Duskbound

The giant lizard's body slammed into the ground with a hard, meaty thump. Black blood trickled out of its mouth and stained its teeth. Velik stood ten feet away, staring at it impassively as four spears made of magical energy kept the monster pinned through its death throes.

[You have slain an elite ironjaw croc (level 34).]

[You have been awarded 3 decarma.]

[You have advanced to level 32. +2 Physical, +1 Mental, +2 free points.]

[Phalanx has advanced to rank 2.]

The reptile was over twenty feet long, not including the tail, and had a mouth big enough to bite through Velik's chest. It had lunged at him out of the stream when he was refilling his water skin, an unexpected ambush that had broken the illusion of safety he'd been carrying.

No matter how high my stats go and how many ranks I stack up, there's always going to be something that can sneak up on me if I don't pay attention.

The monster had pushed him up to the next level, however, and it had provided good practice for [Phalanx]. Velik had spent most of the fight dodging its snapping jaws, sometimes by literally standing on the monster when it lunged at him, and let the phantasmal spears do their work. They couldn't penetrate the leathery flesh of the monster, not easily, but that was the point. The challenge was to find weak spots in its body and strike with pinpoint accuracy, and Velik was pleased to see that he'd risen to the occasion.

After fighting three champion elites this week, he no longer considered normal elites difficult. Even when they were higher level than him, they lacked the complications champion arenas added to the battles. Sometimes, an elite surprised him with an interesting or unique ability, but those were still easily handled.

The compass led him deeper into the wilderness than he'd ever gone, though not necessarily in a straight line. Over the past week, he'd probably run five hundred miles of forest, but he doubted he was more than three hundred away from the nearest town. For all of that, he'd gathered a wealth of power and decarmas. If the three champion seeds he'd collected were worth as much as Torwin had gotten for the first two, he could probably afford a real upgrade from the system store, maybe even something epic like his spear.

With the croc thoroughly dead, Velik hopped over the body and scanned the stream. For water so clear, it was surprising that anything could hide in it, but the monster had nestled into the bottom near the bank and covered itself in a layer of silt. It had to have some kind of skill to move that fast when it had lunged at him, but it hadn't been enough to actually catch Velik.

Wary of a second croc coming to finish the job, he quickly finished refilling his waterskin and followed the compass deeper into the forest. Using the notes Torwin had furnished him with, he'd narrowed down the search criteria to only point towards monsters with enough mana over a certain threshold, one which he'd refined over the last few days through trial and error to point to champions.

Velik ran for another six hours, trying to find the next champion and hoping it would be the one at the end of the line. When the sky started to lighten and he still hadn't found it, he slowed his pace and prepared to find a good spot to catch a few hours' sleep. Against a normal monster, or even an elite, he wouldn't hesitate to fight during the day, but for a champion, he wanted to be at peak strength.

He'd been scouting out the area, clearing it of weak monsters and looking for a defensible den when some niggling sensation filled his mind. Something is… wrong, maybe? Or not wrong, but…

He couldn't quite place the feeling. There was nothing there, nothing he could see, hear, or smell at least, but he couldn't shake the sense that he was wrong. Something was hiding nearby, watching him, stalking him. He needed to find them before they attacked.

[Apex Hunter has advanced to rank 2.]

Velik's eyes widened. Normally, he'd celebrate a skill advancement, but in the moment, all it told him was that he was right to be worried. He still couldn't find whatever it was that was lurking nearby, something dangerous and sneaky.

No, that's not right. It doesn't feel… Urgh. What is this? It is dangerous, but… not to me? What is this skill trying to tell me?

He didn't know what it was that caught his attention when he walked past that tree. There was no flicker of movement, no slight creaking of wood or rustle of leaves. As far as his eyes and ears were telling him, there was nothing there. [Apex Hunter] disagreed, and before Velik was even aware of what he was doing, his spear had snapped out to its full length and he was slicing it through the branches.

Something smacked the shaft and deflected it so that the head bit deep into the bole. Velik pulled it free and danced back, just in case whatever was lurking in that tree had limbs longer than his spear.

"Easy there!" a voice called out, one Velik recognized. Torwin dropped free of the branches and pushed his way free of the tree. He was shaking one hand as if in pain and eyeing Velik's spear up, but was otherwise unharmed.

"What are you doing here?" Velik asked coldly.

"Chasing after you, obviously. You're devilishly tricky to hunt down, you know that? Running this way and that. I tried calibrating Jensen's mana compass to match what you were looking for, but I couldn't quite figure it out. Easier to follow the trail of bodies, but you move so damn quick, I started falling behind."

"If I'd wanted your company, I would have told you so a week ago."

The old man sighed and regarded Velik. "You understand why I'm here, don't you?"

"Here in the frontier or here following me?"

"I'm going to assume you don't get it, because otherwise you wouldn't be trying to draw a distinction. I took this contract so that my apprentice could develop his skills. It's honestly way beneath what hunters of my rank typically deal with, or at least it should be. I was expecting to hunt down a few hundred monsters at or below level 20. But then once I got here, I realized this has been an ongoing issue for years."

Torwin jabbed a finger at Velik. "You've been keeping it contained, and apparently doing such a thorough job that those ungrateful assholes in Deshir never even realized it was still a problem until the population exploded. They said it happened two months ago, but I'm guessing it was a lot longer. Two months was just when it started to be more than you could take care of by yourself."

"What's your point?" Velik asked.

"Just killing the monsters near the border won't accomplish anything. Give it a few weeks, maybe a month, and new monsters will be there. Maybe the level won't be as high, but they'll be just as numerous. And if the population explosion doesn't stop, then next time, it'll be a whole team of hunters up here trying to keep things under control. The real job is to find the underlying cause and fix it."

"And you think I'll lead you there."

"Exactly," Torwin said. "I'm not trying to step on your toes. I'm not trying to steal your kills. I don't want anything from you. I just want to find out what's causing the monster population to boom, whether that's your friend or something else, and stop it. Right now, I think you're heading in the right direction. If I learn something else that changes my mind, I'll chase after that."

While the decarmas would be nice from a whole crop of champion seeds, the truth was that Velik didn't actually know who to sell them to. The system store didn't buy things, and, as he'd just learned, the things it sold were grossly overpriced. Maybe the gear was worth it, but those healing potions cost ten times more than they should. That hadn't stopped him from buying another emergency haste potion, however. Just in case.

"Where's Jensen?" Velik could accept that Torwin could get close, but there was no way his apprentice had snuck up on him.

Torwin shook his head. "He doesn't have the stats or the skills to survive this far into the wild lands. I left him back in town with instructions to keep the pressure off the locals. He mentioned something about a druid he'd worked with one day while I was gone, so I think he's coordinating with someone else who came to help."

"She's local," Velik said. "Morgus blessed her with a new class a few weeks back."

Torwin's jaw dropped open. "Morgus blessed her? I think I'd like to meet this woman."

"I'm not going to stop you. Just don't expect an escort back."

"No, we have more important matters to attend to. But when our business is concluded… Yes, I'd like to meet one blessed with a new class by my god."

Velik wasn't eager for company, but he'd rather know where Torwin was than have [Apex Hunter] itching in the back of his mind all the time. "I was looking for a place to get a few hours of sleep. Join if you want."

Torwin chuckled and jerked his head to the side. "Over that way. Spotted it an hour ago when I was looking for you. There's a nice grove over that ridge, tight tree placement on one side and a solid embankment on the other."

Maybe this won't be so bad, Velik thought to himself. It was different, but that didn't mean worse. Torwin started chattering about tree seeding patterns and how to use it to map unfamiliar forests while he led the way. Or maybe it will.