Errod swung at what appeared to be empty space, and the bushes shook as the invisible creature jumped out of the way. I hurled a throwing knife to his left and heard a howl like an angry housecat, then only had a moment to register that the handle of the knife - impossibly floating in the air - was charging straight for me. I slashed wildly and connected, but something sliced across my shoulder at the same time. The moskar were going wild as they grew increasingly panicked at their inability to locate the danger they could sense nearby; one almost hit Katrin with its head which forced her to jump aside, interrupting her spell. Errod swung at the one I was fighting and actually hit it for once, catching it in the back as far as I could tell. They seemed to be the size of cheetahs, and there were somewhere between two and four of them - the invisibility made it tricky to count, especially when they refused to stay still.

An arc of electricity shot out from Katrin's hand and hit another of the beasts, causing it to very briefly become visible - it had pitch black fur, and for some reason two tails - but then the thing flickered out of sight again. The one in front of me circled the wagons to get away from us, but then I saw that knife handle barreling towards Katrin.

"Kat, shield!" I yelled, and there were two thuds as the beasts both slammed into her magical barrier at the same time. It was one of the spells she had been able to do when we first met, but since she'd gotten the Dumine it seemed she could cast it much faster. Katrin was progressing more rapidly than I was - she said that the learning curve for spellcasting was different than for most other things, because if you had a spellbook all you really had to do was read them out. True mastery would involve her gaining the strength to cast larger and more powerful spells without hurting herself, and learning to tweak the spells which were normally locked into very rigid formulas - that was the part that you needed a Dumine for. Further, the most basic level of the scholar gift was just a passive increase in how quickly she learned things. It was no wonder she was leaving me in the dust.

Errod swung wildly and clipped one of them - I was almost certain there was just the two, now - but the hit seemed like it was barely more than a scratch since only the very tip of his blade appeared to snag on the air. I repositioned to throw another knife so I wouldn't hit Katrin, but missed entirely. I'd lost several knives to the underbrush, and wasn't looking forward to searching for them once this was over.

"What's going on? Can I come out?" Elba called from inside the wagon. All three of us yelled "NO!" simultaneously. I pulled another throwing knife - I'd purchased a full bandolier of them before we got on the road - but the cats had retreated and started their stupid routine again. They would circle around something and approach once we'd lost track of where they were, over and over and over. The half dozen nicks and cuts hadn't managed to convince them we weren't worth it, and I was worried that their confidence was well earned; a few really good hits from them could for sure kill us, for all that we were hanging in there so far. Katrin gestured and a tiny little flame leapt up thirty feet away, bringing a teeny yelp from one of the things - it clearly wasn't enough to really hurt it but it confirmed our suspicions of where it was and I threw another knife instantly. I hit, and it attempted to run away but slammed into a tree instead in its panic giving Errod a chance to leap through the air and land with his sword point down - somehow missing the creature even as his body slammed into it. I could only assume the sword had gone between its legs.

Errod twisted and screamed as he clutched at something, and I realized it was biting into his shoulder - I sprinted to him and as he held the beast's jaws against himself so it couldn't escape I slammed a knife sideways into its neck. Almost immediately it was visible and motionless apart from some twitching, and Errod pulled the fangs out of his shoulder.

"You okay?"

"Help me up. Where's the other?"

I hauled him to his feet and scanned around. Katrin was looking too, but spared a second to look at me and shrug. No sign of it. Errod tried to move his right arm and winced - he passed the sword to his other hand and began walking towards the wagons cautiously. Katrin caused another tiny flame to flare up but missed this time, and a moment later I threw one of my knives at a leaf that I thought I saw moving - accomplishing nothing apart from losing another knife.

"The other might have left," I said, "especially if it doesn't want to risk hunting alone."

"Were there just the two?" Katrin asked, walking closer to us cautiously.

"I wasn't sure at first, but it seems like only two ever attacked at once. I think it just seemed like more because of the hit and run tactics. Errod, is that arm okay? It bit into your shoulder pretty deep."

I heard a door creak at the back of the wagon. "Now can I come out?" Elba asked, and we all heard the rustle in the underbrush - coming from behind the wagons, far closer to Elba than we were.

