Riza was exhausted. Not physically–[Heal] was taking care of that–but mentally. Lefie trotted alongside her, equally tired, while Dave worked tirelessly at carving out a tunnel they can travel through.

His [Earth Shape] skill easily reached max level within the first few hours and, with prompting from Riza, so too did his [Earth Sense] skill as well. With two skills at level 10, that allowed for him to take the [Way of Earth] boon, doubling his previous effectiveness.

Riza’s maths had worked out and with the excess essence she wasn’t spending on keeping Lefie and herself alive, she was able to refuel Dave so he never stopped mining forwards and covering their tracks behind.

As for being life support, it was weighing on her mind. Riza had mostly settled into a routine for now; taking a few steps forward with Lefie clinging to her arm, healing up Lefie, and then healing up herself.

It wasn’t exactly a minute, because constantly counting seconds is a sure way to go insane, but it was in time with her movements and so easy to keep up. With how much essence she regenerated anyway, the window of time to heal was lenient.

By now, it had been over a day since they first embarked on this journey, long past when they should’ve slept. A nasty headache was pounding away in Riza’s noggin and even though she wanted nothing more than to sleep, her body was filled with virulent energy that would not let her get even a wick of rest.

Not that she could, though; the moment she fell asleep, she’d be dooming herself and Lefie.

And so, her day was filled with agonising pain and a massive burden weighing on her shoulders. Fun.

But she powered through it. They had been underground for a while but they had mostly stayed in just the bunker; it shouldn’t take too long to escape–two- or three-days max, Riza thought.

Dave’s hand smoothed out the rocks and dirt and earth, pushing them inwards and conjoining them into one, homogeneous wall. His arms moved mechanically, as if following preprogramed orders, as he shifted from the front of the tunnel, to the sides, and then to the back.

He reminded Riza of robots used in factories. They carried the same precision and swiftness whilst lacking the individuality of humans.

The floor had been fairly normal, not angled at either an incline or a decline, as far as Riza could tell. Because they blocked up where they came from, they couldn’t look back to see if they had actually ascended or descended.

A few more hours later, Dave was pushing into the rock, carving a way forward, when he stumbled, his arm falling through a newly made hole and pulling him in to the shoulder.

Riza barely had the energy to react, just watching him stabilise himself with his other hand and pull himself free. He turned towards Riza, seeking input.

A strange whistling sound was emanating from the hole.

“Open it up. See what’s there,” She said tiredly but without a much wanted yawn. Her tone was regular, her body hiding the hints of extreme fatigue.

Dave didn’t nod nor show any visual or verbal understanding of the order except for turning back to the wall and carrying on his work. Riza had to rely on her spiders again for sight.

He carved little handholds into the side for him to hold as he leaned forwards and worked on depressing the wall inch by inch.

Gradually, a hole began to form, bigger and bigger. On the other side was a blinding whiteness Riza needed to shield her eyes from.

The last of the earthen wall had been shifted to the side of the tunnel, reinforcing it. Dave stepped out of the way.

The whistling was even louder, and strong gales of wind whipped towards them. Loose bits of fabric were flapping madly as Riza could feel the force of the air push against her.

Riza slowly lowered her hand, eyes starting to adjust to the brightness.

The blinding, uniform whiteness dimmed a little, shapes beginning to take form.

Riza took a step forward.

“Extend the floor,” She ordered Dave. He quickly got to his knees as his hands pulled forth the earth from underneath their feet like a rolling pin with dough.

He added some more handholds to the side at Riza’s request. he grabbed a hold of one, taking one tentative step out onto the newly formed platform, unsure of its precarious thinness.

The sides opened to nothing. Above, all Riza could see was a towering wall of brown and grey rock, ascending for hundreds of metres into the sky where it was consumed in clouds.

And below? Riza leaned out over the edge, hand tensing strongly as Dave took a hold of her arm, just in case.

Clouds. As far as the eye could see, there were clouds. All around the hole, the rocky surface carried on indefinitely, but beyond it was an endless sky.

Riza stumbled back into the hole, falling onto her arse, as shock and awe registered on her face.

Fuck. No. That’s impossible.

Her breathing was rapid, her eyes trained on the undulating waves of water vapour floating through the empty air.

[Meditate] quickly calmed her down.

It’s real, isn’t it? It’s actually the sky, and we’re above the clouds.

She stood back up and took another look out.

The air was damp but frigid, her arms shivering with goosebumps as the wind collided against her. She closed her eyes and breathed the fresh, bountiful outside air.

“There’s clouds?” Lefie asked from behind Riza, confusion evident in her tone.

