Stealth check successful!

The hunter has become one with the shadows.

You have spotted your prey!

Eric lost himself in the zen of movement, becoming one with his environment, just as he had during his earliest exhilarating hunts, when he first made those tunnels of Gilton city his own.

For the moment there was no sense of horrific betrayal, no flashes of terror and dismay. The mithril collar promising death should he dare weave and jerk aside too quickly, so tiny a pressure as to be insignificant, as he allowed all his troubled thoughts to fade away to nothing, instead embracing the oldest dance known to man.

The sheer pleasure of the hunt, embracing the soft footsteps in the dark, honing in on his prey.

He was now one with the inky darkness and the exquisite contrast of shades of deepest blue and brilliant shades of orange from the swarm of living prey ahead.

There were no awful memories here.

Screaming in agony for the delight of vicious bastards before their own hyena-like cackles died off to the wailing shrieks of being frozen alive by the darkest of Grim fairy tales brought to horrific life… none of that mattered to the shadow that Eric had become.

He reveled in stalking his prey as a nose like a scent hound’s synergized perfectly with heat sense to reveal the trail and spore of footsteps just the tiniest bit warmer than the surrounding cool blue stone, the waft of their scent further assuring that the trail was fresh and true.

He took a slow steady breath as he slowly drew back his bow string until his thumb kissed the pocket of his jaw, allowing the tension in the bow limbs to build as he sighted his prey among the dozen squirming warthog-sized rodents, bigger than the first group he had encountered.

The farmost rat, separated from the others was the one he chose, sighting the base of its spine as he balanced the tension in his bow... and released.

The arrow streaked through the air, striking true.

The rat collapsed in a boneless heap, no final dying squeak to alert its fellows.

Eric’s heart hammered, a satisfied smile coming to his lips as the mischief continued to squeak and swarm in the localized area, just as before.

Find Weakness skill check: Successful! You know just where to strike your prey for a silent kill.

Archery skill check made.

Flawless execution!

Eric was now utterly aware of himself and his movements as he slowly drew another arrow, notched it, pulled back on the string to the same spot he always did, allowing for consistent, accurate fire before infusing the limbs of his bone bow, once a lich’s prize, with his necromantic gifts once more…

And fired.

Again and again.

Losing himself in the zen of archery as one fallen scout became three, then four.

Eric’s teeth would have shown in the darkness had there been any light at all, so great was his smile.

It was time.

He drew and sighted once more, just as before.

But this time his target was nervous, as were the others.

Sensing that something was wrong.

Something hunted.

Hunted then.

The fiery red silhouette of his chosen rat tilted up its nose, sniffing frantically in the air.

The tension in the bow string increased.

A nervous squeak could be heard from the swarm of rats.

The bow limbs creaked, yet Eric’s pinch grip on the arrow shaft was rock solid.

Their movements grew restless.

The bow began to vibrate with tension.

Eric flashed a fierce smile as the rat looked right at him!

Knowing he was setting himself up for a shotgun explosion just as before.

But his goal wasn’t to shred a dozen rats, as he had with his original shot.

It was so much more.

Now using every ounce of Dominion’s essence demanding integrity and Flesh Sculptor demanding tension, sensing the pulsing of the crimson runes for strength and resilience he had marked upon the base of his bow as he forced so much tension that he was actually starting to feel it, despite his strength, now focused as much on keeping the bow from bursting apart as lining up the shot.

As it stood, his prey, sensing death’s terrible promise, had finally spooked. Racing off in the distance.

Which was a good thing, Eric thought with a smile.

For it added to the challenge.

A challenge easily met when time seemed to stretch and slow as it always did when he hit battlemode, for all that he now paid exquisite attention to his posture and balance, refusing to jerk his neck even if his arms were prepared to move at dizzying speed.

Yet an archer needed grace more than anything else.

More important still, he needed to hit.

So he freely allowed himself to flow into his bow, such that the space between himself and his target seemed to melt away.

The tip of his arrow was suddenly dwarfed by the base of the rat’s spine now taking up all his vision. A target so open and visible it would be impossible to miss.

So he didn’t.

Releasing the string and flowing into the follow through as the bow snapped with a crack.

It was all he could do not to be jerked off his feet as the limbs snapped forward.

A moment of terror, shaking his trance. The jerking motion yanking him forward for a split second, alarm bells screaming in his mind…

Then a flood of relief.

It had been a jolt of forty Quickness at least, an arrow released at Mach 3.

Yet the mithril blades of death were still frozen in bitter bloody ice.

A state he’d be happy maintaining forever.

Best of all, the arrow hit it’s target!

Even if not quite as intended.

You have successfully used True Strike.

You have critically struck your prey, doing catastrophic damage!

Eric flashed a fierce smile that was bittersweet.

His shot had indeed hit, and he found himself feeling only the tiniest bit drained after using the weapon feet. No doubt Skill Rank 19, massive stat boosts, and over 50 levels in a master Adventurer class, the most flexible of all classes, was helping him tremendously from a drain that he realized was only the tiniest fraction Soul Reserves. Strong Will, Vitality, the potency of surviving so many battles, of leaving his bloody mark upon the world… all of it played a role.

