It was daytime when Ranthia woke up. It was kind of hard to miss the fact when she barely cracked her eyes open and got an eyeful of the sun itself hanging above. She had to resist the ridiculous impulse to hiss at it, like a peeved cat—the impulse was easier to resist since she was already keenly aware that she was surrounded. Four guards seem to have stood, well, guard over her.

  The fact that someone had covered her with a blanket without her even noticing freaked her out more than a little. That absolutely hadn’t been there when she fell asleep after—

  She absolutely wasn’t awake enough to remember that, and she struggled to quash the train of thought. Okay, that was partially a lie. She kind of felt amazing? She sat up slowly, hugging the surprisingly soft blanket to herself. Only to have one of the guards immediately hold a tunic—a men’s tunic, which was surprisingly thoughtful—out to her.

  The guards immediately picked up large stretches of cloth—salvaged sails, one of them explained—to screen her while she changed. Which meant Ranthia was finally able to go over the damage to her gear.

  Her Ranger armor was… basically trash at that point. Almost the entire front was gone, as was part of the back. …And almost the entire skirt. Honestly, it was kind of a miracle that the remnants of the armor hadn’t just fallen off of her while she fought; the belt was providing most of the support for it.

  Which meant that she had basically been traipsing about completely naked. In a city. Which made her seriously side-eye the level in [Sexy]. …And yes, sure enough—godsdamnit—it leveled after the fight was complete, likely when people approached her.

  Her belt was in better shape, though it had suffered more than a bit too. Two of her pouches were half missing, their contents lost. Another was just outright not there and she had no idea where it was lost. At least the pouch her blindfold had been in was one of the survivors; she planned to put it back on once she was dressed.

  She wasn’t ready to confront what had happened, but she turned her attention to the level notifications. That was easier. [Reflective Motility] was finally capped—not even a little surprising, she’d manipulated countless images throughout the fight. [Mirrored Moves] got its first workout since she lost [Blades of Darkness], as part of her desperation to make the kraken focus on her images more. [Reflections of Reality] got its first several levels in—holy Xaoc that was 56 levels! [Reflections of Reality] had always been one of her most stubborn skills to level!

  It really hammered in just how stupid she had been to fight the damned oceanic monster. …Especially since [She who Dances with Chaos] leveled 41 times. Gods and goddesses, level gains past 200 were supposed to be slow. Level 300 was something she hadn’t expected to reach for another 8 years! Some of Remus’ best veterans were roughly her level now.

  Her spiral of thoughts slammed into an obvious counterpoint. Hunting wasn’t young, but he was a realm higher. Ocean was probably older than Hunting, maybe. Night looked younger than Hunting—well, maybe; the off-putting, pale man was hard to get a bead on. The Sentinels, humanity’s elite, were beyond reason.

  And that kraken had been higher than any of them. Her aspirations couldn’t be measured against men and women that thought dying of old age at half her level was a life well-lived. Twice the common ‘maximum’ level in Remus wasn’t her goal. Level 424 wasn’t her goal. Even 512 wasn’t truly her goal. Ranthia’s gaze had already drifted toward 768. Maybe even 1024.

  So long as she actually survived. The levels to [She who Dances with Chaos]’s Skills were largely unsurprising. Most of the capped ones stayed capped. [Void Affinity] and [Combat Awareness]—still a General Skill, weirdly—were the exceptions, but she had leveled absurdly rapidly from doing something stupid, so things falling off a bit wasn’t too surprising, especially since [Combat Awareness] had been outmatched at several points. [Vision of the Void]’s gains briefly seemed low, but logically she wasn’t truly competing with the kraken’s own obscuring Skill, it was a passive effect. There was no Skill-vs-Skill clash, and the kraken’s stats almost certainly hadn’t been behind the effect since she saw through it so easily. …And fair odds the Dark Steam had disappeared at some point unnoticed. Beyond that, she hadn’t done much with [Vision of the Void] throughout the fight. [True Grace] was already looking like it'd be stubborn to level, but that was fine—maybe the Skill had something to do with why she felt so great physically after her rest?

  [Sustained Chaos] was a pretty big winner, and sure enough she had managed to grab a fairly generic General Skill to support it there when she blinded the kraken. The fact that the skill already merged in was a nice bonus, it freed the slot up again. As for her [Covenant], now that her head was a bit clearer it was… kind of obvious that it hadn’t shot up because Xaoc inexplicably wanted the kraken dead. …It probably had more to do with the chaos that played out in the city, and her long battle against the kraken. She hadn’t thought she could fight for so long, but the fact that she started the battle with 4289 vitality and now had nearly doubled it up to 8389 probably explained a lot. And yeah, there was a lot she learned during that fight, and a lot more she would discover once she was ready to process it properly.

