I woke up in game, and couldn’t move because of the massive weight on my chest. I tried, and it simply shifted a bit before kneading my chest a bit with just a hint of claw at the end.

“Finally awake? Sorry to let myself in to your, house, Angus.” Khaliss said from my table, hesitating noticeably on the word house. “But we needed to talk and you’ve been avoiding the inn. Any particular reason?”

“Um, not really. Shame that I didn’t get back soon enough to save Alnoss, fear that you would blame me somehow, and to let you grieve? By the way, just what in the world is holding me on the bed?”

“Forgot that you don’t know all the minutia of our culture. Death is always near for us, so we don’t spend too much time on things. A day or two for grieving a mate is normal, but then we have to get back to life. We will meet soon enough in the life beyond this. And how could I blame you, when I had taken Inkler there out hunting? I never thought that the adventurers would attack, which was foolish looking back.”

“Life beyond this?”

“You don’t know?” He asked, rather shocked. “You are a part of the church of Thanatos.”

“I’m in more of a martial branch.” I explained with a shrug. Apparently that movement was the signal to Inkler to go ahead and start a rumbling purr that shook my chest. Without even thinking of it, I reached up and started scratching the bottom of his chin. He intensified the purr and stretched out his neck so that I could reach even more of it. I guess even digital nightmare inducing cats are still cats.

“Ah. We believe that after our deaths, we move on to a world of unlimited resources. We will of course have to fight to live there, but it is as close to a paradise as we can get. Especially considering that there are no light siders.”

“Sounds amazing. A place with no worries, where you can live your life.”

“And strong beasts to challenge if you wish. I heard you have been training, what are your results?”

“Two new attacks. A bolt of darkness that acts like an arrow, and a blade of void that slashes through things. It is a mid-ranged attack.”

Beast contract offered!

The nightliger known as Inkler wishes to form a contract with you.

Accept? Y/N

“Um, Khaliss?” I asked, slightly panicked. “Inkler just offered me a contract.”

“I wondered. He needs someone to bond with, and he never really got along with me. Are you gonna accept?”

“What all does it OW! Require?” I asked, wincing as Inkler dug his claws in just a bit. I guess he wanted an instant answer.

“Let him hunt a bit, take care of him. Provide him a place to relax at night. Or in the day. If you form the contract, you can summon him instantly to your side, and if he is killed in battle you can resurrect him once per week. Try not to let him die though, as he loses a lot of levels.”

I hit accept, excited to finally have a battle pet. Inkler’s abilities were oddly complementary to my own, and I was looking forward to seeing us in battle together.

Congratulations!

You have formed a contract with the nightliger Inkler. He is currently level 12, and may accept one beginner level skill from you. His level may not exceed your own, and he will only gain experience in battles he is by your side in. Take care of your pet, he may save your life in the future.

“Hey buddy.” I said, scratching his neck some more. “I think I have just the skill for you. How would you like to have a blade you can use to lash at a distance?”

“Mrow.”

“If we get stronger, you might be able to learn one to enhance your claws up close, but I want you to have a ranged attack first.”

“Mrow.” He flopped his head down with a huff, and I took that as permission.

Skill transfer: Reality slash

Beginner level 1

Do you wish to train Inkler to use reality slash?

Y/N

I chose yes, and we were both enveloped in a reddish glow. “Oh? Skill transfer? I didn’t realize that he was strong enough for that. What’d you go with?”

“Reality slash. Gives him a mid-ranged slash attack.”

“Good. He will work nicely as an ambusher with you. I suggest you go out on a few hunts. See how well you guys work together.” He said, standing up. “And you’re going to need a much bigger house if you aren’t going to stay at the inn anymore. Do keep stopping by for food though, I managed to find a halfway decent cook to run the place.”

“Hey, speaking of houses, how did you two get in here?”

“Guard captain. I have access damn near anywhere in the city. You should hurry and get strong, I heard about your arrangements. Lolth isn’t known to wait.” I knew he was right, and as he left I tried to move Inkler from my chest. I think he found it amusing, especially since I had to resort to [Dancing shadow steps] to get out from under him.

