Chapter 13

In Darkness Hunting

While waiting for nightfall, Jay Meditated, thinking of what other Spells he might be able to create. Once in a while Hannah came practically flying by, her acrobatics beyond what Jay thought humanly possible, but that wasn't too strange; Hannah was, after all, more like a cat standing upright than a human if you really looked at her. He was a little jealous. Being able to move around like that looked like it would be very handy if you needed to avoid trouble.

But no matter, Jay had already decided upon his future path, and it wasn't to become fast and agile, it was to become extraordinarily destructive and savage. He wanted to have enough power to crush anything in his path, and to never have to flee. But for safety's sake, he still needed to get some escaping Skills or Spells; it would be so great if he could fly...

During the passing hours, except for thinking about new Spells, Jay opened up all the little Space-pockets that he looted from the people he had earlier killed. To his disappointment, not even ten percent of them had things inside, and the effort of using 2000 Mana to open each Space-pocket didn't feel worth it at all. Having almost 500 Mana per minute in Regeneration made it take hours to open the fifty-six Space-pockets, since he couldn't feel safe if he didn't have as close to Max Mana as possible at all times. And all he got from opening them were seventy-nine silver coins, four vials of a Lesser Mana Potion, a couple of torches, a shovel, a pickaxe and a some pelts from indiscernible animals; the untreated pelts smelled bad and seemed to have begun to rot, so they weren't even worth anything in his eyes. It was a disappointing discovery that the loot from all those players were not worth even close to what he had hoped for.

Opening up the Friend List, Jay filled a mail with the list of all the things he got from the players, imprinting each word with a description of said item by opening up an info-window with his Observe and then moving the info-window to touch the word. This way, when Bluth opened the letter and pushed a word, he would get a copy of the Observed info-window. Jay then wrote that he wouldn't sell any of the things because they had little to no value and wasn't worth his or Bluth's time.

Now that he had done that, night was close approaching, the hours had passed by slowly, but had passed nonetheless. Standing up, Jay stretched, feeling his body's stiffness subsiding. He couldn't see Hannah anywhere, so he sent her a message to return, because they could finally go find some players roaming about, and Jay wasn't going to sit and wait anymore, he felt like moving around too. There shouldn't be many players that could pose a danger to him as long as he could stay up high in the air by rope-jumping between the large trees. And if he could come unawares upon his prey, they wouldn't even know what hit them before they died; that was the best way to hunt.

Hannah arrived after five minutes. "What should I do now? Just search for players?"

"I want to follow in the search too," Jay said. "It will be more efficient that way."

"Okay," Hannah said. "Let's form a Party then, so we can easily eachothers location."

A window popped up, showing the request to join Hannah's Party and Jay accepted. Now Hannah had a small white ball floating above her head, and Jay only needed to think her name to have a small white arrow point to her and tell the distance. It was an easy way of keeping track of where each of them were. "So, do you think we'll find more players now?"

"Yeah, and if not players, you should still be able to get fairly good Experience by killing monsters during the night too," Hannah explained. "The highest Level creatures I've seen during the night around here were close to Level 50, and should yield a few thousand Experience a piece."

"Oh, good to know," Jay said, and thought, Claudine, can you actively Observe my surroundings and indicate any creature or player that is above Level 20 with a red arrow above its head? Don't put an arrow on any NPCs, if you can tell them apart.

Yes, Jay, Claudine obediently said.

"Do you know any place where I can hunt monsters?" Jay asked. "If we go to a known place we might find players to kill there too. That would be double the gain for half the work."

"Hm, let me think..." Hannah said. "Oh, I know of a place, its about two kilometers from here. There's a swamp with lots of crocodiles and large insects in it. The crocodile's leather is a good product for making leather armor, so there might be people there to harvest crafting materials."

"A swamp? Are there trees there for me to hang from?" Jay asked. "If there aren't any trees for me to use as high ground then I would lose a lot of my advantages. Any better place to go?"

