Joan helped Luna away from the spot they had been fighting at, but led them on a route that also brought them closer to the base, without getting in sight range. They stopped at another group of trees and Luna sat down, accepting the water skin Joan offered her.

“What happened? Why are you so winded?” Joan asked her.

“I used too much Mana to stay hidden, too many Silent Shots and sneak attacks in short succession and for the final seconds I ran all the Skills on Stamina alone and it completely drained me. The book that said some Skills were problematic because of Stamina use were completely right, without my gaining access to Mana I would have never been able to do that.” Luna explained, leaning her head back and closing her eyes.

“It is already getting better. Thank the gods for my Stamina regeneration, I think in another 20 minutes I would be ok to go, as long as we do not do that again. I have never seen magic like that before. It is terrifying! What would have happened if the firebolts had hit me?”

Joan thought about it for a second and replied. “That depends on his level in the fire mage class and the Skills. The fire could have caused a small explosion and knocked you over, but it could also have stuck to your clothes or armor end and kept burning. Both scary options, burns are not fun to heal and even less to have.”

Luna shivered at the thought of having fire sticking to her. She stuck out her hand towards Joan, waiting to get dragged up. “Let’s go check out the base. We have to keep an eye on what is happening. By my count we just successfully killed 9 of the remaining 18, which leaves us another 9 to go, if the numbers include the women. If not, then there are only 7 left.”

Pulling Luna up by the offered limb they crept closer to the base again. They did not even have to get close this time to hear people. A mighty yelling match was being fought in the middle of the base.

A male voice was yelling at someone. “And I fucking tell you that I am in charge here. You dimwit weren’t even part of the plan, now give me the damn key to the house so I can get the stuff out and we can leave.”

A shrill female voice replied “No fucking way. That is my stuff and you have no right. Go and find who killed Nathan and the others you coward piece of shit.”

Some smaller voices were too quiet to be understood, but when Joan and Luna got close enough they could see the whole scene playing out in front of them. The previous speakers were confronting each other at the door of one of the houses. Apparently it not only had a fireplace and chimney, someone had also installed a simple but sturdy lock.

“Girly, you have no idea what we are doing here. You are not part of the team and if that moron had not thought with his dick instead his brains after meeting you, then I would not be having this conversation right now.” He underscored his next sentence by pushing the woman back with each word. “Give. Me. The. Key.”

In the next moment absolute mayhem broke out. The man collapsed with a hand on his throat while the woman turned around, a bloody knife in hand, and started fumbling with the door. The other three people who had been trying to separate them earlier stood frozen for a few seconds, then rushed forward as one to help their wounded comrade.

Luna saw Joan get to her knees, bow in hand and followed suit. As one they rose up and started shooting arrows at their distracted targets. Luna’s first target was the woman at the door, still trying to get the key in the lock and after she went down targeted the other people. Just 3 arrows later everyone was down, even if most were not dead, yet. Most of them would not make it for long, arrows firmly lodged in their guts, torso, backs or neck. Luna sped over and stepped on the woman’s hands. She was trying to get up again, still clutching the key.

“Cover me.” Luna said and Joan took up position behind Luna, watching the other buildings.

[Clarice]

Level 15, Human

“Now Clarice, as you might have already guessed, we are from the Pathfinder Guild. I take it that you once belonged to a merchant train or a village somewhere nearby? No need to answer that. Your late friend Diego was so kind to let us know. Now, how many others are still around?” Luna enhanced her questions with some well placed weight shifting, while still standing on her wrist.

Clarice was still face first on the ground and Luna had no intention of letting her move. The little episode with Jackson had shown her how dangerous that could get. “I think you might be happy to hear that we already took out that extra group that should arrive every day now and then Diego’s little party last night, your lumberjack camp today and your friend Nathan is currently lying face down in the dirt with his two friends, somewhere over in that direction. In short, nobody is coming to help you. Now start talking.”

