“I really don’t see what the problem is,” Corbyn said, looking and Damien with a raised eyebrow. “I understand you’ve probably got some reservations after last time, but this part of the sewers doesn’t even have any Alphas or Greater Vermisca. I was pretty thorough about that yesterday.”

“It’s not the monsters. It’s the location,” Damien said, holding a hand over his nose as he gazed down the manhole cover in front of them. The two stood on a less than busy street in Lamora in the early morning, the first golden rays just making their way between the buildings. It was a good day, with a clear sky and a variety of birds calling out songs even in the din of the deep city. It was being ruined for the Traveler by the persistent stench of the sewer coming up from the manhole right in front of him.

“You have something against sewers?”

“They’re… well, disgusting,” Damien said, trying not to dry-heave at the thought. He wasn’t sure how workers could go down there for hours at a time without gas masks. Maybe they just had thicker skin than he did. “Especially since my senses have been enhanced.”

“Can’t you just… turn off your sense of smell and taste?”

“No, that’s not how it works,” Damien replied, holding his nose as he stepped towards the manhole. “I can deaden them to the point that they’re barely there, but they’re still my senses. It’s not like you can just flip a switch in your brain to turn off your eyesight, right?”

“… no, I suppose not,” Corbyn conceded. “So, is that a no on the Quest?”

“I’m still doing it,” Damien insisted. He didn’t want Corbyn to get the wrong idea about him - especially since the Canis had been so kind to him. “I’m just complaining. I hate the sewers.”

“I get that. I think,” Corbyn said, a look of contemplation on his face.

“No, I mean I really hate the sewers,” Damien said. “I don’t care how cool TMNT made them look - they’re really not that great for normal people!”

“… what in all the hells is TMNT?”

“Just something from my world. Nothing to really worry about,” Damien said. As much as he absolutely loved pop-culture stuff, he really didn’t have time to explain the intricacies of one of the largest franchises on Earth. Or America, at the very least. He’d never really gotten a feel for how mainstream the turtles were before he’d gotten zapped into the Aether. Before he took the plunge into what would likely be one of the most unpleasant experiences of his life, he pulled up his full Status, and looked everything over one more time.

[Status]

Name: Damien Sinclair

Race: Traveler of Umbra (Male)

Age: 18

Class: Shade Hunter

Level: 1

XP: 850/1,000

Profession: Not Selected

Affinity: Umbra

Stats:

Strength: 14

Dexterity: 27

Intelligence: 27

Constitution: 17

Endurance: 17

Wisdom: 18

Vitality: 14

Vigor: 17

Willpower: 18

Reaction: 30

Stat Points: 0

[Spells]

| Shadowbolt (Common) | Shadow of the Night Wolf (Ancient)

[Abilities]

| Shade Sense (Uncommon)

[Skills]

| Identify (Common) | Swordsmanship (Common) | Unarmed Combat (Common) | Mediation (Uncommon) | Mana Control (Rare)

Everything was unchanged from the day before, his new Skills showing up right at the end of their list, due to their higher rarity. He’d practiced plenty with Shadowbolt and Shade Sense both, knowing that they would be his lifelines until he could develop a more robust backlog of Spells and Abilities.

According to Corbyn, they could only be gained in one of three ways. One was to get them from a Spellbook or an Ability Scroll, having the knowledge uploaded directly into your mind. It was an alright method, but only for the more basic Spells and Abilities, as relying on it too much without proper training would cripple any potential development of Mana Control. Luckily, Damien already had the Skill. The second was to get it from a Mentor, although this was a bit of a touchy subject, since it required genuine trust to be shared between both parties. Otherwise, any attempted transfer would simply fail outright.

The last, and most dangerous by far, was developing Spells and Abilities on your own, and all of the risks that entailed. It was one that Corbyn thought quite highly of, though he did want to hold off on teaching Damien that method until he had a baseline for what Umbra Spells and Abilities felt like. Damien had to admit, it was the method he was the most scared of using, mainly because of the risk. But if Corbyn thought highly of it, then it had to be useful.

