Dawn left her hut in a hurry. She had plans for today and was sure the day would scarcely be long enough to fit everything she wanted to do into it.

The last ten days had been amazing. After the Vixen had visited the village and had personally presided over the adoption ceremony between Nuala and her, she was finally accepted among the Kharlins in New Haven.

She had had a long talk with Halvar the day after, and they had agreed on her responsibilities while she stayed in the village.

Three days a week she worked as an apprentice with Lutha, studying alchemy and supporting the older woman when she brewed potions or medicines. One day a week she worked together with Samya in the healer’s hut. Halvar had been a bit tentative when Dawn had proposed that, as she could heal with her spells and in fact didn’t need to study medicine. But Dawn had convinced him of the benefits. She could be a lot more effective with her spell if she leveled up control and for that she needed more knowledge of how the body of a human or Kharlin worked. So for one day in the week she would learn how to use conventional healing methods, how to prepare salves and learn which medicines to use for different ailments. In a way it was a continuation of her work together with Marjah, and Dawn found herself thinking about her former mentor more often, now that she studied with Lutha and Samya. Her conscience pricked her a bit for she had almost forgotten about Marjah during the last weeks.

Then she went out with the hunters two days in the week, to learn tracking, hunting and trapping animals and about survival in the wilderness. Her mentor there was Nestor and he was very patient with her and answered question after question without any signs of impatience.

In the mornings she trained sword skills for an hour with Niko who kept up his own training every day without fail. He wasn’t as good a fighter as Grinna, but nevertheless a lot more advanced in his skills than Dawn.

The evenings and the seventh day were her own. Well apart from the necessary work she had to put in to get her clothes back into a more reasonable condition. Almost everything she possessed had to be mended, and there were some stains that she had a hard time removing. Generally here clothes were in a deplorable condition. The wilderness and her many fights agains beasts had taken a severe toll on them.

Astonishingly, despite working a lot harder among the Kharlins than she ever had to at home, Dawn found that she didn’t mind. Here, no one criticized her for wanting to study alchemy or to learn sword fighting or hunting. No one ever told her it was not her place to do or learn something, or that it was not proper for a woman or a girl to wear trousers instead of long cumbersome dresses or skirts.

Dawn relished the freedom and sense of ease that came with that. Even when she was working on mending her clothes in the evenings, a task she had always detested, she often sat together with Verene and Nuala, and they would talk over the events of the day. It made the work easier.

When Verene lamented that the gardens they had planted anew once they arrived at their new village didn’t come along fast enough, so that she feared they would not be able to harvest before the frosts came, Dawn realized with a start that she could help her with that. She had almost forgotten that Nurture wasn’t simply a healing spell but could also be used to accelerate growth in plants.

But once she had remembered, she took the time one morning to cast it on several patches on vegetables that the Kharlins had grown around their village.

In contrast to human farmers, the Kharlins didn’t farm tidy fields of wheat or turnips but planted their crops in small, apparently random patches over a bigger area. It was a defense mechanism so that it wasn’t easily apparent to anyone that the village was situated in the vicinity.

Dawn cast Nurture on small areas and afterwards the plants there would accelerate their growth during the next day so that it seemed a whole week had gone by. Verene was over the moon at the effect and would have preferred it if Dawn came with her every day to cast her spell on the plants.

When Dawn went out hunting, Ankou and the cubs came along. The Kharlin hunters had been skeptical at first, knowing only too well what kind of mischief the two were usually up to in the village. But it turned out that Ankou had taken their education firmly in his paws and slowly but surely they learned the discipline necessary for successful hunters.

When Dawn worked with Lutha or Samya, Ankou would take the cubs on shorter hunting trips to further develop their skills. Despite his best efforts he wasn’t able to keep the cubs entirely away from the village’s children. Dawn knew he frowned upon the games cubs and children played together, but there was a limit to the cubs’ obedience and if there were games to be had, they ignored Ankou’s lectures with impunity.

Well, Dawn shrugged, what could he expect. The cubs, after all, were cats too. She was glad to see them healthy, though she had been a bit miffed when Chaos had appropriated one pair of her trousers a few days ago and used them as a chew and play toy. More mending to be done, and even after that those trousers now were closer to rags in appearance. Dawn sighed. What could she do. Though she had quite a bit of money from the sale of the alchemy books, gold was of no use to her here in the village. The Kharlins didn’t use any money among themselves and simply traded their products and services with each other.

As an apprentice of alchemy with Lutha, Dawn had nothing of her own to sell and she was loathe to put a price on her healing. Apart from any ethical question, Samya was the main healer for the village. If she herself was going to heal any small ailments she would take away Samya’s livelihood.

As for her hunting, she couldn’t be called proficient by any means. She had taken a pheasant and some rabbits with a bit of luck but there certainly was a lot of room for growth in that area.

