Silas threw his wash rag back in his pack, a grimace of distaste flashing across his face. He was hot and tired and thoroughly sick of getting splashed with the slightly acidic green blood.

Squinting, he looked around while he sat on his pack, in the middle of a small clearing. There was nothing really to see, other than more of the same as the day before. Long tufts of grass, the occasional fruiting plant, and a dense covering of shrubs that competed for the patches of sunlight peeking through the canopy of evergreen trees. He never thought he’d be glad to see the mountains again, not having lived next to one for most of his life. But that’s exactly how he felt. Anything would be better than this damned forest.

He looked across to Katai, his mood perking up when he spotted his friend sitting on the ground. His bare arm had a couple of long scratches, the red marks leaking a trail of blood. Silas glanced down at his own arms that were liberally covered with the scratches. A lot of the bushes they had to push through, or cut through if they had the energy, were deceptively thin-leafed and inflicted nasty little cuts. It made him feel better that he wasn’t the only one suffering, amused that Katai was so disgruntled with the irritation that he was checking himself.

His amusement didn’t last long however. He watched wide-eyed as Katai wiped away the blood to reveal the scratches already closed up, the cuts faded to a dull red. That’s when he noticed the long, thin reed in Katai’s other hand.

“What are you going?” He asked, bemused now as he guessed what was going on.

“Hmm?” Katai looked up, his eyebrows raised at the question.

Silas nodded at his exposed forearms, where the faintest hint of red could still be seen. Katai followed his eyes down and then looked back up with a crooked grin.

“Just testing a few things. These reeds are pretty annoying.”

“Oh, they’re annoying, are they? I’ve barely noticed them.” Silas held his own ravaged forearms up and glared at Katai, the sarcasm clear in his voice.

“Oof!” His friend grimaced sympathetically and then smiled cheekily, “Well, what can I say? Just one of the many perks of the Forbidden.” He shrugged, as if it wasn’t a big deal.

Silas mock-frowned and shook his head. He couldn’t help the grin that broke through however.

It was good to see Katai still had that same old spark underneath the melancholic exterior. They’d been through so much together and yet Katai stayed strong. His caring nature shone through, even at the worst of times. He just hoped that he wouldn’t lose himself when they came face to face with the source of all their troubles ­– the Necromancer and his… creations.

Kenemen rose to his feet, signalling the end of their break. It would be the start of another afternoon of hot and sweaty hiking through the forest.

On the third day, they broke though the forest. It was late afternoon, the blazing sun streaking through gaps in the foliage, creating mesmerising dapples of light that splayed across the forest floor. The small gusts of wind that rustled the leaves around them wasn’t enough to keep the intrepid adventures cool, even Kenemen showing discomfort as sweat pooled in all of the usual places. It was perhaps because of this that the group were taken by surprise at the sudden break in the tree-line.

Before them, a beautiful vista of rolling hills stretched out into the distance, covered in wildflowers of every colour. Swirls of rainbow light floated and swayed along the grassy hillocks, the flowers bright and semi-translucent. It was a mesmerising sight.

The beauty wasn’t lost on them. The whole group stopped and stared, standing just inside the edge of the trees, eyes bright and full of wonder. Never before had Katai seen such a picturesque landscape. Nor had the rest of them – perhaps with the exception of the well-travelled Kenemen – but even he was spell-bound for a moment or two. The land here was a natural wonder, full of life and promise, beauty and tranquility. Something to be protected from the evils of the world.

“This… this is what I want.” Emilia spoke softly as she walked into the closest field of flowers. “To create places like this.” Her hands trailed through the brightly coloured blossoms, gently touching each bud. The flowers bloomed all the brighter as she passed. Katai was unsure if that was from her Mage Class, or a natural reaction from the plants.

The moment of wonder soon faded, though the effects would stay in their memories for quite some time. Kenemen gruffly instructed them to follow the tree line rather than wander through the fields, a decision that Emilia was visibly disappointed by. It was a cautious approach that Katai was happy to follow however – they didn’t want to get caught out in the open when they were well over a day’s travel from any help. It did mean they’d have to keep pushing through the dense undergrowth however. A prospect no-one was particularly happy with, especially when the open plains were only a few metres away from them.

