In the mapping room there were directly the two Captains, Cvor and Canter, looking at the reports and discussing strategies. The look on their faces was not good, but they never looked happy in the first place. This time it was Gera opening the conversation:

“Captains, Team 17 reporting after resurrection”

“Report” Captain Cvor said.

“Here is the map we had explored before death. As you can see we were not able to explore much new territory before our demise, but at least we have brought death to many enemies. Two squads of Srenc were killed and some members of another also were ended” Gera informed him.

“I see. It seems like the Srenc’s activity in that area is quite high. I sent back there the team which had died before yours and two other teams as support. I have yet to receive any information, but they have left only two days ago, so they are probably still scouting that zone. I need more info, so you should retrace your steps and find out what we are dealing with. If you meet one of the other teams, join hands. I expect that to be the general direction of the path to the Srenc’s village. If possible explore as much as you can and retreat even without meeting any enemies. I don’t want to wait five more days for you travelers to resurrect.”

“Ok Sir.” Gera replied.

Given their orders, Team 17 left to get some provisions and rest for a couple of hours before departing. Zortex laid down on his favorite spot and looked at the renewed maps, resizing to see the whole discovered territory. To the South a lot more terrain had been scouted and there had been just a dozen scuffles with Srenc, half of the time lost by the humans. There seemed to be also more high-leveled monsters, not the kind forming tribes, but strong enough to endanger some noobs like the travelers roaming the zone. It was becoming clear that the Srenc’s village was located somewhere more to the North, and that was the general direction that the scouting parties were being sent to. Judging from the information he was looking at, the humans were on the losing side at the moment: seven fights out of ten were losses or retreats. The average level of the Srenc found until now was approximately 10, whereas the starting point for most of the travelers was level 1 and with no real battle experience. It was understandable that the beginning would be like this. The more the time went on and the more the noobs would level, so an equilibrium would be reached. Zortex looked at the map one more time and then he closed it and his eyes moved into a specific direction, some red light appearing from them and barely breaking through his Shadow Mask.

Unholy Vengeance level 4

The closer you are to your target the more you will feel his presence and it will guide you to your deserved revenge

Not for the first time Zortex had activated the skill and he was satisfied to still feel the Srenc who had killed him. He was afraid that if he wasn’t fast enough someone else would snatch the kill from him.

“Time to go Shad. Before night I want to get to the position we reached with our trainer the first day. It should be safe enough and a good start for tomorrow morning.” Gera told him with Rizza and Jake on her heels.

Jake looks really dispirited now. I should be the brooding and silent one. He should keep to his role of cheerful and chatty group member instead of stealing my appearance. Maybe I should cast a Blind on his face and then we can form the ‘Silent Shadows duo’.

The group moved again and they made good time reaching previously explored locations without interference. Night had descended and the other members stopped to lay down.

“One of us should keep guard. We are still far from the most dangerous zone, but Srenc are not the only things we must be afraid of. Anyway we don’t really need to sleep, but with this darkness we cannot do anything else” Gera suggested.

“I will be on guard” Jake said right away.

“But I wanted to fall asleep close to each other” Rizza complained shyly.

“There will be time in the future. I will feel better if I do something useful right now, otherwise I will stay in a bad mood also tomorrow” Jake replied.

“Ok, it’s decided. Jake will stay up tonight. Tomorrow night I will do it. Afterwards it will be Shad and Rizza. Any objections?” Gera said and when nobody spoke she finished by saying: “Good. Now go to sleep. As soon as we have some light we will move out tomorrow. Jake, if there is any danger, either you will wake us silently in case we haven’t been discovered yet, or if we have been spotted, be as loud as possible so that we will know something is wrong and we will react fast.”

Gera and Rizza went to sleep, but Shad decided against it. It was true that he always needed plenty of sleep to recharge his brain after all the stress of having heightened senses all the time, but even more true was that night was his domain. During the day he had always to conceal himself, hiding his true potential to avoid the painful consequences, but in the dark he was finally free to see the world around him in all its glory. Zortex took out the bandages from his eyes and he stopped the Shadow Mask from darkening his view, and finally the forest opened up to him in all its brightness. He could distinguish all details around him, from the faces of his companions to the bird nest one hundred meters away.