“Yes. Have a look,” Riza said, falling back and picking up a spider.

Lefie replaced where she was, gripping the handhold as she too leaned out over the white abyss.

Hidden skill

[Leech] (10/10)

Animation skill (1/10)

[Parasite] (5/10) -Learned

Implant up to 14 parasites in summoned entities. When your health drops to 0, automatically drain all the health from a summoned entity regardless of distance

Cost: 1633 es

The skill automatically adjusts the cost based on how many parasites I already have.

When Lefie returned from gazing out, Riza replaced her, spider in hand. The clouds blocked their sight but both of them seemed to be getting plenty of oxygen so they couldn’t be too far up.

Riza leaned out again, only holding on with one hand while the other held a stationary spider. Her skill card was still up and hovering in front of her, ready to relay live data.

A deep breath. She let go.

The spider dropped from her fingertips, falling past the edge of the platform and into the milky depths below.

Riza had begun counting the seconds the moment she felt it leave her hand.

Hidden skill

[Leech] (10/10)

Animation skill (1/10)

[Parasite] (5/10) -Learned

Implant up to 13 parasites in summoned entities. When your health drops to 0, automatically drain all the health from a summoned entity regardless of distance

Cost: 1408 es

Twenty-five seconds. Quite long.

“Why did you just drop a spider?” Lefie asked once Riza walked back in.

“I’m going to calculate how high up we are.”

Gravity is pretty regular here, so I should be able to use g. Spidey’s are pretty small and spherical so let’s just ignore all wind resistance as well–much easier that way.

T is 25 seconds. Initial velocity was 0 metres per second. Gravity will be 9.8 metres per second squared.

Riza took out her dagger and etched the numbers into the dusty ground, forming an equation and substituting the numbers into it.

3000 metres. Wow. We’re pretty fucking high up. How high is Everest? Like 10,000 metres or something. Oh. I guess we’re not that high, then. I suppose we couldn’t be if the oxygen isn’t problematic.

“So, how high are we?” Lefie asked once Riza had stood up.

“You know when we arrived at the quarry? The massive plateau?” A nod. “Imagine, like, 20 of those stacked on top of each other.”

Lefie’s face was immediate amazement and then consternation as she struggled to visualise it.

It was the sort of scale you either needed maths for or to be in person to grasp just how large it is.

We’re on a fucking flying island.

The biggest impact the discovery had was not one of conceptualisation, introducing new concepts to the minds of the group, but rather in practicality; a source of constant oxygen flowing into the tunnel meant, finally, Riza could have a rest.

Dave shored up the walls and created a half-wall at the end of the tunnel so no one accidentally rolled out. Other than that, he went back to work carving out a tunnel at a slight incline while Riza and Lefie took the opportunity to rest.

Almost instantly, Riza fell asleep, her mind so tired she nary had the time for thoughts.

When she came to, it must’ve been many hours later. Night had fallen by then, the sky outside dark and empty. Lefie was soundly sleeping with a smile on her face when Riza got to her feet.

Dave had progressed the tunnel somewhat but without Riza’s constant influx of essence, his mediocre regeneration severely halted their progress.

Riza walked up to the half-wall and leaned out, feeling the ever-moving wind against her face.

She sighed, taking in the fresh air. Even after waking up, she was still metaphorically tired; they were still underground and until they made it aboveground, to safety, that fact weighed on her.

She looked down, seeing nothing but the shadowed clouds below.

3000 metres. Humans have jumped from far, far higher than that. Oxygen and pressure are normal up here so all you’d need is a parachute to survive.

Parachutes are just a big piece of cloth; surely someone would’ve made one and jumped off? I suppose they wouldn’t be here if they had.

I could probably jump down without a parachute. It’d hurt like a motherfucker but parasite would ensure I’d survive. No way to get back up, though.

At some point during her rumination, Lefie had awoken, the noise distracting Riza from her thoughts.

“Hey,” Riza said softly as the teen yawned and rubbed her eyes, looking around lazily. There was no light in the tunnel and Riza quickly walked over, placing a hand on Lefie’s shoulder to confirm her presence.

“We’re still here?” Lefie asked languidly.

“Hopefully, not for much longer,” Riza replied before getting an idea. She grabbed a spider and walked back to the hole and placed it on the cliff face outside, on the island itself.

She gave it orders to keep climbing up until it reached the surface where it should remain stationary.

Orders received, it skittered off while Riza closed her eyes and focused entirely on the feeling of the spider in her mind, translating the sensations to numbers and waiting for it to stop.

100. 110. Bit over 110 metres high. Still a fair bit to go.

She tried to send a message for it to return but cursed inwardly, the distance slightly too far away.

