I face the darkness of the forest, slivers of moonlight lighting nothing more than dark shapes beyond my sight.

  The eerie sound doesn’t repeat, but I stand still, eyes searching back and forth, waiting for the worst. I won’t let whatever monstrosity made that awful noise any closer to the village.

  Cold snow seeps into my boots and through my cloak. I nip at the moss in my pocket to keep my vitality alive. I wish for Taren’s glowing eyes to pierce this darkness, to see what I face. But nothing comes. I remain standing, likely frozen solid if it weren’t for [Leech Grip], until my stamina drops low.

  With nothing else I can do, I trudge back to Ashgrove. The moon’s almost tucked out of view under the treeline. I climb the ladder inside my shed one rung at a time, registering nothing more than the lethargic drag of my body until I hit the loft.

  ~~~

  I hear Denet’s voice in my dreams. He shakes me. Hard. I feel a sense of weightlessness, either in reality or my dreams, I don’t know. Then Denet fades away.

  I’m surrounded by runes, glowing black, and I see Edrine grinning down at me. His words come out as gibberish, then a dozen holy mages appear behind him, their reaching hands covered in rot—

  Water. Cold water.

  Nox hisses from somewhere in the hay pile behind me. I blink. Taren stands on the last rung of my ladder, a bucket in hand. Denet’s small voice comes from below, asking something I cannot process in my semi-lucid state.

  “You didn’t meet me for hunting,” Taren says. He narrows his eyes, but says nothing more.

  I raise my head enough to see Denet at the foot of the ladder. “I…I’ll tell you when we leave the village.”

  Taren nods, then slides down the ladder and sends Denet off to find Raimi. Back to the Haven for all of us. He waits inside the shed, preventing me from returning to sleep.

  I groan, sit up, then get a jolt of stamina from Nox. He’s always watching out for me.

  Soon enough, the four of us head for Ashwood Forest. Taren and I trek ahead of the other two with our bows.

  Taren glances at me, expecting me to start—as if I did something wrong and need to defend myself.

  “I’ve been up late some nights,” I say.

  He doesn’t comment.

  “There’s enough decay and rot in the village to make a dozen Rot Hearts.”

  He waits, his eyes fixed on the trail of snow ahead of us.

  Well, two can play this game. I find silence more comfortable than speaking. More so than Taren. But hiding this from my only real friend gnaws at me, step by step. I cannot push him away.

  “It’s not your problem to solve,” I finally mutter. “You're not the monster here.”

  Taren stops in place. I stop mid-step, ahead of him, but do not look back.

  “If I don’t keep up with the rot, it’ll destroy Ashgrove.”

  “So you do believe the scrapping cleric after all,” Taren says. “I thought you might. Crit, Sevorn, I thought you were smart.”

  He doesn’t say more; instead, he trudges forward, not waiting for me to catch up. I push through the snow so I can circle in front of him, then step in his way. I’m a head shorter than him, but I won’t budge.

  “That’s right,” Taren says. “You’re a scrapping fool if you think Edrine’s speaking truth. That…that charlatan doesn’t know holy magic. He only knows control.” He rubs his stubbed finger. “He’ll turn the village on you just to keep them all in line.”

  “But what if he’s right?” I ask. “The rot began with me. My magic…thrives on death. I have a black beetle and a raven as guides, Taren. I kill things to power my [Skills]. I create fear.”

  “Mother Life doesn’t bless someone with [Skills] to hurt people. You have to seek black magic out.” Taren steps around me. “You’ve gained [Skills] that meet your current needs. You’ll find a respectable [Class] soon enough.”

  He continues walking and I join him. Part of me wishes I could play at the Haven with Raimi and Denet, not think about what I’m becoming.

  Taren stops suddenly and I bump into him. He deviates from the path and reaches out to a nearby tree. Large gashes line the bark.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “This doesn’t make sense,” he says.

  I come closer and see the marks more clearly. Too thick to be claws, even for a ridgeclaw. “What is it?”

  Taren bends low to study the snowdrifts. A layer of fresh snow covers the forest floor, but long tracks decorate the ground near the tree.

  “Hollowbeast.”

  I don’t know what that is.

  “They live in the foothills, half a day's walk from here, near the mountains. I’ve never seen their tracks in the forest before.”

  That familiar groaning sound fills the forest—louder than the night before. I spin to find it standing thirty feet away.

  Hollowbeast - Level 11

  Its body’s shaped like a wolf strapped atop a barrel—open ribs form a lower cavity with thick winter fur lining the back of it. Some kind of dirt and rock mixture churns inside.

  “It’s a predator, but it only hunts small game like rabbits or burrowmites.” Taren holds a hand out to stop me from drawing my bow. “We’re far from where it nests, so there’s no reason to agitate it. They fear humans.”

  I see long red scars along one side of its body. They're fresh. This hollowbeast is away from home for a reason.