That at least got a reaction, as Clarice was suddenly weary still. Then she started crying. “Oh my god, thank you! They took me from a caravan, killed everyone else. Weeks ago near the river, they just killed everyone and then their leader took me with them. It was horrible!” The little performance was underscored with heartfelt sobs and sniffles.

“Nice try. Diego also mentioned how you joined this little gang. I will step down from your hand, what I want you to do is push your hands and arms straight up over your head, then you can roll over. Slowly. If you so much as try to move your hand somewhere else I will shoot you in the back.” Luna told her.

While that was going on Joan was covering the other buildings. So far nothing moved, no extra people came running out. Until they got a proper headcount she was not going to risk clearing them, they would simply set fire and wait.

Luna was watching the woman stick out her hands and slowly roll over. She had stuffed the knife somewhere, because Luna could not see it anywhere. “Joan, what do you want to do? We need rope to bind her hands and feet and then tie her to something. I cannot keep aiming at her.”

“The easiest way would be to just shoot her in both legs.” Joan replied, at which Clarice lost all the remaining color in her face and suddenly found her voice. “Please, don’t. There is rope over there, the big dude Larson was always wearing a rope belt tied around his waist.”

Joan snickered and went over, returning with a rope. “Now hold still, I will start with your feet, so even you are stupid enough to still try something, you will never get away.”

She swiftly tied up the feet, then cutting off the remaining rope and repeating the process with the still outstretched hands. The threat of crippling her had worked wonders. Joan searched her and found no less than 5 knives hidden in various locations and the key to the house. They just left Clarice there and Joan sent Luna up on a roof for better overview. She then raised her voice to address any people still hiding.

“You either come out now, or when we burn down the houses. If you are hiding in the forest and waiting to grab some stuff, tough luck. There will be nothing left. If you come out without a weapon, you will survive this.”

While Joan was speaking Luna saw movement on their right, two people trying to get closer. “To your right, first house. Two people trying to sneak around the other side to blindside you.”

When the first face peeked around the corner, Joan was already waiting with the drawn bow. The man had no chance as the arrow punched straight through his skull and his startled friend turned around to run, but he did not fare any better, with two of Joan’s arrows sticking from his back. By Luna’s count that meant they had killed another 6, had one wounded girlfriend of the leader and two yet unseen captives. That made the total 18. “That could be all, or still 2 more left. Depending if you count the women in the bigger house over there.”

Luna stayed on the roof, turning in a slow circle trying to see if anything moved around the base. Nothing stood out, but she remained vigilant while Joan went to talk to their captive. While Luna could not hear the conversation, Joan seemed pleased and walked over to the big guy's corpse again. Digging through his pockets she retrieved a small keychain and walked over to the communal building.

“Luna, come with me. I need you to cover me.”

Luna hopped down and ran across to where Joan was already waiting at the door of a house. She pounded on it and opened it only a slit, then yelled inside. “We are Pathfinder, we have killed all the bandits and I have the key. If you do not answer me I will suspect that other people are inside with you.”

The reaction was immediate. “We are in here. Nobody is here, please get us out!”

Joan pushed Luna to the side and then stood next to the door herself. Pushing it open without one of the standing in the doorway turned out to be unnecessary this time, as nothing happened. Luna peeked inside and could make out two women in disheveled skirts and blouses on the other side of the one room house. They were tied to the floor with metal chains attached to one ankle.

Joan stepped inside, then threw the key chain over. “Unlock it yourselves, then follow us outside.”

They retreated back to their captive and waited. A few minutes later the two women carefully peeked out of the door and then made their way over to kick the prone Clarice in the ribs, multiple times.

“You disgusting piece of shit. You could have saved us all this time and what did you do? You joined the sick bastards and played the little wifey.” One of them yelled at her, her performance was decidedly better than the last one, the dirty clothes and fading bruises on both their faces and arms were a lot more convincing than the crying and snot.

