Taking the southeastern path, Logan and Marcus travelled on foot for 30 minutes, Logan preparing 3 casts of Flame for the day, it being his highest tier spell and not wanting to be caught unawares by any higher level foes in the forest. Using a dual-wielding tactic, Logan would await the first shot by Marcus before using Backstab and a follow-up strike on loner wolves, that way he could level up his skill while Marcus still gained XP.

That was the best scenario however, wolves were pack animals and it would be hard to find many loners. With the lupine's speed far overtaking that of his Devout ally, a retreat wasn't a big option, so if they were to be ambushed they would have to stand their ground and fight till the end. Logan wasn't too anxious however, he had some good backup spells and Marcus could throw out plenty of healing, even more when he gained his level after 5 wolf kills.

During the long trek, Logan thought it best to do some veiled information gathering through conversation with Marcus. Wanting a better grasp of how to go forward in the capital, Logan was able to find out that the world lacked a “government” and instead had rules created and lorded over by the higher-ups of the kingdoms, from rich nobles to powerful castes. There was no concept of “police”, being replaced with guards and watchers who kept settlements safer.

One of the major points was “laws”, which were still a concept that was held within Avanar and followed a lot of what Earth had in place. No thievery or murder, however, murder became a lawful killing if the target was a wanted criminal, Marcus spoke of hunter contracts that could be undertaken by the populace to track criminals down and either apprehend them for questioning and court hearings if their crimes were minor or to kill the accused on sight.

From the topic of laws, Logan had also inquired into “drugs” though they were mostly thought of as just medicinal or otherwise items that had effects take place within the body. It didn’t seem to carry any stigma, a common recreational and recovery option.

Another word that came up was “god” which surprisingly was not a common term, instead, it seemed that “gods” were referred to as “the ones above and below” as a proper title or “OAB” as a short term, though it was also to reference their locations. Logan confirmed that another saying he would need to remove from his vocabulary would be “god damn it.”

With the sun hitting the middle part of the sky, the forest became heavily illuminated with leafy shadows painting a beautiful wilderness picture for the adventurers. Unlike the last time Logan was here, the forest was much quieter when it came to other adventurers. No grand wolf hunt was occurring today, aside from the one that the pair would be engaging in.

After a few uses of Clean, the partners made their way into the forest, weapons at the ready in case of ambushing wolves. The first enemies they were to come across was that of a pack of 6 wolves, chewing away at the remains of another adventuring party. Logan and Marcus were not sure if the party were freshly killed today or from a previous day.

Logan gave a motion signal to Marcus, instructing him they were to leave the wolves to their feast, a group of six was too much for what they wanted and was needlessly difficult. Running out the end of their luck, however, Marcus snapped a twig underfoot, the breaking of wood sounding off their location to the lupines, whose heads all darted in their direction. With Stealth failing, the party readied themselves for combat.

Darting off, one after another, the wolves charged towards the pair of snacks hiding away from them. Marcus started to line up his crossbow, firing at any wolves he had a clear shot at, whereas Logan charged into the fold to draw the attention. With two daggers in hand, Logan turned into a dervish of blades, slicing in cross directions, twirling around, and dragging his weapons through his enemies' hides. It seemed both his battles and levels had made him an adept fighter.

The first wolf to approach Logan had its lunge dodged, Logan stepping to the side of his foe and bringing both daggers into the lupine's back, dealing two Backstab attacks and killing the wolf in one fell swoop. One down, five to go, the next wolf had a free back attack into the Spellthief, biting his lower back and clawing at his legs, dealing 4 and 3 damage, the second claw not cutting through Logan's freshly made armour.

Following up, a third wolf wanted in on the new chew toy but was halted by a bolt into the side, Marcus making sure to attack foes that would not lead him into hitting his ally. Dropping his off-hand dagger, Logan grabbed onto the snout of the wolf chomping on him, calling out “Flame Grasp!” and igniting the wolf in a torrent of flames that left him more black than brown. Releasing his catch, the corpse fell to the floor. With everything added in, Logan was able to see that his Flame dealt a heavy 30 damage through the use of Identification.

