**[Rita]**

Horace’s scream gave her the extra push she needed to finally get her magic to channel through the wand. A gush of raw white mana surged forward from the wand towards the place she heard them struggling with the creature, but she realized belatedly that it was headed directly at her companions as well. She only had time to open her mouth before the mana hit the creature and splashed onto Aiden and Horace both, and her shout of warning came too late. The unattuned raw magic melted through all that it touched until the energy dispersed, which did not take long given her low ability, yet the sounds and smells of sizzling flesh let her know it had at least been effective on something. She could only hope it was the creature's flesh and not her teammates that she was smelling.

Lurching forward as the mana fatigue hit her, she tried to catch a better look at the situation in the afterglow of her attack. Years of exposure to mana made it easy for her eyes to adjust from the bright glare it produced. She could see a small dog-sized creature with little remaining fur and long sinuous appendages. There was a strange fleshy lump underneath it, and for a second after the visibility faded, Rita wondered what it was. The moment she realized it was human, she bent over and retched onto the floor below. A soft keening sound brought her blurry eyes back to the front. She shuffled forward, weakly grabbing the knife out of her bag as she did. The sound was coming from Aiden, and she nearly cried out herself at the pain lacing his animalistic noises, but she held tight to her composure to find the vile creature that had caused her friends such torment. Her hand went down to feel for it and only grazed the top of a bloody mass.

At first, she thought it might be the beast, yet the fabric that grazed her hand as she pulled back told her otherwise. Squinting into the dimly light tunnel around her, she located the creature dragging itself away from them with a chunk of flesh held tight in its gaping maw. She gagged, completely emptying her clenching stomach, and wanted nothing to do with the creature just a few feet in front of her. However, she knew if they let it go now, they would be losing out on the precious experience and would leave a deadly enemy to stalk them another day. Her companions may very well be dead or dying, so she had to be strong to give herself any advantage possible. Weakness would get her and the only two people in this world who had any impact on her immediate future killed, and she knew now that she could not just lay down to die as she had thought before.

Moving forward with as much speed as she could muster, she practically fell atop the battered animal. Her knife struck it repeatedly with little result, so she grabbed her wand and summoned the last dredges of magic left inside her to squirt directly onto its vile face. She held it until all signs of life faded and collapsed forward onto the warm and soggy body below her. The last thing she saw before sweet nothingness claimed her was bright words announcing her accomplishment.

Creature Slain! Achievement earned: [Transcendent Debut] for taking the life of a being eight times your level as your first kill. Beings over eight levels above you will regard you with caution, and those with eight levels below yours will treat you with added respect.

Level Up!

2 stat points to distribute

Minor wounds healed

Skill increase Mana Manipulation : 2 -> 3

Skill gained: Knife Proficiency