  My hand rests on the knife in my cloak. Taren slides back one foot, then offers a soft gesture for me to do the same.

  The hollowbeast groans again. The churning mixture in its open cavity spins faster.

  “Ah crit—” Taren dives toward me and knocks me down.

  The rock mixture launches from the beast and shreds the tree behind us, sending the top branches raining down.

  I jump from the mess, prepared with my knife, but the hollowbeast hasn’t come closer. Instead, it dips its barrel cavity into the snow and rips up some earth, filling and spinning a new load.

  Taren bounds through the snow to one side, signaling me to circle the other direction.

  “Watch out for its rock snares,” he shouts. “It’s leveled enough to have that skill at least.”

  The hollowbeast aims for me. I skim the snow as I stamina burn and the shot cuts through bushes and trees instead.

  While it re-arms, I charge. Taren stands on one side, releasing arrows as fast as he can, his glowing feet rooted, conserving his mana for now with no lightning shots.

  Before I can reach the beast, something tugs at me and I trip and fall on my face. Stone roots wrap around my foot. It grows out of the ground and slides up my ankle and leg.

  Taren launches a lightning arrow, knocking the hollowbeast back, but the creature doesn’t lose its footing. The rocky mixture inside it spins faster and faster, facing right at me.

  I tear at the stone trap, but it holds me tight.

  Taren fires another lightning arrow. The blast tilts the beast slightly. That gives me an idea.

  With full speed on its projectile, the hollowbeast groans, signaling its attack.

  Then I strike.

  [Pulse Sever] catches both its front legs in time. The beast falls to its front knees as the rock mixture bursts from it, ripping across the ground at an angle.

  Chunks of rock bounce up to slice my skin, but it's nothing serious. I use [Leech Grip] to drain the exposed grasses at my feet, then continue to pummel the stone snare that holds me.

  Taren arrives by my side, surprised. He hasn’t seen my [Pulse Sever] before. His feet glow as he stomps on the stone roots, cracking each in two. We both pull away as the hollowbeast lets loose another rock shot.

  “Can you trip it again?” Taren asks as we dodge together.

  I nod, then we part ways, giving the beast two targets.

  Being the weaker of the two, I suspect it will continue to hunt me, so I prepare [Pulse Sever]. Maybe I can stop that churning cavity.

  I watch the ground this time, leaping over anything suspicious. Any rock or branch might be a trap.

  I strafe between rocky projectiles, letting Taren focus on distracting the beast until I’m ten feet from it. I reach out with [Pulse Sever] to bring it down again, breaking its front leg strength. But the effort drains mana at an alarming rate. A single second isn’t enough to pull it down, not now that it knows my tactic.

  [Pulse Sever] has reached Level 2.

  [Pulse Sever] grants me a passive sense of vitality points, dotting the beast with bright blue pinpoints. I see the vitality flowing through the barrel-like cavity of churning rock. Movement of muscles controlling the spin.

  The hollowbeast faces me. It cannot miss this close.

  I target one spot with [Pulse Sever], then two, then three. The rocks slow, then stop as I pinch the muscles' strength to a standstill. Mana runs out of me like a flood.

  Taren arrives and delivers a powerful, close-range strike with lightning arrow, blinding the three of us for a moment. Then my mana runs dry.

  A howl emanates from the beast, in stark contrast to its eerie groans. The earth shatters beneath Taren and me, ensnaring us both within five feet of the beast.

  Taren immediately tries to kick free from his snare, but he has no room to maneuver.

  The rocks churn again, spinning so close to my face I can see the individual stones and pebbles bounce in circular motion.

  I have my knife in hand. I can sense the vitality points—where the muscles come together. Taren stops fighting the stone roots when I motion to him.

  He draws back a glowing arrow, taut and waiting.

  I lift ?my knife. I’m no hunter, not even a rogue, but I don’t let this throw miss.

  My knife contacts the vital point I target.

  The hollowbeast rears back, muscle reflex sending its front legs pushing up. Taren’s shot lines up, straight at the back of the cavity, where dozens of vital points rest.

  An explosion of light pairs with the release of rock in every direction. Fragments of stone and dirt pound both of us.

  The hollowbeast collapses. Its cavity twitches, then stops.

  You have reached Level 7.

  The stone roots that bind us crumble into dust, and we both fall into the snow, exhausted. Blood drips from my head and down my shoulder, dotting the snow.

  After my mana replenishes, I [Leech Grip] what I can find to heal us both.

  Taren remains sitting in the snow. “It makes no sense,” he says, “being out so far from its territory. There’s nothing for it to hunt in the forest.”

  “It has some gashes,” I say. “About the right size for howlers.”

  He doesn’t seem to think howlers would intrude on hollowbeast territory.

  “There’s one way to find out,” I say, then nod towards the foothills.

  Taren grins.