That night was cold as was the whole of the following day as well. Perhaps there was a cold front passing through, or maybe this was typical for winter months. I was much farther north than I had ever been before on Eastrath or North Maledith.

I made sure to trail the Tyrant group closely, even after they had given up trying to find me. There were times when I felt that harming them was wrong and I was close to walking away. But as I continued to follow them, I witnessed the Tyrant group ambush another group whom they robbed blind.

The Adventurers who were stripped of all wealth and magic were not killed: I would have taken action if battle had started. But it was enough that every time I saw the crown of thorns emblem of the Tyrant guild on the shoulders of the group below me, I was resolved to take them down. These people were a plague that stole the life from everything around them.

Thoughts of Samantha flashed through my mind and I decided I would act in the dark of the coming night. It would be easy enough for me to do.

The temperature continued to drop, and the night was colder than the last. The tree tops were the only safe place I could be without possibly being discovered but I was struggling up in the branches without a fire. Moreover, my sense of touch was unique, and perhaps that meant that the cold bit me even harder.

I waited until they had eaten their evening meal before I made my move. The caution of the Tyrant group dropped significantly after a full day and a full stomach. No doubt too, there was an overconfidence among them, a pride, their hubris.

Who would knowingly mess with the Tyrant guild? I wouldn’t, actually. But dead men told no secrets. For nearly three hours, I waited above them, before one of them actually got up and walked a distance into the forest.

It was their tank, and he started to relieve himself, which was my cue to move. Shackle had always been a very useful situational skill, but it was at this moment I realized its most valuable purpose: it was an amazing skill for PVP.

I cast from the safety of a tree branch and the spell restrained my target perfectly. By the time he could take out his sword to slash out and destroy the golden chains, I was already directly on top of him.

The tank managed to shout out in alarm and fear before blood blocked his mouth and throat. I had a moment before I needed to make a retreat, so out of curiosity I held out my hand and channeled Harvest Soul. His soul was different from that of a monster.

There came a feeling that still filled me up, but more gently. It wasn’t as wild as with a mob. Out of curiosity I checked Harvest Soul.

Harvest Soul: 247 HP: 351 MP: 351

That was a pleasant surprise, and also a scary one. The Tyrant member’s soul had provided me with as much HP and MP as that of an incredibly strong Elite. The biggest difference was how easily I obtained it.

He hadn’t been able to fight back, there really had been very little threat to my life in this action. In terms of effort, there was no difference between cutting a branch and ending his life. The thought shook me to my core. When did I start to feel this way about someone else’s life?

My musing was cut short as several soul signatures rushed in my direction. Moments before the other group members pushed through the underbrush, I turned and disappeared into the night, stopping to watch when high in a tree. Their faces were anything but pleasant when they found the body.

I did my best to study them from a distance when I had a peculiar feeling. It was a strong sense of dread, of impending doom. My hair was standing on end and I leapt to another branch even before seeing any threat at all.

A throwing knife suddenly thumped several inches into the tree I had been sitting at. It came from the leader of their group, he had thrown it and was looking directly at me. I didn’t know how he accomplished it, but he somehow could pick me out in this dark night.

It was hard to see, but I sense that he was smiling in my direction. I didn’t humor him and started to flee immediately. A true three-on-one would be very hard to win. I had no interest in losing my life.

There came a wave of relief as I stepped and sprinted away. They didn’t follow, and as I slowed up, I realized they actually hadn’t moved from the body of their dead companion. I didn’t forget my earlier resolution and started to make a circle around and relocate ready to take out the next person to move away from the group.

It was only after they all moved directly towards me did I understand something was wrong. By all accounts they shouldn’t be coming toward me. Their camp was behind them and I was in a completely different direction from before.

I hesitated. They couldn’t have found my physical trail. Nor were they moving with much agency, just a slow pace. When they were two-hundred yards or so from me, however, they exploded in my direction and my suspicion was confirmed.

Somehow, they had locked onto me. They knew exactly where I was and were moving directly towards me with incredible speed. There was no other explanation at all, the question was how they managed to do so?

My mind raced as I ran trying to think of a solution but came up empty. None of them had ever touched me, or injured me to leave some kind of mark traceable via magic. No amount of racking my brain gave a solution, and all I could do was run.

