Dawn read the notification and said to herself:

“Well, I’ll certainly never complain again about that gift from the lady. I would have died just now without it.”

Nestor and Ankou came up to her rapidly. Ankou inspected her all over and tried to clean her face with his rough tongue.

In spite of everything, Dawn had to laugh.

“Ankou, stop it, that tickles!”

[You’re a cub that attracts every danger in the forest.]

He informed her shortly.

[It is your greatest talent.]

He nudged her repeatedly, rubbing his head on her shoulder.

[You need to sharpen your claws fast.] He admonished her finally.

Dawn shrugged and raised her hands in protest.

“I tried to avoid that thing! But you’re right, I didn’t even manage to raise my sword in the confusion. Have to do better next time.”

She shook her head and stood up, careful as she put weight on her injured leg. Looking down at herself, she sighed deeply. Her trousers were torn and bloody, her clothes and she herself were caked in mud and as she tentatively brushed over her hair, she felt that it, too, was full of earth and mud.

She grimaced in distaste and shook herself. “Let’s get back to the village as fast as we can,” she urged.

“I totally need a bath. I feel disgusting.”

Amazingly, the companions reached the Kharlin village without further fights. Dawn smiled as they entered the cavern and the tension she had felt during their excursion left her at last.

She felt safe here, with Ankou and the Kharlins.

Echo and Chaos came bounding over as soon as they set eyes on the companions. Winding themselves through Dawn’s legs, rubbing their heads against Ankou’s and purring for all they were worth.

Dawn got down on her knees and petted the two fur-balls.

“Yes, yes, I’ve missed you too,” she said, laughing at their antics, her arms full of lynx cubs.

[Not go away.] A tiny voice sounded in her head, making up for its high pitch and low volume with its imperious tone.

“Chaos! You can talk!” She beamed, feeling like a proud mother who watched the first steps of her offspring with ridiculous delight. The cub stood up in her lap and kneaded her shoulders with his sharp claws.

Verene came over together with Niko in the wake of the cubs and gaped at her.

“Dawn, whatever happened to you? You look like you bathed in mud.”

“Yeah, that is pretty much what happened,” Dawn said, trying to brush herself off self-consciously. “Not that I did it on purpose. There was some beast in the forest that hid under the earth and it grabbed me and took me down with it. Looked like a mixture between a toad and a worm and had teeth that are going to play a major role in my future nightmares.”

“A fark?” Niko asked and stared at her in astonishment. “You were grabbed by a fark and lived to talk of it? You truly are blessed with extraordinary luck.”

“That’s one way to look at it,” replied Dawn wrily. “I didn’t feel very lucky when it appeared from the earth practically under my feet.”

She shook herself, dislodging a somewhat disgruntled Chaos in the process. He and Echo withdrew and began to clean themselves energetically. After Dawn had hugged the two, they too were sprinkled with earth and mud.

“I have a lot to tell you all. But first I need a bath. I feel like I’m crawling with dirt.” Dawn pleaded.

Verene nodded and bustled away, exclaiming.

“I will take care of it. Just wait a few minutes.”

And indeed, barely ten minutes later a filled tub was sitting in Dawn’s hut.

She entered the hot water with pleasure and sighed, leaning her head back against the rim of the tub for a while. Then she soaped herself up and washed her hair. She left the bath feeling much better, though she grimaced at the sight of the cloudy water left behind in the tub.

She took out some clothes from her storage ring and frowned as she realized that it was her last clean set of trousers and shirt.

She would have to wash her clothes and to mend them, too. She wrinkled her nose in distaste. What she needed were some self-cleaning clothes, preferably ones that mended themselves on their own as well. Well, talk about wishing for the impossible.

Sitting down on the bed she combed out her hair and finally felt refreshed enough to look at her status. She still needed to decide where to put her free stat points from her last level up.

Status screen Name Dawn Trakam Path Nature's shadow Level 13 Exp 135/3400 HP 120/120 HP Regen 1.2 HP/Min MP 190/190 MP Regen 13 MP/Min SP 120/120 SP Regen 12 SP/Min Stats Strength 11 Willpower 12 Vitality 12 Perception 22 Endurance 12 Intelligence 19 Agility 22 Wisdom 13 Dexterity 10 Charisma 7 Class Skills Nurture Level 10 Specialization Poison's bane Shadow Play Level 9 Dark Sight Level 9 Alchemy Level 4 Call The Lightning Level 3 One With The Shadows Level 1 General skills Cleaning Level 2 Analyze Level 2 Sewing Level 3 Hunting Level 1 Climbing Level 4 Trapping Level 1 Knife fighting Level 3 Cooking Level 4 Sword fighting Level 6 Swimming Level 3 Bow fighting Level 3 Runic magic Level 3 Mental resistance Level 6 Fishing Level 1 Poison resistance Level 5 Stone shaping Level 2 Control Level 2 Fire resistance Level 3

To her amazement, the skill the lady had gifted her was listed as one of her class skills. The skill used stamina instead of mana, she saw with satisfaction and wondered what would change when it leveled up. But no matter what happened in the future, it certainly had saved her life today. She owed a great debt to the lady. Would she ever meet her again? Improbable, if what Sandrine told her about her limitations was true. But she hadn’t taken a wish, maybe that changed things?

