If she could shine any brighter, she'd be the Sun.

Nova was like that.

Even then, looking at the city from the ruins of the clocktower, she shone brighter than anyone I had ever known.

The City in front of us, so close yet so far out of reach, felt like light itself. A source of meaning and hope for many, and yet for me, it looked just like a scratch in the distance.

Still, the City's Flow bellowed for us to come, but we were not invited; we did not belong there, or at least I definitely didn’t.

Sundoor, the amber City, the City of Lights, the City of Gold, the House of the Sun.

We couldn’t help but just look and gawk at its beauty. Even standing so far away from it, the shine and luster of its structures drove me to stare at it, almost forgetting where we were. When, suddenly, from the City's center a pillar of light instantaneously rose tall, tearing its way into the afternoon’s sky and parting the clouds in its wake, the magic broke, and we knew it was time to depart.

We had seen it hundreds of times but really had no idea what it was; the clock-engineer said that Sundoor governed the weather with that huge pillar of Flow.

For my perceptive eyes, the flash of light traveled through the atmosphere and continued on, bending at some point, or exploding in particles, then disappearing in the distance.

However, if the City gave my sister the motivation she needed to keep going forward despite all that had happened to us, what made me go on was Nova herself; she was my guiding star.

Nevertheless, the City of Sundoor was a staggering contrast to the Shade-filled Dump extending around us; the Dump was nothing but a field littered with all the City’s waste that, even during the day, spawned Shadelings of every kind.

So, lucid dream broken, I called for my sister, through our voice-bridge; it was the last pair the village had left. "Nova! Come on, it'll get dark soon."

The voice-bridge buzzed with its peculiar low-whistle, "I'm coming!"

The device was as simple as it was worthless. If we went farther than five hundred or so meters from each other, it would stop working; still, it was useful here, where if we were not careful, we could lose sight of each other, but outside from here, in the Drylands? There was nothing that could make us lose our way in the Drylands. They were as barren and dry as the name suggested.

When Nova descended from the tall tower, I followed her form and saw the difference that two points in Agility gained during our month-long training helped her. It meant a lot whether she was a Rogue or not; I could see the results now.

We had trained long for her to obtain the Class, and now she couldn't help but show off her new levels of Agility.

Yet, as she took the fastest route down like I had shown her many times in the past, I nocked an arrow.

We were in the Dump, after all, a place where the City’s deposited all its waste. Clock-tech refuses, trash of all types, and even corpses. But most importantly, creatures that ate all those things.

Here, it took only a moment to get snatched away by a Rag-troll or even an overgrown Dire-rat. I saw it happen with my own eyes when I was still a Hunter in-training. However, my sister was somebody I could not allow myself to lose. She was the village's only hope and grandpa's salvation.

"Are you sure you want to get to the Clearing?" She asked as she reached me.

Her eyes were of a beautiful light amber color as she looked at me.

However, I noticed that her short Flow-blessed hair, dark gold but kissed by glowing amber lovelocks, had started growing long again; I would have to cut them once more.

She was yet to flower, but she was definitely recognizable as a girl, and slave traders did not wait for one to bloom; it was quite the opposite. The younger was better in their books; they could mold her in all the sort of nasty ways they wished. Even making her abandon her Class for a more… specialized one.

"I need to check our improvement with the Skill Tracer since someone let the last one get destroyed," I was stern, but, no, I wasn't really mad. The Tracer was tough, and it had protected her from the worst of the trauma of her last encounter with a monster.

The Horned-barker had almost taken her away from me the other month. Thus I was furious at myself rather than her. It was also the reason why we decided she had to take an agile approach to her lackings.

Nova had always dreamed of being a Mage with her main Class. Still, I doubted that dream would ever come true, not only she lacked the Focus for it, but we had no way to know how to form the Class that would lead her to become a magician.

Since the accident, we had trained for her to unlock her Rogue Class, thankfully she was young; Class training was much easier when one was young.

Why not train her in archery, as I did? She did not need it.

She had a Sub-Class that would make her a Healer one day, well, a rather close day if she kept leveling it at her current pace. We just needed her to be a Rogue to increase her chances of survival.

Rogues were very versatile, even as weapon choice stood. But, most importantly, they learned evasive maneuvers that we very much desired in her build.

The adults said that a Class was the bread and butter of who you were, a Sub-Class was an addendum. But it wasn’t always like that; it was the other way around in Nova’s case.

"Are you ever gonna drop it, Loke? You're gonna sprout wrinkles, like Gramps." She placed her finger on my frown; it did indeed feel that my skin was forming bumps.

