Dawn sank back onto her bed, food forgotten as she was thinking furiously about the branches now offered to her. Nature’s might sounded promising. How often had she lamented that she was lacking in offensive skills in the past? Surely that branch would offer her more firepower!

Then she remembered the Trickster’s words. Perception and agility are not the stats of a melee fighter.

She twisted her lips in annoyance. It was not guaranteed that the skills offered with nature’s might would scale of strength, she assured herself.

But it was possible. And might was not a word that fit her character and stats very well. A troubling thought.

Nature’s restoration sounded like it focused on healing. Maybe it would offer benefits like improved regeneration of stamina or mana? Be like the water. What exactly did that mean? Go with the flow? Grind your enemies down slowly?

That sounded as if it would take a lot of patience. Not one of her stronger points. Hmm.

Finally, Nature’s balance. According to the description it seemed to be a blend of the other two branches. Might and restoration in one package. That certainly looked like a great offer. Why then the warning that this path might be the hardest?

Dawn sat and played with a strand of her hair, deep in thought and asking herself some hard questions. What did she want? What would fit her best? What would she be comfortable with going forwards?

Wistfully, she bid farewell to the thought of gaining great offensive strength quickly with the branch of Nature’s might. If she read the description right, she would either need great strength or oodles of mana for this branch. Strength was one of her weakest points, and as far as mana was concerned, even now she had never enough of it in a fight. While she could always raise her stats, her leveling speed would surely be slow going forwards. Each level took more experience and she could hardly expect hordes of conveniently placed enemies she could easily vanquish to cross her way.

Well she had another quest, but she didn’t even know where to start. How could she find out how to hurt the queen, let alone kill her? She shook her head and dismissed the stray thought. There would be time enough for these considerations after she picked her branch and knew what skills and spells she was dealing with.

Nature’s restoration surely was a great pick for a healer and a supporter for a team. But while fighting in a team was good, she had collected enough experience during the last weeks to know that sometimes she would be forced to stand and fight on her own, or maybe only with Ankou at her back.

No, purely a support role was not the way to go. That left her only one sensible choice. The middle way and supposedly the hardest. Dawn gnawed her lips for a moment, then shrugged her shoulders. It wouldn’t be the first time that she made a hard choice. Nature’s balance would be her way forward.

Without further ado she took her pick, holding her breath in tense expectation as she waited to see what skills she would be offered.

You’ve chosen the branch of Nature’s balance. You way forward is broad but the going will be rough.

Stats per level:

+ 1 Intelligence

+ 1 Perception

+ 1 Wisdom

+ 2 free Stats

Available class skills

Breaking point (skill)

See and identify the vulnerabilities of your enemy. Details scale with perception and skill level and further depend on level, skills and willpower of your enemy.

Stamina cost: 30 SP

Earth flow (spell)

Use the earth itself to fight your enemies. Raise up walls, harden marshy areas or crumble solid ground beneath your enemies feet. Benefits and speed of change increase with rising spell levels.

Mana cost: 25 MP/Min

Rejuvenation (spell)

Accelerate stamina regeneration by spell level * 10 in yourself and your allies. Area of effect (spell level) * m around you.

Mana cost: 10 MP/min

Entanglement (spell)

Nature will come to your aid and entangle your enemies. Use plants and roots to slow down and trap beasts or humans. Area of effect (spell level *3) m around you. Effect lasts for 1 minute.

Mana cost: 50 MP

Cocoon Of Shadows (spell)

Envelop yourself in a cocoon of shadows that absorbs a part of your enemy’s strike against you. Absorbs (spell level * 4) HP of damage.

Mana cost: 70 MP

Breath Of Winter (spell)

Use the breath of winter to slow down and freeze your enemies. Area of effect (spell level *2) m around you. Effects intensify the longer the spell goes on.

Mana cost: 40 MP/min

Empowerment (skill)

Raise your strength and HP regeneration by (skill level *10) %.