It was going to be another long day.

One thing at least had improved over the last few days, and that was how much stress they were all feeling. The first day had been anxiety inducing, particularly for Emilia, with the unknown looming large before them. They hadn’t known what to expect, other than Katai and Silas’ description of their brief stint in the Rift entrance. But as time had gone on without them being attacked by some monstrous creature, or swallowed by quicksand, or some other exotic cause of death, they’d begun to relax and grow curious about the Rift. Where were all the creatures promised, or threatened, by the message they’d received upon entry? They must be spawning somewhere.

The sheer size of the Rift was also a topic that Katai had brought up, as he’d imagined it would be smaller – it was their third day and they still hadn’t found the outer edge. There definitely would be an outer edge, Katai knew, the stories he’d heard were very clear on that. Rifts were self-contained areas, like a cave or a valley, that had its own ecosystem, and contained at least one tear through to another space. Like what they’d entered through to get into the Rift. But there was often more than one, making the Rift a meeting space, or nexus, that linked different worlds together. Or, at the very least, a chain of Rifts that co-existed together.

There were many tales told of adventurers and explorers who’d entered Rifts, going on to make discoveries and returning to tell of the amazing worlds they’d found. Not to mention the artefacts and otherworldly creatures that sometimes returned with them. Of course, Katai doubted many of the explorers actually made it back, but they were the favourite stories of the children of Tiaston village.

“Let’s see if we can find a campsite, it’ll be getting dark soon.” The Questor announced after a while. The party picked up its pace, trading their usual caution for a bit more speed. When they hadn’t seen anything that resembled a safe area before the sun started to set, Kenemen reluctantly called the search off. Instead, they moved further back into the shelter of the trees and cleared a small area for their beds. It was going to be another chilly night in the rough – no fire and a sentry posted at all times.

Katai didn’t mind the lack of a proper camp. He’d had to make do plenty of times before and he spent a lot of his childhood sleeping rough. Besides that, he’d worked out a training schedule for himself that didn’t need an open space to work with. His nightly routine had become something of a ghastly ritual. Which either no-one had picked up on yet, or they were all politely ignoring – either way, it was helping his skills to advance and that’s all he needed to focus on at the moment. He had to get stronger if he was going to face the Necromancer.

Settling down after a cold meal of Rift fruit and a strip of dried meat, he wrapped himself in the blanket he’d been given by the Waycrest villagers. The others had all bedded down for the night, save Silas who’d volunteered for the first sentry duty. Trying not to make a sound, he focused on his own body and activated Lacerate.

The power gathered and released, the familiar weakness coming over his body. The slight feeling of nausea however was muted; it faded into background noise. Instead his focus was taken by the painful sting of a set of incisions spreading across his body. In three separate places he could feel wounds opening up, two of them releasing a quick spray of blood. The last, a cut on his forehead, slowly wept blood down onto his face.

Well that was extra unpleasant, he thought, grimacing at the sensations. It was bad enough just using the skill and dealing with the loss of health – using it on himself he had to deal with the extra wounds, pain and nausea. It was still a good strategy for levelling the skill, just with a lot of detrimental side-effects. A very masochistic way of training –Hiram would have approved.

Lacerate has reached level 9.

Yes! Katai smiled, satisfied with another small power gain. He was so close to reaching the next stage of mastery for Lacerate. If only it didn’t come with such a high cost. The discomfort was bad enough, but then bleeding over everything too? He sighed.

Resigned to the inevitable mess, he gritted his teeth, closed his eyes, and triggered the skill three more times in quick succession. His lips were clamped together, preventing him from crying out as a virulent cocktail of pain, nausea and that familiar feeling of weakness swept over him. It stayed with him, slowly dying down as time seemed to crawl by, the pain lingering the longest. That would probably stay with him until morning, or maybe even longer, depending on how long it took to heal the cuts he’d just inflicted on himself.