  Not that she at all looked forward to it. Once she was dressed and ready one of the guards ran off, so Ranthia busied herself with people watching while she needled the guards for information. People were swarming over the carcass of the kraken—heh, krarkass—which was under the influence of dozens of skills as the specialists desperately tried to stave off the inevitability of rot while they broke it down (now that it was dead, their puny efforts sliced it up with far more ease than she had while its vitality applied). Which wasn’t surprising, Massilix was renowned for scavenging monster carcasses after a storm.

  What was surprising was that she had been asleep for a bit better than a full day. They’d even had a [Healer] fix her up, out of concern over how long she’d been asleep. Which explained why she felt so great and why her head and leg had stopped aching. Also, the town was grateful, and its governor was on his way to meet with her.

  No good deed went unpunished, Ranthia groused inwardly.

  At least the waterskin filled with 1 part wine to 8 parts water and some herbs was actually surprisingly delicious and refreshing. That or she was just that thirsty. It was a struggle to not let herself gulp it dry in short order.

  The governor showed up with an entourage, gave a speech, and made a grand showing of handing Ranthia a bag with a few items that had been turned in. The majority was junk, namely several destroyed knives that she had expended, but there were also the recovered Ranger badges. Her own (when had that fallen off?), Republius’, and Hail’s were intact. Secundia’s, Leoios’, Penticus’, and Mettlea’s were either partial or crushed almost beyond recognition. Pibius’ hadn’t been found yet. Ranthia just stood there with impatience plainly writ upon her face, though she pinned her badge onto her tunic.

  At least after he left someone saw fit to offer her a large serving of food, cooked from the kraken that she had slain. Eating what she fought had always made sense to her, and she relished the dishes more than most. Kraken wasn’t half bad, even if it was kind of chewy.

  Ranthia considered what she wanted to do next. She was dimly tempted to class up [Shards of Reflection] and see what her Mirror class could evolve into… but she just couldn’t muster any enthusiasm for it. She had spent the governor’s entire speech ignoring him and fantasizing about just deserting her duties, returning to Ariminum, kissing Hexara, and refusing to ever leave her side again.

  But no. She had stood there and watched her team die. Most of them had a love for the good that their team did. Her guilt was enough of a motivator to continue what they had left undone—the remainder of their route.

  Now it was her route. That… that seemed right.

  Ranthia picked up the crate once she was done eating, barely even noticing how easy it had become to lift so much weight. She carried it to the nearest guard station—stopped by people that wanted to thank her every few steps, as if she did anything worthy of gratitude—then changed into her old Adventurer’s armor. There were three spare sets of Ranger armor, but none of them were sized for her; they had been sized for Leoios, Republius, Mettlea, and Penticus—burly men. After all, why would they keep armors sized for those that had drastically different builds when Republius could alter them with ease if they needed? Pibius had been tall and thin, Hail had been short and squat, and Secundia’s chest had been the stuff of a younger Ranthia’s dreams.

  At any rate, the spare Ranger armor didn’t fit her, and she didn’t have the expertise to adjust it herself. Ill-fitting armor was a death sentence. It was better to wear gear she could count on and knew how to adjust—though it’d been over a year since she last put it on; it needed a little work.

  With that done, she pinned on her Ranger badge, then asked around for rope until someone gave her way too much. It was a good, stout rope that was usually used for ships. Not anything they needed at the moment, the man insisted. Ranthia ultimately accepted it and lashed the crate onto her back.

  She was ready to move on. She had done everything that she could for Massilix, and sitting behind a desk while men and women thanked her for her heroics sounded like a special breed of punishment. She should be condemned for letting her team die. Leoios had failed them, yes, but she had too. She needed to get back on the road.

  Perinthus turned out to be a 4-day journey from Massilix by foot. It really put it into stark relief how damned slow the wagon had been. That would have likely taken at least three weeks with the whole team— …Another thought process that she mercilessly killed, lest she start thinking it was a good thing that she had failed seven people who trusted her with their lives.

  Her dread for her return to her hometown had faded. In her memories the town had always been grey and dark. But it had recovered from the plagues. Once again, it thrived and traded fresh bounties of the jungle and fruits from its orchards with the rest of Remus. It hardly seemed recognizable, not that she had spent much of her life in Perinthus following her rebirth. Still, it was vibrant. Vibrant was good.

  Getting into town proved strangely difficult. Yes, she was a Ranger. Note the badge. Ranger Team 13, continuing its round despite losses. Really, the idiot guards should know the Ranger rounds, they literally never changed as far as she knew!

  Finally, they let her in. She set up her banner and sat on her crate, in lieu of a proper table. She had no need to requisition one and she needed to protect her crate, so the situation worked. It was clearly good enough, because people actually approached her.

  Several reports and concerns raised later; it was clear that there was a real problem. Purple Flower use was skyrocketing. Which was great! Investigating a drug problem felt normal. Perfectly Ranger-y. It was just what she needed.