It was all he could do not to chuckle, reminded once more that there was more than one way to tap into his weapon feats, and relying strictly on Soul Reserves was just one that had come a bit too easily to him. But as far as pacing himself and minimizing overall costs, echoing a fighter’s blending of potency, resolve, and raw determination. Those were Classers who rarely had any significant Soul Reserves at all, but might have significant levels and fierce determination pushing them onward.

And none of that managed to keep the arrow shaft from exploding in midair

Again.

Even if, this time, the spinning arrowhead traveling at absurd speeds that were quickly slowed by wind resistance even as the tip began to glow with heat, was still more than enough to not just severe the spine but utterly obliterate the target’s skull, exploding into a crimson paste.

It was no surprise, really. Because as much as a part of him had felt as if he and the rat were connected, their distance rounding down to just an arrow’s length, the air the arrow must travel through was just as real, somehow compressed into a thick morass to shatter against.

The rats squealed, as if in protest, fury, and fear, scattering all at once, more than a few headed right toward him.

And that was fine, he thought, with a fierce, savage grin, heart racing for all that he knew he dare not juke and dodge in any way that jostled his neck as he nocked a fresh arrow, drew back, focused and fired. Now making full use of his incredible Quickness, focus, and ability to slow his perception of time… in ways that didn’t jostle his neck at all. In ways that an archer might excel, where a melee expert who relied on weaving, darting movements, never could.

Speed and stillness as he released a second arrow screaming through the air at Mach 3 once more Then a third.

Each taking out their respective targets in explosions of crimson gore, the windmilling shafts crippling surrounding rats like a shotgun blast.

Even though Eric knew there was a cost to chaining feats when not relying solely on Spiritual Reserves, that he was far better to pace himself than risk burning out in a mad death-sprint… there were times when it was necessary.

Downright Vital.

Because Eric had felt something extra with his last shot.

The sense of the space between himself and his target being compressed such that his target was literally right in front of him, unmissable, was just as before.

Yet with that last shot, for just a second, he had felt the thick wall of compressed air between them start to thin.

Or so he wanted to believe.

Was desperate to believe.

Even if the arrow shaft still windmilled as it struck, like all the others before.

And then the rats were upon him, swarming him as one.

Eric flashed a fierce smile, right fist crackling with spiritual energy and the essence of flame as he fell into horseshoe stance and proved to himself just how fast and powerful he could throw a punch, without jerking his neck at all.

You have critically struck your target with Fire Fist!

10 Qi expended!

Your target has suffered catastrophic damage!

Adjoining targets have been critically injured!

Rat Swarm has failed to save versus intimidation.

Your opponents are fleeing!

And indeed they were fleeing, a squeaking, terrified mass, before they abruptly stopped on a dime.

“Freeze!”

Eric’s voice was a guttural roar. Embracing another too long forgotten Essence Related skill, Dominion’s Command. An ability he doubted would do any good against higher tier opponents, before recalling his battle against a certain party of would-be mercs. Where Dominion’s Command had synergized so well with Lesser Dragon Aura: Fear and his own killing aura that even 40th level mercs had crashed to their knees before him.

Compared to that? A dozen rats his Identify skill pinged as being level 15 at best had no chance at all.

Flesh Sculptor Skill check made! You have successfully forged another dozen Bone arrows! Arrows have been Soul Bound and reinforced with runes of Strengh, Resilience, and the essence of Dominion.

Blood Mastery skillcheck made! You have successfully repaired 5 Soul Bound arrows without using your ES Storage space!

Concentration check successful. You have successfully split your focus to forge new necromantic wonders while locking down your prey!

Potency Binding is now Rank 5.

Dominion’s Command is now Rank 7!

Flesh Sculptor is now Rank 24.

Coldly, Eric knocked a fresh arrow, glaring at the cluster of rats he held fiercely tight in his mental grip in a way that had nothing to do with Psionics but everything to do with the strength of his will, his mark upon the world as a Contender, a Dragon Slayer, and his status as the direct descendant of the Winter Queen, whose word was law within her own domain. No matter how dark and bitter his own Sylvan destiny happened to be, as her lastborn son.

All of it echoed and brought terrible life to his own Essence of Dominion, magnifying its effect in ways he doubted his sister would ever quite match, until the day she was actually crowned queen of Terra.

On that day, even he would be forced to yield. He sensed that law of faerie just as much as he did his own mother’s mastery over the cords of fate shaping him…

And his own fierce desperate desire to break free.

Eric glared at his own trembling hands, pushing away memories of his own awful screams with a snarl… before visualizing it all fading into the comforting gloom around them even as he coldly sighted on the nearest rat after stepping back a good distance...

And releasing his arrow once more.

