I kicked the shaft of my spear, jolting it up and out of the trapped enemy’s grip. I spun it around and jabbed the butt straight into the wall in front of me with one hand while the other sank into an extradimensional pouch. I counted out each click as my claws ran over the glass vials within, mind running through my reorganized alchemical collection even faster than my nimble fingers.

It went light, holy, acid, fire…

I locked two fingers around the neck of each vial I wanted as I passed by, withdrawing when I had a full three bottles fanning out from my hand.

I set a foot on the crossguard of my spear, leaning in and driving it deeper into the loose earth. The blunt point of my spear butt was far from the ideal tool, but with a few sharp kicks I rammed it through anyway. If anything was the issue it was getting it out again, but with a bit of wiggling and a few sharp jerks I managed that too.

I held my breath as I slid a vial in. It wasn’t that much smaller around than my spear haft, so it didn’t provide much resistance as I pushed it in. I followed it up with the spear itself, pushing it to the full extent of my extended reach.

The lure was set. All I need now was to get the catch to bite…

I put my ear up against the wall again, listening carefully as I began to tap what little of the spear still stuck out.

The results were near indiscernible.

I sighed and started yanking it about by the crossguard. This time was more promising, sending out audible vibrations. They didn’t really sound all that much like a second tunneler, but the burrowing enemy was already in full combat mode and primed to attack.

A tense handful of breaths passed as the digging began to accelerate and I wondered if this had all been a terrible mistake.

Then whatever burrowing appendages this poor under-dweller relied on came crushing down on the little glass bottle and the earth shook with a soft thwoomp.

I paused. Was that it, all the fury of an alchemist’s bottled flame?

But there was no further movement from this side, no screams or thrashing in the searing flames. No sign of death save a soft sound and the fading twitches of a dead enemy.

I abandoned that side of the tunnel to throw myself towards the other. I brought a vial up to the butt of my spear and rammed it through without bother for preclearing a hole. I felt the fragile glass fragment with hairline cracks, but by the time it was done breaking it was already surrounded by earth without the clear air to ignite it.

Without air until the growing tunnel of my enemy opened up around it and it was free to tumble inside. The thwoomp was louder this time, and I felt the wall shift from the blow. I moved to back up, but even as I began the pressure bubble of the ignition was past and the wall sagged in the opposite direction to sink in on itself.

I took a deep breath, loud enough to be heard over the beating of my heart and tinged with only the slightest hint of smoke.

I’d done it. Three beasts, each threatening enough to give pause to the average Hob, and I’d slaughtered them all. Sure, it’d taken tricks and traps, but hardly the whole book. This hadn’t been an exhaustively prepared ambush, but shit I’d made up on the fly.

A whimpering squeal broke through my adrenaline withdrawal induced thoughts. The slaughter wasn’t over just yet.

I fumbled my fingers back into my alchemist’s pouch and withdrew a different concoction. I stabbed my thumb claw into the side of it’s cork and wriggled it out just a little. Just enough for the slightest breath of fetid tunnel air to waft in before I squeezed it closed again. A faint glow grew to life in the vial, a thousand times smaller than the burst of light you’d get by smashing it open and exposing the entire solution at once.

But more than enough for my eyes to pick out the monster in front of me.

It inspired more pity than fear. Its wrinkled skin hung in folds deep enough to swallow up its beady eyes and more than a few of them had caught on my daggers. The improvised trap was hardly enough to stop it on its own, but enough had caught on the roots and tendrils lacing the loose earth for the beast to become thoroughly stuck. Its own struggles had taken over at that point, tearing its wounds from single stabs to gaping gouges.

Abundant blood mixed in with the dirt and sapped away its energy to do more than whimper for aid.

I retrieved my spear. It was my enemy, but far be it from me to deny it the final help it needed. I hefted the weapon in my right hand, then waved a little breeze towards it with my left. As its flinch sent its overgrown incisors leftward I drove my spear in overhand. The blade pierced its eyeball and with one last shove I crushed it through the orbital socket and into the brain beneath.

The beast shivered and lay still.

I drew back my spear and leaned on it. I was the only one left standing.

That might not last if I hung around the tantalizing scent of fresh corpses for too long, but I was somewhat conflicted there. I might have hurried on in other conditions, conditions where I wasn’t already at the most defensive location nearby. As it was, I was going to need to hunker down for a bit anyway, so why leave a prime location just to look for another?

I sat down and rested the spear over my crossed legs. I’d make this quick. I took a deep breath and activated my [Soul Sense]. My awareness sank deeper than my body and swirling energy revealed itself all around me.

It was largely useless, merely mana, but it was dragged along with the flow as specks of something brighter were drawn in. They gathered around me as flotsam gathered around a drain, whirling around me. The mana pushed against the walls of my soul futilely, but the brighter soul energy melded seamlessly into the whole whenever it broke through.