"There's a part of the forest about 4 kilometers in another direction that has a lot of wolf packs and the occasional bear,” Hannah said. “There's also a place called Gloomy Forest close by the wolves' territories; there are lots of spiders, poisonous insects and some weird plant-creatures there to hunt. But Gloom Forest is really dangerous, it's a lot darker than a normal forest during the day, and there is mist everywhere during the night. All the creatures are above Level 30, and they all move around in groups; not to mention that the spiders can crawl up tree trunks, and there are flying insects. So, I don't know, you might be to afraid to go to that place...”

Jay did feel that it might be a bit dangerous to go to a place where large spiders were crawling around the trees and poisonous insects were flying around, but he didn't want to admit this to Hannah. “That place might be good too. We'll first go to the area with wolves and bears. If we can't find any prey there, then we'll move on to that Gloomy Forest.”

“Are you sure you're not too scared to go there?” Hannah asked, her smiling face showing teeth. “Follow me then, don't fall behind.” As she said that, she jumped away, quickly bounding between trees, using her claws to find purchase on tree trunks and branches, always keeping her body from falling to the ground by vaulting through the air from tree to tree. Jay could only hastily use his Magic Rope with all his effort to follow her; he even had to use more Mana than he Regenerated to just barely keep up.

“Hey, slow down a bit,” Jay said. He didn't like to use more Mana than he could Regenerate if he didn't have to.

“Oh, right... you can't jump around like me,” Hannah said, slowing her pace only by once in a while stopping on a branch ahead of Jay to wait for him every time she outpaced him by about a hundred meters. “I could never play the game like you do. Even though you seem to have gone beyond the normalcy of a Magician, you're still so limited with such a weak body. I like the extreme difference of how my body can move in the game when compared to my weak body in real life. It's one of the best things about the game. Where I live, there aren't many opportunities to run around.” She sighed, her body showing a listless posture for a moment, but then she once again straightened up and jumped off the branch, kicking it, running away from Jay the second he arrived by her side.

They traveled for fifteen minutes before Hannah stopped and waited for Jay to arrive close by. The day had now completely turned into dusk, and soon night would arrive. “Hey, do you have a way to see in the dark?” Hannah asked.

“Yes, do you?” Jay asked as he arrived on the same large branch thirty meters up in the air. The trees were growing smaller in this part of the forest, but they were still tall enough to give Jay the advantage of the high ground.

“I need to wait for a little while,” Hannah said. “When night arrives, my body changes into another Beast-form, and it automatically gives me a sort of night vision. Everything is almost as bright as day, but there are no colors anymore, only a gray-scale.”

“What do you mean?” Jay was a bit curious about what that was all about. “How does your body change?”

“Oh, you'll see,” Hannah said. “There shouldn't be much more time until it happens.” As she said that, Jay could clearly see her tan yellow and pale brown mottled fur rapidly receding into Hannah's body, her body shrinking into a woman shorter than Jay by a head, but now was mostly Human. Her face became smaller, her cheeks a bit plump, but she still looked somewhat feline, especially since there was still a part of her that didn't change; her ears were still those of a cat, their pointy shape and now black fur blending into her black hair that was tied back into a braid going down her back almost to her hips. Her crude leather clothing that looked too small earlier now looked too large for her, and Jay now understood why she used such strange garments. It wasn't that she chose to, it was that she had to, since she grew almost a meter after transforming into her Beast-form.

“How come you have two different Beast-forms?” Jay asked. He didn't know much, but from what little he remembered when he entered the game, he thought that every Beastly race only had one Beast-form and one Human-form.

“I don't know,” Hannah said. “It's been this way since I entered the game. The Tribal Elder told me something about having a special blood-line and that I needed to harmonize my two forms to gain my true form, or some such thing. I have no idea how to do that though. So now I have two different Beast-forms, one during the day, and one during the night. In a way, I only have one Beast-form and one Human-form, its only that my Beast-form changes according to the time of day.”

“Sounds strange,” Jay said. “Why didn't you stay in that tribe to figure out what was going on?”

