As we get closer to the Monster Camp (staying a healthy distance from our own hideout), the number and quality of patrols increases. Slowly, at first, but the latest patrol we dismantled had one Carnine not engage us. Instead, the moment our victory became clear, the hound took off towards camp.

Reinforcements.

~“Friends, I have sufficient Mana for now, but I will not do well in a protracted fight.”

“Got it. We probably should have made you some Mana potions before heading out.”

-”Next time, if you’re lucky.”

At first, it seems the monsters have underestimated us, as only seven more Carnine arrive to deal with us. However, they stop approaching around 40 feet from us. Lauren is already back to sneaking around, but I’m sure she’s nearby somewhere. Any attempt we make to approach them and engage is met with an equal retreat. The Carnine are fast, so they could run all the way back to the heart of their camp before we could catch them.

A good minute passes before the reason for the wait becomes clear: a wolflike creature at least triple the size of a Carnine pads slowly toward us.

Where the Carnines are fairly hideous, hairless things, this newcomer is covered in gray hair and heavily muscled. It bears quite a few scars that look fresh. Probably from the humans that fought back while it murdered them.

My grip tightens on my sword. To all things, an end.

The battle starts in an instant. I feel Fortify activate without my intention, launching me forward with speed far beyond what I’ve ever moved with before. My bones creak and my tendons thrum as my enhanced durability barely keeps my body from tearing itself apart. It is only because I had to cross the entire space between us that the large wolf manages to dodge an overhead strike that cracks the air. The Carnine behind it is not so lucky.

The larger monster recovers quickly from its dodge, baring its teeth and rushing forward to attack my stance directly. Rav covers me with a quick Mana bolt, eliciting a yelp of pain from the wolf as it staggers slightly. I leave my sword firmly embedded in the ground, unwilling to take the time to dislodge it, and draw my stick. I’m forced to dodge as Combat Proficiency kicks in and alerts me to an incoming flank from a remaining Carnine, but, midway through my leap, the warning vanishes as Lauren appears underneath the offending monster and guts it. The others respond by closing in on her, only to have Mana bolts and heavy stick blows fend them off. The strength of these attacks is such that the monsters either don’t get up afterward or are clearly unfit for combat, choosing to limp away. My momentary distraction, however, is all the wolf needed to pounce on my back and bring me to the ground. I manage to turn my fall into a sort of roll, landing hard on my shoulder, but allowing me to get a sub-par hit on the wolf’s head, knocking it slightly aside. It serves to only momentarily postpone its strike at my throat.

It towers over me from its place on my chest, powerful jaws far too close. Like lightning, the bite comes, and it’s all I can do to throw my hands up in defense… but the anticipated pain never comes.

Not of its own will, of course, but because the connection between its body and brain was interrupted by a piece of metal, courtesy of Lauren. With their apparent leader dead, none of the retreating Carnine make it far under Rav’s barrage of Mana. No survivors this time.

“Alright, I think we overstayed our welcome.”

-”It was just starting to get interesting.” Lauren counters with a frown.

~”My Mana will need quite a few minutes to recover from that. Perhaps it’s best we return, for now?”

“There will be more coming. I don’t think they’ll take kindly to us wiping out one of the stronger ones. It will eventually be impossible for us to escape without them following, and we can’t lead them back home.”

-”Ugh. Fine.”

[Congratulations, Carnine Squad eliminated! +67 Power (327). Power reward reduced! Item: Apprentice’s Stone created!]

Perfect!

I gather up the remaining bodies, pocket the stone, and we make our escape. The larger monster, identified as a Carnine Lieutenant, definitely does not fit in my satchel, so it’s carried over my other shoulder. Fortunately, it’s still in one piece due to the precision strike that killed it, but I’m going to smell like fur and wolf blood for a while. We only stop running when it seems Rav is going to keel over and we’ve taken a long, roundabout way to start heading back to camp. The weight and our need for stealth on the approach makes the going much slower than before, but we manage to make it back without incident. If we hadn’t… we would have had to make something up. The fields make excellent cover for travelling undiscovered, but it would be almost impossible to outrun even regular Carnines, if they found us.