This feels awesome. I cannot waste my time sleeping when I am the most productive. I will go do some patrolling, and then sleep a few hours before morning.

Zortex left the camp silently, Jake unaware of his absence. He started walking in the direction they would continue the next day, which was also the direction he was getting his signal from the Vengeance skill. For three hours he moved around, quietly enjoying the scenery and keeping an eye for any dangers. The only things he found were a couple of the centipede monsters which he swiftly killed with some Decay Bolts, rather than Acidic Shots, since he still needed to train the spell better. He collected one body and he let Pravin eat the other. It was quite comical seeing his pet stretch out to envelope the bigger monster and then contract again as if nothing was inside him at that moment. Zortex was also curious to see if somehow one of Pravin’s skills activated.

Skill: Consumption

The owner of the skill slowly consume one of its victims to increase the recovery of Health, Stamina and Mana. The quantity of the regeneration depends on the subject consumed and the level of the skill.

· The movement speed is reduced by 30% while the skill is active.

· 0.1% chance to take the shape and characteristic of the monster consumed.

Someday he would be lucky and see Pravin transform before his eyes. It would also work as a special disguise: for example if his pet consumed a Srenc and transformed he could infiltrate the enemy base without the need of all of this reconnaissance. On his way back Zortex also stumbled into a group of the chicken-like animals that he promptly killed and stored away for future use.

Jake: Shad….I know that you have left the camp and you are still alive, but at least you could have given some sign that you were going out. Now if I hear any noise I have no idea if it is an enemy or if it is just you coming back. Thanks a lot for proving that I suck so much at guarding that I didn’t even notice your absence.

Ops. I have left without making noises, but I forgot to leave something behind to make it look as if I was in the blankets. My mistake. Maybe I am depressing Jake too much. I will leave him a chicken as compensation.

Zortex reached the base without making noises and took out one the birds from his storage pouch. He moved to Jake side, who still hadn’t noticed him, and he touched his shoulder to let him know of his presence.

“Fuck!” Jake jumped out of his seat scared by the unexpected touch. Luckily he hadn’t sworn too loudly, so the girls were still asleep. “Fuck you man. You disappear and then come back like this to give me an heart attack. What do you have in your hand?” Jake said. Shad threw the dead chicken monster to his teammate, the head was missing from the kill, but usually it is taken out anyway before cooking.

“You went hunting this level 1 monsters? With your level they would give no experience at all, so why the effort to kill them? And how can you go hunting in this darkness?” Jake asked a bunch of questions. “Of course you will say nothing even though you can, so I’m just wasting air. See you at dawn….maybe you will feel more chatty in the morning”

Poor Jake. Just accept the meal and be happy. It doesn’t happen every day that someone brings you food for free. Probably he has never gone as hungry as I went, so he doesn’t know how thankful he should be. Nevertheless I had fun tonight, but it is time to get a few hours of sleep. It would be much better to sleep during the day and to move at night, but my useless teammates are not as cool as I am. I would ditch them if only I was strong enough to hunt by myself, but I am not ready yet...maybe.

The next morning Shad woke up by himself as soon as some light came up, even though the horizon was hidden by the endless amount of trees. He realized that he had forgot to put back some bandages over his eyes, so with just a shallow Shadow Mask covering his face he felt too much light and he couldn’t resist without some coverage. He reinforced the shadows on his face while he took out a couple of strips of tissue to cover his eyes. By the time he was done, Jake had realized that dawn had arrived, so he woke up the girls to have breakfast. Instead of cooking the gift from Zortex, they made a stew from the military provision they brought with them. The chicken monster brought by Zortex was left in the open on the spot where Jake had been sitting, which of course made the Slime warrior mad for the waste of food.

If nobody is going to take it before we leave I will just take it back and give to Pravin. Ungrateful bastards. Zortex thought.

“Jake, I just noticed the message you left in the group chat. What happened last night?” Gera asked.

“I was keeping guard, but at a certain point I looked back at you people and Shad was not there. I don’t know when he left, but after a few hours he came back and gave me one of those weird chicken animals” Jake replied.