“It was partly because I got bored,” Hannah said. “I had already explored most of the village after I got to Level 35. I even went into the forbidden ancestral tomb, and almost died there because of some ferocious guardian beasts. After that incident I sort of wasn't entirely welcome there anymore. They wanted me to atone for my breach of etiquette or something, and I didn't much feel like spending three days in a temple as a penance. So I ran away.”

“Ehm...” Jay thought this woman had a bit too much curiosity; it would definitely kill her some day. But that wasn't his problem, as long as she didn't drag him down with her. “Wouldn't it have been best if you understood why your Beast-form changes during night and day?”

“Maybe... but I just accept it,” Hannah said. “And does it really matter? It isn't very debilitating to have two different forms. The only bad thing is that the Skills I can use are directly influenced by which Beast-form I'm in. During the day I can't use my favorite ability for example.”

“Do you know if there's a way to fix that?” Jay asked, but he had started to lose interest, except for that last part. “What's your favorite ability?” If he could copy it, or make something similar, he would very much like to.

“I'll show you,” Hannah said, morphing back into her Beast-form, her body elongating, her features turning feline, pitch black hair sprouting from all of her exposed skin, her slitted eyes' iris turning from an emerald green to a glowing greenish yellow. If not for her leather garments, she would look almost as if part of the darkening night, only being a pair of disembodied eyes floating in blackness. And to make things even better, in Jay's Eye of the Magi, Hannah's body was exuding a black darkness, billowing and spreading out in a cloud, covering her completely within its darkness. In normal sight, Jay figured Hannah didn't look at all like a person, and more like a shadowy amorphous blob. The ability seemed to be entirely made from Darkness Mana and was used to make Hannah's whole body seem part of the night and its shadows.

Activating Nightsight, Jay's world turned to a color-scale of grays and blacks, but also more illuminated; still, Hannah looked like nothing more than a shifting patch of darkness. Jay really wanted to learn this ability. Just how was Hannah covering herself in darkness? “How are you doing that?”

“I just think of using my Mana Manipulation to cover my body with a cloud of Mana, then I keep that image in my mind, and just exude the amount of Mana I can Regenerate,” Hannah answered.

“Hm,” Jay said, stretching out his hand, scooping out a waft of Hannah's covering darkness. He wanted to get a feel for this Darkness Mana that he had never used before, or even seen.. “How does this work?” The Darkness Mana easily ran through Jay's fingers like water running through tiny cracks, and soon the Darkness Mana had returned to hover around Hannah's body. He took a step forward, closing in on Hannah, and reached out his hand again, plunging his hand inside the dark shroud, feeling his fingers push into a soft elastic resistance.

Hannah slapped Jay's hand away, backing up a step. “What are you doing?” She asked, indignation and anger clearly filling her voice. “Want to die?”

“What do you mean?” Jay was confused. “I just want to understand this strange Darkness Mana Spell you're using. It seems really useful when you want to hide in dark places. Stay still while I investigate this Darkness Spell.” He once more advanced, reaching his right hand into the darkness; this time he didn't touch anything but the Mana, and Hannah didn't seem to mind, only huffing a bit. Jay closed his eyes, flickering Eye of the Magi on and off until he got his inner sight working. He then tried getting a feeling for how the Darkness Mana worked. After a couple of long minutes, Jay reached out his left hand and tried creating the same feeling he got from his right hand submerged inside Hannah's Darkness Mana; a few seconds of trying created a small cloud of lazily roiling Darkness Mana above his palm. It was easier than he had thought.

“Are you done?” Hannah asked, sounding bored, and as if she couldn't stand standing still any longer. “Weren't we going to kill some players? Stop distracting yourself.”

Jay could only agree, he had gotten a bit distracted. This Darkness Mana Spell that shrouded Hannah made her melt into the darkness surrounding her. If he could create a Spell like that, he would be able to hide much easier. He really wanted to keep experimenting with it, but knew that now was not the time. He just tried his hardest to imprint the feeling of Darkness Mana into his mind, so that he could recreate the phenomenon later. “Right, let's go find us some players. You scout ahead and I'll follow, okay?”

“Sounds good,” Hannah said, flying off into the night, completely disappearing as if she was part of the night itself. The only reason Jay could follow was because she still had that white ball floating above her head that only those in her Party could see.

