I breathed deeply in the m air, the evening before was… chaotic. Red and I talked for hours, she told me about some of the shit her birth family put her through and I told her some of the things I remembered. Her stories were pretty fucked up to be ho, but she seemed happy to have someoo talk to that had simir pain. I’d heard of trauma bonding before and I wasn’t sure if this was my first time actually experieng it, but it was weirdly nice. Me her and Brigga got pretty drunk and had some sloppy three-way make-outs, but it didn’t go further. I did however notice Carmil and Luv sneak away blushing at one point. I was happy they had each other.

  However, in the early m with the sun just barely peeking over the horizon, I remembered something. I had not leveled up. The Attributes I got through quickly, between my ten points and the freebies my stats were growing nicely.

  [Strength: 24]

  [Coordination: 46]

  [Endurance: 36]

  [Focus: 53]

  [Willpower: 36]

  [Force: 22]

  Another point of note was that some of my Skills had risen again. [Sniper’s Eye] Had risen to B. [Heartbreaker], [Find the Pulse], and [Dream Touched] had all hit C. Plus [Heavy Heart Piercer] and [As a Statue] had both reached D. So things were mostly looking good on my Status.

  Though my MP roblem. It was geiremely slow and I was still only at 243/530 after several more days. I had talked to Carmil and Dekarru but they said that they couldn’t figure out why. Best guess? Soul tai was doing it somehow. But that was based entirely on the fact that we were trying to figure out what exactly Soul tai actually did.

  But more importantly, I had Advas to get to. The list was familiar but tweaked a bit. [Undying Champion] was still there and unged. But the others were [Heartseeking Crusader] and [Heartseeking Elemental Savant] now. I suppose that Advas added on to advanced csses rather thairely sing them out.

  There were of course, two new options and both were iing.

  [Advance Survivor css to Dream Mender css. Dream Mender gives bes to helping other sapient and semi-sapient beings face their owional problems and heal from them. Dream Menders gain access to Skills and Spells that assist iatioional trol, aand healing from mental ditions. Dream Menders may also gain access to rare Mender Skills and Spells more easily.]

  [Advance Survivor css to Sensualist css. Sensualist gives bes to acts of sexual pleasure, providing signifit boosts in the enjoyment of partners. Sensualists gain access to Skills and Spells that aid in sexual gratification and prote from sexually transmitted iions or unwanted pregnancies. versely, they also gain access to a Blessing that drastically increases the ces of successful impregnation.]

  I admit that while Dream Mender is clearly a better choice for a host of reasons, I was very much tempted to have the css that would both make sex better a me manipute the ces nancy. Maybe Adva? So I picked Dream Mender and watched as a few hings popped up.

  [SKILLS]

  [Touch e: E – When in physical, skin to skin tact with another living being, attempts to calm and fort them are boosted. This effect is drastically lessened by touches of a sexual nature.]

  [Betwee and Mind: E – When a Sapient being is torween a logical aional choice, a Dream Mender’s words carry extra weight in helping them reach their decision.]

  [Shoulder to Cry On: C – Sapient beings are more likely to reveal secrets, particurly emotionally taxing oo a Dream Mehis is a passive aura mental effed be resisted with Willpower.]

  [SPELLS]

  [Kintsugi: E]

  [Cost: 100 Mana]

  [Raouch]

  [Target: 1 Sapient Being]

  [With a touch you dramatically boost the target’s ability to resist a mental ditions. If a dition is successfully resisted while uhis spell’s effect, the target bee permaly resistant to that dition. This include trauma induon-magical ditions, but the spell is more likely to fail whehis way.]

  [Visio: E]

  [Cost: 100 Mana]

  [Range: 50 yards]

  [Target: 1 Sapient being per base Mana Cost]

  [Upon successful cast, the target(s) is(are) put to sleep and brought into a secluded and protected Dream space where they must face their greatest fear, regret, or trauma in a test meant t them to terms with it. If there are multiple targets of the spell, oarget is designated as primary upon casting and they are the target for purposes of the specific test. The other targets may assist in the Visio’s test but may not solve it for the primary target.]

  “Oh my Goddess, what!?” I said quite louder than I’d meant as I sat up from my bedroll quickly. Redagga already staring lovingly at her sleeping wife, but everyone else was asleep right until I yelled.

  “What? What is it?” Jaina responded quickly, rushing over to chee with terrible bed head and drool on her cheek.

  “… you’re really cute first thing in the m.” I couldn’t help it. “Wait, no, no no. No I got-, I mean I remembered to level when I woke up and uh, I got a bit of a shocker.”

  Dekarru groaned “Okay you got something good, that’s wonderful. Did you have to wake us up like that?”

  “No, you don’t uand. I got this spell called Visio and-”

  “WHAT!?” the shaman was immediately up and rushing over to me. “What’s the css!?”

  I was so shocked by her suddereme enthusiasm that I stared at her for a few long moments before my mind caught up to me and I answered “Uh, Dream Mender.”

  Her face lit up like the sun and she pressed her lips to mine. I wasn’t pining about the kiss, she kissed like passion was what kept her alive. But I had to pull back to breathe. She ughed “Heart Mender! My primary css is Heart Mender. I’ve been hoping to get Visio for over a tury. Stareyes you beautiful lucky idiot.”

  So it turns out that Mender csses are rare and powerful therapy focused ones and Visio is among the rarest and most potent Spell a Mender have (Though there seems to be some debate on that sed part). Even our seer hadn’t mao get it as she leveled.

