Some facts I was forced to find out the hard way, Presented for your convenience:

1: Monsters are almost always tougher than they look, make sure they are dead before moving on.

2: It doesn't matter if they have poison fangs or claws, that bite/cut is going to get infected if you don't clean it and dress it properly.

3: Gangrene is a thing, and it's horrible.

4: Distributed nervous systems are a bitch to deal with, so headshots are not always the way to go.

5: Bullets work perfectly fine against non-enhanced Humans, monsters, and other sapients, however against anyone with any sort of ability they are worth less than the metal they require.

6: Use your ability in bizarre ways, Otherwise you will have no idea what to do when bizarre situations come up. Ever fought a sentient patch of dirt? How about a man-eating lawn of grass? You will.

To the surprise of functionally no one, my parents were not at the manor/compound. They were often overseas, managing international interests and lording their wealth over the 'less fortunate'. I was never find of the life they wanted for me. Formal parties, custom tailored suits with five figure price tags, keeping up the masquerade of happiness and success because to them, appearance was everything.

Dress this way, mind your nanny, learn to ride a gryphon, learn to fence, chin up, shoulders back, take it like a man, suck it up and deal with it, this is your life, no you can't go outside with friends, listen to your tutors, recite this for me in Latin, on and on for nearly two decades before I snapped. My father told me I would be back in less than a week begging for his help. My mother sighed and told me to getnover my theatrics. I left, got a job, an apartment, and lived my life for 5 whole years without ever once requesting their aid or visiting them. They didn't seem to mind.

Sitting around the gaudy dining room table that evening, the three of us talked about our plans going forward. The workers were gone from the grounds. Likely dead or returned home to protect their families. The slowly darkening night was full of howls, screams, and distant explosions. I could feel the tension in the air like a vibration in my skull. The palpable reality of what was happening cutting into our minds like a bucket of icewater.

We were terrified, and ended up hunkering in the fortified basement for the night, shifting as uneasy sleep took us one by one.

I dreamt of a field of flowers, towers of blackened stone and bloodied ivory. There was a road cutting through the strange mixture of idyll and abject horror. It slid past the blackened towers, their shape looking like crooked fingers burnt to the bone, and it cut through the hills around the towers of ivory and blood. There wasn't really a sense of time, but if I had to guess I'd say I spent a very, very long time following that strange road through scenes of beautiful nightmare. Until everything began to shift to grey, and the world slowly changed to Ash. A grey snowfall tasting bitter on my tongue, black, shattered glass replacing the ground more and more as I continued forward.

It all made sense in my mind, as dreams often do. Of course it rained ash here, of course the ground was giant sheets of misshapen, shattered obsidian. It was perfectly logical too, that straining, I could *hear* the Veil again, whispering through my mind, I could FEEL the shrouded pillar I had seen the night before, the soft sound of silk on stone echoing over even the roars and screams of the battle that was of course raging in the distance. I could see the shape hidden beneath the shroud of the veil, and with a peculiar twist of the mind reached out and pulled the veil away.

There, in the view of my mind alone I saw a blade, simple in its design and dull in color held by a stone hand.

I wish I could say that I grabbed the blade and all was well. I really do. Truth be told I recoiled. The blade felt like a part of me, like I'd always had it but never pulled it out for some reason. New sensations warred with my failing sense of logic and I balked. Shuddering to wakefulness to the sounds of shouting and clanging, my sweat soaked form being shaken by Astrea.

"Wake your sleepy ass up! Your little sister is upstairs holding off homeinvaders you dumb fuck!" Nobody has in the history of the world accused Astrea of being particularly diplomatic. It was always strange to me how she became a teacher's assistant with the mouth of a sailor, and the mind of an overly enthusiastic drill sergeant.

Then of course, the adrenaline hit and I was up, had my gun, and was charging up the stairs. Shoving open the heavy door at the top I could see my sister surrounded by a trio of weapon weilding individuals. A chain, a tire iron, and a very old revolver pistol. As my sister had a seven foot long spear of crystallized blood in her hands they were keeping their distance, taunting and waving as the pistol guy lined up for a shot. I lifted my gun to my shoulder, sight, exhale, squeeze the trigger, *click*.

I knew there was a bullet in the chamber, and in a panick I went to chamber another round, pulling back the slide until the dud went flying out. Chamber, sight, wait... The goon was looking at his gun in confusion, no matter, squeeze trigger, *click*. The odds of two rounds in a row being duds are astronomical, but possible. However at this point I was beginning to have some suspicions that this had something to do with the Lady of Light. After the third click confirmed it, I now had a very expensive, very unwieldy club, which I didn't hesitate to use, bashing in the back of Mr. Tire Iron's skull with a loud *crunch*.

I wasn't fast enough to see what happened next, but based on what I've gathered, pistol guy drew a knife and jumped at mys sister while chain guy tried to catch her spear with his unusual weapon choice. The result was two more dead men, and my sister with a knife sticking out of her abdomen. She just kind of froze up, her eyes going unnaturally wide, before toppling backwards, thankfully landing with the knife up.

I tried to remember my first aid skills, keeping pressure while screaming for Astrea to get bandages, but I'm honestly not sure exactly what happened. Neither of them will speak about it to me to this day. I do know that I saw red, heard the impossibly loud sound of sliding silk, and everything faded to black.