A sly fourth wolf saw the archer, dashing to the side around another tree it sped at Marcus. Changing his line of fire, Marcus hit the fourth with a bolt, followed by Logan's “Force!” blast, knocking the flanker to the floor with the power of the mick. With a few seconds to spare, Marcus reloaded to pelt the fallen wolf again.

Reaching Logan, the third, fifth, and sixth wolf lunged at the Spellthief who made a large leap to the side to avoid them all, the wolves colliding with one another in mid-air. “Force!” Logan called out, trying to deal with the fourth that had its eyes set on his ally. However, the fourth was persistent, standing back up and charging the Devout.

Hitting the fourth with another bolt, the wolf was on its last legs but was close enough to claw at the Devout for 5 damage. Using the fifth wolf as a step, Logan kicked into the air to let out a final “Force!” into the fourth wolf, killing the foe that had attacked his ally. Getting nicked by the third and sixth wolves' claws, Logan took another 4 and 5 damage.

Three out of six wolves were down, but all three were centred on Logan who could not dodge them forever. Marcus fired bolt after bolt, hitting wolves where he was able, Logan side-stepping, jumping, and rolling around to evade attacks where he could. Slashing into the third wolf, he cut deep alongside a crossbow bolt but was then clawed by all three wolves for 3, 3, and 5 damage bringing him to 31/58 HP.

Calling out “Heal me!” Logan requested the Devout to begin his healing, expecting to take many more hits.

“Orb of all I call to thee, Pondress heal your children. Heal Shot”, Marcus enspelled, a wave of holy yellow light surrounding his arm and flowing with great velocity into Logan, healing the Spellthief for 11 points. Logan stood healthier at 42/58 HP, hurrying to his dropped dagger.

With a leap, Logan picked his previous blade and rolled back up to a kneeling then standing position. Dodging a bite from a leaping sixth wolf, Logan stabbed both his blades into its sides, the body almost falling on top of him if he wasn't keeping his momentum forwards. On the way out from a kill, Logan was bitten and clawed by the third and fifth wolves, taking 4, 4, 3, and 5 damage, bringing him down to 26/58 HP.

“Orb of all I call to thee, Pondress heal your children. Heal Shot”, Marcus chanted again, washing Logan in healing winds and lights for 9 healing.

Wanting to end it quickly, Logan barreled down on the third wolf, slashing the beast twice with his blades, the body falling to the pile that was accumulating on the floor. Leaving himself open to a bite from the fifth wolf, though thankfully his armour saved him from getting punctured by its teeth, in retaliation he stabbed his blades in the ears of the foe, it convulsed like crazy before going limp on the Spellthief.

Pushing the wolf off of him, Logan scanned the area for any more wolves but was happy that his sight was instead met with experience popping up over the corpses.

Putting Logan at 12,672/15,000 XP and Marcus at 3,040/3,000. Looking over to his ally, Logan could see a beaming smile across the Devout's face, running up to Logan he began to speak.

“Logan! Logan, I think I increased my rank. I felt my spellforce increase again, another two spells at my disposal at a guess. Can you check?” Marcus said, energy filling his words after a tense fight.

Checking over his ally's status he could see that Marcus gained +1 to his Strength, Agility, Constitution, Intelligence, and Charisma, whereas his Wisdom gained +3. “His stat growth is much different than mine, but since it is an odd level he probably has a decimal or strange increase like I do. Gaining +3 in a single attribute though, that is a lot, would I get that if I wasn't a hybrid?” Logan calculated.

“Yes, your rank did increase, you gained quite a bit from this. Did you want me to improve another one of your attributes again? I can only do one of them once this time”, Logan offered, noticing his ally had 1 attribute point to spend.

“I still feel like Wisdom will allow me to give the biggest benefit to the team, so that, please”, Marcus requested. Using his System, Logan placed Marcus's point into Wisdom, bringing it up to 23, the same as Logan's Intelligence and Agility.

“Alright, that's all done”, Logan confirmed.

“I didn't feel much difference, but I am sure we will see it when I use another spell”, Marcus noticed. Placing his hand onto his ally, he used his skill to patch up the new wounds “Healer's Caress”, he commanded, a healing light overcoming Logan, though they could both feel it had been empowered with a higher Wisdom, healing for 3 instead of 2.