  With the tribe all awake and focused on me I decided to just go all in and give them a summation of my new Skills as well. How I seemed to now have even more ability to grow close with people quickly. Dekarru was absolutely sky high with joy over it all, mostly the spell but the idea of the other stuff, of being able to teach me what she knew. I guess having an apprentice she trusted was a big deal for her. The fact that my mana geio using my spells roblem did take the wind out of her sails a bit, but she was still excited.

  But, I still wao get out in the field and grow stronger, so bat training and leveling was the current priority. I was mostly able to hahe heavy guns Red picked out for me, but I wao push my Strength up enough that my arms wouldn’t tire as fast as they had the day before. Especially sihe design Brigg was making would be even heavier.

  So I ma the bat team into a a out to the field again. Braggavel hadn’t had time to do anything but put in some extra padding about the kneeling issue. But promised she was w on a real fix.

  One ge that day was that for the first time in what felt like months, Carmil returo her raw elemental form and took her pside me. She was lohe day before and while not really a batant elemental, she could at least stay out of the way and keep an eye on my vitals. It was holy extremely f feeling her moving inside me again.

  Once we made it out, Red decided to up the difficulty and took us fairly far west into territory further from any of the guard posts or settlements. We got several miles before we entered the first monster. A twenty foot tall angry armadillo with fangs as big as my torso. It arently called an Armger. Not creative, but got the point across.

  The fight went poorly immediately. Jaina panicked as it charged and moved too far from Red to stay behind the shield. When the beast charged aahe blow, it’s cw slid around and caught the Healer’s leg.

  Jaina screamed as she ulled towards the massive creature by her now bloody limb, only saved by Luv’s sword sg a red line across the beast’s arm and f it to let go. The giant grabbed Jaina a behio safety.

  I was brag myself against a tree a few yards bad lining up a shot. As soon as I got an opening I fired and paled as the heavy round ricocheted off its armor. It looked at me and shrieked, but Redagga smmed her shield into it’s fad drew attention back.

  Luv called from nearby “I’m trying poisons but the wounds are too shallow and it’s too tough, it’ll take a wh-while to start taking effect!”

  “Distract it!” I yelled back.

  I took a breath and tuned out everything else. Jaina’s whimpers of pain as she healed the massive gash in her leg. Red’s screams and the sound of her pistol firing, the fshes of sheet as Luvetra tried to carve poisoned gashes in its hide. None of it existed.

  The world faded and only the monster remained. I put the creature in my sights, my heart slow and calm, my finger io the trigger and waited. It was stunned for a moment, struck by something I couldn’t see. It was enough. I pulled the trigger.

  “WHAT THE FUCK!?” I heard Redagga scream just after it’s head exploded, sh gore everywhere. I blinked as the world returo my awareness rather slowly.

  “Uh, I think I got it?” I said and them the heavy THUMP of the corpse falling over made me jump. “Motherfucker, don’t scare me you dead bastard!”

  Then I remembered everything else and ran to che Jaina. I panicked when I saw her, blood was everywhere, gods, this was too mud I could hardly breathe. “Esme!” I heard her yell, breaking through my fear “It’s the monster’s blood, calm the fuck down!”

  I blinked and noticed that she was in fact pretty directly in the exploding monster head spsh zone. “Oh… Is y okay?”

  She sighed and nodded “Yes, lessons with Dekarru have been going really really well. I am gono eat some extra tonight to deal with a bit of blood loss but I’m holy fihat just hurt a lot.”

  Red snorted “Miss the less exg life of a ?”

  She let out a sharp ugh “HA! Not a ce. This is way more fun and my patients are cuter.”

  Luvetra was cutting the beast’s heart out for the bounty, after a few moments she came back gory and panting slightly. “T-tough bastard. But the b-bullet still went all the way through. Barely missed the h-heart. Don’t think there would be anythi of it if it h-hadn’t.” She chuckled “H-how in the Abyss did you do that and why didn’t you d-do it sooner?”

  I shook my head to clear out lingering cobwebs. “Skill, gotta focus for it to the point I’m not really aware of anything but the target. Apparently successful use makes it a little hard to readjust to normal awareness for a bit because my head’s kinda fuzzy.”

  Jaina chuckled and patted me “Your head’s always kinda fuzzy you doofus.”

  I took a breath a my mind slowly pull my perception back to normal levels “Carmil, you notice the effects on your end?”

  [I do in fact, it is reading like a minor mental dition, though not strong enough tister fully with the System. I feel it through my abilities however, and it appears to have a set duration of approximately one mi should end right about…]

  [Now.]

  Yep, there we go, back to normal “Ooh thank you Carmil my love. As always ylorious and a joy to be with as well as being exceptionally helpful.”

  [I wasn’t going to stay iy while the two loves of my life ran off to try a eaten by monsters again.]

  “W-we love you too Carmil.” Luv said, leaning over and kissing the runes on my arm.

  “That we do, so very much.” I said and smiled.

  Jaina took a breath, having spent much of the time wiping off blood and gore from her fad gear that was now in serious need of Wen’s magic ing. “Okay, so I’m fio go a bit longer. I’ll get tired sooner but the blood loss wasn’t serious enough to justify stopping with one monster. Plus, this is also meant to be training, right? So why stop just because of a boo-boo?”

  Red smiled “That’s the attitude, we see about doing this a bit more but once we eat lunch, we’re heading back.”

  I smiled and nodded “Sounds like a pn. A little more experiehen we head home and see how quickly our seer drags me to train.” It was looking to be a good and productive day, even with the early misstep.

  But then I heard a voice behind me.

  “I’M AFRAID YOU AND YOUR FRIENDS WILL NOT SEE THE CITY AGAIN, ABOMINATION.”