“Stop it.” Joan told them. “Even if I understand your anger, we would like to bring her back alive. But first, where are you from and most importantly, how many people were in this camp in total?”

[Jasmin]

Level 18, Human

[Andrea]

Level 17, Human

Luna had climbed back on the nearby roof and was listening with one ear. They had been taken in Zollan a few months ago on their way to the City of Gods and then smuggled over by the bandits when they made their way into Laven again. Apparently they wanted some company in their camp and the two women came just at the right time. They had been snatched in a village they were resting in, but nobody knew them there and back home nobody would know where to start looking.

According to their count Luna and Joan had managed to kill every single one of them, but Joan did not let Luna relax her guard. The two women might look pitiful, but they were still unknowns and they could not trust anyone right now. The women were directed to drag away the corpses and then go for a long bath in the nearby stream, upriver of the base.

Joan and Luna returned to the locked house and unlocked the door. Luna propped up her bow on the wall and entered the room with her battle axe and machete in hand. No surprises waited for her, just a dark room with closed shutters. After kicking those open Luna found the room to be unexpectedly well furnished and decorated. Nothing was of high quality, but the house had an actual bed, a small cooking area at the fireplace and a wooden chest made of heavy oak wood and serious metal clasps holding it together. Searching through the room Luna found a small stack of paper with scribbles on them and pocketed them for later. Luna got out her tools to pick the lock of the chest, only to find the heavy padlock had not even been locked. Opening it Luna found what she had been looking for. The Class Tablet.

“Found it.” She yelled to Joan. And then covered it with a cloth and packed it in leather to not touch the surface. The last thing she needed right now was to get sucked into reading her status.

“What are we going to do with them?” Luna asked.

“Your guess is as good as mine. We have only two options. Walk south to the road with all of them or one of us stays here with them and the other one goes alone for help. I am currently leaning towards option two, as I really do not want to spend a week with those three traveling through the forest and hills. No thank you.” Joan replied.

“I guess you want me to use Windwalk and travel with light equipment as fast as I can?”

Joan nodded. “You got it in one. I will stay here, I am certain we got all of them and no more groups of extra people are expected. No point wasting the perfectly fine location. I will just use two houses to lock them up for now, no way around it. But before you do anything else, first go heal Clarice, she still has the wound from your arrow that dropped her in the first place. That armor of hers saved her life. After that you will have to get our backpacks.”

Luna reluctantly used her Close Wound Skill and then tied a bandage over the wound. Then she sped off to get the backpacks. The Class Tablet was now resting in it’s padding with Joan and would be part of the items Luna would carry with her when she left.

When she finally returned with the two backpacks, after having dumped quite a bit of food from both, it was nearly night time. Someone had started the fire in the central fire place and everyone was gathered around. Joan was in the process of explaining their plan and for once nobody was complaining.

“I cannot believe only the two of you killed all of them.” Andrea said to them and looked at Luna. “Especially the girl. I mean yeah, you are tall and got all those muscles, but you are still so young and here you are running around killing people and saving us. Thank you!”

Luna just nodded, the could have done without the reminder that she had just participated in the murder and execution of a total of 25 human beings over the past 5 days. She had just gotten so good at ignoring that fact.

After eating rations and vegetables for dinner, nobody was in the mood for cooking, they went to their beds. Joan locked the still tied up Clarice in a house and Andrea and Jasmin got to pick their own sleeping quarters for the night, only the windows had to be nailed shut and the door locked to make sure they would not run away in the dark.

All done, Luna and Joan settled down their blankets next to the fire. Joan reminded Luna to check the Class Tablet and Luna carefully unwrapped it. She did not have the time to really look at it before, but this one looked, crude, for the lack of a better word.

“Joan, what is up with this thing? It does look a bit like the one the Guild and Creek Springs have, but it is different somehow.” She asked the more experienced Pathfinder.