Time seemed to slow as we all scrambled to get around the wagon. I could see, vaguely, where the cat thing was coming from as it ran and I wasn't going to make it in time - I threw a knife but could tell instantly that it was far too high to hit. Errod was ahead, just slightly, but with his dominant arm injured and his unquestionable lack of skill that didn't seem to offer any hope - instead I turned to Katrin, but as I watched in horror she was tail whipped by Shitheel the moskar and sprawled forward into the dirt. I spun back the other way, knowing I was about to see Elba snatched from the back of the wagon and dragged into the woods, but instead Errod's sword flew through the air more swiftly and unerringly than my specially made throwing knives ever had despite it not being remotely balanced for that kind of stunt. It impacted the creature and knocked it into the visible spectrum as the beast was bowled over - and as Errod arrived he tackled another one that I hadn't even realized was there. It scrambled out from under him, briefly flickering into sight, and turned to run back away from the wagons. I don't know if it was retreating or just trying to make us lose track of it so it could attack again, but it wouldn't get the chance. Katrin, still on the ground, let loose another bolt of lightning that stunned it just as I arrived and began stabbing. I was in full adrenaline mode and I was still panic-swinging for a moment after it had dropped the invisibility and ceased moving. Everyone was still and staring, and for a few heartbeats it was silent - then Elba began to cry.

Calming her down took a few minutes, and while I did that Katrin located her healing spell. It was the only one she'd found in the book so far, though some pages were still too complicated for her to read, and it was meant for emergency battlefield use. That meant it was painful and left scars, but was good when you just wanted to not bleed to death.

"If you don't have enough mana, I can wait. It did a lot more to my clothes than to me, as long as I clean it out and bandage it nicely I think it's okay. Errod needs it for sure, though."

He didn't argue which meant it was pretty serious, and Katrin got to work. He winced but kept from crying out, which I knew from my one time being healed with that spell after a cooking accident was no small feat. He flexed his arm and nodded.

"It feels stiff, but I think it's okay. At some point we may need to have a full healer deal with all the scars and lingering damage that spell can't fix."

"Yeah, but it's good for now. Hey, nice work there killer! I can't believe you threw your sword and actually hit, especially with your off hand!"

"Neither can I. I just... well. I got lucky."

"Call it what you want, you saved Elba for sure. And hey, you hit a few other times too. I think all that training is finally sinking in, right?"

He smiled, but something about him looked unhappy, or like he felt sick. "Yes. I suppose it's about time." Probably he was just still being overly critical of himself.

Errod began dragging the three bodies off to where they wouldn't spook the moskar while I patched myself up. Katrin came over to sit by me and watch me clean the wound.

"You don't need to try and stitch it or anything, I'll have enough mana to heal it in a little bit."

"Yeah, thanks. I just don't want it to get infected in the meantime, or have you heal a scrap of my shirt into me."

We were out of Erathik, and into a sort of no man's land with scattered towns but no kingdom or empire to lead them. Elba's home town was still a week away at a minimum given the pace we were setting, longer if we took a detour into the city state of Sentortzi which was - to hear Katrin tell it - basically fantasy New York City. They had a university for sure and almost certainly multiple magic item shops, so I was leaning towards it - with my abilities mostly being support and the more combat oriented uses all being things that would take time to build up I was thinking about getting some magic items and using my mana ability to power them. It would mean I could potentially use items that were otherwise impractical, and also it just seemed like it would be super cool to have a bunch of badass items.

"Might level up mana, focus on charging magic items. Get me some cool shit."

Katrin rolled her eyes. She was used to the 'leveling up' talk by now, and even some of the more obscure video game references I'd started making. "What about checking on your memories?"

"Yeah, I know I should. And if I do it in the same way as my little lucid dreaming secret fort thing it shouldn't be too expensive." Plus, keeping it to that sort of mental VR setup would make it cheaper to bring others in there with me and lead to some level of mental defense by forcing anyone that tried to get into my head to land in a pre-made jail cell or something instead. It was a good route to take, for what I wanted to accomplish... but it wasn't flashy or exciting and I wanted to do something cool.