Stamina cost: 25 SP/Min

Those were a lot of options. And she could only pick two! The available picks were heavily slanted towards mana use. Her stats per level had changed accordingly. In future, intelligence, wisdom and perception would be raised automatically. Dawn appreciated the change. From her experience, one could never have enough mana or mana regeneration.

But which skills would benefit her most?

Breaking point would be good for information if she fought new enemies. Breath of winter and entanglement sounded useful if you were fighting against several enemies at once. Though with breath of winter there was the added effect of freezing, that would not only hinder but also hurt her enemies as well. Therefor it appeared to be the better pick of the two.

Cocoon of shadows would massively improve her survivability without the need to put a lot of stat points into vitality.

Earth flow would be helpful not only against her enemies but also if she ever needed shelter out in the wilderness. The ability to raise walls and build her own shelter wherever she went sounded massively helpful.

The least impressive picks in the extensive list surely were rejuvenation and empowerment. She herself hadn’t had a problem with lack of stamina yet so rejuvenation would benefit mainly her allies in a fight. And while enhanced strength and stamina regeneration were nothing to sneeze at, the alternatives available as spells appeared far more powerful.

She decided that breath of winter was her first pick. It would help her to keep control in a fight against multiple enemies as well as against a single one.

For her second pick she dithered between cocoon of shadows and earth walls. The first would aid her in surviving fights though she would have to keep it activated, or she would be just as vulnerable as ever against an attack from ambush. Though her high perception should help her to avoid such situations in the first place, she supposed. The second was valuable in a fight and when she needed shelter or solid ground beneath her feet.

She tended more to cocoon, though she resolved to wait with her second pick and think it over some more. Better to be careful before she made the wrong choice after all.

For her stats she put three of her free points in wisdom and two in intelligence, the last went to dexterity as she had promised herself to raise it to help her with her sword skills.

Status screen Name Dawn Trakam Path Nature's shadow Branch Nature's balance Level 16 Exp 2875/5000 HP 130/130 HP Regen 1.2 HP/Min MP 200/200 MP Regen 15 MP/Min SP 120/120 SP Regen 12 SP/Min Stats Strength 11 Willpower 22 Vitality 13 Perception 25 Endurance 12 Intelligence 20 Agility 24 Wisdom 15 Dexterity 10 Charisma 7 Class Skills Nurture Level 10 Specialization Poison's bane Shadow Play Level 9 Dark Sight Level 9 Alchemy Level 7 Call The Lightning Level 3 One With The Shadows Level 1 Breath Of Winter 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 3 Fire resistance Level 3

As she looked over her status sheet in satisfaction, she remembered with a start that she had totally forgotten about her training with Nestor this morning. Guiltily, she thought she would have to apologize to him the next morning. Hopefully, he wouldn’t be too angry with her. After all, he helped her with her training only out of kindness.

Taking a deep breath, Dawn decided that now was the perfect time to go look for some dinner and have a chat with Nuala. She was looking forward to share her new branch and available skills with her.

When she arrived in the communal area, it was nearly empty and the older woman was nowhere in sight. Obviously the time for dinner had come and gone some time ago.

Dawn chided herself for expecting too much. Of course, her new mother had her own concerns and was here primarily to aid the Kharlins in the aftermath of their loss of so many relatives and friends. Foolish of her to expect that the priestess was only waiting for her whenever she wanted to chat with her.

She took her pick from the leftovers of the communal dinner. It was a hearty stew and none the worse for having been on the fire longer.

Dawn ate alone, all the while itching to share the news about her branch path and skills with someone. And three levels, all at once. She supposed she could go and look for Verene or Kharma, but in the back of her mind she recalled the admonitions of Nathan and Teren not to be so open with her skills and abilities. And maybe they would think her simply boastful as well. Better to avoid that.

Regretfully she returned to her hut alone and spoiled her feline friends there with some jerky. Her chat with Nuala would have to wait until tomorrow.

The next morning Dawn was up early for her training with Nestor. The burly Kharlin accepted her apology for missing last day’s training with equanimity.

“I know you’ve had a lot on your mind with Chaos hurt.” He reassured her gruffly. “Just let it not become the norm. It takes patience and perseverance to progress, after all.”

