been less than a score of them, I had killed perhaps four or five myself. With their low levels, there was not enough experience for me to gain a level or increase any of my skills.

  We swiftly returned to the barge, the guard-captain agreeing to send a message on to the lord that ruled these lands to apprise them of the attack and result once we docked again. Jorge graciously allowed the captain and his crew to claim the bounty if there was one, since we had no interest in waiting around for any reward.

  It was the last excitement for that voyage, but it seemed that all our bad luck had saved itself up for when we arrived at Darrow’s Edge. Smoke was in the air.