Faye’s eyes opened on the same, grisly courtyard and she instinctively frowned. She looked around at the children, who were mostly still crying. Two, in particular, were hugging each other. Maggie was stopping them from getting out of the huddle of children.

Everything was as Faye had left it, hours ago.

~ Warning! Negative effects of banes reasserting impact. ~

The now familiar sensation of a thick, heavy blanket dampened down her emotions and her mood. The shadows at the edges of the courtyard seemed more sinister, her brows knitted together harder, and the crying children set her nerves on a knife’s edge.

At least I have a reason for feeling this shitty, she said. Back home, it’s just wallowing in your own thoughts and wondering what the hell is happening.

Giving herself a mental shakedown, Faye stepped closer to Maggie and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder.

“How are you, Mags?” she asked. Her friend had been stabbed in the stomach only a few hours… no, an hour ago, at most. She should be bed-bound.

Maggie turned with a fake smile that looked more like a grimace. “Worst cramps I’ve ever had, but I can deal with it. The potions were high quality.”

Faye nodded. “You should not strain yourself though, I’m sure I heard Taveon say something about it still taking time.”

“Time, we don’t have,” Maggie replied, though she looked Faye up and down. “Though, it seems that you used yours well. Everything go as planned?”

Faye nodded, smiling. “Yes. Let’s get moving before we talk about it, though?”

“Yes, good idea,” Maggie replied.

Leaving Maggie with the kids for a moment, Faye moved back towards Taveon. The boy’s body was still laid in quiet repose. The sight of him stabbed her heart but was not quite the emotional blow of pain that she had received earlier.

“Taveon, there were adults, too,” Faye said, remembering. “But…”

Taveon nodded, looking up with hooded eyes. “Hoza saw them, over there, behind the thorns. Killed. Not easily, by the looks of things.”

Faye spat out a curse.

“We were too slow.”

“The adults were always in danger,” Taveon replied, “they are locked into their paths, their way of thinking. Children can be… recruited.”

Faye’s gaze went flinty. Taveon nodded.

“Is that common?” she asked.

Taveon shrugged. “Amongst the lesser civilised groups that dot the wilderness, yes. As far as any attack can be considered common. Usually, a town like this would never see people like these Primalists in decades.”

“Alright,” Faye said, “weird coincidence of Lóthaven being attacked aside, we need to get moving.”

The militiawoman, Hoza, was standing nearby, trying, and failing not to look at the boy’s body.

“Hoza,” Faye called, gently. The woman started and looked up, with a short nod. “Can you use a bow?”

The woman pulled a face. “Not with any skill. I’m more comfortable with this spear than any other weapon.”

“Some of the older children might,” Taveon interjected. “Some of the families have hunting traditions. Not at this time of year, of course, but that does not mean they will have let their training slip.”

“Makes sense to take as many supplies or weapons with us as we can,” Faye said.

“First,” Taveon said, “let me finish this ritual.”

She nodded and left him to his task. She could not stand by and awkwardly take part in something like that. She was as likely to start bawling as take part, anyway. No, she had supplies and weapons to find.

After getting the group ready in as little time as possible but in enough time to make them all on-edge and nervous as they left the relatively secluded portion of town, Faye led them through the alleyways back toward where the others had stashed the young boy they had saved from the Primalist, earlier.

He scrambled out of the hiding place between two buildings and attacked Faye with a hug around her waist. She smiled and put her arms around his shoulders briefly.

“Good to see you,” she said. “We’re going to go somewhere safer now, okay? But look, we’ve found some of the other children. Can you be a good lad and walk with them?”

The boy looked up at her. For a moment, she could see the calculation in his gaze as he determined exactly what he could get away with, but he nodded and let go of her to walk over to the others.

Taveon patted the boy on the shoulder as he walked past, another grandfatherly smile gracing his features.

The older man came close.

“I think you’ve found a friend for life,” he said, with a smile.

“As long as they’re all here to have one, I don’t mind. I wouldn’t mind at all.”

Moving the group was slow business. The older kids were able to help corral the younger ones, but there was no way they could move rapidly with almost a dozen kids in tow.

Faye looked over her shoulder. Hoza was playing rear-guard, her shield and spear a good defensive combo for the back of the train. Maggie was just behind the group of children. Her own shield was now strapped to her back, and in her left hand dangled the Primalist’s bow — minus a few decorative bones that had easily broken free.

Maggie had been displeased with using the weapon, when Faye had first approached her about it, but the woman had had some target practice with a bow before and agreed to take on the role. It meant she would be near the children, at least.

Taveon had declined the use of any of the Primalist weapons, saying that they were not well-suited for him. Faye had wrapped them up in a piece of cloth and strapped them to her back, instead. At the very least, they were denying their further use by taking them. At best, they could be put to use by other defenders.

The streets were quiet, but they could all hear the calls and strange creaking of the monsters that the Primalists favoured in the town.

Faye tried to activate [Swordfighter’s Sense], but with a mental stutter, she realised that the skill no longer existed. She had been ignoring some notifications, but as they walked, she pulled them up one by one.