“Alright,” Damien said, dulling his sense of smell and taste until they almost weren’t there at all. It was a trick he’d picked up during his Meditation practice, to help himself focus on reaching a calm center point. Then, with a still disgusted expression, he dropped down to the sewer floor in a crouch, Corbyn sealing the manhole cover behind his apprentice.

There was no natural light down in the sewers, though several Mana lamps dotted the walls, unlit and undisturbed. Eyes of the Night Wolf made its presence known, the only hint of actual darkness being the barely noticeable hint of a grayish tint at the edge of his vision. It had been a bit disorienting at first, but Damien had quickly grown used to it with a few late night walks near Fortune’s Rest. He activated Shade Sense for a brief moment, confirming that everything he could see was, in fact, covered in darkness. Deactivating the Ability soon after, he utilized one of his Traits, which would prove far more appropriate for this situation.

[Instincts of the Night Wolf]

Rarity: Ancient

Description: Noctis, the fabled Night Wolf, has granted you the ability to tap into instincts he once used to survive his mortal life. Use this gift wisely.

Effect: Access to [Danger Sense] and [Primeval Awareness]

[Danger Sense]

Effect: you gain the ability to sense attacks made towards or near you, even if the attacks are hidden or sudden. This effect is passive. The speed and accuracy of this effect is dependent on the Reaction Stat.

[Primeval Awareness]

Effect: you gain the ability to sense everything in a radius around you, with your body at the central point. This effect can be activated and deactivated as needed. This effect is dependent on your Reaction Stat, increasing the radius by one meter for each ten-point threshold. Current Radius: 3 meters.

Reaction played a large part in the two effects it provided, and it helped that it happened to be Damien’s highest Stat overall. It wasn’t just his literal reactions and muscle memory, but his ability to respond to information. It was another thing he’d been experimenting with, though using Primeval Awareness for too long gave him a headache. He hoped it would pass, given time.

Silently, Damien treaded toward the corner, making his steps as soft as possible as he listened to the noises of the sewer all around him. The flow of the underground cistern, the drip off of the pipes, the squeaking of the occasional rat. These were not what he had come to vanquish. He doubted that rats even gave XP.

He went on like this for several minutes, stopping occasionally before he got a headache from using Primeval Awareness too much. Damien wasn’t making much headway on finding Vermisca yet, but he was getting close. At the very least, his foray through the sewers wasn’t boring.

“Y’know, I think he might be testing your resolve,” Ash said, his snark becoming a welcome reprieve from the constant training over the last two weeks. “See if you’re willing to do things even if they make you uncomfortable.”

Of course I am. I might not like it, but that doesn’t mean I’m just gonna sit on my hands and do nothing, Damien responded. It had taken him a little while, but he had gotten used to responding to the Shadow Wolf while he was subsumed in his shadow. He stayed quiet most of the time, but liked to chime in to a conversation every now and then to try and throw him off his game. It only worked every once in a while, and apparently that was enough to keep him going.

“Good answer. Mind letting me scout it out? I know you’re trying to build up a tolerance to Primeval Awareness, but it’s going to take a while for you to keep it up passively.”

Sure. Be my guest.

As though on cue, Ash leaped up from Damien’s shadow, his steps on the stone walkway of the sewer entirely silent as he bounded onwards, ready to give Damien warning at a moment’s notice.

He was glad to have Ash down here. Other than Felicia and Corbyn, the Shadow Wolf might very well be one of his only friends. He would’ve counted Regina in that count too, but they hadn’t spoken much after the day he’d met Felicia or that time he and Ash had protected that starving child from the pompous Seraphite nobleman. The boy was doing well now, and was actually gaining a wage at Regina’s bookshop as an official assistant. Damien hadn’t been back there in a while, and was determined to at least learn the boy’s name.

It didn’t take much longer for Ash to find something, bounding back to Damien as soon as he’d marked the location. Damien breathed slowly as he crept forward the last few meters, silently drawing his jian as he gazed around the corner, using Identify on the monster just ahead of him.