"I'm too young for that. You don't scare me."

"Don't tell me I didn't warn ye!"

"Again trying to use uncle's accent?" I teased her as we waded through the field of clock-scraps.

"Come on, Loke. It's too cool! Lissen te this ye, basterd!"

Indeed, one of the villagers was a redheaded Outlander and spoke like that. I couldn't help but chuckle. But, at a moment’s notice, my lightheartedness disappeared; I felt the peculiar spike of fear-excitement coming from Ronda.

Ronda was my pet, my creature, and she had sniffed or seen something. One year had gone by since I tamed her, and I still couldn't distinguish the difference between the two; I still needed to get used to her.

"Incoming," I said as I raised my bow.

She was instantaneous, manifesting a blade made of pure Shade. She had gotten lucky with the Skill.

Like every Skill construct, the blade was handy. She would never remain weaponless from now on. However, I wasn't surprised she had unlocked something like that; she had been born lucky.

I… maybe a little less so.

But there was no time to dwell on stupid topics; the creature was coming from the east, the shadow of a decayed building covered for it.

Although this one was faster than average, it was a Rag-troll, and it was coming our way.

"Come," I ordered as I bolted toward Ronda. We needed to get the high ground against it, or we would be trampled to death.

Luckily the Dump was full of high grounds; with tall-growing buildings, we would be able to climb easily.

I whistled to Ronda, made a circle with my hand, and pointed at the Rag-troll; she would know what to do now.

Ronda was a Flowborn, a creature belonging to the Flow, to the light; she would not be able to use any ability in the dark or during the night, but she did not lose her speed. And she was faster than us, which made her a lot faster than a Rag-troll.

She was a Hound-hare. Her only weaknesses were her two big ears, she could store Flow in them, but they made her that much easier to hit. Even a superficial wound would weaken her Flow reserves, which meant that in such a Shade-filled land, could be a catastrophe. Also, she would lose her ability to shock creatures with her bite.

As we climbed on top of a two-storey building, Ronda circled the Rag-troll, confusing it.

I perched on top of an exposed metal shaft; it was part of the massive building's internal structure and took my aim.

My pupils enlarged, and three concentric circles sprouted around them; they were of the same midnight blue as my eyes.

"Trick Shot," I whispered.

Saying the Skill's name wasn't really necessary, but I did it out of habit and to amuse Nova; she was still no reliable fighter, so she was uncomfortable in fights. I could always tell from the way she clenched her jaw.

The scrap metal arrow left the bow with haste and hit the neck of the three and a half meters tall troll; it would not be enough. But that was just regular damage; Trick Shot was still to come.

The Shade arrow that followed my shot fell on its target the very next moment.

However, the troll had slightly moved away by then, following the momentum of the first shot.

The Shade projectile scratched its chin, which was technically a miss. I hardly missed my shots nowadays.

"Tsk." I readied my bow to aim again and released another. My target would still be the neck; it was the second most vulnerable spot; my Skill told me that by highlighting its skin in orange. Red was for critical damage, yellow for the superficial wounds.

But the troll knew of my attacks now; he evaded it, then roared at me; it was a damn Taunt.

Trolls were tank creatures, whether they were Flowborn or Shadelings. With that Taunt, I felt compelled to throw arrow after arrow at him; luckily, my Willpower and Focus were high. I could partially fight off the Skill.

"Focus!" Nova said, gripping my shoulders. I nodded in response.

What saved me from the Taunt was that I intended to attack the monster all the same. I would not have to fight off the ability's effect too much.

I would have to aim differently, adding a trick to the Trick Shot.

I got up, balancing myself on the steel pole, then I whistled for Ronda, who had abandoned her objective of trying to confuse the troll and was now looking at me. I made a 'gnaw' sign with my hand, and she knew she would have to bite. It was dangerous, but if the troll caught up to us, and it was indeed able to climb, it would be the end game.

The rag-troll was less than thirty meters from the exposed stairs; I needed to kill it before it reached them.

Ronda attacked that very moment. She silently closed in on it and bit down on the creature's ankle, perforating its skin, with her sharp teeth

The troll staggered; her bite could easily cut through tendons, maybe not troll's tendons, still… The troll kneeled.

"Trick Shot."

The monster was kneeling, its head was bending down, but I already predicted it, the metal arrow hit the center of its head, bouncing off, but it carried enough momentum to jerk its head back, and then came the Shade arrow; it was a kill shot.

It dug through its right eye, its red-highlighted weak spot. The monster remained still for a few seconds until it fell forward on the scrap-littered ground; the sound of its body hitting the ground echoed in the silent Dump, reaching our ears.