“I told you before that lots of curious things come from dungeons and they are not always of the same quality. Have you checked its item tag?”

Luna would have facepalmed had she not been holding the unwieldy thing. It looked like a piece of granite stone with squiggly lines on the front mimicking writing.

[Class Tablet]

Quality: Flawed

“To be honest, I never checked any of the other Class Stones. I never thought they might have an item tag. This one is of the flawed Quality. What does that mean?” Luna reported her findings to Joan.

Joan nodded, having expected the rather underwhelming quality. “It means that the thing will break down at some point, a few years tops. Must have come from a younger dungeon. The one at the guild is the normal quality, they more or less last forever if you don’t mess around with them, the best ones, of the highest quality, were found centuries ago and are only the size of your palm. I know the king is supposed to have one of those, don’t ask me how many of those there are. Not all people were stupid enough to publicly announce when they found something valuable.”

Luna laid the Class Tablet on the ground and then put her hand flat on the surface. The expected message appeared and at first Luna could not believe the information.

Greetings Emiluna

Your gains since your last visit at a Class Tablet.

General Experience [Experience gained by performing Class actions]

Pathfinder: 489 XP

Stalker: 753 XP

Additional Experience [Noteworthy Achievements]

Survive Combat: 2000 XP (4 x 500 XP)

First Kill: 1000 XP

You have gained one new Racial Skill.

[Nature’s Bounty]

When you kill a sentient enemy or monster you are rewarded 1% of their total experience.

For killing 19 enemies Nature’s Bounty grants you 91774 Experience.

Name: Emilia Lunare Sylvanlake

Level: 18

Race: Sylvan

Age: 16

Class 1: Sylvan Pathfinder - Level 9 (Level Up)

Experience: 11607/16200

Class 2: Sylvan Stalker - Level 9 (Level Up)

Experience: 12122/16200

Class 3: N/A (Requires a total level of 45)

Health: 231/231 [(Vitality x 10 + Strength x 2.5 + Dexterity x 2.5) x 1.1]

Stamina: 109/247 [((Vitality + Strength + Dexterity) x 5) x 1.1]

Mana: 55/173 [(Wisdom x10 + Intelligence x 2.5 + Charisma x 2.5) x 1.1]

Regeneration - Per Minute

1.83% Stamina [1% base x Body/Mind x 1.1)]

0.66% Mana [1% base x Mind/Body x 1.1)]

1.1% Life [1% base x 1.1]

Stats - Body

Strength: 14

Vitality: 13

Dexterity: 18

Stats - Mind

Wisdom: 12

Intelligence: 8

Charisma: 7

Available Points

Stats: 0

Skills: 0

Skills - Personal

[Athleticism] - Level 15 (Level Up)

[Languages] - Level 7

[Dodge] - Level 4

Skills - Race

[Dryad's Body]

[Natural Insight]

[Ancestral Memories]

[Nature’s Bounty]

Skills - Crafting

[Cooking] - Level 4

[Sewing] - Level 2

[Field Dressing] - Level 6

Skills - Combat

[Bows] - Level 16 (Level Up)

[Crossbows] - Level 3

[Thrown Weapons] - Level 2

[Small Weapons] - Level 7

[Small Shields] - Level 7

Skills - Utility

[Tracking] - Level 7 (Level Up)

[Stealth] - Level 6 (Level Up)

[Survival] - Level 5 (Level Up)

[Field Craft] - Level 5 (Level Up)

[First Aid] - Level 4 (Level Up)

[Lock Picking] - Level 4

[Traps Disarmament] - Level 4

Skill - Magic

[Purify Water] - Level N/A

[Spark] - Level N/A

[Conceal Presence] - Level 5 (Level Up)

[Seal Wound] - Level 2

Skills - Class

[First]

[At home in the wilds]

[Silent Observer]

[Stalker's Precision]

[Sneak Attack]

[Windwalk]

[Silent Shot]

[Double Jump]

Luna’s mind was racing. The message was absolutely insane. She had just gained 6 levels, because of the Skill Nature’s Bounty. Was that what her memory had been showing her? The lecture on Sylvan’s gaining this Skill? She could earn Experience directly from killing people?

