The snowdrift she had jumped into cushioned Faye’s fall perfectly. She emerged from the pile spluttering and gasping at the icy cold snow that managed to get down her neck, but none the worse for wear. A huge grin split her face as she stood, and her heart was beating a thousand miles an hour.

She did feel a twinge of guilt though. What if the adventurers needed help?

Sitting alone in their house, she had felt like a weight around their neck. She always would if she couldn't level up.

Level three meant she was as much help as a broken stick in a fight.

Okay, the sprites were dangerous for us all...

Faye shook her head. It didn't matter. She was of no use at such a low level. She had to train. The distraction of the north gate couldn't have come at a better time, she had been ready to blow a gasket stuck inside the house for so long.

It was time to start moulding herself to this new world she had found herself in. Time to be useful to the only people that had really given her a chance.

She checked her belt; the new wooden sword was still attached. She checked the other hip for the cold steel of the dagger she’d grabbed from the equipment chest the adventurers kept by the door.

Taking only a wooden blade into the woods around the town had seemed like suicide, even if it had somehow been given a magical edge.

“Come on, Faye,” she muttered aloud. If she stayed by the walls too long, someone would see her and drag her back inside the walls again, or she would talk herself out of the admittedly mad idea.

With one last glance at the still-closed gate and empty walls, she headed out into the night. Thoughts of getting stronger at any cost swirling around her mind.

Despite the fact that it was early winter and the middle of the night, the forest sounded alive. Creaks told her animals were rushing through the tree branches, nocturnal birds chattered and chirped, and even the occasional bush would rustle with a startled animal — it looked vaguely rabbit-like from what she saw.

Jogging through the trees, Faye kept to trails. She wasn’t too worried about getting back, there was a general sense of direction in these woods — the trees all seemed to bend south-east.

But the weather, now that was less of a known factor. The clouds that had covered the town earlier were all gone.

She wasn’t sure how.

But the night air was cold, frigid really, with the lack of insulation. The stars all twinkled in the night tapestry and the gibbous moon gave off a huge amount of light. So much so that Faye wasn’t worried about losing vision at all.

By jogging, she was keeping herself warm. A few minutes into the warmup, she stopped to stretch lightly, then carried on moving. Her head was on a swivel as she went, her left hand held her sword in place on her belt, with only the loop of leather keeping it hanging there otherwise.

Her right hand was empty still, but even as she moved through the trees and around bushes, she was ready at any time to snap to the hilt of the sword.

When a shadowy shape detached from the tree branches above and glided down to intercept Faye’s path, she drew the blade and slashed through where the shape would be as it reached her.

To her surprise, the blade did remarkably well, cutting the creature easily. It let out a bat-like screech that hurt her ears and flapped toward her face.

Getting the sword up and between the flying monster and her face wasn’t easy, and she flinched as one of its claws scratched her cheek.

The claw sliced through her skin more easily than her blade had cut it.

A spike of panic bloomed in her chest.

Dropping the long wooden sword, Faye reached out with her left hand and grabbed the creature. She dropped her right hand to her hip and the handle of the dagger, which she pulled out and buried into the thing’s chest.

And again.

And again.

Its leathery wings flapped around her head, and the claws scratched her scalp, but it couldn’t get a grip on her.

It stopped struggling. Its leathery wings fell as if strings holding them up had been cut.

Congratulations! You have slain a level 2 [Night Squirrel].

Faye had barely any time to wonder that the system was suddenly back, ignoring the notification as well as she could. More of these night squirrels — who named these things? — were flying toward her.

She bent to grab her sword, trying not to take her senses off the flying squirrels for as long as possible. It was much harder than it should have been.

The moon was throwing down a lot of light, but these night squirrels were somehow shrouded in darkness. She had no explanation for it, but she was able to track their movements more through the lack of light in the spaces they occupied than through actually seeing them.

By keeping her head as still as possible, she was able to rely on her peripheral vision to catch the strange visual illusion as the squirrels came for her.