The creature was dead.

"That was kinda cool," admitted Nova, "Was it luck, or did you actually predict that?"

"Luck, Nova? Really? Me? I don't think so," I sent Ronda to scout around, just to be sure.

"Well, you do have a Flow Star, no?"

"I don't think it will ever be enough to fight off the three Shade ones I've got, but it’s better than nothing."

"Well, you should thank momma Jane for teaching you Taming then," she said.

"I do, every time, however, after well… after what happened... she didn't really want to see me or anybody, for what matters. That's the second reason why we’re going to the forest. It’s been more than a month since we last checked on her."

Nova nodded.

We got down and headed to check on the Rag-troll. The huge creature was a mess of different skin complexions, nothing related to my ability to see weak points; it receded when I didn't need it. It was his skin that was a mess of colors and bumps and scars.

The rag-troll could patch itself with every type of body part or organic tissue it found; I remember seeing one that had a flower attached to its pinky finger; it had used that to replace its lost finger. I had no idea where it had found it given that the troll couldn't leave the Dump, not during the day at least, yet the Dump was surely not really a place for flowers to bloom. Still, it had been a funny sight.

Thanks to my Sub-Class, Tamer, I could roughly guess which part of the monster was edible with my inner knowledge of my prey. But first, we had to take out his Stone, now Nova's new Skill would really shine.

The Shade blade was strong and sharp enough to cut through it, not exactly as if it was grease; still, it was better than dulling the edge of one of my knives.

I instructed her as she cut open the monster's chest and dug inside of it. Removing a Stone was something that had to be done right away; if we left the body to dissolve on its own, the Stone would do so with it.

After we were done, it was time to take a trophy, well, something for the people to eat. It was the first safe game of the day, and we had come out for hunting, after all.

The village's stockpile was becoming thin because we had spent almost a month without going out; Nova's survivability had to be increased. And I enjoyed having her by my side. Before she decided to come with me, I was the only Hunter remaining.

Well, the only one still able to hunt...

We decided to take apart its leg and bring it with us. Once we removed the Stone, its huge body was ready for us to harvest.

I put the leg in my bag, carefully placing it upside down so that it would bleed on the ground as we walked. While I did so, I had to place my quiver, which I usually kept on the back of my belt, on the front. It impaired my heavily rehearsed ability to shoot while moving, but it was momentary; if we faced another creature, I would drop the bag and right my quiver.

Today our objective was to head towards the Clearing, and to get there; we would have to pass through Little Bush, where momma Jane had her solitary abode.

We would most likely spend the night there. Or hole up on some tree. There was no way we'd make it back to the village at night. Not with only the three of us.

Little Bush was located past the Dump and the Drylands; Flow creatures dwelled the land in the morning. Not all were nonaggressive, but it was a far cry from the inherent aggressiveness of Shade creatures. Thus after leaving the shadows of the Dump behind us, we would find ourselves in a relatively safe location.

Ronda rejoined us as we left the Dump at our backs; I could feel the scope of my vision grow slightly duller when we left the Shade-covered lands. She came trotting at us; her pale cobalt blue started shining as her ears began drawing in Flow from the atmosphere.

Nova turned toward the Dump, taking a last look at the City beyond, while Ronda licked the blood dripping from the leg.

"Do you think we will ever…" she did not finish the sentence but let out a long sigh.

"If we manage to fix the village, we might, who knows. They are always in need of delvers there. We might cut it once we grow up a bit," I was trying to be optimistic.

Who knew, maybe if it was her, she might as well make it, but I? With my hair and skin? I would never be accepted in the City. They would probably shoot me on sight if I ever neared the gates by myself. But Nova? She would blend in perfectly.

My reverie was interrupted by a ticking I didn’t like from my left forearm; it started to get rusty again.

There was no way they would accept me with my complexion, not once they saw my clock-arm. However, I would never dare say it in front of Nova; she was still twelve, she was allowed to dream.

"Come on. There's still a long way to go."

The Drylands trip with the many crevices transforming the landscape into a huge web of mini-rifts required the right amount of Agility to make the trip injury-free.

There was a lot of jumping to do, and unstable ground would present a different threat; the sandy earth could cave-in at times, leaving one to dangle from a crevice. However, thanks to my perceptive eyes, I could trace the safest path to cross.

Nova would just need to trespass where I walked. Ronda, instead, had no problem at all. She was half-dog, half-hare; she was a creature of Agility.

Around us, only critters moved about in the dry landscape, such as scorpions, snakes, mice...

But not all were that small.

