As time ticked onward, Faye felt the nerves rise higher and higher. Taveon was still out there. Presumably the kids were not yet safe. But she was still sitting on a bed, meditating to try and recover enough mana to do something.

Of course, the more she worried, the less she was able to meditate.

Faye had no evidence that meditation was helping her recover mana faster, but in the absence of evidence either way, she would rather try it and get even a minuscule bonus than nothing at all.

But at the back of her mind, her own voice nagged at her to move, to get out there and do what she was supposed to do.

It had been maybe forty-five minutes since she had driven off the corrupted hound. Before that, it had taken the better part of an hour to get through the streets and find Maggie. The problem was that the longer they stayed, the harder it would be to find Taveon and the children if they were still moving.

The minor flickers of mana that she had had left after the fight downstairs had grown to a small fire, or a couple of handfuls of water, if she went by the ‘pool’ analogy that they had first told her.

Faye got up from the bed, she had not slept but the meditation had restored some of the usual feeling of readiness she was used to. Maggie woke up at her movement.

“I feel awful,” Maggie said. “How long was I asleep?”

“Maybe half an hour,” Faye replied. “Not long at all.”

“That explains it,” Maggie replied. “I’ve never been a good napper.”

Faye nodded. She smoothed her clothes a little and tried to push back the strands of hair that had escaped her utility braid in the fight that until now she had not had the energy to restore. “I figure,” she said as she worked, “that we should go to the street you know he was last in, then try and follow the most likely path. We sneak past most things, take out what we can’t avoid.”

Maggie agreed with Faye’s plan. It was the best they had for now. As they were preparing to leave the bed chamber, Maggie quietly said, “I’m afraid we won’t get to him in time.”

Faye paused. She did not turn to look at her friend, immediately. Instead, she quietly responded with, “I know.”

But then, she turned with fake cheer and said, “But he’s a tough old man, he’ll be okay.”

Faye pretended not to notice the stricken look Maggie had plastered all over her face.

“If we rush in, we die,” Faye said, “so, let’s make sure we do this right. That huge… whatever it was would take us out in an instant.”

Maggie nodded. “You’re right. I know. I think the pressure of the situation has just hit me. I realised as I was lying there that there’s a good chance Taveon dies if I don’t do something about it.”

Faye crossed to her friend and grabbed her shoulder and lightly shook her. “Hey, we are doing something about it. Now, chin up, we’re going out there and we can’t be distracted by wandering thoughts. Okay? Push it out, for now. We’ll deal with it later if we must.”

“Doesn’t sound healthy,” Maggie said, a ghost of a smile on her lips.

“It’s not,” Faye said. “Don’t tell my therapist.”

“What’s a therapist?”

Faye just sighed. “Of course there are no such things as therapists. One problem at a time! Let’s go.”

Downstairs, they decided to leave the kitchen furniture piled against the broken back door. Faye did feel bad about it, but when they walked past one of the big rooms on the ground floor, she felt herself go pale.

“We didn’t check the other rooms,” she said, as Maggie joined her looking in.

Maggie’s in-drawn breath was her only response.

What looked to be the entire wall of windows were broken open. Some glass littered across the plush carpet and the broken and tossed furniture. Mostly, wood shards were strewn about from the shutters that were no longer hanging in front of the portals to the outside.

“How did we miss this?” Maggie said.

“Stupidity. We should have realised. How did the hound get in?” Faye kicked herself. “It was pure luck that it didn’t come back as soon as our guard was down.”

Maggie sighed. “You’re right. We must be more careful.”

“How many Guards are there, by the way?” Faye asked. She was still staring at the giant hole in the wall.

“Around a full twenty, I think,” Maggie replied. “We’ve never needed many, until now.”

“Because the Guild covers external threats, normally,” Faye finished. “Well, let’s move. This is making me feel exposed, just standing here.”

Leaving the front doors barred and the back barricaded, they both hopped through the hole left when the corrupted hound had broken into the manor in the first place.

The lawn they dropped into was immaculate, if a little bare along with the season. There were no flowers, and some of the shrubs had lost their leaves for the winter. Others were evergreen, but with a scent that was subtly different from the pine or fir scents that Faye was used to.

Active Swordfighter’s Sense did not show her any nearby hostile presences, so she gestured for Maggie to follow and ran back to the side gate in the garden wall they had broken to gain entry.

The street was as empty as it had been earlier. It was odd, still, to see everything so empty. There should be more people than this.

“Where is everyone?” Faye asked, quietly.

“Gone to the fallback sites. Defensible locations throughout the town. They’re the same place that public stores are kept, so they’ll all be fine… if they made it to one.”

Nodding, Faye carried on. It was hard for her to get used to the way life was in Lóthaven. Parts of humanity here seemed so familiar, achingly so sometimes, and then knowing that each townsperson knew of the closest ‘bunker’, for lack of a better term, was incongruous.

“Alright, the street you saw Taveon last?”

It was the next one over, a wider street that was lined with residences. None of these properties had large walls, but there were some knee-high, decorative walls that denoted small plots of grass and bushes, or even a small tree.