  Ranthia lashed her crate to her back again, then set out to investigate.

  She spoke to people; including a few familiar faces that never even showed a glimmer of recognition (not that she was entirely surprised, mind). No substantive information that furthered her investigation was forthcoming for the first two days. It was a bit frustrating, honestly, but Ranthia persevered. In the end, it was a Purple Flower user on the third day that gave her the best tip. He kept muttering that the temple—namely the one where the [Healers] had set up to combat the plagues when she was a kid—had become a temple to Purple Flowers. It was easy to write him off, but it was the only lead she had—she chose to check it out.

  Stolen story; please report.

  To prepare, she used some of the last of her personal coin (sure, she had access to the team funds now by default, but…) to buy a bunch of cheap roughspun cloth that would be used for sacks for vegetables usually, along with some nails. The smaller crates and chests were nailed into place within the large crate and then she shifted items around and then stuffed the roughspun in until nothing rattled anymore. It would make her life much more frustrating every time she needed to get into things, but at least she couldn’t be heard from half a town away.

  That night she climbed up the wall of the temple—and accepted the General Skill [Climbing] when it popped up. She had no plans to keep it, but it would help her that night. It wasn’t like she had any better use for an empty General Skill slot, not that a low level Skill helped much. She was surprisingly stealthy and silent on her feet thanks to the Skills that had merged into [Rhythmic Grace], at least.

  A high window was her way in, after that she carefully moved through the temple and investigated, trusting her senses to keep her from getting caught.

  The temple seemed to be far, far richer than it had been when she was a child. Tapestries hung on the walls. Carpets and rugs were often underfoot. New paint. Rich dyes on the priest’s robes. Worse, the opulence increased when she got into areas of the temple that didn’t allow regular visitors. By the time she found proof, she was unable to muster even the tiniest hint of surprise. It was hard to imagine a more blatant display of wrongness.

  As she had almost expected by that point, within the temple was a room full of planters with Purple Flowers growing out of them. Skills made indoor farming operations easy, they probably didn’t even need more than one corrupted acolyte to tend to them.

  But that wasn’t the worst part of the whole thing, no.

  The worst part was the room that was used.

  It was the room that lived on in Ranthia’s first memories. The room that the lovely young [Healer]—the woman that became Sentinel Dawn—had used when she healed scores of people, saved countless lives. Including Ranthia’s own.

  And the bastards had turned it into a drug den.

  The captain of the guard found Ranthia in his office as soon as he got in. The man was obviously still drowsy and a bit hung over from the night before. To be fair to him it was still that amorphous period of time where you could say it was both late at night and early in the morning.

  To be unfair to him, Ranthia was in a bit of a foul mood, and he had kept her waiting for quite some time.

  Ranthia tugged her blindfold off and stuffed it into a pouch on her belt. She glared at the man while she approached him; her chest puffed out to make her Ranger badge prominent.

  [*ding!* You have unlocked the General Skill [Intimidating]! Would you like to replace a skill with [Intimidating]?]

  Ranthia almost could have smiled; it was rare for the System to have her back, but she always appreciated it when it happened. She accepted the skill, replacing [Climbing], and barely even noticed the tiny bit of nausea that resulted from losing a very low-level skill. Ranthia activated the new skill and leaned forward to glare at the captain of the guard.

  “Tell me you and your people are not on the take from the Purple Flower business in town.” Ranthia ordered.

  He wasn’t, or he was a better liar than Ranthia gave him credit for. He was just incompetent; she could work with incompetence. He was certain that the Purple Flower was getting into the city through smugglers using (likely fictional) tunnels dug during the plagues that had afflicted the town back when he was just a low-level guard. The guard under his command hadn’t investigated the rise in Purple Flower incidents because he didn’t want to tip the smugglers off that he was on to them. That was his excuse, but a trusted member of the guard—an Earth [Mage]—was hoping to get a class upgrade at level 128 ‘any day now’ that would let them collapse these alleged tunnels on the smugglers’ heads.

  The man looked so godsdamned proud of himself as he announced his plan to the Ranger.

  Ranthia buried her face in her palms.

  “Just gather two dozen of your finest guardsmen, I found the growing site.” She ordered.

  Thank Xaoc, he had enough sense not to ask questions and scurried off instead.

  Dawn was coloring the sky by the time the guards were finally ready, but at last Ranthia marched up to the temple with the guards. The captain followed like an ineffectual baby chick, second-guessing everything they did. Some of the other guards balked, but most saw the angry, [Intimidating] Ranger with terrifying eyes—no, she had not put her blindfold back on—and followed orders. Once Ranthia led them past the increasingly obviously terrified [Priests] and other temple staff to the Purple Flower grow room things changed rapidly. Suddenly everyone was on board with the mission. [Priests] and [Acolytes] and more were arrested. Contraband was found and seized.