“Alright buddy, let’s get out and go hunting. What’re you hungry for?” He seemed slightly indifferent, so I just shrugged my shoulders and headed towards the door. Once there, he followed me out. We headed north of the city, into the same forest I had been hunting in earlier when I ran into the group of elves. “Alright buddy, I was wanting to work out a plan. For these lower level beasts, I’ll distract them without attacking. See if you can decapitate them with your reality slash as they run beneath you.”

He chuffed in annoyance at me, before sliding up into the trees without disturbing a single leaf. I was quite impressed. I was stalking a lightning elk, taking my time so that Inkler could get into position. Damn, should have figured out something to indicate when to attack. Just as I was thinking that, four lines of darkness shot down from the canopy, cleanly slicing the head off the elk. As the body dropped, a shadow shot down and started gnawing on it as I walked up.

“Huh, that was incredible Inkler.” I said, rubbing between his ears. Ever since we had formed the contract, it was easier for me to see him. I let him eat his fill of his kill, keeping an eye out for anything we could do. Once he was done eating, we left the carcass as there wasn’t anything worth looting. We carried on the rest of the afternoon, and Inkler managed to gain quite a few levels. As we were heading back, I heard the sounds of battle coming from afar. We looked at each other, nodding.

Sneaking up on the place, we found a group of five battling against a much larger pack of wolves. I placed a calming hand on Inkler, as he had started to stalk forward at the sight of the wolves. “Easy bud, let’s see how this plays out.” I calmed him. “Those players seem strong, so I think they’ll be fine. What do you say to us taking out the winners?” At that, he gave me a grin. “Heh, thought you would like that. Here’s the plan. I’ll use a bolt to take out the caster. My magical bolt will punch through the tank’s head. Once they are focused on me, I’ll let them close and take out their rogue. You hang back on the other side, and when I take the rogue you go ahead and take out the healer. Once that is done, come on up and we can work together to take out the remaining tank.”

Inkler melded into the shadows and went off, apparently happy with the plan. I saw one of the wolves get distracted by a stray scent, but the caster took advantage and reduced it to ashes with a spell. Personally I would have avoided using fire in a forest, but there wasn’t a lot of dried leaves so the threat of forest fire was low. The healer was good, keeping everyone above half health. Soon enough, the pack was dead.

As they started to catch their breath, I started my chant. “Arrow of darkness, cleave your way.

Beware the danger, of [Arrows that pierce the day].” As I started the name of the skill, I fired an armor piercing bolt. I didn’t go with the decapitator because I lacked the skill to channel mana into both my spell and the bolt. Luck must have been smiling on me today, as my bolt was originally going to strike in the temple until the caster turned to look at me. He got shot in the eye instead, and dropped instantly. Right as that hit, my magic bolt fired off and hit the back of the tank’s head, as he turned to look at his fallen comrade.

“Ambush! This way!” The rogue started charging along the visible back trail of my bolt, and as he and the other tank started charging, I saw Inkler drop and deliver a fatal blow to the healer. His technique was nearly silent, and any sound he made was covered by the two who were charging at me. Once they were within range, I started the chanting as the rogue was flinging poisoned knives at me.

“Hungering void, my will binds you to this plane. A blade fit to sunder the very fabric of this world. Rend and feast, [Reality slash].” I aimed at the rogue’s waist, but he must have sensed the danger and tried to do a diving roll over the top. Unfortunately for him, my blade caught him just above the knees, leaving him legless on the ground.

“The last one is for Thanatos. [Cold hand of death][Death’s gaze][Reaper’s edge].” My skills caught him with his right arm raised, ready to smash me with his mace. Instead I used [Dancing shadow steps] along with the last of my mana to get behind him. Of course that was when my run of good luck ended, as with his shoulder raised I had no angle to get around his armor for a decapitation. Instead I aimed just under his arm, bypassing his armor. Freed from my bindings, he smashed me in the face with his elbow. As I staggered backwards, he reset his stance so that I faced a rather large kite shield.

