-Callen-

  I blinked slowly as I came to. The uncomfortable feeling of dirt in my face was made all the more apparent when I tried to push myself up and couldn’t move my arms. It takes a moment for me to understand what was going on, but in the next moment I snap fully into focus. From my position on the ground, I turn my head just enough to get sprayed by blood as I witness Callia slicing through a shark with legs?

  Before I can even respond, Callia’s grabbed the pole I’m bound to and is running rapidly into the woods. Just behind us is a crowd of fish people desperately trying to run Callia down, but Sis moves through the forest with an ease that they can’t replicate. She’s completely in the zone for the escape that she hasn’t even noticed me trying to communicate to her through our bond, and with my mouth bound I can’t say anything useful. Instead, I just take the chance to summon some basic traps behind us so that any trackers might be deterred.

  The jostling from Sis running through the forest and eventually along the branches rubs my unusually sensitive skin raw against the ropes binding me. Looking down at my body, I notice I’ve been stripped naked, and my skin is a bright red with small patches of blisters giving an uncomfortable sting. How did I even get into this position?

  I search through my memories following the crash landing. Callia went out to scout while I started prepping materials in case she couldn’t find a clearing for our travel shelter. Just as expected, no decent location was found, so I set up a series of shelters hidden in the branches that I honestly felt proud of. Callia and the others were similarly pleased with the results, but with Sis so drained from the hectic day, I volunteered for the first shift. It only felt fair since everyone else had spent long hours helping Callia run the boat, and only I wasn’t able to contribute for some reason.

  Not that my stay in the cabin was a complete waste; in fact, I diagnosed the most likely reason for the strange fixation of monsters to attack me. It was my Trait Divine Trace.

  The extra point per level was really beginning to show huge benefits, but I never imagined a “minor increase in allure to predators” would have such a drastic effect on the river fish. Well, at the very least it showed me a functional aspect of the trait: that the allure would decrease if I were physically separated, like I was in the boat's cabin.

  Another thing that I had made progress on was my investigation of the Baron’s sword. The first most apparent fact I found was that the enchantment on the sword didn’t correlate to the typical shape of any skills. In fact, the sword had more in common with a living person than any specific enchantment. The biggest difference was that the “soul” of the sword didn’t have skills, only traits that I wasn’t able to identify. My best effort in investigating the sword identified a trait similar to Affinity, but it was restructured into something similar but distinctly different. I suspect it was an alteration to the basic affinity, similar but different, like my Greater Affinity.

  Getting back on track, I remember waiting into the night before noticing the approaching mana of a large number of creatures. However, they didn’t seem to notice us and only waited out by the beach. Some time later, maybe an hour or two, I heard the echo of something bouncing against one of the shelters. There was no mana, so I wasn’t too worried, but I looked over to check for any damage. There was no damage, and I was going to go back to my seat when a big eel appeared in my face. I tried to move back, but it shined brightly with bolts of energy randomly expelled from its body, one of which leapt onto me. Everything after that was a blur, but I vaguely remember something smacking my head into the tree.

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  Awareness of the memory makes me notice the aching throb from my temple. I would try to heal myself, but with the erratic swaying of Callia’s rapid running and the dizziness that was still prevalent, trying to heal myself, and more specifically my head, would be dangerous. A bad heal on a vital region was just as likely to kill as a critical injury. Instead, I started reaching out to Callia again to see if she would notice. I’ve noticed as a side effect when in her battle mediation she is less keen to notice communication through our bond.

  It seems she’s finally calmed down enough to notice as she slows to a stop. Finally she looks back again and sees clearly that the fish people couldn’t keep up. She sets down the pole, which lets me free myself by void shifting my bonds. I sigh in relief as I’m finally freed from the rope rubbing against my burnt skin. I focus and get to work treating my injuries. My clothes were easily replaceable, but my combat gear wouldn't be so easy to replace from scratch. I accepted my losses and looked up at Callia; I noticed the dark circles under her eyes.

  “I’m not entirely sure what happened, but thanks for getting me out.” My voice was thick with sincerity as I finished treating my burns and started checking her for any. “You still need rest. Let’s meet up with the others. We’ll all watch while we give you time to recover.”

  Conveniently, healing can still treat matters as simple as bodily exhaustion, but mental fatigue was very real and would drag the body down faster as it accumulated. Still, it should be more than enough to get Callia running at 100% while we withdraw. I’m assuming Sis left the others back at the shelters while she tracked me down. I might not be as fast as Callia at travelling from branch to branch, but I still had decent practice and didn’t slow us down too much. Finally we arrived back at the shelter with the others watching for trouble but excitedly waving us in as we settled down.

  Callia went straight back to her bed while I spent the night retelling what I remembered from the night. My encounter with the eel definitely unsettled a lot of us. Myself in particular, because I had never encountered something so skilled at hiding it was sitting right in front of my face, and I couldn’t see it. If a random humanoid monster could get that skilled, then without a doubt humans could. Though that did beg the question, what happened when someone hit the skill level cap?

  Luckily nothing else disturbed us through the night. As the sun came up, Callia had recovered from our long night. Now we just had to figure out a plan for how to travel. Judging from how quickly we passed the ruins of the fallen town and the curve of the river, I suspect we were about halfway between the ruined town and Nox City. We could travel straight inland and try to find the road, but that could easily add two or three days to leaving the forest, we could head south along the river until we reached the city. However, from where we are, we could split between a two-man glider and my latest helicopter and skip the forest entirely.

  Honestly, after getting cooked by fish people, I was ready to get out of the forest, and the other options looked just as likely to be a complete pain. The only reason we weren’t using the aircraft to travel originally was the draining nature of using air travel and the vulnerability to aerial predators like the giant eagle. The group seemed to hold a similar opinion; after all, everyone was still spooked by the stealthy eel. Not long later our group split; Hew and I were in the glider, while Sis took the three guards in the helicopter. The helicopter was overcrowded with only space for a pilot and two riders, but the last was strapped to the helicopter with a rope. He didn’t seem so thrilled with his seating, but he lost the game of rock paper scissors.

  Unrest

  Crescent shifted a stack of paperwork, sighing in exasperation as fatigue from a long day set in. Callen and Grandpa had both assured her that most issues would be simple enough to handle and that the town’s day-to-day requires little oversight. However, for some reason more and more complaints began trickling into her office. Incident reports of injuries or infrastructure collapses, and the Earthkin district was almost flooded. The worst part was she knew why. The causes weren’t intentional, only small mistakes, little accidents, or, as some would say, bad luck. Crescent looked at her traits again.

  Crescent had thought slight misfortune would mean something relatively innocent, like losing a coin purse or dropping groceries. Well, that was also happening, but being a source of misfortune to everyone living near her and knowing that every injury might be her fault wasn’t something she could handle. Still, she promised Callen she would handle Port Town until he got back! For now she moved her office to the outskirts of the town, putting as much distance between herself and everyone else as possible.

  However, the move also incited rumors as people she was less familiar with began to maliciously blame her for everything. Crescent didn’t know what to do and was even starting to question if Callen would even want to be near her. She wasn’t human, only a monster wearing human skin. Anxiety and fear festered as she did her best to keep everything under control until Callen returned.

  Isaiah 30:15 - This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it.