After checking her revised stats she found her question about physical traits answered.

You have awakened your bond with nature.

Select a physical trait for every two of your Racial Skills.

Number of physical traits required: 2

All physical traits can be modified or changed by future traits.

The following physical traits can be chosen.

[Dryad Eyes]

Your eyes change in shape and color. The pupil and iris enlarge and their color changes to green with gold/brown spots. Your eyes glow when using Mana.

[Barkskin]

Your skin takes on the texture of bark.

[Young Roots]

When sleeping outside you will extend magical roots into the ground to gather water and nutrients.

[Crown of Flowers]

Your hair color changes to a green or brown tone and flowers will bloom in your hair.

[Thorns]

Your body gains the ability to grow thorns from specific locations.

Due to the forced evolution of one of your Racial Skills the Dryad Eyes trait is automatically selected. Please select one more trait.

The forced pick of the eye trait made Luna frown internally, if the change was too obvious and away from human norm that could become a problem. She should check with Joan and use her hooded cloak more often if necessary, but she really would have preferred the option to pick herself. The other traits were intriguing. If Young Roots meant that her body would regenerate faster while sleeping, she could get on with less sleep.

Thorns offered some options for defensive use, but she did not want enemies to get close to her anyway, so that was out of the question. Barkskin and Crown of Flowers sounded like another pair of highly visible traits, even if they could both help with camouflage in forests, or at least that was the only real idea Luna could come up with on the spot. What exactly would skin like bark, green hair and flowers do for her?

She was, once again, severely out of her depth and the decision had to be made now. She knew that she could postpone the choice, but had no idea for how long until a random trait was chosen for her. Young Roots it was then, no point overthinking it. Everything else was way too visible and she had to travel to the city next and deliver the news of their success.

Having picked all the traits she made to leave, only to suddenly feel vertigo. It lasted for just a few seconds, but when Luna opened her eyes she understood that her physical traits had just been applied to her. Joan was kneeling in front of her looking intently into Luna’s face.

“What the fuck was that Luna? You were just sitting there and then suddenly your eyes started glowing and some unseen wind was playing with your hair. It was eerie, like some magic spell was on you!” Joan asked her as soon as her eyes were open.

Luna was lost for words, there were too many things to explain at once. “I just, I really don’t..” she stuttered. “Nothing bad happened. Give me a second.”

Luna looked around, finding the tea kettle they had looted from a house next to the fire. She poured herself a cup of tea and sat back down. “Identify me.” She told Joan.

“How? I mean you are low level, but you should not have gotten that much Experience. Did you get some kind of achievement?”

“Not so loud! Yes, I did get some achievements.” Luna replied in a whisper. “But that is not all. I also unlocked new Skills and now my eyes glow when I use mana and I have some magic skill that boosts my regeneration when I sleep. How noticable is it?”

Luna activated the Windwalk Skill, but kept sitting still. Mana was still being used, so her eyes should glow right now. She held her hand up in front of her eyes, but there was no extra light shining on her hand.

Joan looked Luna over and nodded. “Yes, your eyes glow a bit, but not very much. They also look bigger than before, and the color is different as well? I have heard of such Skills, some magicians get them and the eyes visibly glow, but the light does not illuminate the surroundings. It is like embers from a fire, you can see they are there but they are not bright enough in small amounts to show you what is around them.”

“Yes, the color changed to some green with gold/brown spots or something like that. Do they look normal? I do not want to explain too much here, the chance someone could overhear is too big.” Luna asked the most important question.

“You should be fine and you are right. I bet all three of them are trying to listen in on what we are planning. Better to not tempt fate. Better get some sleep ourselves.”