[Vermisca Youngling]

Level: 1

Affinity: Terra

His Identify Skill didn’t provide much information about the monster, only its Level and baseline Affinity. It was small, but still came up partway to his knee, and overall, looked mostly like an oversized, hairless rat with two long teeth, a narrow snout, and beady black eyes that gleamed with hunger and desire, with a pair of small but sharp claws ready to rend through flesh.

Despite his relative lack of experience with monster hunting as a whole, he did have some information to go off of, since Corbyn had also insisted on pounding as much knowledge of basic monsters into his head as he possibly could, since they made up a majority of what he was facing in the near future. Vermisca were considered by most to be trash monsters, both metaphorically, in the sense that they often appeared where filth and detritus gathered in large quantities, and literally, as they were dumb, slow, and fragile all in one. Still, one too many fledgling Adventurers had been killed by Vermisca due to overconfidence. They may have been trash monsters through and through, but they were still monsters.

“So… your first real monster kill. How do you wanna do it?”

Quickly, Damien thought to the Shadow Wolf as he dashed forward, jian held ready for a fast, powerful thrust. However, what Damien hadn’t been expecting was for the Vermisca Youngling to hear his approach, causing it to bumble out of the way and off his center line, forcing him to hit the stone instead. The momentum of the strike, and the suddenness of his stop, caused his arms to jerk backwards, almost making him drop his sword. Unfortunately, that also gave the oversized rat monster time to savage his legs with a pair of nasty swipes.

Damien cried out at the burning pain along his left calve, blood spurting out from the wound and drenching the Vermisca in red. It seemed delighted at the prospect of being showered in blood, and even let its tongue loll out to lap at the sanguine fluid. Thoroughly pissed that the thing was delighted to lick up his blood, Damien brought the jian around in a lightning-fast horizontal slash, biting through flesh, bone and organs with only the barest whisper of resistance. One half slid off of the other as a shower of black ichor drenched its body, falling to the ground with a slimy thump.

You have slain [Vermisca Youngling]

+100 XP

Would you like to Loot [Vermisca Youngling]?

Yes | No

Damien glared down at the body of the fallen monster as he selected ‘Yes,’ the minuscule Loot from the monster dropping to the ground where its body had once laid. The Traveler didn’t have any kind of Inventory space, like one of those Rings that Corbyn and Felicia wore, or even one of the cheap bags like the one he’d gotten his books in. Instead, he slung a leather backpack off his shoulders and packed away what he’d received.

You have Looted [Vermisca Claw] x1 and [Vermisca Eye] x1

Neither item was particularly valuable, but they could still be sold on the cheap for some extra Camori, according to Corbyn’s lessons. Apparently, certain types of poisons required parts from monsters in order to be made. Damien wasn’t interested in making such things himself, but it was a way to make more money. He’d be more interested if any of this could make him some kind of armor in order to protect his legs.

“Well, I can’t say that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen you do, but it’s close,” Ash snickered in Damien’s ear. “Are you sure you don’t want my help when you’re fighting these things?”

No. I can do this much myself, Damien replied, the pain in his legs receding as the bleeding stopped completely. Although he could take the easy road out and have Ash do the fighting for him, it was exactly that: the easy road out. It wouldn’t be his accomplishment, it would be Ash’s, no matter what his Quest would say to the contrary. He wanted to get through this on his own efforts. Because if he couldn’t hunt down even three trash monsters on his own, then what the hell was he good for?

“I admire the determination, kid,” the Shadow Wolf replied, his voice seeming genuine as he spoke up once again. “But I will step up if your life’s in danger or we find something that’s out of your league. Guts and pride have their place, but don’t let them drag you to your death by the nose, alright?”

You got it.