“Logan, my skill improved! This is great!” Marcus exclaimed, his happiness growing at an instant boost.

“I can tell, it will be a major bonus for longer quests”, Logan affirmed. Marcus used his skill on himself next, bringing him to his new total of 32/34 HP, and Logan back to 38/58 HP.

“Keep an eye out, I got some Harvesting to do with these corpses”, Logan commanded, sheathing his weapons and drawing his trophy knife. Nodding, Marcus began to patrol the area after collecting up what bolts he could reuse.

With 6 wolves to take the pelts from the Harvesting took 30 minutes in total, Marcus using his skill 6 more times for the party, putting Marcus back at maximum HP and Logan to 53/58 HP. Using Clean, Logan started to finish up his gathering spree though before he could cart the 4 eyes, 10 shoddy fangs, 2 common fangs, 4 shoddy pelts, and 2 common pelts, to the bag he heard a loud thud. With his defensive instincts kicking in he whirled around to scan the area.

Looking around, he saw Marcus had fallen to the floor, nothing was attacking him, however. Checking his ally's status he saw that the Devout had gained a sleeping status effect, running to his ally he heard chanting on approach.

“Hear the calming song of the master, drift off in his sand. Sleep Grasp.”

Twisting his head around he was unable to find the caster, until he saw him at his side, dashing to its quarry. A robed man thrust his hand around the mouth of Logan, a parade of sleep spores pouring into his mouth and nose. Logan's vision became blurry, only noticing a shadowy face underneath a cowl, the patterns of scattered stars and moons across a dark grey robe. “Fuu-” Logan thought as his mind went blank.

Logan found himself somewhere completely different, though familiar. A blinking red light atop a metallic door lighting up a sterile white hallway, Logan sitting atop a plastic chair attached to the wall. Nearby signs were full of directions, floor numbers, and named rooms. This was the hospital he rushed to from his graduation, sat beside him were his documents and diploma underneath his hat.

Dressed in the black robes of graduation day, Logan's eyes were red with large black bags underneath. Feeling like he was experiencing a nightmare, Logan clenched his fists and his eyes, trying to wake up, but when he opened them all he saw was that the red light had stopped with the double white doors opened up to him.

Turning his head he could peer through the doorway, a doctor walking out from the room towards the young adult. Logan could feel his heart being crushed in a vice, his shaky legs pushing him to stand up and meet the doctor. His height betrayed him, however, hitting a sign that jutted out from the wall, knocking him down slightly as he shut his eyes in pain.

Opening his eyes wide, Logan jumped awake, laying against a cave wall the rocky resting spot having dug into his back. Twisting and turning, Logan saw he was back in Avanar, seemingly within the bastarn cave a good distance away from the forest. As he moved, Logan felt his feet and hands were bound in rope, his mouth gagged with a thinner rope tied around his head. Since his hands were behind his back he couldn't do much to the ropes around his feet.

Thinking about the dream he just had, Logan had a sudden realisation that it was his first since coming to Avanar. Combined with being his first dream, it was the first time he truly thought back to his old life in detail, as if something was blocking those memories. Before he could dwell on it further, a magical haze started to overcome his past life’s importance, as if it was something not to think on right now, replaced with only thoughts of survival and progression.

“System, status and map”, he commanded, his thoughts not blocked like his voice was. Thankfully his program was still working, noting his weapons, armour, and bags had been taken away as well as that he was indeed within the bastarn cave. A 30-minute walk from their previous location, whoever had abducted him had help or some form of transportation. It was still the same day, Logan keeping his two remaining charges of Flame.

Surprisingly, Logan was still in a party with Marcus as he was able to open up a separate party menu window to display the same information as if he was looking at his ally. An image of XP overlaid with a red cancel sign over it was under Marcus’s status, Logan surmising the XP split was not active. It seemed like Marcus was in a similar position, his equipment was taken away but still had the sleeping status affecting him. “Not good, whoever captured us was a caster of some sort. All I saw was a grey robe and his hand, his face was hidden under a hood”, Logan panicked.