Faye was in the middle of admiring the tree’s pretty growth in the middle of an otherwise ordinary town street when they heard a piercing scream rent the air.

They both spun towards the origin of the scream and set off at a run.

A couple of turns later, they emerged into a small plaza or courtyard that a food establishment abutted. There were small tables and seats laid out, some of which even had hastily abandoned mugs of drink and plates of food still arrayed across them.

On the other side of the space, a little boy was struggling against the tight grip of a Primalist. Their manner of dress almost the same as the ones Faye and the others had already fought, however this one had chosen flat bones to adorn his hood rather than antlers.

He laughed as the boy struggled to get away from him, but his grip was too strong for the lad.

Just as Faye was about to step into the plaza, she felt someone, or something, on the back of her neck. Turning, she looked down an adjacent street. In the middle distance, it turned and carried onwards, but there at the junction stood another Primalist.

They were staring directly at Faye. She could not see their expression, but this one oozed a sense of danger, that even at this distance Faye’s Swordfighter’s Sense was telling her was too strong for her. Her heart rate doubled immediately, and a cold sweat broke out on her back.

The watching Primalist did nothing, however, except turn and slowly walk in the opposite direction.

Maggie had drawn the wooden blade and had hefted her shield already.

“Faye, come on!” she whispered, urging her to get started. She hadn’t turned to see the watching Primalist.

Shaking herself, Faye turned and drew the short arming sword. She rotated her head a little, rolled her shoulders, and bounced on the balls of her feet.

“Stay close, we go in hard and fast. Can’t risk magic for the boy. Only option is melee.”

Maggie, looking more worried than Faye had ever seen her, nodded sharply. Faye grimaced. Back at home, there were probably vast reams of paper dedicated to what happened when a suspect had hold of a minor.

She bet that at the top, in giant black letters, it said “DON’T ANTAGONISE THE SUSPECT” or something like that.

You work with the tools you have.

And right then, the tools Faye had were the sword in her hand and the small, fierce fire at her core. It was being fed by her anger and frustration; but secretly, her fear was the strongest fuel of all.

Starting off slowly moving forward, by the time she was three steps in, she was flat out sprinting across the open space. Taking a curve to avoid the chairs and tables still set out before the cafe, Faye came into the eyeline of the Primalist a little too early.

It could not be helped.

The man flinched. He must not have been expecting company.

He dragged the boy back with him, as he put his back to the wall of the building beside him.

“You’re too—” he began.

Faye could not have cared less about what he was going to say.

She pointed at the Primalist, baring her teeth in an angry parody of a smile.

Drawing a hatchet from his belt, the Primalist held it up as if he was going to throw it at her, but then jerked his head to the side.

She knew what the threat was.

I’ll do it, he had said, with that head motion.

Fucking try it, she replied. Putting on a burst of speed and snatching a mug of something from the table she skirted, she flicked it forward. The man’s instincts were not fantastic. Rather than avoiding the improvised projectile, he slammed his hatchet through it.

The ceramic mug broke apart, showering the boy in small pieces of mug that made him cry out. His captor hardly cared; he was staring at Faye with wild eyes.

Faye was only a half dozen steps away, now; the man’s hatchet was still recovering from his wild downswing that had had too much power put into the blow.

At this distance, she was not close enough to engage with the sword.

But that was not her only weapon.

Throwing her left hand forward, again, this time Faye called the mana burning inside her to the fore. It ignited on her command and slammed forward. At this distance there was very little Faye had to do to its trajectory to force it to take a clear path.

It slammed into the man’s chest, exploding in heat and force that all transferred to the spot the dart had hit, just left of centre.

The boy flinched away, and somehow the Primalist’s grip had come loose. The boy was freed. He stepped back, suddenly, and then threw himself down and away from the man dressed in forest greens and browns, covered in old bones.

Faye understood the feeling.

The Primalist recovered from the Fire Dart to the chest quicker than she had guessed he would. He lifted the hatchet, ready to deliver another strong blow — this time directly to her skull.

Of course, Faye did not come straight for the man. She feinted forward, then collapsed her advance to the right, dodging the hatchet blow that fell almost straight down. She cut at the extended arm the Primalist had left out. She bit into the man’s bracer, also made of bone, which surprisingly held up well against the steel blade.

He grunted and withdrew his arm.

Drawing a knife in his left hand, holding it point down, he put up both hands as if he were in a boxing ring.

Faye backed off a step. Rushing into a close confrontation with a knife wielder was bad news when she did not have the full reach advantage of a longer blade.

Calmly waiting, Faye thrust out her left hand again as if she were going to cast Fire Dart once more.

The Primalist ducked, then swarmed forward, swinging the hatchet and preparing the knife for her eye or neck perhaps.

Instead, he met Maggie’s shield.

Despite the long, corrupted hound’s vine that they had pulled from the wood before setting out again, the shield was more than serviceable. The hatchet bounced off the layered wood, and the knife was not long enough to catch Maggie around the rim.

Faye charged in for a series of cuts, short slashes that she reset quickly. The Primalist had to retreat rapidly with each slash. She let out a final cut, but this one he boldly parried with the knife. She felt the blade cut his arm, but then she had to retreat herself as the hatchet came for her. This time, she flicked her hand up and point-blank blasted a Fire Dart at him.