Oh well. Not like it costs me any essence.

“We’re still 100 metres underground but now we know our direction and orientation, it shouldn’t take us more than a day to get out.”

Lefie beamed at her, getting to her own feet and stretching out her limbs. She conjured some water and sipped it gently, her throat parched and the liquid soothing, before conjuring some more and floating it over to Riza, who repeated the action.

“Let’s get moving.”

Now that they were so close to freedom, Riza’s mind was finally able to leave the paradigm it had settled into when in the bunker. There were no life-or-death fights anymore, demons to kill and resurrect, or levels and skill points to consider.

Once on the other side of the ground, she could leave all that behind. Finally start a new life. It was the first chance of freedom she had since waking up in this strange, new world.

She was struggling for survival in the forest, got captured and forced to work by the Dominion, and then trying to survive and escape when underground. All situations she was placed in not by her own volition.

But this was different! A chance to choose the direction of her life.

What exactly did she want to do? That question had plagued her for the past hour, mind wandering through possibilities.

Honestly? Riza was tired. She was tired of the constant fighting and uncertainty that she had been living for the past few months. If she could settle down somewhere nice and live a peaceful life, that’s what she would try to do.

So, once they were above ground, she would try to find the nearest village or town, ideally without the presence of the Dominion. She’d find some work, find a place to stay, and finally begin her new life that she was forced into.

Loose dirt and gravel tumbled into the tunnel, specks of light percolating through miniscule holes as Dave’s hands swept across the earthen ceiling, gradually deforming and pushing the ground out of the way.

The holes expanded, blistering sunlight peering down into their burrow as the tunnel expanded, a slope forming and the last remnants of life underground began to seep away.

Dave heaved himself out of the hole once it was big enough, hand outstretched as he helped pull up both Lefie and Riza like the gentleman he was.

Hands in front of their eyes, the girls took a few moments to adjust to such bright light. The grass felt moist and cold under their feet, the earth soft and pliable.

Taking a few, large breaths, Riza breathed in the fresh air, luxuriating in how visceral it was.

Lefie immediately fell backwards, landing in the grass with a soft thump as she gazed up at the pale blue sky, dotted with clouds.

“I never knew how much I’d miss this!” She shouted from her laying position, squirming in the grass as she savoured the sights, smells, and textures of the outside.

Riza smiled at her playfulness while taking a look around herself.

Relatively flat, they were in some sort of plains. Barely a sound could be heard apart from the whistling of wind as she turned in place.

Far off in the distance, she saw a plateauing mountain capped by an oversized dome; the quarry that had first arrived at. It seemed an impossible distance away.

Turning counter-clockwise, the ground fell away and gave to a cloudy sky as far as the eye can see. If she kept her directions correct in her head, that was the edge of the island; the start of nothingness.

The rest of the world was just plains gradually disappearing into fog as far as the eye can see. Riza turned some more and looked upon the mountainous quarry once more.

She was free. She was finally free.

The grass was long and Lefie was nearly hidden within it but Riza managed to find the girl, pulling her to her feet as she patted the loose bits of grass off of her.

She was practically jumping with excitement.

Everything was so overwhelming, Riza didn’t speak for the next few minutes, just taking it all in.

Lefie traipsed about, shoes off, as she tried becoming one with nature.

Finally gathering her wits, Riza turned towards her faithful servant, Dave.

“I’m sorry that this has to happen. You’ve been wonderful and a big help but it’s too dangerous for to stick around,” Riza began, not looking at the demon as she sighed out the last bit, half regretting what she was going to say next.

“Go back into the tunnel, seal its off, and kill yourself.”

Like a mindless drone, Dave descended into the hole and closed it up. Zero hesitation. Zero reluctance. Total acceptance of his own death.

Mood slightly dampened, the ebullient look on Lefie’s face helped lighten her up as she walked over to her.

“Ready to begin your new life?”

The fire crackled comfortably, the bright orange a beautiful contrast to the black night sky, stars twinkling overhead.

Riza was lying on her back, Lefie sound asleep on her chest, as she stared upwards, taking in the whole picture once more. It had been months since she last saw it, the time feeling so long ago.

Woodland critters and plains-dwelling animals littered the makeshift clearing they had made. The grass was cut and piled up, some used as kindling, as the fire sat in the middle, limiting the chance of spreading outwards.

The past two days were long and tiring but compared to the past week, they were amazing. Stretching her legs, breathing the air, finding all the little animals that lived amongst the grass, in the ground, or soared through the sky was a zoologist’s dream.

Even now, black-feathered birds encircled above them, autonomously patrolling a predefined pattern on the lookout for further additions to the flock or anything unusual.