"There's some game," I said when both my Perception and Ronda's picked up a Red-fox. It was well-fed and would make for a perfect meal, a few days of meals.

"You are not going to hit her from here!" Nova whispered to me.

"If you place the Stone we just dug out on my head, I might."

"What? What would that do?"

"I have half an idea of what the Skill I unlocked last month does. I can sense it, but I want to be sure. Come on," I nudged her, "I want to try. Let’s make a bet; if I catch it, you will be the one to carry it.”

She looked at me with half-moon eyes, "But if you don’t, you are going to carry all the other ones we catch." Saying so, she placed the Stone on my head.

“Damn, you’re greedy. Alright, let’s see what I can do.”

A Rag-troll’s Stone was roughly as big and as heavy as a fifty grams rock. It was black as the darkest nights and cold; it could freeze one’s hand off if held for an entire night. But she would only have to hold it for a few seconds.

Once again, there was no need to do something so stupid as to place the Stone on my head. I just did it to amuse my sister. Even if I just touched it for a few seconds and then placed it in my satchel, it would bind with me, allowing me to use the Shade stored within its small frame.

Yet, when she did so, I started feeling it, the same kind of increased Perception I had while we were still in the Dump, which was a Shade-cursed environment.

I guessed my Perception increased by likely three points during the night or in a Shade-cursed environment like the Dump with its buildings that cast tall shadows on the land. Still, there was no way to be sure without a Tracer.

Normally, we could hear the voice of the world, the whispers, only when we increased our level; but it did not whisper to us the secrets of our statuses.

There were scarce Skills and Classes for that, but they required luck or specialized training; we had been schooled by our village's collective knowledge, which wasn't much to say, but it was better than nothing.

There was the chance of unlocking one since one of my Skills definitely fit the criteria, but it was doubtful.

"Trick Shot."

I used my only attack Skill, I would not be able to use it without Shade, but since I had access to a Stone now, it was better to use it than scare the fox away. Sending Ronda after it at this distance was stupid, the fox would simply escape.

My target was at roughly two hundred meters, and I wasn't confident I could pinpoint it perfectly at that range. I had been using my bow only since I was twelve. Four and a half years were not enough to build a Sniper.

However, I caught it in the side; then, the shade projectile pinned it to the ground.

I turned toward Nova with a smirk.

"Don't gloat, just don't," she said. She shaded the sun with her hands. "Nice shot, though, really."

"If it worked both in Shade and Flow, it would have been better."

"Don't you have that other Perception Perk too?"

I shrugged, “I’ve grown accustomed to it."

"Come on, now you are just being a baby, your sight is already that of an Eagle-rock, and your hearing is better than that of a Cave-bat! What more do you want?"

"Yeah, sure! Those creatures’ Attributes are in the high eighties, if not more. With this perk, my Perception barely reaches twenty-three."

"Well, then maybe in a few years, when we’ll be going in Dungeons, your levels will soar. You can have all the Perception you want then!" She gave me the tongue.

"What are you even talking about…"

"Come on, let's go! Momma Jane will be happy to see me!" She said, dismissing my question and running toward the fox; she would be carrying it.

Other than that encounter and a swift dealing with a snake that Nova impaled by throwing her Shade dagger, we did not meet any more critters.

Only later it occurred to us that the snake we killed was venomous; however, since it hadn't been my prey, I did not gain knowledge on how to treat it; we dropped its body in a crevice. If Nova had burst one of the poison glands, we would not be able to eat it. And we, sure as the Abyss, wouldn't take that chance.

When finally, the drylands started giving-in to green patches, we knew that Little Bush was close. The Sun was almost at its hour-long Twilight.

Twilight and Dawn were the Blessed Hours. Flowborn creatures went to hide; Shadelings did not dare to step out in the direct rays of the sun. It was bliss.

In the village, we got things done, whether at Dawn or Twilight, a couple of windows of one hour each was not enough time in a day, but even in such a short amount of time, we could accomplish important things if we put our minds to it.

Nova and I trod through Little Bush, it was a relatively short trip toward the Clearing, but we broke into a run all the same because we would have to delve through the forest, and we would be cutting it too close to true darkness if we kept losing time.

Looking at her run, I knew I still had the upper hand even on running. I didn't know how long that would be, not only because she was the embodiment of luck, but because her Sub-Class had gifted her with a fantastic boost in Constitution, she would become taller than me, stronger, and her Rogue Class would boost her speed more than my Class, Hunter, did.

And yet, I wasn’t jealous; I was proud of her. Besides Gramps, she was all that remained to me of our family.

We reached the Clearing in less than ten minutes, the monolith standing tall before us.