“Mrhm, mhh”, Logan tried to chant a spell but was unable to get the words out. “Fuck, not good”, his fears mounting, Logan could see a few cuts across his body, only wearing his civilian clothes and trinkets that were under his armour. Being brought down to 50/58 HP, Logan was worried that he might have been found out, someone knew of his abilities so was testing his blood.

Pushing with what body he could, Logan tumbled onto his side, his head hitting the rocky floor. Rotating over onto his knees he could straighten up into a kneeling position. Looking around, Logan couldn't see too far into the cave, the light from outside only coming in so far, it seems he wasn't too far from the entrance. A few corpses laid across the floor. Freshly killed bastarns with punch wounds across them.

“Either a martial artist ally, or the caster knows Force and deals quite a bit of damage with it”, Logan surmised. Shimmying to the wall, Logan tried to rub his rope bindings against the sharp surface to sever it. His escape was cut short, however, as he heard footsteps coming from deeper in the cave followed by a Light Ally sprite.

A tall man, around 6' with long black hair dyed red from countless battles bathed in blood. Dressed in dark grey robes, they were dotted by scattered stars and moons, the man was indeed a caster, and then it clicked, he recognised the man. “Darius!” Logan was surprised, but he had to get information on what was going on. “Identify”, he commanded.

“Darius Monlod: Wizard 9, 60/60 HP, 0/2 MP. One of the highest level adventurers assigned to the adventurers' hall of Tinte, and the highest level Wizard there. Is a known reject of the Magi’s Tower association due to failed experiments. Staff. Wiz's Robes. Spell list:

1st: Aqua, Flame, Frost, Gaia, Infuse, Lightning, Necromantic, Score, Wind.

2nd: Detail, Develop, Dimensional Jaunt, Haste, Inform, Root, Sleep.”

“Crap, he really is a level 9 Wizard, those accessors are accurate. He has much more spells to cast than I do and probably the slots to back it up. Why does he have MP too though? That Sleep spell is what he used to get us down”, Logan's mind rushed. Squatting down to his prize, Darius looked at a kneeling Logan.

“Well, your mind and body are stronger than your friend's. Though, I should expect as much from an oracle”, Darius spoke, a harshness and resentment in his words. Planting his foot on Logan, the kidnapper kicked the Spellthief to the floor on his back.

“You should just rest, make it easy on both of us. Once I can synthesize an item from your body we'll be done here. The MT will bring me in with open arms if I could create something to unlock potentials”, Darius continued, leaning down to Logan. Picking a knife from a robe pocket he cut a part of Logan's hair off.

“I do hope I only need blood, hair, or nails. I can only take so much else before you die. Though I am sure your Devout can keep you alive for more parts to get taken”, he explained, a twisted smile showing teeth that were not his, different shades and shapes as if he had replaced them several times.

“An item? I can't let him make that, otherwise whatever the Magi’s Tower is will hunt me for more”, Logan feared.

Standing up from his lab rat, Darius took a hold of the rope binding Logan's feet and started to drag him in deeper. Taking the opportunity, Logan tried to have the rope tied to his hands and face scratch the rocky floor to cut it further.

“Not every day you get to see a fellow caster increase by 4 ranks in less than a week, almost a day a rank. One rank? Sure, you could have gotten lucky, other casters have done the same, but reaching rank 5 before even the 1-week death timer, no no no, not possible on your own”, Darius explained, a shade of disappointment in his dark tone.

“You're lucky it's hard to spot a slotter gaining power since you don't have an aura, but there are ways around that. I was intrigued, a Wizard, out of the blue, no background or sponsor but you knew all of these tricks. You would have made a great underling, if not for your ability to progress at the rate of heroes without being one”, Darius continued, tossing Logan's feet to the floor as he arrived at the forked path that Logan and Marcus stopped at not too long ago.

The fork now contained a small wooden table with vials, lit candles, crafting tools and alembics. “He's using Alchemy, it looks like”, Logan realised. Looking around, he still could not see Marcus.