Congratulations! You have passed the threshold and are now a [Spellsword]!

A skill has been automatically adapted to suit your class and progress to date.

[Swordfighter’s Sense] [Tier 0 — 5/5] > [Mana Sense] [Tier 1 — 1/5]

Previous class skills have been [Locked] unless your current class also has access to the skill.

Flicking open her status, Faye took a look at the damage.

~ Status ~

[Name:] Faye Weaver

[Class:] Spellsword

[Level:] 10

[Aspect:] n/a

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

[Banes:] Spectre’s Gaze

[Stat Growth:] Tou+2, Str+1, Rea+2, Agi+1, Int+1, Wil+3

~ Attributes ~

[Toughness:] 23

[Strength:] 24

[Reaction:] 14

[Agility:] 17

[Logic:] 10

[Intuition:] 15

[Willpower:] 16

[Charisma:] 10

[Magic:] 1.5

~ Skill List ~

[Skill Points:] 0

[Mana Sense] [Tier 1 - 1/5]

[Spellcasting — Basic] [Tier 0 - 1/5]

[Swordfighting — Basic] [Tier 0 - 5/5]

[Swordfighting — Intermediate] [Tier 0 - 4/5]

[Swordfighter's Sense] [Tier 0 - 5/5] [Locked]

[Survival — Basic] [Tier 0 - 4/10]

~ Spell List ~

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

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

[Blades of Flame] [Tier 1 - 1/5]

As she absorbed the information, she was pleasantly surprised. It seemed that she had been levelling skills without realising it. The [Fire Dart] spell had announced its levels, but the skills had not. She wondered why for a moment before realising she did not really need to know why, just that it had.

Her attributes were starting to look particularly healthy, compared to what she had started with. There had been little time to talk to people about what the higher stats meant, and she did not necessarily think she was over twice as strong as she had been at a lower level…

Concentrating on her new skill, however, she brought up its information.

~ Skill Info ~

[Mana Sense]

[Passive], [Aura], [Class], [Active]

~ Description ~

An aura that passively detects and interprets mana in the environment around the user. Skill effectiveness can grow with time.

Skill may be activated to change how the user interacts with mana.

Skill may be evolved.

Thinking through the description, Faye figured that her new [Mana Sense] was more versatile than [Swordfighter’s Sense], as it appeared to work in any situation, but needed to be trained.

Taking hold of the skill in her mind, Faye activated [Mana Sense].

The world around her exploded into a whirl and blur of motes of colour that spanned the entire spectrum. She was overwhelmed with the visual assault and tripped over her own feet.

She deactivated the skill before she hit the deck.

“Faye?” Taveon’s concern was clear in his voice, and the surprisingly strong hand that helped her keep her feet was quickly there.

“I’m alright,” she said. “New skill, didn’t expect an explosion of colour.”

Giving Faye a strange look, Taveon hummed.

“About that,” he said, “you levelled, I assume?”

Faye nodded, giving him a smile. “Level ten, Taveon. I’m an adult now, right?”

The man’s shock made him pause for a moment. He stuttered for a few steps before lengthening his stride to catch up with Faye’s determined walk once again.

“You crested?” he whispered. “By the gods, it’s unheard of.”

“I have some boons that nudge me along the way,” she replied, shrugging it off. “Are you saying you can’t tell I’ve crested?”

Taveon looked at her and cocked his head to the side.

“Recently, it did become harder to pinpoint your advancement,” he said. “I thought it had something to do with you being so close to the threshold. Apparently, it was something else, because now that you are past the threshold, you feel the same to me… if perhaps a little closer to what I might expect of a newly crested adventurer…”

He trailed off. Faye did not mind. The more that Taveon thought about the problem, the more she would learn. Leaving him to think about it for a moment, she paid more attention to her surroundings.

The streets here were getting wider. The buildings on either side were starting to thin out and become more like the area around the adventurer’s house; separate plots of land with space around each one. It made her nervous.

There were fewer places to hide.

On the one hand, this made it harder for monsters to pop out of every nook and cranny… not that any had popped out, so far.

On the other, however, it meant that her entourage was much more vulnerable.

“Taveon,” Faye said, “we’re heading into open territory. It makes me nervous. I’m not sure I know this part of town. We need to get back to the Guild, what’s the best path?”

He looked around for a moment. “We’re heading toward the southern estates, approaching from the east. We need to head north. The roads into the centre of the town were blocked, though.”

Faye nodded. It was time to get more information.

“Okay, let’s get the kids huddled down in a nearby house. I’ll scout ahead, figure out what’s going on, and report back.”

At first, it looked like he might want to refuse, but he closed his mouth and nodded, instead.

“I want to see you back safely, though,” was all he said.

She did not reply but gave him a firm nod.

Moving through the streets, Faye took an almost direct route north. As with all of the streets in Lóthaven, once she found a main artery road, it would take her to the main square.

The townsfolk did practically everything there, and its central location was a useful meeting point.