Minutes passed as they found no trace of anything. Jay was getting antsy. Why was there so few players around? His plans of Leveling quickly by hunting players and monsters at the same time was not going as well as he had thought it would. He could only continue following Hannah.

Ten minutes later, Hannah stopped on a thin branch twenty meters ahead of Jay. “Psst,” Hannah whispered. “We've found something.” In the distance, a clanging of metal against metal, or stone against stone, could be heard. “That's definitely a Party of players killing some creature. Should we go take a look?”

“Yes,” Jay whispered back, motioning for her to find the exact location of those players. “I'll follow behind you, but I'll keep my distance.” He decided to keep Hannah in sight, but be as far away from her as possible. With her abilities to silently jump between trees, and her ability to become one with the dark night, she would not be seen by anyone or anything, but Jay wasn't as well off. He wanted to have her secure the area before he came closer to those players.

It didn't take long before Hannah had stopped again; this time she stretched her hand outside her shrouding darkness and motioned Jay to come to her by waving her hand. Jay soon arrived at a thicker branch below Hannah, and she jumped down to stand on the outer parts of the limb while Jay stood beside the trunk, holding it with one hand. The tree branch was only ten centimeters wide where he stood, and less where Hannah stood, but she seemed as stable as if she was on flat ground. He envied her a bit for that. He had trouble keeping his balance even though he held an arm around the tree's trunk.

“Look down there,” Hannah pointed into the distance where there were some dim flashes and a loud clanging. “Three players, and an NPC standing to the side. They are attacking a black bear.” She pointed first to a vague trio fighting something Jay could barely see, and then to a lone figure sitting on a large root sticking up above ground.

“How do you know it's an NPC?” Whispering, Jay asked.

“If you look closely, you can tell the difference,” Hannah said, but didn't explain how that should be done.

“Never mind,” Jay said. He could see with his Eye of the Magi that there was a strange reddish brown thread of Mana going from the top of the NPC's head and down through his body, then deep into the ground through the sole of the NPC's right foot. It looked strange, and Jay couldn't figure out what that was all about, but it made him feel caution was in order. If he couldn't understand something, he wouldn't act recklessly. So he wouldn't kill this NPC, not just yet, at least. “Let's get closer.”

Hannah jumped nimbly from tree branch to tree branch, closing in on the unsuspecting players, and Jay followed higher up in the air, doing his best to swing between trees on his rope without making any noise. It wasn't easy, but Jay had some proficiency in rope-jumping now and could manipulate and move his rope so fast that he could calibrate his body's position in the air by quickly changing the trees he pulled towards and the angles at which he pulled his body. It was slightly taxing to his mind, and he couldn't focus entirely on the players ahead, but he traveled through the forest quietly and quickly, soon arriving at a branch some twenty meters from the ground, overlooking the three players. The players and the black bear all had a small red arrow pointing down on them—Claudine's work, no doubt, showing who Jay would find worthwhile to target.

Jay took out four pins from his inner pocket, letting them float in the air. He concentrated, sending out four equal streams of Force Mana, collecting it all around the pins, pushing in on all directions while stacking up more and more Mana. When he started to feel woozy and had charged each pin with close to 1500 Mana, Jay created a thin straight line of pale green Wind Mana. The line of Mana was his aim, and focusing on it made it easier to know where each pin would hit; the lines all pointed straight to the head of each of the players and the almost dead bear, moving with their motions. Jay changed the direction of all the accumulated Force Mana at once. The air exploded. And four streaks for light screeched through the air, breaking the sound barrier with a BOOM and arriving before the unsuspecting targets could even hear their death approaching. The four pins hit squarely in the head of each player, dropping them instantly, and Jay got three messages telling him he got close to 10000 Experience per player killed. He gained a Level, making him Level 40 now. Just one encounter was enough to get a Level, but he also knew that he had been close to Level 40, so he couldn't think every encounter would give him a Level. This meant that he most likely needed to kill at least thirty groups like this one to get to Level 50. Sighing lightly, he realized it wasn't very realistic to think he could get to Level 50 in one day.