With his determination affirmed, Damien was far more careful on his approach to the next Vermisca. While his attack on the first Vermisca had been more of a test of his physical capabilities, which he had overestimated, this would be a test of his more magical capabilities. He used a combination of Shade Sense and Primeval Awareness to find the thing, and although the two seemed redundant at first glance, the latter power was actually only capable of providing a physical overlay, no a visual one, giving Shade Sense some room to shine. He did wish that it had more of an effective radius, though.

Still, he managed to kill the Vermisca from afar with a trio of Shadowbolts, and was quickly rewarded for his efforts.

You have slain [Vermisca Youngling]

+100 XP

LEVEL UP!

You are now Level 2.

Stats Successfully Distributed.

You have [12] Stat Points remaining.

This one didn’t offer a Loot notification; the body was a bit too damaged to salvage anything from it properly. But the feeling of Leveling Up, of tangibly getting stronger… it drowned out all his minor disappointments. And it felt good. Not addictively so, but in a way that was so soothing that it felt like being in a lucid dream. Unable to help himself, Damien pulled up his Status, and gazed at his new Stats in awe and excitement.

[Status]

Name: Damien Sinclair

Race: Traveler of Umbra (Male)

Age: 18

Class: Shade Hunter

Level: 2

XP: 50/2,000

Profession: Not Selected

Affinity: Umbra

Stats:

Strength: 14

Dexterity: 32

Intelligence: 32

Constitution: 19

Endurance: 19

Wisdom: 20

Vitality: 14

Vigor: 19

Willpower: 20

Reaction: 36

Stat Points: 12 (71:59:47)

[Spells]

| Shadowbolt (Common) | Shadow of the Night Wolf (Ancient)

[Abilities]

| Shade Sense (Uncommon)

[Skills]

| Identify (Common) | Swordsmanship (Common) | Unarmed Combat (Combat) | Mediation (Uncommon) | Mana Control (Rare)

Damien wasted no time in allocating his extra points, putting one each in Constitution, Endurance, and Vigor, bringing all three up to an even twenty. He also placed an extra point in Vitality, which would help heal up any pesky wounds he received even faster. After that, he put two each into Dexterity and Intelligence, and the final four into Reaction, increasing the effective radius of Primeval Awareness to eight meters, simultaneously combining with his other increases to make his movements feel even smoother, more natural.

“Gotta admit, that went a lot better than the last one,” Ash said. “Maybe you’re more suited to magic than swordsmanship?”

Ha ha. I’m gonna kill the next one with my sword just to spite you.

“Hey, far be it from me to prevent my summoner from getting injured from doing something stupid.”

You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?

“Not even a little!”

It didn’t take much longer for Damien to find another Vermisca Youngling. In fact, he found a pair of them! One of them was even at Level two, which was doubly good for him, given his Level Up. He’d probably kill the Level one Vermisca too, if only to save himself the headache and further scratches to his legs. Now, how to kill them both with minimal risk…

Then, at the worst possible time, a humanoid came into the effective radius of Primeval Awareness with a staff in hand, charging straight at the pair of monsters.

“Fucking dammit!” Damien snarled under his breath, quickly drawing his jian from its sheath with a metallic rasp. He was already too late to go for the double kill, with the humanoid bringing his staff down on one of the Vermisca. Fortunately, he’d gone for the Level one Vermisca, leaving the second one uninjured and alive. This also meant that the thing was currently lunging for the humanoid’s unprotected calves, a problem which Damien was about to solve.

With a single, almost silent swipe of his blade, he carved through the monster’s extended claws without any resistance, causing it to squeal in pain and rock back with the force of the blow. The Traveler followed it up with a Shadowbolt, the black, hazy suggestion of a sphere the size of a marble racing forward and burying itself in the Vermisca’s body, causing it to shudder from the impact. No kill or XP notifications. It wasn’t dead yet.

That was when Damien followed it up with a thrust to the face, practically splitting its head in two from his angle alone. He pulled the blade out and gave it a light flourish, clearing it of the heavy, black ichor before it had a chance to stick to the polished steel, and placed his sword back in its sheath at his left hip. This time, the kill and XP notifications came soon after.