As fast as I could sprint, I moved through the trees without stopping. They were on my trail still, I could feel them behind me. By all accounts the dense forest canopy and the shadows of the night should have shrouded me from view, and no doubt they did: yet they somehow the Tyrant Adventurers could keep after me regardless.

One of them had to have an unusual power, or even skill. That was the only plausible explanation that I could come up with. My mind recalled Feroce, and then I buried that thought as quickly as it came.

I had not been wounded, or marked, or even touched by any of them. Was there such thing as curses? Hexes? I couldn’t be sure.

More and more, the surrounding trees were stunted and dead, and the air felt more cold. I was running through the fringes of the forest, where the moonlit grass below my feet had given way to scrub that was a mix of brown grass and snow. Every breath I took burned. The skin of my face prickled, and then I felt nothing.

The last of the trees was behind me and I found myself running hard on foot towards a silvery wilderness. There was nothing but snow ahead, and snow aside. The sky was a dark abyss above me. I would be exposed, yet it was my only option. I could not see my pursuers, but I could feel them. They were still chasing hard.

Snow crunched under my feet as I pounded through increasingly deep mounds. Every step was more arduous than the last. My body was freezing, and only the adrenaline pumping through me kept that numbing feeling from spreading to every limb.

My only option was to push harder, to make more distance between us. Fighting three-on-one in the snow, limbs barely moving, fingers barely functioning, I would die. I grit my teeth and surged forward with the last remaining strength I had.

I could feel that the gap was widening, but I could not let up. If I slowed, they would catch up. One minute, three minutes, five minutes, ten minutes. I was still forcing myself not to ease up, when at last I lost track of their presence.

My face was icy, my throat dry and hoarse.

Daring to stop, all I could do was bend over as I coughed with hard and raspy upheavals that wracked my whole body. The spittle from my mouth quickly froze in the night air. Still, their souls hadn’t appeared behind me. Although I must have left a clear trail, I was safe for now.

My hands touched my knees as I nearly keeled over. The coughing would not stop until I forced some water into my parched throat. Only then could I breathe properly.

My face was completely numb from the cold. Fragments of ice covered my head and brow. I was not geared for this type of weather, and so I stood and took a look around me in search of cover. There was nothing.

There was darkness in every direction now, clouds having covered the moons and stars. I could only see a few feet in front of me, enough just to witness a steady fall of snow. One spin was all it took to lose my bearing. I was no longer sure of the direction I had come from.

A sudden idea: find my steps! It was impossible. The falling snow was so dense that already my trail was gone as if it had never existed. While that meant those Tyrant members would struggle to find me, I was worried at being completely and utterly lost.

How should I approach this? That was the thought that filled my mind over and over. It raced for an answer, and the only one I could come up with was to sit still until daytime. The sun might provide the light needed to find my way.

To avoid freezing to death, I needed something to burn, and so I moved around slowly in the immediate area trying to find anything at all that would provide a source of heat. I could see nothing in any direction: this was a barren landscape.

My steps came down heavily, compacting the snow, it occurred to me that I really could die of cold before dawn. Just a few steps after having this thought, I heard a crack beneath me as my foot came down. A branch in the snow? I dropped to my knees and dug my hands into the icy snow.

It was a bush; an entire bush covered in snow. Only then did I realize just how many inches of snow were on the ground. The grass, the shrubbery, all plant life had been buried below.

I lit a fireball in my hand and began to excavate. I needed to recover whatever I could and so I dug one hand after the other pushing aside the sludge. My hands felt like blocks of ice and my body was numb from the cold.

Eventually, I had dug out a pocket in the snow, and managed to slip inside. There was an immediate benefit besides the wood for burning. The cavity provided protection from the wind. That thought gave me a bit more willpower, and so I dug deeper.

Only after my body was fully hidden beneath a mound of snow did I stop. It was eerily quiet here in my snow cave. More quiet than anything I’d ever experienced before. A new fear crept in: being buried alive.

My mind rationalized that fear quickly: I would freeze to death before sunrise if I stayed above. My hands moved slowly towards the bush I had originally found and began breaking off branches.

I had a nice little pile in front of me before long. I summoned a fireball and held it there, long enough for the crackle of burning wood to sound out. I was so cold that the feeling of heat had become foreign.

I huddled closer and prepared for a long night.