He could feel the blood dripping and pooling underneath him, seeping into his clothes. The second stage of his skill training was now ready for action.

Concentrating on one of the many small cuts on his body, he tried to stop the blood flowing from the wound. It wasn’t a deep cut, but it was still seeping a decent amount of the red liquid. Pushing down on the opening, as if he were compressing the wound with his hands, had no effect, simply smearing the blood to either side. He tried blocking the flow with a glob of blood, pushing it down into the cut, but that also had no effect – it seemed like the liquid was too fluid, or maybe his heart was just pumping out way more than he needed, because it just kept coming, an endless crimson tide.

He continued to experiment with different techniques until the blood started to dry, but gained nothing from it. As had been the case the previous nights. It was another wasted night, but he was determined to succeed at this task, even if it took weeks or months of training. If he could work out how to stop his wounds from bleeding, quickly and effectively, he’d be that much harder to kill. Or at least, he’d be able to survive longer battles and the resulting cuts and scrapes that accumulated over time. Even better if he could apply it to his team. He could become a warrior-healer, wielding his sword to slay his enemies and then healing his friends from their inevitable injuries.

The problem was he had no-one to instruct him and no idea if what he was doing was going to result in anything. Kenemen only had general knowledge of various magic types and Emilia knew even less than he did. If he was going to find anything out about his own magic, he’d have to continue experimenting and learning as much as he could.

If only it didn’t seem like he was fighting the impossible. Three nights and he’d learnt nothing about Blood Magic; other than it was incredibly tedious and difficult to control.

Disgruntled with the lack of progress, he drifted off to sleep, exhausted from another long day and night of experimentation.

The next morning, Katai rose bleary-eyed and groggy. He’d taken sentry duty in the dead of night and that, combined with his experiments, had left him tired and grumpy. However, it seemed like he wasn’t the only one.

Lariss stomped back from the bushes where she’d gone for her morning ablutions. She glared around at the others as they began to pack up their gear, crossing her arms at the sound of Yoto quietly whistling to himself. He was unusually chipper for that time of the morning, the sun barely peaking above the horizon.

A morning person, blegh! That makes two of them, Katai thought as he scrunched up his blanket and stuffed it into his damp backpack. He’d buried his blood in a small hole he’d dug next to his bedroll, in case there were predators in the dense forest and it seemed like he hadn’t missed too many spots. His clothes and blanket both seemed pretty blood free. It was a marked difference from the first morning.

“Another day of searching for a campsite then?” Katai asked curtly, barely looking up at the Questor.

Kenemen nodded, gesturing in a direction after he stood up with his pack on. There was an adventurous glint in his eyes. “Correct my young Mage. Onwards and let’s hope there’s something more interesting than trees and a few flowers today.” He smiled and looked around, frowning as he saw Lariss slowly pulling a boot on, in no hurry to set off. The chipper attitude irked Katai, but he simply nodded and jerked his own travel pack up onto his shoulders.

Silas looked in his direction and pointed at his own pack with a pleading look on his face. Sighing, Katai walked over and helped him with it, getting the straps over the heavy chest plate that he still lugged around. Silas grinned and thanked him, also excited to be off on another day of exploration. He’d even found time to clean his coveted armour. The metal was still a dull grey, but it was free of the dirt and grime that had accumulated over the last couple of days. It was Silas’ most prized possession now, a treasure they’d won while making their escape from Tiaston. Perhaps he was hoping for some interesting skills or a Class progression from constantly wearing it? Katai wouldn’t put it past him. If anyone was going to try new things to get a unique Class or skill, it was the ever-curious Silas. Whether the simple act of wearing some heavy armour was enough to unlock anything remained to be seen. Katai admitted that he was curious to see what he’d gain from it as well. No other Warriors from the village had been able to afford heavy plate, or had the skills to make anything other than leather or fur armour.

They moved off with little fanfare, Silas leading them in the direction Kenemen indicated. Katai, even as tired and grumpy as he was, felt a stir of excitement at the prospect of exploring the unknown. Perhaps today they’d finally find out where all the Megasoma were spawning.