After their training she joined Lutha once again. Today they would finish their batch of fertilizer and start working on a batch of adhesive. The Kharlins used the material to fabricate their arrows and bows, so it was an important staple in the village.

Ankou had once again taken up the task of watching over the cubs and taking them out for a short hunt. At the moment both cubs were still very subdued, so he had an easier time with that than before Chaos had been hurt.

Her lunch break she spend together with Kharma and Nuala, eagerly seizing the chance to tell her mother about her new branch and the choices in skills that came with it.

On the afternoon of the next day, Dawn had just left the healer’s hut after she had spent her day helping Samya to produce a salve against sprains and bruises and a tea against fever when there was a commotion at the village entrance.

Curious, she ran over only to see Nathan come in, escorted by one of the Kharlins. He was greeted with enthusiasm by the cubs and Dawn saw an expression of relief pass over his face.

“So the little ones did survive,” he said as he approached her. “I feared that one of them had been killed by that arrow.”

“It was a near thing,” replied Dawn, her face darkening in memory. “We were lucky he is a cat. They are said to possess more than one life, and I believe he used one of them up in that encounter.”

She gave him a quick hug, pleased to see him again.

“Nevertheless it is good to see you back safe and sound. I hope the soldiers are not in the area around the village anymore?” she asked somewhat anxiously.

A cluster of Kharlins had built up around them by now, all of them awaiting Nathan's news with baited breath.

“No, they are on their way back to Atelang by now with their fallen. The fight in the city was hard and we lost another seven members of the company. But with the aid of the devotee we prevailed in the end. It was lucky that he was in the area and agreed to lead the expedition to the city. I’m convinced that without him we would have lost the whole party. His sword was the only one that was able to hurt the demons easily. And his spells aided everyone with their stamina and their health regeneration. My spells were able to help with slowing the enemies down, but our tactics with the fire arrows destroyed the webs of the monsters, yet somehow a lot of the grown demons seemed to have suddenly developed a resistance against fire. It was uncanny. And left us floundering during the fight.”

Dawn nodded slowly. “I told you that they could learn and were able to adapt their strategies. Though I’d really like to know how they managed to develop fire resistance all of a sudden. Maybe some new abyssal ritual of the queen. It was lucky that the last batch we fought didn’t have the fire resistance.”

Nathan nodded.

“You have a point. In any case we vanquished the enemies nad it was good that we took care of so many of them before, out in the open. Otherwise they would have simply overwhelmed us. The devotee sees his mission as a great success and praised the might of the Warrior from morning to night on the way back from the city. All the demons in the lair were killed and they even managed to rescue Aaron alive. Though they lost the healing sister during the fight. She was buried beneath a rockfall that came out of nowhere. It was a great blow and one of the reasons so many of the party were killed. If we still had had her aid in the end, surely more of us would have survived.”

Dawn frowned. “So Aaron did survive. I was afraid of that. Be very careful of him, Nathan. In one of my dreams I saw him negotiating with the queen. Were none of you suspicious that everyone else had died and he was the only one left?”

Nathan shook his head. “No, we all were much too glad that the fighting was over with and that he was found alive. He was halfway webbed in a cocoon, so most of the company thought simply that his turn to get eaten had not yet come.”

“And how did you escape the group now? You were scouting for them before, surely they wanted to keep you with them?” Dawn queried.

Nathan smiled and shook his head: “On the contrary. I was ordered to stay behind and look for any traces of demons that escaped the fight. So when the group had disappeared in the distance, I made my way to the village to inform you all about the results of our little expedition.”

“And very welcome you are, bringing such wonderful news,” interjected Halvar now. “With the success of your soldiers, our tribe has been freed of a great threat to our survival. That is a reason to celebrate.” He smiled and then added with alacrity,

“But we neglect all hospitality in our shameless curiosity. Come! Sit and eat with us. You will surely be tired and hungry.”

“I wouldn’t say no to a hot meal,” assured Nathan and followed him over to the tables.