Rabbits burrowed into the ground at the edge of the clearing, tunnels attached to a wide ranging, maze-like system of tiny corridors carved out by moles that had occasionally popped up out of the ground. For now, they housed the 12 demon spiders Riza had taken with her.

Riza felt like a fictional princess, like she could speak to the animals.

That wasn’t true, of course; all of these creatures were dead and under her command.

It was odd not being able sense any of these living creatures. She had gotten so used to it that she was constantly being startled by something in the corner of her vision or, sometimes, right in front of her.

Without a time-crunch of the inherent danger of having no essence in case of a group of demons suddenly arrived, she was able to optimise her use of her skills and, namely, [Essential Leech].

To get the best use out of it, she’d ideally use it at full power every time she regenerated the necessary essence, which, for her, was about every fourteen and a half minutes.

Obviously, that was unfeasible so, with the initial aid of her spiders and latter every other animal she had found and subsequently raised, they’d gathered the animals and held them captive until Riza could use essential leech.

That meant, in just the short time of being above ground, she had more than doubled multiple stats.

Name Riza Level 22 Health 202/202 Stamina 256/335 Essence

9200/9200 Power 5 (10) Constitution 5 (13) Endurance 5 (16) Vim 6 (9) Essence

5 (460) Spirit

145 (2190) Health Regeneration

277/day Stamina Regeneration

198/day Essence Regeneration

638/minute

It was incredible! And was only going to grow more from here.

Rather interestingly, she hadn’t levelled up from all of that killing. It seemed that none of the animals counted as something that could give experience, according to the system, which was a shame but made sense, otherwise people could level up really easily just by being a farmer.

It did suggest that monsters couldn’t be domesticated and farmed but maybe just nobody had discovered how to do that yet.

Rounding off all the progress she had made, essential leech had levelled to 5 but no higher while parasite had levelled up to 8. So close to level 10 but Riza knew the last two levels would take an absolute age to complete.

It did mean that the number of parasites she actively had was thirty something (she lost count) and not all of her zombies had parasites so she felt fairly safe even with her relatively low health.

Not to mean she was living dangerously but compared to the bunker, even without demons to fight, Riza had made stunning growth.

Resting her head on a pile of bundled grass, Riza closed her eyes as she drifted off to sleep, secure in the knowledge any one of her innumerous animals would wake her if something happened.

“Ya know, one of these days, one of these days, it’s gonna be you holding these reigns, riding in this wagon alone while I sit back and enjoy myself,” An old man said, leaning back as his eyes wandered the peaceful horizon in front of them.

“You’re not that old; don’t think you’re getting free labour out of me that easily,” The younger of the two men–barely older than a teenager–replied jovially.

The bench they were sitting on, while somewhat cushioned with hay-filled fabric, was still quite uncomfortable. Despite that, he leaned back, his arm flopping over into the cargo behind them, in as exaggerated a motion as possible, as if to emphasise all the work the older man was doing in comparison to his own.

The older man gave out a short, sharp laugh as he watched out of the corner of his eye.

Their destination was cresting over the horizon by now, the plains relatively flat and non-hilly but still expansive. A village, beset on two sides by an uncultivated and wild wood, was coming into view. The older fellow estimated no more than half a day’s travel time to reach it.

The younger of the two leaned forwards suddenly, squinting in the distance. His gaze trailed upwards, tracing the empty, blue sky and coming to rest on a trio of circling black birds; crows, most likely, given their location.

“You see that?” The man pointed. “Birds acting strange today.”

“Oh yes,” The elder replied nonchalantly. “Probably a corpse. Maybe a fox had a runabout and found something.” He settled back into the wagon.

A little while later, a trail of four rabbits darted across the beaten-up path in front of them, the older man cursing at their closeness.

“It’s like they want to be killed,” He grumbled.

The younger watched the group disappear into the tall grass, losing sight on them.

“Animals are acting weird today,” He supplied an observation.

As he talked, the three circling birds abruptly dispersed, each flying in different directions and joining up with other groups of birds.

Now that he looked up, the sky was unnaturally busy. He was used to clear days with no signal of a bird’s presence other than the occasional sound but now, wherever he looked, there were creatures flying about, seemingly aimless.

“Storm could be coming. They can sense these things,” The older man said, his voice actually retaining a hint of seriousness at the acknowledgement of a storm.

The younger furrowed his brow, hoping that was not the case–especially while they were away from the farm.

It didn’t take much longer for the pair to spot some movement in the grass. Large creatures, judging by the disturbance.

