Vina dropped Faer’s hand and held onto the book. She dismissed her blood cloak and claw, reclaiming the blood as she did so. “Still too slow I guess”, she muttered to herself. She tried to craft those runes as quickly as she could, but there was still a burn in time she had underestimated. She had hoped to stop his escape.

  She looked around at the mess of bodies in somewhat of a daze. Her adrenaline was still coursing through her system, and she wasn’t sure if the battle was finished. Still, part of her knew Faer was not coming back. Vina walked over to the largest pool of blood she could find and set her lantern down beside it. There was no excuse to waste the massive amount of blood that surrounded her right now.

  She was second guessing herself somewhat. She thought back to the runes she saw on Faer’s body. He had covered himself in several protections against stabbing, slicing, and bludgeoning based attacks. She saw the runes would consume his divinity to block that damage. The unfortunate limitation for Faer was he hadn’t managed to cover the entirety of his body in such protections. “Was I lucky?” she wondered to herself. Compared to the power that Ebba had exhibited, she guessed she probably was.

  Still, she could tell Faer was a runecrafter of great skill. He had managed to modify how divinity was processed through his body. Vina had seen rune phrases describing something called a runic identity filter. It was connected to a portal activation section of his tattoo. She barely understood what she had seen. What she managed to decipher was that it let him change his own identity in very small ways. When he changed his identity, any portal he created would allow that identity to pass through it. Using the blood around her, she had barely managed to scratch the identity rune tag.

  When she had seen what Faer had done to himself, what was happening in Prosit suddenly made sense to her. Milly’s father had said in jest that it felt like someone was teleporting creatures around with how randomly they seemed to appear. Now Vina had proof that The Watch was doing just that. “Probably trying to scare towns into joining them by faking creatures attacks”, Vina muttered. “Any future activation should be scuffed just enough that nothing can travel through his portals. Prosit and Milly should be safe from future pilidar invasions”, she thought to herself.

  She wondered if Faer would be able to fix it someday, and concluded he probably could. He was just that skilled. Suddenly she had a window notification.

  “What?!” Vina sputtered. “Etana?” Vina looked around at the battlefield around her. “How…” her voice trailed off. What was on the other side of that portal? Was Etana captured by the twelve as well? Then why would she be able to kill Faer? Vina’s mind swirled with questions and frustration, but she knew she didn’t have any answers and no way to gain them. “Damnit!” she cursed.

  She tried to focus on herself by looking at all of her notifications.

  Vina looked around at the various dead creatures around her. The only ones she could identify were the tranterlings that had flown out of the portals. The rest she didn’t recognize and didn’t have a chance to identify. Most of the creatures didn’t even have an opportunity to do anything before she stopped them. Vina opened her character sheet and reviewed her attributes.

  She was surprised to see she was already close to her next level. “I can probably get that just by training at The City of Halos when I return” she thought to herself. She squinted when she saw she had two skill specialization points remaining. “Ugh! Why didn’t I use my last one before coming here!” She knew that kind of mistake could have gotten her killed. She thought for a moment before placing a specialization point into Blood Sense.

  “Wow!” Vina said. She didn’t feel any difference, probably because no one was around her, but she could see this being incredibly valuable in the future. She scanned her list of skills once more and placed her last specialization point in Observe. It had been incredibly useful in gaining the Commanding Voice skill. She wondered if it could be used to do that again.

  She activated her Observe skill and looked around. The world no longer dimmed in color, but everything that moved still flashed brilliantly for her. Her eyes were able to quickly pick out details without any of the usual nausea she experienced. “Now for the real test”, Vina said. She took a step forward and… nothing. The world didn’t swim or blur. She couldn’t believe it. “It still drains stamina, but it’s entirely usable in combat now!” she said.

  She then turned to her attributes. She placed another point into strength and was tempted to go more. Holding Faer in place to examine his runes and change them had been difficult for her. He was just as strong as her and only by wedging him against his own portal was she able to gain leverage over him. Even then, someone else had managed to pull him back inside. She shook her head and stuck to the plan. She placed her other two points into vitality and endurance. These two attributes were her primary resources. She needed to keep them growing at every level.