Fortunately, Call the Lightning had finally leveled up. In the confusion during the fight she hadn’t even noticed. She had had a long wait for that level. Well, it was a skill she couldn’t employ too often. It used a lot of her mana and she needed some distance from an enemy to use it. After all, she wouldn’t want to fry herself. Or her companions.

Frowning she noticed that Analyze was still stuck on level two. And no wonder, she hadn't even thought of using it today. Neither on the lady, nor on the riders she had encountered while hidden or on the beast she had fought against. She really needed to use that skill more.

The decision where to put her stat points confronted her with a dilemma. After her narrow escape today she wanted to raise her vitality. If she wanted to improve her sword fighting skill, dexterity was the way to go and from her past experiences she knew willpower was important. For her class abilities, especially her healing she should invest in intelligence or maybe in wisdom. And her charisma was lagging far behind all of her other stats. Should she raise that too, maybe?

So many options and so few stat points. Gnawing on her lip she pondered her decision for long minutes.

At last, she sighed and put a stat point in vitality and a stat point in wisdom. All the willpower in the world would be of no use to her if she died from the first attack of a powerful foe. It very nearly had happened to her today. And she needed to raise her mana regeneration for her healing. What if she ran out of mana while someone was severely injured and one of her companions died because of it?

When she emerged from her hut, she saw that a lot of Kharlins had already gathered in the central area of the village. All eyes were centered on her as she grabbed some tea and food and sat down to her meal at a table with Verene, Nuala and Niko. Ankou and the cubs lay next to the table in a furry ball.

“You look a lot better now. We are all curious what happened while you were out today,” Nuala said with a beautiful smile. Dawn returned her smile, feeling grateful for her calm company and started to tell them all about her day without further delay.

After she had ended her report, Halvar stood up, shook his head and said.

“It sounds like a fairytale. Your lady of wishes and the mirror of stars. If I hadn’t known you for a while now, I would think it all a tall story.” His ears flicking nervously, he continued.

“But no matter how you look at it, you are a trouble magnet Dawn. You were out only a few hours, didn’t travel far from the village and managed to get lost in the mist - and on a hot summer day to boot, to find this lady of wishes and capped it all by having to fight against a fark.”

“And she won it, too,” added Nestor drily. “Let’s not forget that.”

Dawn wrinkled her nose.

“It’s not as if I went looking for trouble. I just wanted to raise my skill in hunting and the bow. Which I didn’t manage at all, by the way. Nestor is the only one who succeeded in bringing down some prey.” She sighed and continued.

“That I didn’t die after the fark grabbed me was pure luck. I couldn’t even raise my sword against it. First I was blinded from the earth in my eyes, and then it had grabbed me already. I was absolutely useless in that fight, and if it hadn’t been for my companions or my lightning it would have killed me easily.”

“There’s no shame in being overwhelmed by a powerful enemy.” Nuala told her, patting her hand. “A good fight is one you walk away from. You did that and even killed your foe. That is good enough for now.”

Halvar cleared his throat, raised his hand and said loudly:

“Dawn’s story is not the only reason I asked all of you to gather here today. There are some decisions outstanding, that I felt had to involve the whole village, not only the village council.”

He sighed and lowered his head, his ears flattening.

“First, a very painful one for us all. We have to decide what happens with Ristop after he attacked Dawn with a knife entirely unprovoked during a session of the village council . It happened some time ago already and we deferred his judgement for a while because of the situation with the demons. But it can’t be postponed forever. As I myself owe my life to Dawn, I can’t be taken as a neutral party. For that reason and because his words and actions caused a lot of controversy between us, I wanted to leave the judgement to the whole village.” He gave a sign to two Kharlins next to him and they disappeared into the recesses of the village cavern.

“As we are sitting in judgement on him, he has the right to defend himself and will attend our meeting.”

The Kharlins came back leading Ristop in their midst. He was striding freely, apparently without concern, and didn’t look guilty or conscience-stricken in the least.

Dawn was taken aback at seeing him. She had tried to forget all about his attack on her and would have been perfectly happy if she had never seen him again. But of course he wouldn’t conveniently vanish simply because she wished for it.

All around her, Kharlins were murmuring uneasily. It seemed as if she wasn’t the only one who’d rather have forgotten all about the man.