“Not a bad series of blows, not bad at all. You must be that Angus fellow, right?” I simply nodded in return. “Cool. Cool. Name’s Darkstar, and I’ll be the one killing you.” While he was talking with me, I was circling so that his back was facing the rogue who had fallen earlier. I made it look like I was searching for an opening to attack, but I needed to buy time for Inkler. He had just walked up the rogues back and snapped his neck with a vicious shake, and was starting to stalk the tank.

“I really hope you don’t expect me to remember that name.” I said, watching as his eyes narrowed. “The list of people I’ve killed is already long enough.”

“Bastard!” He cried, and just before he started forward, Inkler savaged his hamstring. With his momentum running forward, but pulled off balance without the use of his leg, He really had no choice but to fall and try and catch himself with his shield. Just to help things along, I kicked the base of it so it wouldn’t gain purchase, and smashed the back of his head with my hammer, ending the fight.

Thanatos finds your offering acceptable.

For slaying a higher level player, you gain 120 favor.

Total favor: 969/5000

Champions killed: 0/10

Elites killed: 1/1

Weekly kills: 19/25

I hadn’t realized in the battle that those players were above my level, though it couldn’t have been much as I only gained one level. Inkler, on the other hand, managed to jump from level 17 to level 28. Not a bad jump for only five kills, but that would have put them around thirty levels higher than my pet. “Alright Inkler, let’s head on back. I have a few skills that I want to try and learn, and have a good lead on them. Tomorrow we are heading out to start on the next of the Thanatos quests.” I got a simple chuff in response, and started petting him between the ears as we walked. “By the way, you did absolutely fantastic. I know that healer never saw you coming, and I assume the rogue and final tank didn’t either. I forgot to tell you, but if you kill a player before they see you they won’t be able to figure out what attacked them, so good job.” He started purring, happy with the praise and I decided to up the offer a bit. “I need to pick up the meat, but I’ll make a deal with you. If you can get through five fights with enemy players, I’ll let you eat an entire pound of the bacon I’m going to make with the tier two hog I killed the other day.” I could feel the excitement thrumming through his body at the offer, as bacon had a way of disappearing from the careless back at the inn. Little did he know that I was going to do it anyway, but it was good to keep him excited.

We made it back to the city and the training yard without incident, and I figured we would need to get Inkler some training too. “Hey buddy.” I said, patting him on the side. “I know it isn’t going to be fun, but can you spend a bit of time practicing your reality slash? I’ll make a bunch of targets for you, and at the end give you a reward for your hard work. How does that sound?” He flicked me with his tail, letting me know that he wasn’t thrilled with the prospect of work, but that he would do it anyway. I created a few stone enemies for him, with varying armors and poses, and let him get to work.

For my own practice, I started with my hammer pointing over my shoulder, and tried to get a mana explosion out of it that would boost my swing. It only took an hour, but I finally managed to get the hang of it. Next up was Phoebe’s skill, but I just didn’t like the idea of a circle of spikes. That would imply that I was surrounded, and that should only happen if things went horribly wrong. Well, come to think of it, if things went horribly wrong I would need something to keep the enemy at bay, so I decided to go with it. Charging up the hammer with earth mana, I smashed it on the ground envisioning it forming a circle of spikes around me. I got a circle of bumps. Great for if I had to defend myself against an ant sized opponent.

Time for the grind! An hour and a half later, and I had the basics down enough to gain a skill for it, and decided to go ahead and move on to the next skill. Conjuring stone that wasn’t there was a lot harder than molding something that existed, and it was a pain in the rear to get anything substantial in a small amount of time. In the end, I decided to nix the idea of a massive hammer smash for now, as the day was starting to get close to the end. Inkler had decided to lay down in a shadow beam, I guess it was his version of a sun beam for normal cats. He would lazily send out a slash at the targets on occasion, flipping the tip of his tail in annoyance.

Feeling prankish, I wondered what he would do if everything around him suddenly changed? Drawing in some of the nearby darkness was easy, and sending it out as a small ball that would rapidly expand to cover Inkler was nearly child’s play with my level of shadow manipulation. Just to increase the size of the sphere, I only had it form a shell around him. It was going to push out any light within it anyway, right?