  Finally she looked at her skills. She had gained so much more battle experience now that one thing was clear to her: hand to hand combat could not be avoided. “I can’t delay anymore”, Vina said as her eyes re-read Blood Stained Hands. Vanity couldn’t be a barrier any longer. She took a deep breath and placed a point into the skill. She felt something change in her hands and a new ability blossomed in her mind. She looked down at her fingers and laughed. Her fingernails had changed to a vibrant and deep red, as if she had a fresh manicure. “That’s a change I can accept!” she laughed to herself. “Also, Trina, that’s a very misleading skill name.”

  She pressed on her new nails and found they had very little give. They seemed far more rigid and inflexible than they were before. She casually dragged her fingernail over the largest scale of her Kaliter armor and was surprised to see she could scratch it. The scratch wasn’t deep, and she knew she couldn’t force her finger through. Still, the durability of her new nails was surprising. “Sorry about that”, she whispered to the armor.

  Vina checked her tree and saw another node extend off of Blood Stained Hands, but the details were not filled in. She saw the next upgrade for her nails marked the bleeding as heavy whereas currently it was considered moderate. She did wonder what moderate meant, but wasn’t able to do any testing right now.

  She already knew where she was going to place her final skill point. She was just dreading it. Her battle with Faer and the little girl at Valanire had taught her something. These bonded aspect users had an unlimited resource with Divinity. She needed a way to attack them that could force them to address some kind of resource constraint. She needed to bring them down to her level. The only way she could see doing that was by using Hemophage. In her battle with Faer, she had succeeded in embedding a portion of her blood into his body. If she had this skill, it would have damaged his ability to recover stamina.

  Vina placed her final point into Hemophage and waited. There was a second that nothing happened. Then Blood Sense told her there was something new moving through her veins.“Oh. Wow. Hello there”, she laughed. “Ok… now I’m talking to my cells.” She shook her head, picked up her now full lantern, and walked toward the quest marker.

  ~~~

  She took a deep breath as she entered the graveyard and began checking the headstones. She activated her Observe skill as she walked and countless little details lit up. She tried to narrow her focus to just looking for Shan’s name. With Observe active, a gravestone lit up in her vision seven rows up. Her eyes couldn’t even read it at this distance, but she knew the skill wasn’t wrong. When she got closer to the stone, she knelt down next to it and began to read.

  Here Lies Shan Esca

  Born 14th Day of Derem, 14718

  Passed 17th Day of Jaurm, 15461

  V E A

  A Light’s Hope Burning Brightly in a Sea of Shadows.

  L P

  Vina had a notification appear in her vision.

  Vina dismissed the windows with a swipe of her hand. She wasn’t feeling it. The letters, V, E, and A were clearly the names of Vina, Etana, and Ann. Vina considered the L and P for a moment, but could only imagine it meant Love Priya because that’s how she signed every note she had written so far. But what did the message mean? The format was clearly structured as if it was a letter. She read it again, “A light’s hope burning brightly in a sea of shadows. Maybe it’s some kind of story or part of a poem in this world”, Vina wondered. She resolved to check with Eilin when she returned.

  She stared at her father’s grave for a long time, unsure how to feel. She didn’t know this man despite his long life and list of accomplishments. What do you say to a person you never met, but was supposed to be an anchor in your life? Did The Darkness and The Watch really steal him from her? She heard from everyone how determined he was to find Trina. Would he have had time for her and her sisters if the evil of this world hadn’t been hunting him?

  She knew he had never asked to be a parent. She and her sisters had just popped out of a portal one day, supposedly. Still, Priya’s letter had said Shan was a good father for a time. He was there every day, caring for them until she was slid into a portal to earth. Yet with that one decision, he was responsible for her loneliness and suffering while on Earth. She sat there a long time just existing in the moment and searched her feelings.

  She finally stood and placed a hand on the headstone and spoke, “I wish we could have known each other better. I’m going to find mom, my sisters, and Trina. We’ll all come back someday.” Vina suddenly heard a clicking noise and a blue line raced down the back of the headstone.

  “No…” Vina said in disbelief, “Priya you didn’t!” She looked at the back of the headstone and saw a small compartment had opened up. Once unsealed, something inside flashed a vibrance so bright to her Blood Sense, she was momentarily stunned. It was unlike any vibrance she had felt before. She reached into the compartment and looked at what she pulled out.

  “Shan’s aspect…” she whispered. The stone she held was red like the others, but had a luster the others lacked. The stone was solid to her touch, but Vina could feel something moving within it. Her blood sense told her exactly what it was. It was Trina’s blood.