You have slain [Vermisca Youngling]

+200 XP

Damien gave a sigh of relief, turning to the idiot who’d charged into this situation without much regard for even a semblance of a plan. He seemed to be caught up in what looked like sheer awe, but Damien wasn’t really sure of what. He glanced around and behind himself, but found nothing else of note.

“Damien, he’s looking at you,” Ash said, knowing that the Traveler thought too little of himself to even consider the possibility. “Unfortunately for him, you’re not into guys. Well, I’m pretty sure you aren’t. I can definitely sense your attraction to Felicia, no matter how much you try to push it out of your mind.”

N-no, I’m straight, Damien replied, somehow managing to stutter in his own thoughts at the mention of his rather attractive Seraphite friend. He wasn’t lying either; he wasn’t attracted to men, and his arrival in Xaunis hadn’t changed that fact. He doubted anything could truly change someone’s sexual preferences, no matter what certain religious groups said, but this wasn’t the time to be thinking about stuff like that. Damien took a moment to take in the other humanoid’s appearance, trying to get a sense for him.

The man was relatively tall and a bit gangly, with a lean physique that was reminiscent of a runner, which might explain why he’d closed the distance with the Vermisca so fast. His skin was light brown and free of blemishes, a trend he had noticed with most people who’d Awakened, and his black hair was combed back in a slightly windswept fashion. He wore a cheap green shirt, baggy grey pants and a pair of leather shoes that were already most of the way towards falling apart. Other than the odd pair of goggles covering his head and the staff in his hand, there was nothing else notable about him.

If Damien had to describe him in Earth terms, the man in front of him would best be described as ‘Latino’, though there might well be entirely different ethnicities of humans on Xaunis, and the ones he did know were probably known by different terms. And that wasn’t even taking into account the fact that there were at least nine races other than humans here!

Then, the man began speaking with a wide smile on his face.

“That was amazing! Holy crap, how did you move that fast?! Is your Dexterity already that high? What’s your Class? Oh wait, before I forget, who are you anyway?”

“… are you blind or just naive?” Damien asked, already annoyed with the contingent of questions.

“Um… what?” the man asked, tilting his head to the side in what seemed to be genuine confusion.

“I mean what is with your atrocious lack of situational awareness?” Damien asked as he pointed to the dissolving monster corpses. “Sure, you were lucky that there were only two Vermisca, but you didn’t even notice that fact, did you? All you saw was an enemy in front of you, and charged blindly into the fray with no regard for anything else. What if there had been even more? Three or four instead of two? In all likelihood, you’d have gotten yourself injured, and the only reason that it didn’t happen this time it because I happened to be nearby. That’s not a chance you should count on receiving. Ever. Unless you’re in a party, you shouldn’t count on anyone else covering your ass, because in all likelihood, no one will be.”

There was a brief silence between the two before Damien just sighed, his annoyance flowing away to be replaced by embarrassment. “Sorry, just… you really need to think things through, especially when you’re in an enclosed space like this. Less room to maneuver, less room to make mistakes.”

“… I get it. I think,” the man replied, scratching at the back of his head in what seemed to be sheepish embarrassment. “I can’t help it, though. When I see a monster, my first instinct is to hit it ‘til it dies, plans be damned. It’s gotten me through so far. Besides, they’re just Vermisca. It’s not like they can do that much to me anyway.”

“All monsters can kill. Even trash monsters like Vermisca.”

That brought in another awkward silence between the two. The man stepped forward then, offering his hand to Damien. “Well, I suppose we might as well team up while we’re down here. Safety in numbers and all of that. Feel free to ignore my questions from earlier. In hindsight, they were kinda tone-deaf. Sorry. I’m Leon Spring. Nice to meet you.”

“… Damien Sinclair,” the Traveler replied, taking Leon’s outstretched hand with a small smile. “I suppose it might be for the best. If only to keep you out of trouble. Also, I’ve gotta ask… what’s up with the goggles? Do they let you see in the dark or something?”

