Lauren knew off the bat that she wanted nothing to do with the new guy. She laughed to herself when she saw him fall into the river, hoped he drowned, then brought her focus back to alchemy.

Such a shame he survived. A much bigger shame that he washed ashore right next to camp.

She hadn’t been listening when he said his name; she didn’t care. He’d be dead, gone, or both before long. Most of these people would be.

Her dislike towards the new guy wasn’t limited to just him, to be fair. She hated everyone here in their own unique way. All except Nate. Him, she wasn’t sure about.

She examined the result of her efforts: a poison made from simmering down a lot of Ju berries and mixing in some of the red flowers littering the area. [Fire Poison I] was the name, described as ‘causing intense pain and moderate inflammation, in more ways than one.

It wouldn’t be terribly useful against monsters, unless they were made of wood, but they would definitely convince anything (or anyone) she didn’t want messing with her to fuck right the hell off.

That was something she could definitely appreciate.

She smiled internally, never letting it show on her face. Smiling made you approachable.

Which, actually, begs the question of just how dumb this new guy is, that he would see *her* and think she was the right person to be buddies with.

She just wanted to be left alone to train and kill things. Especially that really big monster, she remembered wistfully. A gargantuan, wolf-like creature. Larger than a horse. What a fight that would be…

In the chaos of the initial fighting, she had been right at home. Ducking in and out of combat, snagging weapons and planting them in monsters (or people, on accident… a few times)... she got 200 Power over the course of all that fighting. It had been life changing. Glorious. Totally in her element.

One would think that a rogue would be in dire straights when surrounded by combat, but it’s quite the opposite. In her training, she had maximized her investment into stealth, and it paid dividends in full when everyone around her was distracted fighting for their lives. Her teacher had understood her, but was only allowed to let her leave with the armor *or* a weapon. She liked the armor, and acquiring a weapon had been as easy as reaching over and lifting a small throwing knife off some asshole she landed next to. From there, she had climbed the ladder of weaponry, accruing a total of 5 throwing knives and one very nice dagger.

She knew full well none of their previous owners cared anymore.

All that with only a few scratches on her armor from wayward swings and mistimed steps. She couldn’t be *perfect* after all.

A growing murmuring swept her from her reverie back to the significantly more dull present. Frowning slightly, she noticed that Nate and much of the rest of the camp was paying attention to the new guy and the mage who had lost his hand, and whose name didn’t matter. He was already dead, just waiting for his body to realize. All the light was gone from those eyes. Even with the minimal Health regeneration a mage probably has, his wound hadn’t closed, and Lauren could only imagine that was because he had totally given up.

Pathetic.

It seemed that the new guy was doing something… like he was meditating with him. She rolled her eyes.

What kind of good is praying going to do. Hah, probably giving him his last rights or something before he jumps in the river. Maybe that moron will jump with him.

She couldn’t concentrate with all the noise, though, so she opted to get some target practice and Endurance training in. Run to the forest, put some holes in some trees, run back. Her Endurance was one of her lowest Primary Skills, not that it was terribly important. Still, it shortens travel times to be able to run longer, so it has its benefits.

Her stealth ability helped with that too, nobody could follow her if they never noticed her leave.

And human eyes were very easy to trick.

Well, some of them. Some had higher perception, like the few ranged people in the group. But even then, with their focus divided between ogling the meditating couple and their own work, they had no attention to spare for her.

She started to slip away when she heard a low whistle come from Nate.

Not directed at her, but more of a ‘shock and awe’ sort of whistle, like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

What, never seen two dudes hold *hand* before? Heh.

But as she slipped by, she noticed two things. First, the new guy was *drenched* in sweat -gross- and second, the mage’s hand was… actually there. It was there. The missing one.

She even checked to be sure she hadn’t mixed up the sides, but she could see his other hand too.

How the fuck.

That miserable piece of shit can regrow limbs?! By PRAYING?!

Un-fucking-believable.

Fuck!

Now he’ll never leave, Nate won’t let him! Fuck fuck fuck.

She can’t find it in her heart to blame him either, Nate needs someone like this to keep the group together, and Magey McNo-Hand had been a massive downer to everyone. It just makes it *so* much harder to poison him in the night if he’s important.

There goes plan A.

The good news is, there’s no way he would try to talk to her again after she had completely shut him down.

All she needed to do was avoid losing a limb she couldn’t fight without and she could just pretend he didn’t exist. Just like the rest of them.