Of course, that meant that she needed to be able to reach the square. That did not look like it was possible. She had come up against a few small barriers already. Low, hip-height, stretches of thorns and wood across streets and roads that were difficult to clamber over safely. More dangerous were the patrolling monsters. Whilst clambering over the thorns, they would swarm her.

A few lesser briars had succumbed to her short sword already as she had rounded corners and found herself face to face with the monsters.

But now, the barrier had changed. No longer only rising to her hip, these thorny masses of vines were over her head, the thorns as wicked as daggers, and both lesser and Awakened briars were gathered in the streets before them alongside their Primalist master.

Controlling her breathing, Faye watched the coming and going monsters for a few minutes. The monsters looked almost aimless, but the Primalist had their arms stretched out as they faced the thorny wall.

Taking a chance, Faye activated [Mana Sense] again.

Motes of coloured light burst into life before her eyes, though it was more accurate to say that she could see the motes of light that were already bursting with life in the air around her.

The motes of mana, for what else would they be, were clustered around the living things in the road. Monsters or not, they held a semblance of life. The crimson light that animated the thorny masses became a crimson aura of moving points of mana.

The lesser briars’ auras were smaller, naturally, than their physically larger Awakened brethren, whose auras were bright with thick motes of mana.

Most interestingly, however, was the aura of the Primalist. Faye focused her attention on the one who had presumably called these briars into being. The mana surrounding this human was made up of multiple colours, though the virulent green and deep crimson motes dominated the cloud.

That’s the key difference, she thought, the aura is more dispersed.

The Primalist’s aura was almost as dispersed as the lesser briars’, despite being much larger. The Awakened had thick, almost opaque auras with the overloaded motes of mana in a field around them. Faye had no clue why that might be the case.

She flicked off [Mana Sense]. Her sight returned to normal. She was amused to find that some of the lesser briars were too well camouflaged to see with the naked eye. If she had not used her new skill, she would have missed them lying in wait.

There were over a dozen enemies in total. Two of which were Awakened. The heavy bulk of their wooden bodies were reminders of the fight at the Steading and the desperate attacks that had bounced off their bark-like skin.

She considered skirting around this barrier rather than going through it.

Will the others know if I attack them here? she wondered. Too many reinforcements would be deadly.

Steeling herself, she made a snap decision. Testing their defences was an important fact-finding exercise. Finding out later, when Taveon, Maggie, Hoza, and the children were all in tow could be devastating.

Drawing the short sword, she could not help but grin.

As Faye charged out from her hiding spot a few alleyways down from the barrier, she drew mana from her inner source and coated the blade in her hand. It ignited at the same as she concentrated mana in her left hand, throwing out a couple of [Fire Dart]s at hidden lesser briars.

Pre-emptively, she suppressed the majority of notifications the system sent her way again. She did not need the distractions.

A group of [Lesser Briar]s defeated!

Knowing when her enemies went down for good was useful enough.

The two Awakened sensed her magic and turned toward her with strangely wooden roars of anger. Their gorilla-like heavy frames spinning to regard her with eerie speed.

She did not want them to charge at the same time, so she took hold of her mana again and let out a [Scorching Lance].

The superdense beam of fire cut through the shoulder of one of the Awakened — which roared again, in pain — and caught the wall of thorns behind it.

The second Awakened moved out of Faye’s direct line of fire, circling around to her left. The wounded Awakened could not launch itself forward with one of its arms hanging limply at its side. She threw a [Fire Dart] at it as she neared.

[Awakened Briar] defeated!

Jumping onto its smouldering corpse, Faye swung her flaming blade two, three times in quick succession. Each swing of the blade activated her third spell, [Blades of Flame].

Three small arcs of flames raced toward the Primalist, who had only barely turned around in time to see Faye’s charge.

It seemed the Primalist was not quick, as the first arc of flame hit him securely in the chest, and the second glanced off his arm as he dodged. The third had curved slightly through the air and missed completely, instead hitting the thorny wall behind him.

“Despoiler!” the Primalist screamed.

“That’s me!” Faye called out, then turned and engaged the remaining Awakened. It was rushing toward her with a deceptively quick shuffle leap that tore small mounds of dirt out of the hard packed earth of the road.

[Mana Sense] had let Faye keep track of the dense knot of mana that the Awakened’s aura was made from with relative ease. She felt it as a pressure, or a feeling of weight, in her mind. Jumping down from the first Awakened’s corpse, Faye let another two blasts of [Blades of Flame] launch toward the oncoming freight train of wood and crimson hatred.

The blasts hit with power, each arc of flame leaving still burning embers behind in the Awakened’s wooden flesh.

It roared with anger, throwing its huge arms up, clearly intending to smash Faye to a paste.

She let off another [Scorching Lance], instead.

The blast blew through the Awakened’s head like a holepunch through paper.

The roiling furnace of mana inside her had dropped, but even after each of her spells she was still flush with power. Cresting and gaining the stat boosts that she had seemed to make an enormous difference to the power of her attacks, let alone the amount of mana she had to use.

[Mana Sense] told her that the presence of the Primalist was gathering lesser briars to his side, but she just grinned and turned to go on the hunt.