He staggered backward. Faye followed with a grim expression locked on her face. She bore down on him, her first blow landing on the meaty triceps of his knife-wielding arm. With a cry of pain, he dropped the weapon and it bounced away as it hit the ground.

He swung the hatchet, but Faye stepped to the right, into his injured left side, and sliced down at the hand holding the wooden hatchet shaft. He was wary now and flinched backward.

She pressed him on it. His chest was covered in burns, his left arm dangling as he tried to cradle it against his side, and a nervous pressure on his mind that prevented him from coming for her again.

To his surprise, Maggie melted into view from his left. She had circled around the back of Faye to get at the side he was weakest on. She held the shield in front of her body, only an inch of her face showing so she could see. The wooden tip of the training sword coming out over the shield like a scorpion’s readied stinger.

For an instant, his eyes flicked to the newest threat.

Faye stepped forward.

The hatchet swung out, wildly.

Faye ducked the high swing and thrust out with the sword. At the same time, Maggie came in with the shield held high to intercept the hatchet. She thrust with her sword.

They both landed solidly.

Faye’s was barely effective. His armour, meagre though it was, deflected the somewhat dull point on the arming sword. It had done its job, though. The thrust to the stomach had been hard enough to hurt, and the Primalist had reacted instinctively to curl forward over the pain.

Maggie’s sword had then landed in the hollow of his throat. Despite the wooden construction, it held a sharp edge and tip. Her blow struck hard.

He dropped, dead, to the ground.

Congratulations! Your group have defeated a level 11 [Primalist Scout].

Experience awarded.

Congratulations! You have earned enough experience to level up. You are now level 9.

Into the silence following their fight, Faye and Maggie were breathing hard.

Quietly, Faye said, “Status.”

And, blessedly, the system responded.

~ Status ~

[Name:] Faye Weaver

[Class:] Swordfighter

[Level:] 9

[Aspect:] n/a

[Boons:] Experience boost (x2), Sprite’s Touch, System Ward

[Banes:] Spectre’s Gaze

[Stat Growth:] Tou+2, Str+2, Agi+1

~ Attributes ~

[Toughness:] 21

[Strength:] 23

[Reaction:] 12

[Agility:] 16

[Logic:] 10

[Intuition:] 14

[Willpower:] 13

[Charisma:] 9

[Magic:] 1

~ Skill List ~

[Skill Points:] 4

[Swordfighting – Basic] [Tier 0 – 5/5]

[Swordfighting – Intermediate] [Tier 1 – 3/5]

[Swordfighter's Sense] [Tier 1 – 2/5]

[Survival – Basic] [Tier 0 - 2/10]

~ Spell List ~

[Fire Dart] [Tier 0 - 3/5]

[Scorching Lance] [Tier 1 - 1/5]

Each line of information was immediately known to her, as if she had known it all along. She wondered at the attributes. They had increased massively!

“Oh, my, God,” she said.

“What’s the matter?” Maggie asked.

“I’ve just seen my status. Skills have tiers? Levels? What the hell is a boon, and what’s a bane?!”

Maggie’s eyes grew wider with each exclamation, until at the end she was staring open-mouthed.

“Uh, I don’t think we have the time to go into those right now…,” Maggie said with a frown. “What is the bane?”

“Spectre’s Gaze?” Faye said, looking at her friend from the corner of her eye. She was afraid she would lose the status screen the moment she was no longer looking at it.

Maggie shook her head, slowly. “Never heard of it, sorry.” Then, she grimaced. “The boy looks hurt; I’m going to see if he’ll talk to me. I know this is a big deal for you, Faye, but we knew you would get there. It’s happened. We need to carry on though, right?”

Taking a long look at the words in the status, Faye tried one more thing.

Spectre’s Gaze.

~ Spectre’s Gaze ~

You have felt the gaze of one of humanity’s darkest foes. Their presence is inimical to life and clings to the soul.

Faye read the two sentences a few times before speaking again.

“Utter bullshit. The bane has no information about it in there.”

Maggie nodded. “That’s common. There are certain things that the system cannot, or will not, tell us until we already know, or have some way of finding out more. Some spells can help with it, for example. Come on, let’s get this boy somewhere safe…”

Faye nodded. She needed to focus. The boy’s life was more important than her status or stats.

“Ahh, I see the scout met some of the locals.”

Faye and Maggie spun around to face the newcomer. Faye’s heart seized momentarily at the sight of them. They were not wearing what she had come to expect of the Primalists. Instead, they wore dark leathers that were layered over one another in such a way to create a stylish armoured robe, with a central piece of dark cloth that hung down to the knees.

Whoever it was, she could not see their face properly as they wore a hood and a face mask. Despite them announcing their presence, Faye would have said they looked like a stereotypical assassin or thief. Under the armoured robe, she could not tell what sex they were, either.

Their eyes bored into Faye’s own.

“Shall we dance, ladies?” they said, and with a gesture of their hands to the sides, two dark-metalled slender daggers with wicked looking curves dropped into waiting hands.