I had no idea what it was. We knew that our own villagers noticed its form in the ground a long time ago, so, curious about it, they started digging.

They found a set of stairs that led them to a hidden chamber, a chamber with clock-tech that would make even Sundoor interested about it.

At times I wondered if they knew of the Monolith's existence. It was unlikely they didn’t.

We closed in, a sniffing Ronda in tow. We had come here often enough to understand that she had to check for people's presence. Nobody other than momma Jane and… her now absent daughters came here. If there was a different smell, it meant trouble, sapients-related trouble.

She did not spot anything, yet she was half-hound, I trusted her smell, but I had Nova hand me the torch and the Crystal she carried in her backpack.

Then I started descending, with my torch in my mouth. The Flow Crystal inside was dimming, it wouldn't last long, but it had lasted enough now. It would probably shatter in a few minutes, giving us more than enough time to check our progress.

The Monolith's stairs were dusty; it was safe to say that nobody had entered in a while. We hadn't been here since the previous month; the only person close enough for having come here would be momma Jane, but she was probably still in the middle of her mourning.

Still, the Monolith was weird. No Shade monsters were sprouting around it or inside it, even though darkness reigned supreme. I doubted it was from the ever blinking lights coming from the sanctum, but I could not be sure. I was no expert in it; grandpa was.

We reached our objective in a minute. The mirror with a hand-shaped surface on its bottom was meant to act as a Tracer. I did not wait to check the corridors nearby; it was useless since I had done so many times and never found even the smell of a monster; besides, Ronda was calm. She smelled nothing.

"Let's see if my hunch was correct," I said as I placed my hand on the contraption.

When I did, the Status page appeared in front of me in all its splendor.

"Yup, I guessed correctly."

"Really?"

"Take a look yourself," I showed her the results that had appeared on the giant screen.

Loke Nightfold

Class

Hunter Lv. 24

Agi + 1, Foc + 1, Per + 1

Sub-Class

Tamer Lv. 20

Foc + 1, Will + 2, For + ☆

Attributes

Stats

Natural

Augments

Agility

14 + 4

Shoddy boots (+1)

Constitution

7

Shoddy clothes (+1)

Strength

14

Clock arm (+ 3)

Focus

12 + 2

Perception

16 + 4

Willpower

23 + 2

Fortune

★ ★ ★ + ☆

Hunting Skills

Name

Major

Minor

Passive

Trick Shot - Agility

★ A Shade projectile follows your shot

Agility + 3

Hunting Tactics - Focus

★, ☆ Your target’s weak points are partially exposed

Trace - Perception

★, ☆ Add a permanent Tracker on your target

Perception + 3

Tamer Skills

Name

Major

Minor

Passive

Return to nature - Focus

★, ☆ Gain minor knowledge about your prey

Animal Instincts - Perception

★, ☆ Partially feel your pet’s emotions

★ Perception + 3 with Shade

Together we are one - Willpower

☆ You can tame weak Flow creatures

Your creatures can understand you

The System gave Root Classes like ours three abilities based on the Attributes they boosted.

My Hunter Class boosted three stats, so it went without saying which Skills I would get.

However, since the Tamer Sub-Class only boosted two Attributes, the last of the three initial Skills dedicated to Root Classes was unlocked at random. In my case, it had been my Perception Skill, probably because it was the next highest Attribute.

The bonuses, the numbers that came after the basic Attributes, represented how powerful your Attribute could get while in combat, or so we had been taught.

While the last Attribute… Fortune. Well, it just didn’t count, or at least that was the explanation I had given to myself. No one in my backwater village really knew what to do with them, so other than the general knowledge, we didn’t know much more about it.

Shade Star for a Shade ability, Flow Star for a Flow ability. I had three Shade Stars.

When the Stars were on the Skill portion of the Status, it was good. It meant that your abilities could be used with Flow during the day or Shade during the night, based on the color.

If there were none, it meant that the ability did not require its use. That was rare and was only common with some Passive Perks, but when there were both stars, the ability could be used both in the presence of Flow or in the presence of Shade.

Things were entirely different when the stars were on the Fortune tab.

In the village, it was well known that it was a symbol of bad luck if there were Shade Stars. And I was born with three.

Usually, those born with three Shade Stars died when they were infants, those born with two died when they were teens, and I was just about to die when I was twelve. The only thing that kept me alive was, most probably, Nova.

Unlike me, she had three Flow Stars on her Fortune tab. How she was born in the same situation as me… that was beyond my understanding.

Nova came over, jokingly pushing me aside, "Alright, you were right. It's my turn now!"