The smile that came over Leon’s face could have been a sun for how bright it looked to be despite the darkness that surrounded them.

As it turned out, the reason that Leon was down in the sewer wasn’t dissimilar to Damien’s own. Both of their mentors were using it as a place to train them, to cut their teeth on the process of actual monster hunting. Leon’s choice of weapon, the staff, was somewhat limited by the confines of the space, adding to the challenge in properly killing monsters down here.

Neither of them had gone into detail on their Classes beyond the basics, and Leon’s seemed much different from Damien’s own. Unlike Shade Hunter, which was made to be a versatile mix of physical combat, magical combat, and utility, Leon’s was focused much more on the former of the three, and he seemed genuinely dedicated to his training. When Damien learned why, he understood the man’s determination.

“You sure you’ll be ready in time? I know that the Adventurer Trials are about eight months off, but that’s still a pretty tight schedule. Don’t you need to be Level eight in order to even attempt it?”

“Level nine, actually,” Leon corrected. “They upped the requirements from last year after someone managed to get swarmed by plant monsters.”

The Traveler hadn’t known that. Still, it was a good thing he’d learned that fact now. Damien didn’t know a lot of the specifics regarding the Adventurer’s Trials, but he did know that they were difficult for people to pass, as at least two thirds of every batch of recruits failed during the average year. There was sometimes an off year where half or even most of the recruits made it through, but never all of them. There was also the fact that it was possible to die during such trials even with all of the safety measures that had been put in place over the years.

“Considering the fact that you’re down here in the first place, I’m guessing you’re not quite there yet?”

“Nope! I’m not even Level two yet!”

Damien winced at the sudden statement. He liked Leon alright, especially after he’d calmed down from the man’s surprising lack of awareness, but saying stuff like that was going to do him no favors in the long run.

“Do you just… go around telling everyone your Level?”

“Uh… no?”

Damien gave the man a flat, unamused look.

“Can I bite him? Please? Just a tiny little nibble to reset his brain, because there is no way in all the hells of the multiverse that someone is this dumb!”

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Because I know you’re lying,” Damien said with a sigh. “It’s kinda obvious. Look, I get that you’re new to all of this, but you really shouldn’t just go around sharing your Level with everyone you meet. It’s not a very smart thing to do. You never know when someone might not have your best interests at heart.”

“Yeah, you might have a point,” Leon said, adjusting his goggles and resting his staff against his shoulder. “But I don’t like to assume the worst of people before I even know them. It’s not really my place to judge people.”

“That’s a fair stance,” Damien said with a nod. “Let’s change the subject, then. Who sent you down here? I don’t know a whole lot of Adventurers, but it might be prudent to learn who’s who.”

“You… don’t know any famous Adventurers?” Leon asked, with both disbelief and a little bit of excitement in his voice.

“I’m not local.”

“I… guess that makes sense,” Leon said, a smile quickly returning to his face. “The person training me isn’t super famous, but that’s mostly because he’s an old recluse. I think he only bothered to take me on as an apprentice is because my grandpa did him a favor or something. Must’ve been a big one, because he’s been putting me through my paces. This is actually my first time fighting monsters. And now that I’m down here, I kinda wish I’d paid more attention to what he’d said about Vermisca. You were right. I got lucky.”

He said those last words as though to degrade himself. Damien put a stop to that immediately. He knew how damaging such words could be. He’d said them to himself far too many times, back on Earth. “Better lucky than dead. And hey, since you are alive, at least you can improve where you feel you’re lacking. It might take some time, but so does everything else. And it’ll be time well spent.”

“Thanks,” Leon replied, perking up a bit at Damien’s words. “Honestly, I never had a concept of just how much went into being an Adventurer before I started training to be one. It’s weird to say out loud, but I think I made a natural Mechanic more than a natural Adventurer. I mean, I’m decent at fighting, but I kinda miss working in the shop, y’know? Getting something built with my own two hands.”

“You’re from a trade family?”

