[You have slain: qek scavenger. Would you like to loot?]

The last qek fell dead at her feet, and Erin planted the butt of the spear in the snow, her breath visible in the cold air.

“That’s not bad, Mage,” Kiran said, his grim tone at odds with the compliment. She had joined the group of Monster Hunters in a scouting trip northward, back towards the village the qek had sacked. Sigrid had elected to remain behind, firmly declaring she wasn’t interested in any more forest adventures.

They hadn’t been traveling for long when they came upon a band of qek being led by one of their pale kin. The two groups had clashed, and the beast-men had been slain.

“It’s a day of firsts,” Kiran continued, his tone still dour. “I’ve never seen a Mage kill anything with a spear before. I’ve never met a qek big enough to look a man in the eye, and I’ve never seen one smart enough to retreat. They fight until they’re all dead. Every time.”

“Yeah, not the big ones. They ran from Sigrid and me the first time we fought them.” Kiran just grunted as he moved around the bodies of the slain monsters, and Erin’s attention was drawn back to her loot.

Yes,

Qek Scavenger Loot

1 of 1

Default:

7 copper Maefars, 2lbs of qek meat

Equipment:

Select this option to discover loot

Rune Augment:

Select this option to discover loot

She blinked in surprise, before giving her assent mentally, and the body at her feet burned with white light. The half dozen Monster Hunters around her started moving back, but then it was over. A bag of coins, meat, and a small glass sphere with runes twisting inside sat where the body had been. Kiran whistled appreciatively from where he stood.

“I’ve never seen a Mage do that before.” Erin frowned as a thought occurred to her.

“You can’t loot them?”

“Not like that,” and he knelt down next to the qek he’d slain, pulling a long knife from his belt. With deft movements, he sliced it open and extracted something covered in gore. One of his fellows handed him a rag as he stood, and Kiran toweled off the lump in his hand to reveal a bright yellow gemstone. He tossed it to Erin, who caught it with her free hand.

[Qek Scavenger Stone: This is not your loot.]

“I don’t understand. What is this?”

“It’s the qek, Mage girl, or its magic at least.” He gestured to the body and Erin saw it had grown fuzzy around the edges. Wisps of something grey and smoke-like rose from its fur, and every second the corpse seemed to become less.

“It’s not my loot,” she said, holding up the crystal. “So I can’t get anything from it.”

“Be my guest.” Kiran said with a smile, “Call it payment for helping us out.”

[Qek Scavenger Stone: would you like to loot?]

Lisa spoke again almost the moment Kiran had permitted her to loot it.

Well, that’s interesting.

“So you trade these stones?” She asked, turning it over in her hand as she inspected it in the sunlight.

“Most of the villages out here do. There aren’t many ways to sustain your living this far from more civilized lands.”

It made sense if she thought about it. Villages and towns didn’t just pop into existence unless there was a need and a way to support them. Erin tucked the stone into her pocket and knelt down to pick up her loot. She slipped the coins and meat directly into her inventory before grabbing the sphere.

[Augment Rune: Resistance]

Augment Rune: Resistance - Fireball: For a brief period of time after casting Fireball, The Mage becomes highly resistant to damage from heat sources.

Augment Rune: Resistance - Mirage Wyrm’s Wings: Wings formed by this spell are more resistant to damage.

Erin frowned at the options. Her initial instinct had been to go with the fire resistance. She had already discovered she was not immune to the dangers of her own spell, but this augment sounded like it would change that. Eliminating the risk that she would seriously injure herself. The fact that so far her wing spell had been of limited use weighed things even more in favor of the fireball. She chewed on her lip thoughtfully, lost in the internal debate until Kiran brought her back to reality.

“That’s a magic thing, right?” He asked, pointing at the sphere in her hand. “It’s how you lot learn spells?”

“Sort of,” Erin said, holding it out to him. “This one changes the way spells work.” Kiran took it in his hand and scrutinized it.

“Feels odd.” He said, moving his hand up and down as if weighing it. “Like how it feels when you Mages make those moving tattoos on your skin.” Erin took the sphere back, curious. She knew the sensation that Kiran described. The weight of magic in the air. Like being deep underwater, if the water had a steady electric current. Gurty had practically drowned her in it, and then there was the pressure around the Mirage Wyrm’s bones. So wide-ranging and steady. She shuddered to think what it had felt like to be in its presence when it was alive.

Now that she was looking for it, she could feel it on the sphere as well. A tiny pressure, barely worth noting. She slipped it into her inventory, and it vanished from her hand, deciding it was better if she consulted with Sigrid before deciding about how to use the Rune. Kiran shook his head at the vanished sphere.

