Andius had never explored the forest by moonlight before, but he found the quiet woods to be even more peaceful than during the day. He heard some animals going about their late-night activities, but for the most part they left him alone.

The tracks he had been following were pretty easy to see, which would explain why he wasn’t gaining a new skill by following them. That fact didn’t bother Andius in the slightest, since it meant it would be easier to find the people who had hurt him and get his revenge. He wasn’t really sure what he could do to them other than just kill them and send them to respawn, but that was a problem for later.

After a few hours of traveling, Andius found that the tracks lead to the only town he had seen anywhere nearby, Woodsdale. Unfortunately the tracks split apart and went in wildly different directions once they entered the town, leaving Andius with no chance to follow them. He let out a small sigh and just shook his head, there was nothing for him to do about it now but hope and see if someone had seen the people come through here.

Drawing up his head, Andius made his way over to the tavern where he had stayed before and walked in. This time it was incredibly lively, with lumberers and carpenters all sitting at tabled, laughing in corners and all talking to one another as they enjoyed their food and drink. Andius couldn’t help but grin at the display, whether it was earth or Astrala the laborers always finished their day with a drink.

Taking a slow breath, Andius walked towards the counter where a few people were drinking and tapped on it, the barkeep walking over and gave Andius a grin. This wasn’t the girl he had met last time, instead it was a tall man with short brown hair and an almost perfect close shaven goatee. “What can I get for ya lad?” The man asked out, his voice deep and lively, much like all of the patrons.

“I’m looking for someone, leather armor with a red dagger insignia on it?” Andius asked, trying his best to keep his voice down, but that didn’t stop one of the younger men nearest Andius from looking over and walking away. Andius kept an eye on that man and saw him walking over to a table of people, whispering to one of them, which Andius recognized as one of his attackers from the day before!

The barkeep frowned and said, “Sorry kid, haven’t seen anyone like that around.” his tone immediately dropping into a less cheerful sound. “You gonna buy anything?” He asked, patience apparently growing thin.

Andius nodded, “A room for the night then, if you don’t mind.” Came his reply, getting a smile and a nod from the barkeep. The room cost Andius two silvers, and the bloody blades from before hadn’t had time to take his coin-purse, so he wasn’t worried about the cost. A quick check of his coin-purse told him that he had two silver and four coppers remaining, so he paid the barkeep and was handed a key. He held the key up, looking at it overtly and speaking more loudly than was needed, “Room six? Thank you.”

Andius quickly moved to the stairs and climbed them, finding his room without issue and heading inside. He didn’t lock the door behind him when he closed it, there would be no need for a lock for what he had planned. Moving as quickly and as quietly as he could, he arranged the pillows of the bed under the sheets to make it look like someone was sleeping, then moved towards a particularly shadowy part of the room and sat in wait, both of his black daggers already in hand.

Interestingly, Andius had a hard time making out his own figure in the shadows, and if he couldn’t feel his body he wouldn’t have been able to tell he was standing there. It didn’t take long for the sound of footsteps to echo down the hall, their footfalls very close to silent as they walked over to his door and came to a stop. There was some whispered words and what sounded like an argument, before the door creaked open and two men walked inside wearing cloaks, one looking suspiciously like the one he had started with, some burns near the hem confirming it was caught in the explosion.

They closed the door behind themselves and started to slowly creep towards the bed, one of them drawing a dagger and raising it as they got closer to where they thought he was sleeping. Just before the dagger came down on the pillows, Andius stepped forward from the shadows and thrust his daggers into the back of one of the would-be assassins, piercing one of his lungs and preventing his scream from being too loud. His friend whipped his head around at hearing the gurgling sound of death, only to be met with a boot to his face, sending him sprawling to the side.

The man hit the ground hard, but drew a short-sword from under his cloak, causing Andius to hesitate; he’d never fought someone with a sword before, would he be able to win this one? Inspiration flashed in Andius’ mind, and he made the shadows in the room start to manifest, roiling and lashing around like black fire, creeping closer and closer to the man. A small portion of the mana he used to cover his face, the darkness obscuring his identity while surprisingly not impairing Andius’ vision. “W-what!?” The man cried out, looking at the shadows with fear in his eyes, “Who are you!?”

Andius almost gave him a straight answer, but he didn’t want this guy reporting to his bosses when he was done with them, so he decided to put on a little show. “Oh, me? I’m just another player like you.” Came his best evil villain voice, trying his best not to laugh at the ridiculous situation. “But we’re quite different, aren’t we? For example; I don’t attack other players for the fun of it. No, I have a different prey.”

Maybe Andius was going a bit too hard with his villain impression, because the guy was literally shaking and had dropped his sword. “W-w-wait man, come on! I just wanted to be in a strong guild! I was just following orders, yeah!” He claimed, voice breaking with fear. Andius’ mana pool was slowly falling, he wouldn’t be able to keep up this act for much longer.