The bear did not die as quietly, its body jerking slightly as its paws clawed at the earth. The death-spasms continued for close to a minute and then the black bear finally died, giving Jay another 500 Experience; it was really much more worth it to kill players.

Hannah jumped down and started skinning the black bear, neatly removing its pelt in swift and easy movements. “This is mine,” she said, grinning up at Jay.

“We'll split any profit at the end of the night,” Jay said, not wanting to lose out, but also not caring enough to argue about it. He was more interested in the NPC.

The NPC had stood up as soon as the players died, but he hadn't fled, which made Jay slightly curios. Was the NPC not afraid of being killed? Was there some underlying reason the rugged scout wasn't afraid? Then he remembered something, and had to ask, “are you a Ranger of the Forest?”

“Yes,” the NPC said. “What does the Immortal want with this one?”

“Nothing much,” Jay said, glad he had followed his instincts and not killed the NPC. He didn't need any more things hunting him, he already had more than enough dangers looming over his head than he could easily remember.

“Then I will take my leave,” the NPC said, bowing slightly, and turned around, walking away into the darkness.

“Wait!” Jay yelled. He didn't know what to do. Leaving witnesses wasn't very smart, but killing this NPC wasn't something he could do either. Could he maybe tie the man up and hang him from a tree? That way Jay wouldn't be anywhere near here if the man went to some authorities and reported Jay's killings. He decided not to be hasty, and asked: “Will you say anything about this?”

“Why would I? What you Immortals do to each other isn't any of my business,” shivering slightly, the NPC shrugged his leather-clad shoulders and slowly shook his gray-haired head. “I'm just glad you could tell the difference and didn't kill me, both for my sake and yours. Killing those of the Forest carries a death sentence, just so you know. Witnessing this scene was more than enough to fill up my tolerance of danger. And it isn't like those guys actually died anyway. You Immortals can't be killed from what I've seen.”

“Good,” Jay said, relieved that the NPC outside of cities seemed more lax about trivial things such as someone being killed. “Thanks for telling me about that. The Forest... what kind of being is it?” Jay mused aloud to himself. “Maybe that's what that reddish brown thread of Mana is that's going from him into the ground?”

“What did you say?!” the NPC sounded frightened. “You can see the holy connection? That can't be possible.”

“Ah,” Jay said, realizing he might have said too much. “No, it was nothing. Just some rambling. Don't take it to heart. Go away now.”

“Yes...” the NPC said, his wide eyes staring up at Jay with a mix of curiosity and fear. “I thank the Immortal for his leniency.”

“Now what was that about?” Hannah asked as the NPC walked away into the night. “Why did you talk to the NPC? I've found them mostly boring and stupid. They are useless. You should have just killed him too.”

“Don't you listen when people are talking?” Jay had to ask. “The NPCs in this game are too well made, it's almost impossible for me to tell them apart from players. And they are informative. How can talking to him be useless? I just learned how to tell when an NPC has an allegiance to the Forest, which is really helpful. Killing anyone of the Forest would make it very difficult for me to travel through this world as there seems to be a lot of it covered by forests.”

Hannah shrugged and went back to cutting up the bear, taking out some organ and putting it into her Inventory, while also removing its claws and teeth. She was a beast with her knife, scavenging anything useful from the bear in mere moments.

The bodies of the three players were slowly drifting off into streams of mist that then turned invisible, only leaving behind a small pearl. In Jay's eyes, there was a towering beam of light coming up from each pearl, showing exactly where the little Space-pockets were. Jay went down to the ground and picked them up, but didn't care much about checking what was inside. He had found out the boring way that there wasn't a high possibility to get anything good from a player's dropped loot after death.

When they had cleared the scene, Hannah once again ascended into the trees by jumping between them, and Jay rope-jumped after her, following close enough behind to always have her in sight.

The night went on this way. They met several more groups of players, and Jay easily killed them in a sneak attack. It was growing a bit monotonous, but Jay didn't complain. From the close to 250000 Experience gained during the night he gained another three Levels before dawn. It was a good night.