Somewhere far away I felt my body frowning. Damn mana was in the way, I needed pure soul energy to construct my next levels. I pushed back against the mana, but it was like trying to control the flow of a stream by blowing on it. The water rippled, but it did not bend.

I abandoned all hope of controlling the vortex as a whole to focus in on one area. With that effort my control grew…

From ‘breeze on a stream’ futile to splashing hands in that same stream. I could make little waves in the mana, but not force back its flow. Still, my stumbling steps towards mana control did seem to help me collect a few more specks of loose soul energy before they dissipated to uselessness.

Interesting. I’d never been in a position to actively watch the collection process before, but it looked like it wasn’t as passive as I’d once presumed. It would happen one way or another, but I could affect the efficiency. A part of me winced at the notion of having squandered past opportunities, but the larger part was excited to seize future ones.

...although you couldn’t simply call a time out for [Soul Sense] every time you dropped an enemy. Even so, it was useful knowledge, useful enough for me to float the idea of dedicating a level to some kind of energy collection Skill. It would have been way better to know this from the beginning. The next time I stole ancient mystical secrets the ratio of spying to theft would be very different.

I shifted my gaze away from the borders of my soul to check my level gain and was happy to find another completed soul section waiting for me. It was more than I would have expected from the drifting specks of soul energy I’d actively collected; it seemed there’d been substantial drop-off between my kills and when I activated [Soul Sense]. That further pushed off the idea of actively enhancing my energy gain. If I needed to be meditating during combat to benefit then the entire idea might well be a trap.

I ended up simply going for Stat boosts instead of anything more complex. Defensive position or not, I wasn’t looking to hang around the carrion for long and Stats were simply faster than Skills. Carving out the new gates for outbound energy flow only took a handful of minutes and got me a decent boost for the trouble, making my new Stats:

Speed: 11=>13

Agility: 11=>12

Dexterity: 11=>12

Constitution: 10=>11

Toughness: 8=>9

Metabolism: 14=>15

Senses: 17=>18

I did a few stretches and jumped in place after finishing, but I didn’t notice much difference. It was disappointing, even if I knew logically that it was important. Skills might make for an instant qualitative difference, but Stats only mattered cumulatively. A single level passed without notice, but a handful would make a lifesaving difference.

I collected what I was pretty sure was all of my knives before squirming around the oversized corpse. Whatever the thing was, I it just wasn’t supposed to be this big. Still, I managed to worm my way around it with the help of my new Stat increases. Or maybe that was just the back of my brain trying to justify my choice.

Either way, I was through. From there I made the decision to just work around the area these guys were so dedicated to defending. I couldn’t be entirely sure if they were just a pack guarding their hunting grounds or if they lived ant-style. However frustrating, taking the long route around was just the better move.

I ate through the halfway mark on my supplies before I cleared their territory, but it was worth it because shortly after I did things started to open up. The detritus and debris that had built up into the loose tunnel-ridden loam was finally behind me. The pillar-trees stretched onwards bare, but I could see the light again.

It was faint, twinkling like the stars, but visible nonetheless. The false ground where I’d started was finally in sight.

It was another day of hard climbing before I reached it, made all the harder by my renewed paranoia. The sky was far from the only source of twinkling lights here. Every time I saw the hint of a sourceless glow glinting off distant bark I turned my head away. Old legends of will o'wisps combined with Mom’s stories of deep sea predators to ensure I steered well clear of any such signs.

With the lights squarely shoved off into the ignore section of my brain I climbed up, stopping only to shuffle over behind a branch whenever I spotted a particularly suspicious looking light.

In the end I pushed through for maybe longer than was wise, coming to a stop only barely short of the surface level. I nestled in the roots that formed the false ground of the woods above, much like a mundane animal burrowed into the dirt. Tomorrow I would emerge.

Or was it tonight? I guess the time of arbitrarily deciding day night cycles based on my sleep schedule was a thing of the past.

As it turned out, it was tonight. When I became restless and rose from my slumber the already dim light peeking through the gaps had dimmed even further.

Even better. I didn’t know how close I was to the humans, so the benefit of darkness would only help me. I climbed the last few dozen feet as quietly as a lifetime of practice could allow and peeked my head up into a moonlit night.

The whole world was cast in grey, what little color existed fading away with the light. Faint moonlight was diffused through a wispy mist that nonetheless grew deep as it stretched up into the sky. Perfect.

I stepped softly onto the hard ground, the sounds of my passing swallowed up by the silent night. I had little knowledge of where the fuck I was, so I did the only thing I could and picked a direction. Everything looked the same down here anyway, so I’d worry about finding my bearings latter.

Probably make a little tree nest by morning. I could hunker down there until the mist cleared, then get a vantage point from a concealed position. Once I’d figured out where the fuck I was I could reorient myself and trace my steps. I was stronger than I’d ever been, and I’d only grow stronger from here. I could finally make good on threats that had once been empty.

It was time to go home.