Duskbound

It wasn't too often anymore that Velik worried about dawn coming on him in the middle of a hunt. Most days, whatever he was fighting wasn't strong enough for it to make a difference. But in this case, with only an hour or two left and his prey's strength still a mystery, he wanted every advantage he could get. The ghostwalker cat hadn't been close to strong enough to challenge him, but there was no telling if that was the most powerful monster his attacker had at their disposal.

He would have been safer waiting for the rest of the team, but they couldn't have helped him hunt down who he was looking for. Well, Torwin could have. And maybe Aria. I'm still not sure how that all works with her skills, but she knew what was up with that hydra without ever being close enough for me to notice her.

But he hadn't waited, because in the end, he needed this. A proper solo hunt in a proper setting would recenter him. No guild agenda. No tests. No sucking mud and black, depthless water. Just him, his spear, and the gentle sway of the branches overhead as the night breeze brought familiar forest scents to him.

The first monster attacked him half an hour after he entered the forest. It was a weak thing, some sort of overgrown beetle with a shell that might have challenged him three or four years ago. Velik doubted it was related to his prey—just a random monster following its aggressive, killing instincts. He slew it with a single stroke of his spear and left its corpse behind.

Despite the proximity to civilized lands, the forest was still a relatively wild place. The monsters were strong enough that it would make a good hunting ground for someone like Sildra, but for him, they were nothing more than a distraction. Even when a pair of owls with wingspans longer than he was tall dive bombed him in silent ambush, it was never more than an annoyance.
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A third owl wheeled by overhead, its great wings stretched out to silently glide by as it watched him. At first, Velik thought it was connected to the two he'd just killed, but he quickly reconsidered that notion. Different breed. Bigger. Not attacking. Could be looking for an ambush, but it could also be a scout for that [Beast Tamer].

He couldn't think of any way to use the bird to lead him back to its master. Given the way the cat had come back for a second round instead of fleeing when it could, Velik had to assume whoever was controlling the monsters was fine with sacrificing them. Attacking the owl might disrupt the surveillance on Velik, but that was all.

Still, that was a good enough incentive for him. The problem was figuring out how to get to it. The owl was a hundred feet over the treetops, probably not far enough away to avoid a javelin throw if Velik decided to go that route, but he wasn't eager to try to find his spear once it had fallen back to the ground.

Ranged attacks had always been a weakness of his class, and his selection of gear addressed that not by giving him range, but by giving him options to quickly close in on his target. His cloak contained those two enchantments, [Shadow Step] and [Air Walk], but he didn't trust his reserves to get him that high. [Shadow Step] would be worthless for flying, and [Air Walk] wouldn't get him more than five or six steps in a row.

Each step he took drastically increased the cost of the next one, which made it impractical for attacking the owl. But if he couldn't get up to it, there was a simple alternative: bring it down to him. Assuming he was right about its purpose, it wouldn't want to lose track of him. All he had to do was disappear into the brush and it would be forced to swoop closer to get a better look.

And if it wasn't a spy for the [Beast Tamer], then he was wasting his severely limited time. This shouldn't take more than a minute, though. Just need a good spot that's hidden from an overhead view. There, perfect.

It was a small gully, so narrow that the walls practically touched in spots. A creek meandered through it, and trees grew at the top, their roots curling out of the walls. Unless a bird landed directly above it, it would be near impossible to see who was walking through. It wasn't enough to just head in, though. He needed to make the owl lose track of him so it would swoop down to investigate.

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[Shadow Step] took care of that. From a hundred feet away, he activated the ability on his cloak and darted into the gully before the effect faded. The cloak would need an hour or more to recharge enough to use its enchantment again, but it had done its part.

Now we wait.

The minutes stretched on, and Velik started to doubt his plan. Either he'd been paranoid about the owl, or he was right and it was too smart to fall for the trick. Whichever it was, he was wasting precious time. He watched it flit by through the paper-thin gap, nothing more than a blur against the moonlight each time it passed by.

He knew it was looking for something, and that it was probably him. That was great, but unless it actually landed to peer into the gully, it didn't matter. Just when he was about to give up, a soft, nearly inaudible ruffle of feathers caught his ear. His eyes, which had been locked overhead, snapped off to the side, where the owl was perched on a branch at the entrance to the gully.

Clever little bastard decided to get a look in from the outside instead of above. Good for you, but you still made a mistake.

[Shape Shifting] was a powerful enchantment, and with the spear's [Mana Drinker] to keep it fully powered, Velik didn't hesitate to remake the weapon into whatever shape was the most useful at any given moment. It took a fraction of a second to taper its tip down into a javelin, then he activated the [Power Surge] enchantment on his ring and whipped his arm forward.

The spear flew through the air, almost screaming over the half a second it took to reach the owl, then it took the beast right in its fluffy, feathered chest. The owl was thrown from its perch, its talons ripping the branch to shreds, and it slammed into the trunk of the tree behind it.

[You have slain a bonded night watcher owl (level 20).]

Shit. I knew it. Run, you asshole, but know that I'm coming for you.

Velik reclaimed his spear and started following the trail the ghostwalker cat had left for him. It didn't take much longer to find a little campsite, with evidence of four or five more monsters and one person wearing boots. The monsters had gone off in every direction, and the human footprints disappeared without a trace.

Which of these things is big enough for you to ride? Velik wondered as he examined the prints. These ones, the bear tracks, I think. They look a bit deeper over here. The ground's not really any softer, so… a bit of extra weight on its back?

If that was the case, the [Beast Tamer] had made a mistake. Bear-type monsters weren't known for their impressive speed, not over long distances. Worse, if it had a rider, it would be forced to stick to open trails. That would make it easier to track. All that assumed it wasn't a trick.

He gave the campsite a once over, paying close attention to the hoof prints one of the monsters had left and what looked like wolf tracks from at least two monsters, possibly worgs. There were no more cat paw prints, at least not that he could see, so Velik hoped the person he was tracking was down to just those four monsters, but he couldn't eliminate the possibility of another flyer.

With only an hour or so left before the sun came up, he started off after the bear. If he was wrong, he'd take out another of the monsters, leaving one left for the human controlling them when Velik did finally catch up with whoever it was. If not, well, it'd be over soon. The tracks weren't that old, probably not more than half an hour.

They ran when I killed the owl. Somehow, they're sharing senses with their bonds. Must be a class skill.

Five minutes later, the trail entered a wide, shallow stream. Velik stood at the shore and scanned up and down both sides, but he didn't see a spot where the bear emerged back out. Unfortunately for his prey, this particular bear had a strong enough musk that Velik could still smell its passing. He didn't like scent tracking—humans just weren't built for it, no matter how high their mental got—but he was confident he could do it well enough to figure out which way the bear had gone.

A few minutes after that, he spotted tracks climbing back out of the stream a mile to the south. Velik followed along grimly, his spear clutched in his hand. When an ear-splitting roar shook the leaves overhead, he wasn't surprised. A moment later, a fifteen-foot-tall bear covered in coarse, metallic brown fur charged out of the brush at him, each step sending up a deafening boom.

Some sort of sound magic. Great. And I can't forget that it might have reinforcements, Velik thought as he leveled his spear. A moment later, the bear crashed into him, gladly accepting a gash across the face in exchange for throwing Velik thirty feet backward into the stream.

"Come on, then," he said, climbing to his feet just in time to skip off to the side. The arena wasn't ideal, not with the water coming up to his thighs but barely reaching the bear's ankles. Worse, lightning crackled across its jaw, a bad combination if Velik had ever seen one.

He bared his teeth into a feral grin and launched himself at the monster.