She would have to think of something soon or she’d run the risk of her clothes falling apart on her while she was wearing them.

Nevertheless, Dawn was happy. Her general skills had been growing by leaps and bounds during the past week and though she knew that wouldn’t continue in this way, the first levels were the easiest to achieve after all, she was very satisfied with her progress.

She called up her status sheet once more to wallow in her success.

Status screen Name Dawn Trakam Path Nature's shadow Level 13 Exp 240/3400 HP 130/130 HP Regen 1.2 HP/Min MP 190/190 MP Regen 14 MP/Min SP 120/120 SP Regen 12 SP/Min Stats Strength 11 Willpower 22 Vitality 13 Perception 22 Endurance 12 Intelligence 19 Agility 22 Wisdom 14 Dexterity 10 Charisma 7 Class Skills Nurture Level 10 Specialization Poison's bane Shadow Play Level 9 Dark Sight Level 9 Alchemy Level 5 Call The Lightning Level 3 One With The Shadows Level 1 General skills Cleaning Level 3 Analyze Level 3 Sewing Level 4 Hunting Level 3 Climbing Level 5 Trapping Level 3 Knife fighting Level 3 Cooking Level 4 Sword fighting Level 7 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

The willpower the Vixen’s boon had given her made her especially happy. Though it had come with a visible silvery scar in the form of an arrowhead on her right shoulder. No matter, willpower trumped vanity any day in Dawn’s opinion.

Now she could invest further status points in wisdom and intelligence. Though with her newest skill, maybe a point in stamina wouldn’t go amiss, either.

Unfortunately her plans to invest further points might be just a bit premature. She was a long way away from the next level, and though leveling up was good, she rather hoped for a bit of a lull regarding fights against beasts. She was a bit tired of panic attacks, impossible situations and lucky escapes.

Today was her free day and she met up with Verene who had offered to take her on a tour of the storage caves, and to show her the escape tunnels which had been built in case an enemy discovered the village. Verene explained to Dawn that there existed elaborate plans for the evacuation of the village. The stone singers were playing a major role in that, as they would close the escape routes behind the villagers to bar the way for any enemies that pursued the Kharlins. Now that Dawn was not merely a guest in the village but one of their own, she got to know those secret escape routes as well. Though, technically, she was a member of Nuala’s tribe now. Of whom she knew exactly three members right at the moment.

Yesterday, Halvar had called the tribe together and reminded everyone that they expected a party of humans to come through the area on their way to the lost city soon. He had asked the villagers to stay in the area and to keep a sharp lookout whenever they left the cave. Encounters with the humans were to be avoided at all costs. He himself had doubled the guards who were on the lookout for possible enemies in the cliffs above the village.

Halvar estimated that they would have to limit their excursions outside for the next one to two weeks at least, a fact that had led to much grumbling among the tribe.

Dawn sincerely hoped that the group would travel to the ancient city directly and that it was big enough to eliminate the rest of the demons. If all went well, they would be there and gone in barely a few days and the mountains would be that much safer for the Kharlins and her.

As she went deeper into the mountain with Verene, the paths and adjacent caves became darker. No skylights lightened up this area and it wasn’t lit up by any torches or other light sources either. Verene explained to her that the Kharlins naturally were able to see very well in the dark and Dawn was once more glad that she had Dark Sight.

“Here is the start of the first escape route,” Verene said as they ducked to enter a narrow tunnel. “The way widens after the first few meters, the entrance is kept low and narrow by intent, so it can be closed up fast.”

After they had walked a bit, the tunnel first widened and then let out into a bigger cave containing a small cascade, the waters flowing down into a little pool and from there into a narrow channel that disappeared under the wall of the cave.

“Here is the gathering point and our fresh water source in case we are under siege,” Verene explained. “The doors at the back of the cave lead to our storage areas. I won’t open them now, as some of them are kept at freezing temperatures to preserve meat and other perishables.”

“This is impressive,” said Dawn. “And you built all this since you came here from your former village? It’s been only a few weeks.”

Verene shook her head.

“We didn’t build everything from the ground up. Customarily, every village has a bolt hole that we can flee to in case something dire happens. New Haven was ours. We enlarged the main village cave a lot and built the escape tunnels and the storage areas during the last weeks but the the basework was already done.”

“Your preparations are awesome. But they require major effort and a lot of planning. And all just in case something bad happens. I’ll admit that it came in very handy with the demons, but it takes up a lot of work and resources too.”

Verene smiled a bit sadly.

“We have learned in the course of our history that always having a bolthole, a place to escape to, is essential for us. Though we prize hunting, our folk is generally peaceful and not very well versed in the martial arts. There are always other people around, a lot of the time humans, who think might makes right. They hunted us, stole from us and killed us. We had to adapt to survive.”