All except for Nate.

Lauren… didn’t *like* Nate, but she did *appreciate* him. He made things so easy. He told her to do something, like ‘train hard’, ‘improve quickly’, or ‘kill some monsters’ and it became super easy. She was immediately motivated to do whatever he said, able to ignore all hints of laziness, gripes, whatever. And he was so good about telling her to do stuff she really wanted to do anyway. Hell, it honestly felt *easier* when he told her to do stuff than when she did it on her own. See, *that* is how to be useful to an excellent killer like her.

That’s how you don’t get poisoned in the night.

She pulled out 3 of her throwing knives, testing the weight she already knew was off. -Sigh- you could only expect so much from stolen goods. She was lucky enough to get the high quality dagger, so she didn’t mind too much that her knives, *specifically for throwing*, were not actually that great for it.

She was sure she’d find better ones, though. Or get her skill level high enough that it didn’t matter.

Skill levels, now those were a funny thing.

At the start of all this, standing on top of some crazy waterfall, she had felt… bad. Like something was missing, something really important to her… but every time she tried to figure out what, there was only this gaping, grasping emptiness that she could not fill.

The running theory was that everyone had forgotten specifics of their previous lives, particularly people. Maybe to make us more vulnerable, give us a blank slate, who knows.

Lauren did know that the gap in her mind was oddly person shaped, so she had been close to someone.

*Whack* The first throw slammed handle first into the tree. Frowning, she changed her grip.

She hated whoever made that hole inside her. She had relied on them, and they were gone now, and their emptiness just… emanated dark thoughts. As long as she didn’t think about it, she just felt a little anxious all the time, but when she thought bout it… when her concentration lapsed, when she couldn’t fully immerse herself in what she was doing…

It got so much worse.

It felt like glass replaced her blood, every heartbeat bringing a new swelling of pain all along her arms and legs. And it just. Didn’t. Stop! It would start and go on and-

*WHACK*- ON. “GOD DAMNIT.” Her voice came out strained from disuse, making her more agitated.

Even from here, she could see the dent the handle of her second throw had caused, but she was still fucking up. It was entirely that fucking gap too. Messing with her focus, making her hurt when nothing had hurt her…

She hated it. And that drove her to train. Training drowned everything out, she could totally lose herself in the moment… but only for so long. Fighting? Ohhh man, fighting. She could disappear. Hide so well that not even she could find her. And then, the thoughts wouldn’t come. Then she was free, and she was *amazing*.

…

If only she didn’t have to come crashing back down. She couldn’t fight forever. Her distractions would die, she’d run out of targets, or the enemy would notice how much damage she was doing and target her specifically. All obstacles that led to her *not* fighting.

She loved battle, but she wasn’t going to die for it.

*Thud*

There it is.

[Congratulations! Skill levels gained: Throwing Weapon +1 (2)]

It was the first skill she picked up after the tutorial. A ‘Secondary Skill’ called ‘Throwing Weapon’. She had been practicing, probably in this exact place, and decided to try out throwing knives at the trees.

Lauren had had a lot of versatility in combat, but no ranged option, so there was nothing else to do but fix the gap.

Her first attempts had been even more pathetic, but noone was around to see. If anyone ever managed to spot her and follow her here, they’d best not speak of it to anyone.

Or she’d ensure they didn’t slip up twice.

But, she wasn’t worried. Nobody could sneak better than she, and she had some of the best eyes in the group, or so she believed. No, she wouldn’t be snuck up upon. She doubted anyone would try. Nate was happy enough to leave her be to improve, and nobody else had the balls.

Smirking to herself, she threw another knife at the unlucky tree.

*Thunk*

Ha, getting the hang of it now.

There was honestly no comparing how bad she was before to this stellar display. She was new, totally untrained, to be fair, but bad. Now that she was amazing, she could stand to admit it.

It had taken her… probably an hour of constant effort before the skill even bothered to present itself. An hour in which she had tried every grip on the handle *and* blade she could think of, all without a single success. She tried moving closer, but that just changed the number of rotations. Further away was even less helpful. She even missed the tree a few times...

But when she got that first skill level, dropping the miniscule 75 Power requirement, the knowledge of what she was trying to do came almost instinctively. She knew where to hold the knife, how to stand, how to turn her body to throw more powerfully without losing accuracy…

It was awesome. *She* was awesome. And she didn’t give a fuck if anyone else knew it.