“Something like that. Most of our family has the Mechanic Profession. The ones who manage to afford an Awakening, anyway. I barely made the cut for mine. And grandpa was so happy about the strength of my Ventus Affinity that he called up his old friend in order to give me a fighting chance at the Adventurer Trials. So… here I am. I still took the Mechanic Profession, but I haven’t had many chances to use it lately.

“… should I have blurted out my Affinity like that?” Leon wondered worriedly.

“I mean, Ventus is already a fairly common Affinity, so not really,” Damien replied. “Actually, if you ever did get into a fight with another person, your Affinity would be the first thing they noticed about you, so… I guess it’s okay? I don’t really know a lot of the social norms around discussing Affinities, though, so don’t assume anything on my account.”

“Noted.”

“Also, do you know anything in particular about Professions?” Damien asked. “I’ve been trying to find information about them for weeks, but I still haven’t found anything relevant. I think my mentor’s going to get to them eventually, but they haven’t become very important to my training yet.”

“Oh, that.” Leon scratched at the back of his head as he gave Damien’s question some thought. “Well… Professions are Professions, y’know? It’s… ugh, right, not local. Uh, how ‘not local’ were we talking when you said that?”

“Enough that I didn’t even know about a lot of current events until pretty recently. My village is… pretty isolated,” Damien lied. He didn’t particularly like doing it, but it was better than revealing his status as a Traveler. At least for the moment.

“Huh. Well, anyway, Professions,” Leon said as he began to think of a way to explain them to the purple-eyed young man. “If I had to put a term to what they are, I guess they’re like a kind of sub-specialization. Your Class is what you can do, and your Profession is what you’re an expert at. Since every Class has access to magic in one form or another, all the Professions tend to be just as magically oriented. Nothing really combat-oriented, though. But you do get bonus Stats from it!”

“Bonus Stats?”

“Yup! It can vary depending on the Profession, but all Stats are good Stats, I say! I… am not going to tell you my bonuses because I have basic pattern recognition,” Leon said with a sigh. “Man, not telling people how awesome I am is a lot harder than I thought it’d be.”

“I can tell,” Damien deadpanned. “How do they work? You don’t have to tell me the specifics of yours, but I’d like to know what I’m getting into ahead of time.”

“Oh. The Stat gains from a Profession are actually retroactive, depending on your Level when you gain it. It’s generally recommended that you take up a Profession before you hit Level twenty, otherwise the Stat gains become too much to handle all at once. So, if you are thinking about getting a Profession, I’d recommend getting one before then. You shouldn’t have to make that choice for a while, but it’d be better for you to make it sooner rather than later.”

“That makes sense,” Damien said, taking a mental note to remind Corbyn to go into details on what Professions he could utilize. “Hey, you never told me where you got those goggles from. Did you make them or something?”

“… no,” Leon replied, touching them in a way that could be taken as reverence. “No, I did not.”

Damien didn’t pry any further, sensing a somewhat touchy subject. As much as the man loved to go on and on about how the things worked, it seemed that he was much more tight-lipped about where they came from. It didn’t seem illegal or suspicious, just personal.

Luckily for them, Damien didn’t have to think of a convenient subject change, as one came into their path right when the silence had begun to stretch just a bit too long. Vermisca Adolescents were essentially the same as the Younglings, just the size of a large dog instead of a medium one and far more aggressive, with more defined muscles and a sharper senses. Also, higher leveled, as evidenced by Damien’s quick Identify.

[Vermisca Adolescent]

Level: 4

Affinity: Terra

Damien knew enough about Elemental matchups to know that Leon was already at an inherent disadvantage, since beings with the Terra Affinity were more resilient to Ventus attacks than normal. But given what Leon had said about his capabilities, it seemed that he relied more on his speed than any particular Spells he had up his sleeve. Which seemed a bit strange to Damien, since his Class seemed to focus on a balance of Spells and Abilities, but he did seem to be more physically inclined than Damien was anyway.

Which was why he pulled on the man’s arm to stop him from charging in on instinct alone.