“Well, he is weird. By now we should not be surprised anymore when he does weird stuff. But if he can go around hunting at night it could be useful to us. We can just let him keep guard every night from now on” Rizza interjected.

“Is it ok for you to keep guard at night?” Gera asked. Shad made sign with his head that it was not fine for him and he made a gesture that meant that he would roam the forest rather than staying still keeping guard. He hoped they would understand.

“Leave him. We can just not go to sleep for a few nights. The deeper we get into the forest the more risky it becomes, so maybe it is better to not lay down completely until we find a spot hidden enough to feel safe.” Jake said.

“It would be really boring, but tonight we can try like this” Gera said. “Now we should move. Let’s make full use of the sun and find some Srenc. I have the feeling that we will have a battle soon”

For the rest of the day Team 17 walked and walked and walked, however there were no encounters apart from some of the low level monsters that lived around. Before night arrived they settled down to have dinner, using a fire while there was still some light and it would not give away their position. After eating they still walked half an hour more to avoid the possibility of some monsters following the scent of the smoke and attacking their previous lair. When the other people stopped, Zortex simply left the camp, this time without being subtle about it, since everyone knew already about his escapes. When they asked him questions he just shrugged.

The Unholy Vengeance tells me that my assassin is in that direction, so I will follow that path. How far is it? I have no idea how strong this sensation in my body should be when I am really close, but for sure it is getting stronger. Zortex thought.

After two hours of walking, Shad smelled them. Although dampened by the bandages, his sense of smell was still as strong as the one of a dog, or so he suspected. The problem was that the smell was coming from his left, whereas the signal from his skill was pointing to his front. Apparently it was not the same group of Srenc that had killed him the week before. Zortex struggled for a bit deciding how to proceed: from one side he really wanted to get his revenge, but from the other side he didn’t know how far he was from his target and he didn’t want to put another group of Srenc behind his back. After some consideration he turned left, because at the very least he wanted to know what he was dealing with. He moved stealthily for 10 minutes until he reached a small clearing in the forest. In the middle there were four bodies, some snoring coming out of their mouths. They were poorly armored and their levels were all 8, so Zortex suspected that he had stumbled in a noob group of Srenc, considering their standards levels. Knowing their tactics he started circling the clearing as silently as he was able to, looking for a scout on the trees or in the underbrush, however he didn’t see any after a full turn.

Weird. There should be someone guarding the others during the night. Should I look again? Nah. I have the advantage of the surprise. I can charge an Acidic Shot so strongly that it will splash over all four of them. That will be a one-shot quadra-kill. Even if there is a scout that I was not able to notice, if it is a one on one battle I can kill it easily, or even if they are two. I have the advantage of the night. In this darkness I am invincible. Well not invincible, but at least I can consider myself buffed.

As planned, Zortex charged an Acidic Shot with approximately 60 % of his mana. The making of the spell was basically silent, thus the poor sleeping Srenc didn’t even wake up before being hit by the solution of acidic and corrosive liquid which splashed all over their bodies. The screams sounded for a few seconds, but with such a clean shot three of them had barely any time to make any noise before their faces melted. The fourth one instead was not hit so cleanly, Shad overestimating the amount of acid shot, so it was able to stand up and try to run away. The Srenc’s HP were fast depleting, probably he would have died in a minute more or less, but its bad luck was to actually run in Zortex’s direction. Shad had not been spotted, but just to fasten the kill and stop the screams he shot a Decay Bolt which ended the enemy. Now that it was silent again, Zortex stood still, focusing on his ears to hear any possible noise of a remaining Srenc, however there were no sounds. Happy with his kills he checked his exp and saw that he had not leveled yet, with just a tiny bit remaining to do. Of course Pravin was with him, so even though he had not taken part in the battle he still had sucked half of the experience he had gained. Shad was about to leave when he remembered something very important: he was getting poorer every day, and this quest was not only about making experience, but also about making money, and every horn of a Srenc was worth one silver coin, thus he went back to their corpses and he collected the spoils. Obviously there were no other important items dropped, considering how weak and poorly dressed these Srenc were, so he left to get back to their camp. He was satisfied with for now and he needed some rest for his brain after all the senses he had overused.