  The investigation took a bit more than a week, which put Ranthia even further behind. It was a bit surprising that another Ranger Team hadn’t arrived yet, honestly.

  In the end, every single [Priest], [Acolyte], and other person involved with the temple ended up guilty of being part of the drug ring. Their excuse was that donations to the temple had fallen off after the plague—Perinthus had largely started worshipping the System, since the gods hadn’t saved them—and things looked bleak for the temple’s future. One of the [Priests] even vocally blamed a [Healer] that gave away free healing as the reason that people stopped seeing a need to donate money to the temple, which very, very nearly netted him a broken face. Xaoc damn it all, it was obviously just a crisis of faith from the lack of divine intervention during the plagues coupled with the fact that the city had been bled dry on food, goods, and coin by the end.

  An [Acolyte] started growing Purple Flower in his little cubby of a room to sell and brought coin to the temple through that. A year later, a [Priest] found out and—instead of showing a whit of sense—partnered with the [Acolyte]. Slowly, over the intervening years they brought more and more of the temple’s personnel on board with their plan. They saved the temple. Then they began to upgrade it a little, because it was a bit worn. Then before they knew it, the lot of them had gotten addicted to the sweet life of wealth. They justified it as the gods didn’t seem to be punishing them, so they must have had permission.

  The head [Priest] looked so horrifically smug while he made that excuse. It was far too much to take. Once he folded his hands over his lap, so confident and so certain, Ranthia smiled coldly to the man. Once again, she removed her blindfold… and let [Intimidating] work its magic.

  “Xaoc sent me.” She stated in a cold tone. It was… true enough, and she hated the man’s attitude.

  At least he had the good sense to start crying when her words truly sank in. He wasn’t getting out of this by claiming some divine favour. Not on her watch. He and the rest would pay for their heresy.

  At last, Ranthia repacked her crate and made her way out of Perinthus. She ultimately never bothered to seek out anyone that knew her, even though she saw a few more familiar faces. Even some of the… young adults her own age that she spoke to had, no doubt, been among those that played with whomever Ranthia had been before she was reborn into Ranthia’s body. Ultimately, she just felt no real need to try to reconnect with people that she never truly knew.

  Plus, the investigation had taken so long, and she was still a bit behind schedule even before it—no matter how fast she travelled the road through the Kadan jungle. Also there was the tiny fact that she had been in a foul mood before she arrived in Perinthus, and the entire ordeal had made it significantly worse. Overall though, yes, it was time for her to move on to the next town.

  Winter would arrive soon, after all.

  Ranthia had fallen into a vicious cycle. She was in her own head and bogged down in self-loathing, so she tried to lose herself in tasks. Yet being a Ranger meant there were stretches of days at a time where there was little to keep her attention. The road was only so interesting, after all. Which meant she got more focused on her self-loathing and had to focus even harder to find tasks to mitigate it.

  Her mood got worse and worse over time, as was usual with her mood spirals. They tended to last until something happened to make her feel some other emotion. A catalyst that began the slow process to recover from it.

  This time, that catalyst came in the form of a nightmare. An incredibly idiotic nightmare. She dreamt that her skills [Sexy] and [Intimidating] merged into something that had some variations of the words Sexy and Monstrous in its name—she couldn’t quite recall the specifics after she woke up. But she remembered the Skill’s effect. Namely that her head transformed into this chitinous, scaly black thing with massive fangs and an ever-growing mouth, while her body’s curves grew to outrageous and hilarious proportions which included the largest breasts ever seen. During the nightmare it had been horrifying beyond her ability to convey.

  Then she woke up in her campsite and immediately sat bolt upright—covered in a thick sheen of cold sweat—while she struggled to catch her breath and felt at her face and body to confirm that she was normal. She was okay, she was fine.

  Shortly after she got over her initial panic, she collapsed into a helpless, uproarious laughing fit that refused to quit. The dream had unnerved her badly, yes. But now that she was awake? That was the funniest, most bizarre crap she could even imagine!

  Beneath the pale light of the waning moons, she allowed herself to just laugh and feel. She finally let go of some of the guilt and tension that she had carried since Massilix, freed by laughter at the stupidest stress-inflicted dream she had ever experienced.

  …That said, she did decide to whistle while she waited for the sun to rise, until she got offered the General Skill for [Whistling] and eagerly replaced [Intimidating] with it. After all, why tempt fate?

  That morning, she decided to do some hunting for the bounty of the woodlands and made a stew out of some of the local wildlife—no rabbit, unfortunately—and wild vegetation. It wasn’t a large stew, just a little individual pot like she used to make as a solo Adventurer. The fresh, warm food helped her feel even more like herself again.

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  Nozomi Matsuoka.

  Sarah "Neila" Elkins.