When we arrive back at the cave, we still wait outside while Lauren does a quick scouting of the surrounding area, but she fails to find any tails (not a pun) and we head inside to share our spoils.

The carcasses are left just past the illusion, and I leave Kaythe with orders to eat as much as he wants, but try to avoid harming the pelt of the lieutenant.

We’ve deemed the ratty fur of Carnines to be not worth the effort of skinning, so they’re being used as meat. The lieutenant, however... there would be a sadistic joy associated with wearing the fur of their fallen when paying them back for everything they caused. With that in mind, I’m going to see if some armor can be made out of its hide. I know two of the others specialize in crafting, but not specifically if they can help me. I’ll check later.

That trip was highly productive from a skills perspective as well. I managed to net: Energetic Attack +2 (4); Imbue Energy +1 (6); Hide +2 (3); Fortify +1 (2); Energy Manipulation +1 (8); Combat Proficiency +1 (5); Blunt Weapons Proficiency +1 (4).

A low whistle escapes my mouth as I take in all that growth. It turns out that having just a bit of practice dramatically increases how effective you are. Killing things in life or death situations is clearly the path to success, but you get a lot more out of them if you know what you’re doing. And they’re much safer. If I hadn’t had Zathis to teach me, it probably would have taken me a week at least to figure everything out myself, not to mention finding a trustworthy sparring partner. I should ask the guy if there’s anything I can do for him besides hang out with him once in a while.

He certainly didn’t need to help me, and the overall hostility of this world has me legitimately thankful to anyone/anything that doesn’t try to kill me off the bat.

That’s for later though. Now, I need to decide on traits. I have 17 trait points waiting to be used, and a choice to make.

I had been a bit… ah- ‘distracted’ after I finished training with Zathis, and then totally forgotten in my eagerness to try out my newfound skills, so I hadn’t taken the time to look over what had changed with my traits. It seems like as soon as a Secondary Skill gets to level 5, I unlock the basic trait for it. Or at least, one that supports it in some way.

With Imbue Energy finally reaching 5 (now 6), I unlocked the associated trait. Well, traits, I should say.

[Novice Energetic Weaponry - Functional increase for combat using Energy enhanced weaponry]

OR

[Novice Energetic Presence - Functional increase for objects enhanced with Energy.]

As is typical, the game has given me very weak descriptions of both. They’re almost identical, with one appearing to be a more general version of the other.

That leads me to assume that the ‘weaponry’ specific one will be more pronounced and specialized, while the general one will give more utility.

Honestly, I think Energy has enough utility as is, and apart from the ability to convert physical Power into my personal pool, I haven’t used Imbue Energy on anything but weapons.

[Novice Energetic Weaponry selected! (0/10) - Rate at which weaponry is bound to user increased by 5% per point. Number of simultaneously bound weapons doubled when maxed.]

‘Doubled’? What the fuck was the original value!? God fucking…

I hate this stupid, shitty game.

The trait is useful, but not as useful as most of the others. That being said, it provided some useful information:

There’s a maximum number of items I can have bound to me Energetically at the same time. I have probably not actually finished binding the stick.

The second point is a bit of a leap, but everything meaningful in the game has had some sort of notification associated with it. This has not. I assume that when I actually bind it, I’ll have some flashy pop-up about it. But that begs a further question: what does binding actually do?

There are the obvious features, like that they resist being forcibly removed from my body, feel warm to the touch and easy to hold, and they’re much more durable… but is there something beyond that?

I’m interested to find out.

I have no rush to finish the useless ‘path’ trait, so I dump 10 points into my new trait to max it.

Nothing really feels different off the bat, so I assume this will be another passive process like Domination. Trying to use Imbue Energy on the stick or zweihander doesn’t feel any different than normal, so it seems the ‘active’ part only does anything to objects without any of my Energy in them. Like, I can kick off the process but that’s it, kinda like Domination.

Alright, fair. I’m totally ok with power creep. I have a suspicion that practicing with the weapons I want to bind will bind them faster than just having them on my person.