"I can see you thinking. You're not going to do it, are you?"

"Later. For now... man, I should have taken gravity. I could have been flying by now. Fuck it, I'm unlocking the mystery ability."

Thought had a hundred branches reaching out that I'd probed at in the week since I unlocked that first ability - you could read minds, you could make people confused, you could get yourself high, you could page through memories like a book or index them like a database, you could read your own thoughts to hear the different parts of your brain disagreeing, you could make everyone around you paranoid... but this mystery ability? There was exactly one thing I could unlock, and even beyond that I could sense almost no branching. At least it meant I didn't have to worry about analysis paralysis. I checked on Elba again and, seeing that she was mildly traumatized but physically unharmed, tasked her with finding all my lost knives so she would have something to keep her brain occupied. I also made sure the moskar weren't still panicking - only Sneezy was still acting paranoid, and I'd already found that he had a spot on the side of his neck that he always wanted scratched so I dedicated a few minutes to that activity until he seemed calm. Then I was out of ways to procrastinate - while Katrin got ready to get us back on the road I laid down in my bed and attempted to unlock the mystery ability.

When it clicked, I felt a little cheated. I still didn't really understand what I was looking at. There were threads coming out of my chest - some thicker than others - and trailing away through the air. I wandered out of the wagon and saw another thread about fifteen feet in the air passing near the clearing we were in.

"Did you do it?" Katrin asked, coming around from the side of her wagon. I could only nod mutely, because I was distracted by the fact that one of my threads led right to her chest. She had others, too, including two that went to Errod and one very short one connecting her chest to the spellbook in her hand. The spellbook, in turn, had another thread that led off into the distance. It was impossible to tell where they were going, though I noted that several of mine weren't going anywhere; they trailed off to nothing just a few feet from my body.

"Uh," I said eloquently.

"What are you looking at? Can you see something? Is it like the practice we did with enchantment?" Katrin had found a spell that counted as enchantment and cast it a few times so I could use my unlocked ability to sense enchantment near me which had been underwhelming.

"No? I mean yeah, it's the same type of ability. But these are threads, leading to things. Also it's using more mana, everything else I've unlocked so far is either free or so close it might as well be but this is draining me. Not a ton but... yeah, enough that I can feel it."

"What kinds of threads?" Errod asked as he came up from the gulley where he'd dumped the cat monsters. I'd already noticed threads leading towards him from Katrin, but in addition to that he had one coming from the glove on his left hand and two that trailed off into nothing.

"Kind of... like little silvery things, and for people they're attached to the middle of our chests. But they go to stuff, too, like that glove or the spellbook. I can't seem to touch them. But some of them... have... a way they could be released? I think?"

I couldn't be sure, it was just an impression. It was like they were enchantments, sort of, but ones that were waiting for some kind of trigger. I could sense some other branches on the skill tree for them but the costs were ridiculous so it would be a while before I could manipulate them in any way. Understanding them, though... I felt certain a little dip into my divination gift would help.

"I'll work on it. I hate that it's going to take more development and I don't really even know that it's going to be worth it. Ugh. I guess if nothing else I can find you guys in the dark now, since there are threads connecting all three of us. Nothing going to my boots or my bracelet, I don't know what's different about the spellbook or glove. And some of them go nowhere, so I don't know what that means."

"But they don't feel like enchantments?" Errod asked.

"No. For sure no. I don't sense any mana, enchantments, anything."

"Well then if they do anything at all and you can learn to make them they could be powerful just by being something nobody else can interfere with. There are charms, like the ones some of the soldiers back in Zistarne had, that can disrupt enchantments - but if nobody knows what this is, there won't be anything like that."

"Huh. Errod, that's... a really good point. Okay. Yeah. Thanks for putting a positive spin on that for me. And maybe I'll get a better handle on what it's good for by the time I have enough points to buy the next level."