“Did you know that the Magi’s Tower was founded by an oracle? Several centuries ago, before my time. Their ability to progress their rank and skills far exceeded any mage before them, and with that power, they allowed us casters to find a place in this world. Given some form of respect, one-third the pay instead of only a 10% rate”, Darius monologued.

Placing the hair Darius took from Logan into a vial, he combined it with a blue liquid then placed it above a fire. Weaving spellforce into the vial he began to chant whilst waving his hands over the concoction.

“Mind, body, and will, let my mind bind this body to my will”, he enspelled, the hair melting away and changing the blue liquid into a glowing grey.

Logan continued to scrape his ropes against the rocky floor, “C'mon, c'mon break already”, Logan demanded. Darius took the vial, blew over it with a cold wind from his lips, and downed the creation. Coughing violently, he picked up a mirror to look at himself.

“No, nothing. Wrong component”, Darius recited, whipping his head back to his captive.

“You know, monsters are strange beings, though we are not so dissimilar. We use their hair, blood, teeth, tongues, eyes, etcetera, in the creation of potions and items. A human or gashriek can be harvested the same way. A strongman's muscles can be diluted into a tonic, a lavish head of hair can be transferred to another with an enchanted hairband”, Darius explained, getting closer to Logan.

“What is it, what part of you allows the osmosis of ability? Not your blood, nor your hair. I would hate to pick at your teeth or pull your tongue”, he continued, looking over Logan and pointing at the Spellthief's features.

“This guy is a maniac”, Logan exclaimed in his head.

“I saw it, I confirmed your ability, you increased that Devout's spellforce almost threefold. How! How did you do it!?” Darius demanded, grabbing Logan's lower jaw, his fingers digging into the trapped adventurer's cheeks. Sliding his hand across Logan's face, Darius landed on the Spellthief's right ear.

“Ears are also a component, better to test that before an eye”, Darius studied, bringing a knife up to Logan's right ear.

“Shit, shit shit shit”, Logan was scared, more so than against any foe so far.

With the Wizard now atop him, Logan had little way to defend himself, his feet tied together, he couldn't flee. Seeing little way of retreat, he would give what little fight he could, his skills were off cooldown and one weak spot was still open. Raising his knees high, he dealt a crucial blow to the vital point of all men, text appearing above his head as Darius's eyes went wide “Backstab.”

With the momentum of the knee attack, Logan pushed the Wizard above and over his head, Darius thankfully dropping the knife in his hands. Nudging the blade into a crevice with his face, the dagger faced upwards towards Logan who thought of his next step for a second.

“You bastard! Tongue it is!” Darius yelled, grabbing at his robes and wincing in pain. The Wizard made his way slowly back to Logan who finally decided his action.

Plunging his face into the floor, the dagger stabbed into Logan's face, cutting the rope and through his cheek. “ARGH”, Logan cried out in pain, the rope coming loose from his lips but leaving a hole into his mouth. A warning came up telling him he had dealt 5 damage to himself, though he had other worries. Pushing off from the floor with his legs and what little control of his feet he had, he tumbled over to the alchemist table.

“From the fires within, burst forward and burn it down! FLAME GRASP!” he yelled out at the top of his lungs, both out of pain and in the hopes he could reach Marcus. Grabbing a tight hold of the nearby table Logan set it ablaze with his magic, the ropes around his hands and feet also catching alight from the table leg, allowing him to break them apart. Squaring off against Darius, the Wizard's eyes also lit up in flames of anger seeing his research table being destroyed.

“No! My materials! Fine, your body is worth it all if I can synthesis an oracle”, Darius shouted in anger, landing his gaze on Logan's.

Logan stood in an open stance, his hands open like claws, Darius's hands were now clasped around a staff he drew from his back. Waiting for the first move, the two casters faced one another, a dark black wall of rock behind Darius, a flaming table behind Logan. As the crackle of the flames created a chaotic soundscape, it was cut into by the muffling cries of another man towards the exit of the cave, Logan noticed that Marcus was no longer asleep.

A momentary realisation and turning of his head, Logan left a second of weakness for Darius to begin chanting his spell.

“From the chaos of Cani”...

--- *** ---