“We attack it together,” Damien said. “Flank it. I’ll go left, you go right. Hit it in the head and open it up. I’ll stick it on my jian, and then we’ll have some nice, roasted monster for lunch.”

“That’d be more appealing if I didn’t know what those things turn into when they die,” Leon said, his face scrunching up as he remembered the bitter black bile that their bodies had dissolved into. “… actually, maybe not even then. They’re rat-like, so they can’t exactly taste good, can they?”

“Probably not, but I’d still like to roast the little bastards,” Damien said. “Now get ready. On my mark… go!”

Leon shot forward from the right with startling alacrity, blindsiding the monster with an echoing crack to its head with his staff. The monster reeled back from the pain of the blow, clutching at its face with clawed hands before Damien swept in with his jian, cutting into the thing’s side with a sharp edge of his blade. It didn’t kill the monster, only giving it a deep laceration along its arms and torso instead of bisecting it like Damien had hoped. But that was more than alright with the Traveler. It seemed that they’d had enough easy kills for the day.

“Trip it up!” Damien called out, darting backwards to avoid getting cut by the Vermisca Adolescent’s claws, giving the thing a parting Shadowbolt to the chest. It didn’t do a great deal, but it gave Leon the chance to come at it from behind, sweeping his staff low and taking the monster’s legs out from under it. It fell to the ground with a thud, screeching out in pain as Damien leaped atop it, stabbing down and piercing its heart almost instantly. It desperately clawed at Damien’s sword, trying to take the thing out of its chest. The Traveler twisted the blade, and all the life from the monster beneath him faded, slumping to the ground as it began to dissolve into black bile.

You have slain [Vermisca Adolescent]

+200 XP

Would you like to Loot [Vermisca Adolescent]?

Yes | No

Damien quickly selected yes, and received yet more Vermisca Claws and Eyes, as well as another piece of loot called Untreated Vermisca Hide. Probably a crafting material of some kind. He put it all in his bag, and Leon began packing away his own share of the Loot. It also seemed that, along with the distribution of Loot, the XP gains had also been halved, based on their contributions to the fight itself. Though Damien had killed the monster, Leon had been the one to set it up for those critical moments where it could be killed at all, so, overall, Damien was just fine with how it turned out. Then, another notification made its way into his vision.

CONGRATULATIONS! Quest [Rat Hunter] Complete!

+50 XP, +100 Camori

“Yes!” Damien said, pumping his fist up as he caught the sack of coin that dropped unceremoniously out of the air, the XP entering his body automatically. “My Quest is done. How about you?”

“Yeah, I’m done too,” Leon said, snatching his own bag of Camori out of the air and clipping it to his belt. “Do you think someone planned this?”

“How do you mean?” Damien asked.

“Well, it seems a little too convenient that we just met up down here by sheer happenstance. It kinda feels like we were supposed to meet up by design.”

“… actually, now that I think about it, that does make some sense,” Damien replied. “We make up for each other’s weaknesses. I’ve got a mix of magic and martial skills, and you’re more skewed towards the latter than the former. Plus, we’re at least getting along so far, and that makes a pretty big difference when you’ve got to trust someone on your team.”

“Yeah… who do you think put us in this position?” Leon wondered aloud. “I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if it was mine. He’s a stubborn bastard, but he does have a lot of connections. He’s even got some actual friends!”

“Hey, not everyone’s good at expressing emotions,” Damien said, empathizing with the inability to make friends. It wasn’t that he didn’t try back on Earth, but rather that he was so socially inept that he never knew what to say. Xaunis was a chance to start over, however, and he’d made at least two good friends thus far in Corbyn and Felicia.

“Oh, he expresses his emotions alright,” Leon said. “Usually by making me run for at least an hour when he’s pissed at me.”

“… yeah, I see your point,” Damien said. When he was about to turn away from the site of their battle to find the nearest exit to the sewers, he caught something out of the corner of his eye.

“Uh… Leon? Was that doorway there before?”