As they got closer, the wagon slowed down as two people came into view. They were wearing the most unusual clothing and carried no bags, no supplies on them. Looked like a boy and a girl.

“Hello!” The elder loudly greeted, bringing their wagon to a complete halt just before them. “You two look like you could use some help,” He commented, drawing the same conclusions as the younger man did.

The young man peered down at them, taking the pair in.

The shorter–and younger-looking–one had very long, messy brown hair and was wearing an assortment of clothing that looked far too large on her small frame. He could just barely make out her feline eyes and immediately, he recognised what she was.

A tarny. They didn’t need any of them around these parts.

The other, slightly older looking, person had the most dazzling, bright blonde hair he had ever seen. Other than the variety of brown, he had never seen hair this colour before. And, now that he was closer, this was no boy, merely a girl with short hair. How very unusual.

Like her companion, she was dressed in the most alien of clothes but at least they seemed a better fit–though her overwear was still large enough to partially obscure her hands. As she turned around, he caught sight of a dagger looped through her belt, and his wariness shot up tenfold.

The tarny, hearing this introduction, clomped through the grass towards them.

“Hi! We were trying to get to the nearest village,” She swiftly explained, her voice full of cheerful energy.

“Well, if you continue on this road, it’d take about a day’s worth, maybe more, of walking before you arrive. I could give ya both a lift if ya want. I’ve got space in the back,” The older man said, pointing towards the rear end of their wagon.

The two women looked at each other, the blonde shrugging her shoulders.

“That’s great! Do we just hop on?” The tarny asked, receiving confirmation.

The pair managed to pull themselves up the wagon with relative ease, neither seeming that physically weak even if both of them were small and unintimidating.

The younger continued to eye them suspiciously, not trusting them yet.

As soon as they’d settled down amongst the sacks of produce, the wagon began rolling again. The young man didn’t bother trying to hide the fact that he was watching them, not that the tarny seemed to care.

The other woman, however, was watching him back, her eyes cold and uncaring.

“You don’t have anything on you? No water, food, or anything like that?” He asked.

The pair looked at each other before the blonde spoke.

“We were unprepared,” Was all she said.

The man frowned at the lack of information.

“I can’t give ya anything back there but once we’ve arrived, there’ll be a shop offering some food. It’s free so take what you need to fill yourselves up. There’s a well for water as well,” The older man said happily.

“Thank you,” The tarny replied.

“What’re your names, anyway?” He asked.

“I’m Lefie and this is Riza.”

“Nice to meet ya. I’m Daldan and this is my son, Urldan,” The older man said, staring ahead at where they were going but making happy, polite conversation with his passengers.

“What were you two doing alone out here?” Urldan asked. Both looked too young to be travelling independently.

Again, Lefie looked at Riza, prompting her to speak.

“We’re sisters. Our home was attacked by demons,” She answered curtly. The insinuation was clear.

“Well, er… Litchendorf is a wonderful village. Plenty of friendly faces and even some empty houses if you’re staying for a while.” Daldan didn’t sound so upbeat at the end of that sentence.

“Empty houses?” Lefie asked inquisitively.

“Ah, ya know, it’s the same everywhere. Storms happen. Skaldur’s Chosen moved through not that long ago and recruited a fair few people so it’s a little emptier than usual.”

A sombre mood seemed to settle on the wagon, no one saying anything for the next minute or so, until, suddenly, and rather unexpectedly, Riza spoke.

“Do either of you know a man called Jakks? He joined the Dominion not that long ago.” Her voice failed to betray her emotions though Lefie’s worried glances to her spoke volumes.

“Jakks Jakks… Can’t say the name is familiar. Why d’ya ask?”

“He said he was from Moya. He was a good friend.”

Everyone noticed the use of past tense but no one commented on it.

“Ask around. Litchendorf is a friendly place so I’m sure people will help you find someone who might’ve known the guy. Right Urldan?”

“Yeah.” He was starting to be less suspicious of their two hitchhikers.

They appeared in unusual circumstances, sure, but he couldn’t help but feel sorry for them.

Although they were tarnys, he was going to give them a chance.

Daldan and Urldan dropped Riza and Lefie off at the entrance to the village, giving their farewells and informing the pair they could be found in the market towards the centre.

And, just like that, they were alone again.

The village–Litchendorf–was quite similar to the other village they had found. Even the dozens of empty, uninhabited homes matched up.

Everything was just in a far better condition which Riza attributed to the lack of a giant, gaping hole in the centre.

Riza’s arm wrapped around Lefie’s shoulder comfortingly as they stared at the unfamiliar environment.

“What now?” The teenager asked, looking up slightly at Riza.

“Let’s find out.”