“Jane, wait!” Kodiak hissed as I raced out from behind the cover of the Bindstone.

“You two get out of here!” I shouted over my shoulder as I ran down the slope towards town, arcing out to the left to attack the Arugian flank.

“We’re not leaving you!” Gehman shouted back.

“Kodiak, get him out of here!” I snapped as the lead Arugian fired again. But he wasn’t aiming at me.

The bolt crashed into the ground just in front of the Bindstone, and I looked back as Gehman and Kodiak were hurled backwards from the force of the shot. Gehman’s health was almost completely gone. There was no time.

As the Arugian reloaded, I dashed forward with both daggers held high. The Arugian turned towards me as I slid both of them into his side. I pulled back and randomly activated one of my abilities. I hadn’t seen half of them before, which probably meant they were very high level. This one was Mutilate.

I felt a surge of strength on my right side that naturally spun me around to my left. I brought both daggers together and drove them into the Arugian’s chest, ripping away a good chunk of his health. I raised my arms to strike again, when a crossbow bolt slammed into me.

The pain was unbelievable, and sent me tumbling backwards. I managed to land on my feet, gasping for air. There was no time to waste, and I leapt to my feet and rushed back at my target whose health was approaching half.

He raised his crossbow at me, but I kicked it hard and re-directed his shot towards the sky. The bolt soared upwards like a rocket trying to reach orbit. I activated a skill called Eviscerate and felt a surge of speed in my hands. I unloaded on the archer with everything I had, carving away at his health as fast as I could.

“Jane, lookout!” Kodiak shouted behind me. I glanced to my right and saw the rest of the patrol closing in on me. I only had seconds, and my health was low enough that another bolt would definitely kill me.

“Shit!” I hissed, ducking as the Arugian swung out at me with a heavy fist. I dodged to the side to avoid his backhand, and quickly glanced at my skills.

That’s it! I thought as he raised his crossbow again.

I slid forward, closing the distance between us, and activated Disarm.

A clash of metal rang out through the air as the game guided my hand up towards his bow. My dagger connected, then twisted to the side. With the sound of a heavy chain snapping, the crossbow flew from the Arugian’s grip and landed on the ground behind me.

“She did it!” Gehman shouted. I turned around and snatched the crossbow from the ground and took off. It still wasn’t a fight we could win, but I had all I needed. Staying around any longer would surely end badly.

The patrol roared behind me as I sprinted back to the Bindstone, waving at Kodiak and Gehman.

“Go, go, go!” I shouted.

Kodiak hopped up and started running. Gehman quickly followed. I saw they had both healed to full, leaving me, the highest level in the group, ironically the most vulnerable. My lack of armor wasn’t helping the situation either.

Behind us, I Arugians fire again. There was no time to look back and check the trajectory of their shots. Snatching Gehman by the wrist, I cut hard to the left as a volley crashed down beside us.

“Holy schnikes!” Gehman shouted as we barreled forward. He was significantly slower than Kodiak and me, being a meager level 24, which meant neither of us could run as fast as our characters would allow us. But it wasn’t too long before we were out of range of the Arugian Archers. I could hear their crossbow bolts plunking down harmlessly into the ground behind us as we raced on towards Cragrock.

“That was close!” Gehman shouted, smiling over at me as we came down the hill onto the dusty road that led West.

Still overly nice and naïve, I thought as we slowed our pace to a brisk walk. That’s what got him killed last time.

“Those were some sick moves back there!” Gehman grinned. “What were those abilities?”

“You know what?” I chuckled. “I don’t even know. I haven’t even looked at my character sheet that hard. One was Eviscerate and one was Mutilate.”

“Dagger skills,” Kodiak chimed in. “From the Combat skill tree. I’m spread out between the Stealth and Assassination trees.”

I opened my character sheet and took a glance at the abilities listed there.

Eviscerate: Speed 150%. Damage 225%.

Mutilate: Two Handed Spin Attack. Damage 175%.

Ambush: Ambush the target, causing 400% damage.

Eye Gouge: Incapacitate the target for 3 seconds.

Blade Flurry: For 5 seconds your melee attacks strike all targets within a 3 meter radius.

Rush: Increase your attack speed by 20% for 5 seconds.

Disarm: Chance to disarm the enemy’s primary weapon. Chance increases with skill.

It appeared as though Wintermute had completely maxed out the Combat skill tree for me. Each ability appeared to have four levels, represented by small dots around the edge of the icon. All of mine were glowing.

“Wow,” I said, taking it all in. “When did all this skill tree stuff happen?”

“You serious?” Kodiak chuckled. “What level were you before all this happened?”

“What does that matter?” I asked.

“Everyone knows you have to choose a skill tree when you hit level 75,” Kodiak replied. “For melee characters anyway.”

“Well, I was an archer,” I retorted. “Still am.”

I inspected the crossbow I’d taken off the Arugian Archer:

Superior Arugian Crossbow—Damage Modifier 95%.

In Call of Carrethen, bows functioned a bit differently than melee weapons. Instead of having a base damage range, bows had a damage modifier that was part of the calculation that determined your damage. It was complicated, but took into account your Coordination, Bow skill, and the quality of your arrows. As far as I knew, the damage modifiers only went up to 113%, but seeing as how this was the Dark World, I doubted that was still true.

“I hate crossbows, but it’ll do for now,” I said. “As soon as we can find some arrows.”

“There used to be a bowyer in Cragrock,” Kodiak replied. “If he’s still there, we could pickup some before the Arugian catch up to us.”

“I’m fresh out of Pareals,” I remarked, staring at my inventory which was completely empty aside from my three weapons and a Peerless Health Kit.

“I’ve got some!” Gehman said cheerfully. “Crossbow Bolts aren’t expensive anyway. This is too cool! You’ve got your bow back—it’s like the return of D!”

“Gehman,” I said slowly. “What is your character? Like, have you put any experience into anything beyond smithing?”

“Nope!” He replied instantly, still smiling for some reason. “All I ever wanted was to be Carrethen’s best blacksmith.”

“Okay, that’s great,” I replied. “But now that the whole world has gone to shit and towns don’t even appear to be safe from random monster raids anymore, don’t you think you should start leveling up a combat skill?”

“Mmmm, that’s a good point,” he said, scratching his chin as he thought to himself. “I could always do maces! Cavey told me once about some Legendary hammer that was a reward for a high level quest. He said it was all golden and awesome! If I could get one of those that would be sick!”

“Yeah, okay,” I said with a sigh.

This world is going to chew you up and spit you out again, Gehman, I thought as we pressed on towards Cragrock.