“A strong guild? You only attack people you outnumber, taking all of their gear and screwing them over for the rest of the game!” There was legitimate anger in Andius’ voice, after all he had just been on the receiving end of the very thing he was accusing this man of doing. He let one of the tendrils of shadow roll over his assailant for just a moment, and the man shivered, “I’ll make you a deal. Tell me what I want to know, and I wont beat you within an inch of your life, forcing you to waste all of you stolen money on healers.”

“O-okay man, okay!” The frightened man called out, scooting back against a wall and nodding a few times. There was genuine fear in his eyes, and Andius felt a little bad for what he was doing to him, but this is probably one of the people who had put a sword into him… That didn’t really make him feel better.

Andius started to pace the room a little bit, but his eyes didn’t leave the man on the ground, “Firstly, tell me where your base is, if you have any hidden supplies, tell me where they are. I also want to know who your leader is.” Andius explained in an even tone. He was scared himself, he had just killed another player and his hands were shaking over that very fact. Seeing his Mana pool slowly emptying wasn’t helping his anxiety either.

——————

Mana: 73/112

——————

The player nodded his head a few times and spoke almost too fast for Andius to understand, “R-r-right, yeah! I know that stuff!” he assured the scary man covered in shadows that was Andius, “We have a spot not super far from here! Just a bit south, we have this camp, wood walls and everything!” He paused for a moment and winced, before slowly pulling out a key, “A-and…. We have some gear in room three, not a lot mind you, but… you know, not a lot of players out here.” Andius took the key and nodded for the man to continue, “Our leader is a guy called Virn, don’t know why he chose that name, but hes a rogue! I d-don’t know where he is though!”

This was all good information, and Andius was excited to see what gear they had stolen from other players, but he had an even more important question to ask. “Are you able to log out?”

The man blinked a few times and pulled up his menus, “What the fu-” He didn’t have a chance to say anything else, as Andius rushed forward and stabbed him in the heart. After a few moments Andius withdrew his dagger and sat down on the bed, hands shaking. He had just killed two players. Sure they had attacked him first, and they weren’t really dead, but the idea of stabbing a real person like that…

“Ugh, this game is too realistic…” He complained to himself quietly. He let his shadows fall away and immediately felt the magical reserves in his body start to refill. If he wasn’t in such a shaken state, he might have remarked that it was interesting how he could just feel how much mana he had. He had learned two things in this scenario, first that he really didn’t like the realism of this game when it came to combat, but secondly and most importantly, no one could log out.

Notifications blinked at the corner of his vision as they always seemed to do, but this time there was an extra one, it looked like it was a combat log. Curiously, he pulled up the menu.

——————

Double Critical back-stab against level 10 “???” for Massive damage!

Critical hit against level 4 “???” for Critical damage!

Experience gained: 210, doubled for winning despite lower levels and being outnumbered.

——————

Andius’ eyes all but bulged out of his head as he looked at that log, his damage was insane if he managed a back-stab from stealth, but more importantly he found that there was absolutely no way he would have been able to take these two players in a fair fight! The experience gain was insane, but PVP usually was more rewarding than PVE.

Andius was thankful his intimidation had worked in his favor, as that level four player was likely to have been able to end him rather easily. He hated PVP already, but if he was going to stop being a victim, he would have to get stronger and accept that he was going to have to kill players more if he wanted to get back at them for what they did. First thing was to check the rest of the notifications he had.

——————

Congratulations on paying your EXP debt and leveling at the same time, maybe being turned to ash over and over had a benefit, huh? You now have 5 attribute points to spend across your stats, and 3 skill points to spend on your skills!

——————

Spell Manipulate shadows: Level 3

——————

Spell Dark-vision: Level 1

By shrouding your face in shadows for a prolonged length of time, not only have you done society a favor, but you’ve also created a new spell! This spell allows it’s user to shroud their face in darkness, both concealing their features and granting them the ability to see in almost complete darkness!

X(1)+Y(23) feet of dark-vision while spell persists, where X is the level of this spell and Y is your charisma.

Cost: 1 Mana per five seconds.

——————

These notifications were getting worse and worse, but Andius wasn’t in any situation to complain too much, this new spell was awesome! If he was doing his math correctly, that would mean he would be able to hold his dark vision for almost 10 minutes if he didn’t have to cast any other spells! That was pretty powerful, even if it only went out to 24 feet, he would be able to see in the dark without revealing his position, more and more he was starting to love his deal with the shadow elemental.

Andius looks over the room and a massive grimace crossed his features, he wouldn’t be able to sleep in here! Not only was the guilt eating away at him for killing two real people, but the smell was awful! He turned on his heel and almost walked right out of the room to sleep in room three, but something told him to search the two guys he killed.

The one who gave him the information didn’t have much on him, just a few coppers, but the level ten he had back-stabbed had a whole lot more to offer! All in all he got 10 gold, 53 silvers and a note. He didn’t have time to read the note though, he was exhausted and wanted to sleep, so he left the room and locked it behind him, before moving over to the other room to find it empty. That suited Andius just fine, and he slumped down into the bed without even taking off his gear, sleep taking him quickly. However the night had already proven to be anything but a comfortable sleep, and his troubles weren’t past him just yet.