We got back on the road and I had Errod keep my wagon moving while I ducked into my dream space. The room had expanded some after quite a bit of work, though I hadn't been able to just freeform mold it into a palace made of diamonds or whatever. Instead I'd tacked on room 217 from the Long Haul Hotel, which had clicked into place surprisingly easily, and then my childhood bedroom. Since both had been places I considered to be mine, I suspected with effort I could potentially add Universal Servicing Systems - but that was a much larger space and my initial attempt had failed. Room 217 was pretty sparse, as it had been in the real world - standard hotel room bed, a little kitchenette, generic art on the walls. I'd nuked the bathroom, because I needed a door to use to add the entry to my old bedroom and anyway it's not like I could actually relieve myself in my mind - trying might even cause an accident in the real world.

The bedroom from my mom's house was a trip. It brought up a lot of feelings but I couldn't even say which ones - my chest felt tight, and I got all antsy and nervous, and suddenly felt like I needed a nap. But I powered through and looked around, finding that while most of the drawers were empty a couple of trinkets from my childhood remained. A headless Barbie doll, the collar from the dog I kidnapped - Bullfrog was the name I called him but the collar had a tag that said "Sparkles" - and a stuffed unicorn I'd stolen from some kid at the park. Some dim memory nagged at me and I squeezed the unicorn, feeling something hard inside. That would be the steak knife I had kept with me when I was little, just in case something needed stabbing. Other than those items the room itself was a strong memory - the furniture, the filthy bedsheets, the scribbled-on walls, the corner where I'd peeled up the carpet in the hopes of burrowing a secret basement.

Attaching these two additional rooms had taken a few days of getting the feel for this place, though both had been easy enough once I figured it out and it hadn't required me to invest additional energy into my Dumine. But creating items had been harder, and so far I'd only succeeded when I was grabbing something from outside the rooms while I was dreaming. The downside to this was that my dreams were hard to fully control without further investment and if I leaned too far out I'd fall into them, losing all lucidity. I wasn't in there to experiment with making items this time anyway - since it had been a week, it was time to check on an ongoing experiment.

"Errod?"

"I'm here," he said, sounding like he was a mile away.

"Okay can you tell Katrin to get out her notes? I'm going to read off the numbers she gave me."

I went back into that first room, the one that didn't seem to correspond to anywhere I'd actually lived, and opened the top drawer of the desk to reveal a carefully folded piece of paper. I hadn't looked at it in five days, and had no conscious idea what was on it other than remembering that it was a big long string of numbers.

"She's ready when you are," Errod said, and I started to list them off. When I was done I popped back out into the real world, and saw Katrin grinning.

"It was all correct. Every last number."

"Fuck yeah. Okay. Next we need to find a way to... I don't know, automatically copy things. Like, imagine if I could look at a book and turn the pages and have it duplicate into a book in my head? I could have a whole reference library!"

"Well we don't know the limits. Presumably - especially since it was such a simple ability to unlock - it can't just endlessly store information. My scholar gift is already improving my memory, I'm gearing up towards memorizing the spellbook, but even though scholar would be thematically more suited to storing a whole library I can't do that yet. So don't get too excited."

"That's fair. Fine. But if I can copy books that might be worth spending extra points on, especially if we could use Nusos to find an Earth library."

Errod looked skeptical. "Remember that a lot of things were... well, they were skewed somehow. I saw a sign from what looked like a butcher shop and it had the first three letters for the word 'meat' repeated over and over. The sign was like three feet long, it never finished the word. So even if it's possible to find a library you might not end up with readable books."

I went back to practicing as we traveled, both with my lightswitch mana exercise and with turning the view of those threads on and off again. We reached a town in the late afternoon, a cozy little place with thatch rooftops and a surprisingly large fountain in the town square. Errod went over to what looked like a bar where a crowd was relaxing and drinking out of huge wooden mugs so that he could ask about any rules we should know regarding where we could park our wagons for the night. He came back with a wry grin, shaking his head.

"Turn the wagons around, we have to go back."

"What's wrong? They hate strangers or something?"

He sighed, but was still smiling. "Quite the opposite, they greeted me warmly and they all told me how lucky we are to have not stopped on the road. Seems there's a pack of three jezerlae - invisible cats - that have been attacking people. There's a very generous bounty on them if we can kill them and bring back the heads."

I laughed, and started coaxing the moskar to turn around. "You uh... you remember where you dumped the bodies, right?"