Instead of panic, worry, or even curiosity about what was going on, I sort of felt a bit of relaxation come through the bond I had focused on between Inkler and I. Dropping the skill as I walked over, I rubbed him along the side. “Guess you just love staying in darkness, don’t ya?” He actually rolled onto his back for a second, but I could tell what he was up to. “Nope. I’ve had cats in the past, and that pose is always a trap. Since your claws are several times bigger than theirs were, I’m not about to fall for it and have you slashing up my arms. Instead, why don’t you try your reality slash a few times on my shadowgheist over there? See if you can hit a moving target.”

Immediately flipping over, he started circling the clone I had summoned as if it were a mouse for him to play with. I kept the movements normal, and didn’t use my knowledge of his skills or location to track him. Instead of using it at a distance, he waited until he was within striking range, and buried his claws into the clones back. Once he had lost momentum from his strike, he activated the skill and shredded the clone.

I whistled in admiration. “Wow, that’s some impressive use of the skill. What do you say we head on over to the butcher’s area and pick up some meat for dinner? We can also drop off all the kills we got for today.” The mention of meat got a purr going, and we quickly took care of errands. I also picked up a fire enchanted hot plate for cooking. It wouldn’t be a perfect stove top, but it would be good enough for us. Once we made it back to the house I had originally made, I winced and placed a hand on Inkler’s back to stop him.

“Khaliss was right buddy. We can’t live in a place like this. Gimme a minute to fix it up, ok?” Walking ahead, I quadrupled the size of the previous house, and added a second floor. It got a slightly sloped roof, as I wasn’t sure just how much snow this area would ever get. The windows didn’t have glass, but a thin sheet of quartz on the lower levels. On the second floor, I left an area for a large window and pondered for a second. Smiling, I started practicing summoning different colored bits of stone. I downed several mana potions before it was done, but I had made a copy of the intricate statue Garret had gotten when Rycran’s group was clearing the dungeon. They had gotten the most intricate one by far, and I felt it needed to be recreated.

The background was Tiamat, the dragon who gave birth to the ancestors of the kobold race. Her wings were curved protectively over three eggs that she was bending down to sniff. One was hatched, and a kobold was gnawing on the remnant of its shell. The second egg had its top removed, and a shadow drakeling was crawling over the top of it. The third one had yet to emerge, but was instead riddled with cracks. I hurried inside with Inkler, as several people had stopped to stare at what I had created.

The first floor was rather simple. The initial room and the one to its left as you walked in had been fused into one rectangular room with a half wall between. The first half would have the table and chairs, while the second area was going to be my kitchen. I placed the hot plate on the counter, and generally left the area alone. Behind the kitchen was my bedroom, and moving the bed was the easiest thing ever. The devs had changed it so that you had a colored wire diagram of what furniture you were moving, green meant you could place it and red showed an issue.

The final room in the first floor, and the entire second floor I dedicated for Inkler’s amusement. There were tubes leading up and down, skywalks for stalking whatever he wanted, and several posts of different stone for him to scratch. The second floor was a veritable jungle of stone branches, and as soon as he saw it his eyes widened and he shot off to explore. “Have fun buddy, I’ll have lightning elk steaks for us in a bit. I’ll assume you want yours rare.” Chuckling, I headed back downstairs to cook and finally review all the popups I had acquired after training.

Skill acquired: Rocket slash

Beginner level 1

Use an explosion of mana to increase your slashing attack.

Adds 50% damage to attack

Costs: 75 mana

Cooldown: 15 seconds

Skill acquired: Earthen spikes

Beginner level 1

Smash your weapon into the ground to create a circle of earth spikes surrounding you, knocking back enemies.

Cost: 50 mana

Spike damage: 30

Cooldown: 20 seconds

Skill acquired: Darkness ball

Beginner level 1

Send a sphere of darkness that expands to blind an enemy. Will not work on enemies that don’t use light to see.

Cost: 15 mana

Duration: 10 seconds

Cooldown: 30 seconds