He clamped down his will upon his prey with fierce focus even as they were splattered with the crimson spray of their slaughtered comrade, caring nothing for the spikes of hot terror radiating off of all of them.

Instead he centered himself, harnessed True Shot after a full minute of rest, minimizing long term drain, and fired again.

And again.

Bringing instant death to his prey, refusing to let them linger.

He was ruthless, yes. Made bitter ruthless after his own nightmarish ordeal he had endured for the sake of 60,000 children who would have been lost to literal hell, had he not intervened. 60,000 children and hundreds of thousands of fresh troops for his mother to play with like little figurines as she strove to secure yet another pearl in her necklace of conquered worlds, this one wherein she would leave her youngest daughter at the helm.

As she no doubt had, countless times before.

And how many of those girls had had twin brothers? And how many of those brothers had actually survived their world’s ascensions?

He shook his head in momentary dismay.

Distracted enough that the remaining rats actually managed to break free as he fell to his knees, glaring at the heat mark left by his own trembling hands as he sobbed for the agony he had suffered, unspeakable pain no living thing should be forced to endure, and he could only hope… pray… that if he meditated and cultivated long enough… he could get the horror of it all to fade away.

“I gave her everything. Everything! My mother has an army. Her knights and rooks my mithril prizes. And my sister is now up so many thousands of innocent souls to rescue and nurture who will fall in love with their savior, and a dozen paladins to revere her as their queen! And I have nothing but whatever I can claw from this cold world with my own two fucking hands!”

The corridors echoed with the fury in his voice.

He glared down at his own clenched fist, bitter laughter slipping free of his tightly stretched lips.

“Is this where I become the fucking monster of my family tale? Used and betrayed, sentenced to death, just a Fucking sacrifice to some goddamned winter horror I won’t even think of naming, nothing but a sacrificial lamb so that my sister can ascend on a glorious golden pedestal made of my own fucking bones while mother dearest smiles happily on?”

“FUCK THAT BULLSHIT!” He roared, his bitter tight control turning to a mad, furious cackle.

“Yet, I got played like the stupidest fool in the fucking world! A sucker with a hero complex, a sheep led to slaughter by his own mother! But I don’t care, you hear me twisted cards of fate? I don’t give a flying fuck!! I still saved sixty thousand children. Sixty thousand souls sentenced to death and eternal pain like I suffered in a cold bitter world where no one gave a fuck about them. Well I DID! I gave a fuck, and I fucking saved them, and no backhand bullshit that winter cunt pulls will take that away from me!”

He shrieked, clawing at his own face, the white hot pain of bloody spurting furrows bringing a fierce hot flare of relief to the screams in his mind.

Screams he did his best to roar right over. “Sorry, assholes! I’m not playing your game! My sister is innocent! She did nothing! Knew nothing! And I absolutely refuse to play the bitter asshole loser who betrays his own kin on a pyre of blackened bones!”

He laughed then, with a dark sort of glee, as if he had bested twisted fates eager for his destruction… or the simple doom of his family. Preferably him glaring cold eyed into his sister’s terrified countenance, right before the dagger he had jabbed in her throat slipped out of confused, numbed fingers as he crashed to his knees, all his fury at the betrayal he suffered fading to horrified dismay when he saw the innocent despair in his own dying sister’s eyes.

Fuck that bullshit.

There was no way his sister could possibly have been a part of that.

None.

Because if she was…

He swallowed, furiously shaking his head in bitter denial.

There was no way she could have known. By their mother’s own admission, she’s been lost in her pod for weeks.

His sister was innocent. He knew that. Whispered it over and over in a ragged chant as he used the most primal of Terran arts to forge fresh arrows of teeth, bone, hide and sinew, marked with runes of blood.

Trembling over the rodent remains he had ruthlessly slaughtered, desperate to raise a certain skill up to twenty, before it was too late.

If he didn’t learn how to synergize and access his limited number of abilities to best effect soon… before he stumbled upon whatever the standard monsters of this maze happened to be, let alone the boss monster, he knew damn well he’d be enjoying an extremely short, extremely painful run.

Of course, that was when he heard it.

The far off bellowing roar that made his very bones vibrate as he broke out in clammy fear sweat.

He swallowed his own bitter chuckle, having no doubt it was his own foolish screaming to the heavens, or perhaps daring to invoke a dragon’s killing aura when he had never felt so vulnerable, denied all access to artifacts, spells, mithril armaments or even the ability to weave and dodge with his full stat bonus… if he dared weave or dodge at all... had not been the best of ideas.

“No use crying over spilled milk,” he whispered to himself, though his bitter smile turned to a grimace of fear when the creature roared again.

And it was closer. Definitely closer.

And somehow Eric didn’t think it would be limited to a rat’s acute olfactory senses to track down prey which meant…

“Fuck fuck fuck! I’ll bet that fucker has infravision. Which means...”

Eric’s heart twisted with dread as he darted forward, retrieved the last of his arrows and began an easy loping jog that didn’t jolt his neck at all, suddenly certain that he was in way, way over his head.