“It must be nice,” he said. “Just making things vanish and reappear. No need for all this.” He gestured over his shoulder at the pack he wore, shield strapped over it. Erin said nothing. Instead, she slung her own shield over her shoulder. She could’ve stored it in her inventory, but carried it. Smoke-like magic rose from the corpses of slain qek as the other Hunters had set about the gory task of collecting the stones.

“I sure would’ve liked to get that big one’s stone. Mages woulda paid a fortune for a new qek type.” Kiran said with a sigh. Erin glanced in the direction the beast-man had run off, vanishing easily into the snow-covered forest. Every time she saw one of them, she got a sense of unease. Like something inside her knew that the pale qek didn’t belong.

“We’ve killed a few, but they don’t go down easy,” Erin said. The monster had retreated almost as soon as the Hunters had clashed with its small band of qek. Apparently not confident in its smaller cousins' odds against trained and armed humans.

Not nearly as easy as attacking unarmed villagers.

Erin's mouth twisted with scorn at the thought, and Kiran patted her on the shoulder.

“I can see they make your thoughts turn dark.” He said, “I guess that’s another reason to take it down. What do you say?” Erin was confused for a moment, turning to him.

“You want to follow it?”

“Sure, why not?”

Erin considered it. If she followed her gut, she’d agree to charge into the wilderness, bringing down as many of the beast-men as they could find, but every time she thought of how she’d charged off on her own, and had to be rescued by Sigrid, she burned with shame and embarrassment. Sigrid hadn’t brought it up, but Erin didn’t need to be told she was foolish. She’d endangered her friend, and for what?

Do I want to help people, or is this something else?

If she were doubting her own motivations, then perhaps it was best to set aside her feelings and consider what Sigrid would do instead. She arrived at her answer quickly.

“We should go back. We found out what we came for. They’re sending scouting parties in this direction. There is a lot more than we can handle, and we don’t want to stumble into the main force.” She hoped that was right. Sigrid always took the sensible approach, the option with the least risk.

Unless she’s saving you from yourself

Erin clenched her jaw at her self-recriminations as Kiran spoke.

“You’re probably right, I wasn’t sure about all this qek army stuff, but I felt that way about your giant qek and they sure exist. If you ain’t been wrong yet, I figure it’s time to mind what ya say. No offense, ma’am.”

“It’s understandable,” she said with a nod. “You didn’t know me, and I get the impression Mages aren’t the nicest people normally.” Some of the men shuffled, suddenly uncomfortable.

“I can’t speak on that ma’am, I don’t know many Mages myself,” Kiran said diplomatically before turning back the way they’d come. “Best to be starting back. It gets cold after dark and It’d be best if we didn’t camp out.”

As the group turned away, Erin pushed a corpse over with her boot. Grey smoke still rolled off the fur-covered skin, spiraling into the air a short way above the body before vanishing. It was as if they were breaking down, the bits of them floating away without the stone core to hold them together. Jetriser was a strange place.

Do I have a core like that?

[No, you have a soul.]

These don’t?

[They’re monsters.]

“You coming mage-girl?” Erin looked up, realizing the entire group had stopped and was now watching her stare down at the rapidly vanishing corpse.

“Yeah,” Erin replied, turning away and moving to catch up. “Sorry.” She fell into step beside the young Monster Hunter, but neither of them spoke. The more she learned about this world, the more questions she had. In her old life, she had set aside questions about the nature of the soul. It had been too abstract for her, too ephemeral. She preferred things you could see with your eyes, touch with your hands.

She gripped the yellow gemstone in her pocket, squeezing it tight. Erin didn’t have one of these stones at her core, because she had a soul. She turned the revelation over in her mind. Why did it feel important? She went in mental circles, frustrated at the sense she was close to understanding something that was just out of reach.

“You’re thinking hard about something, I can tell.” Erin glanced at Kiran and then shrugged as she pulled the stone from her pocket, holding it in her palm.

“Where do you think Monsters go when they die?”

“Why should they go anywhere? They’re just Monsters.” He seemed genuinely confused at the notion.

“I did, we do.”

“Sorry, what was that?”

“After we die, we-”

[He won’t be able to understand you.]

Lisa cut her off, and Erin realized Kiran was wearing a confused expression.

“Sorry ma’am, but I don’t speak whatever language that is.”

[You cannot tell Tier 1s what happens after death. It is impossible.]

“Nevermind,” she said with a shake of her head. “It’s nothing.” He seemed to take her at her word and turned his attention away from her. Jetriser was indeed a strange place.