With the flying devils so low-levelled, Faye assumed she didn’t have to worry that they had crazy abilities like the briag sprites had, but it seemed that these night squirrels liked company. A swarm of them was descending upon her and it seemed to grow larger every second.

Taking a deep breath, Faye sank into a fighting stance, holding her wooden sword in two hands, she began a series of moves that used simple economy of movement but featured flowing, ever-shifting angles of attack to take down the flying monsters as they dove for her.

Noticing that they were all using the same diving attack, she was able to fall into a pattern. But even after a couple of minutes, she could feel the strain. Combat of any kind always takes much more energy than it seemed like it would to outsiders.

Her heart beat madly in her chest, and with the way the fight was going Faye knew that at the current rate she was expending energy, the night squirrels would swarm her and…

What, bite me to death?

She wasn’t sure.

She was sure that she didn’t want to find out.

Taking a deep breath, Faye stopped swinging. She sheathed the blade, then took out her dagger once more. When a night squirrel got close enough, she would grab it and slam the dagger into its body, the same as the first one.

This meant that she was a more stable, easier target, but it took much less energy than swinging the sword. The night squirrels were so numerous above her that she could no longer see the stars in the night sky. Each one of the fluttering things was small, but together, that strange pocket of darkness would merge and become something more.

Eventually, the squirrels were flocking so close to Faye that they were surrounding her on all sides and true darkness descended.

She was moving purely on instinct. Grabbing at the movements felt more than seen, and flapping sounds she heard, then stabbing out. It was grisly, tough work.

The bites and scratches were adding up. Blood trickled down her face and hands. Her arms ached. She pushed through the pain as much as she could.

For every night squirrel she took out, another two seemed to take its place. Each attack was relatively painless. But multiply that by dozens and, suddenly, she was in trouble.

She growled out a curse, then slammed the dagger home in its sheath again. She drew the sword and started using its greater length to try and clear space.

The flying things were clearly not using echo location, like bats, because they were just as likely to buffet her with their wings and stumble into her body as much as they were to find purchase with their claws or teeth.

Her wooden blade struck an enemy more times than it didn’t, but that was less due to Faye’s skill as it was the sheer numbers of them.

Gritting her teeth, she tried to ignore the pain of the cuts, but it was getting harder and harder. A trickle of blood inched its way into her eye, and she itched to wipe it away but couldn’t stop focusing on the swarm around her.

That spike of panic from earlier lanced upwards into a full-blown sensation of doom.

Gritting her teeth, Faye breathed out harshly in time with her strikes. Each one delivered with the desperate energy of a woman backed into a corner.

A corner she’d placed herself in.

No time for that.

She carried on. When she got too tired to effectively swing the sword, she would hunch over and sheath it before drawing the dagger and relying on its economy of movement to impale the creatures as they swarmed her.

Some unknown length of time later, she received another notification. The ping sounded in her ears/mind over the desperate sounds of her breathing and the flapping and screeching of the flying squirrels.

Congratulations! You have levelled up! You are now level 4.

She waited a moment, but nothing else happened.

“Oh, come on!” she groaned. But despite the lack of further reward, Faye found that it was a little easier to swing the sword. The attacks of the swarming night squirrels a little easier to avoid. The sensation of doom and panic that still threatened her was somewhat reduced.

She soldiered on. A new ache in her jaw started, where she was clenching too hard.

The swarm didn’t seem to change its approach. They simply flew toward her and tried to scratch and bite her. There seemed to be no true intelligence in these creature’s actions.

By changing her approach to the attacking squirrels, she was able to exercise different muscles. From a solid, sturdy stance to a flowing, light stance she would stop building up pain in her thighs to instead begin to lose wind.

Eventually, settling back into a solid stance once more allowed her to regain some composure in her breathing before she moved once more.

She realised that she needed to fight a retreat back towards the town. The swarm seemed never-ending, despite knowing intellectually that it must end.

Tears sprung to the corners of her eyes. She wasn’t sure if it was from the stinging pain of the many cuts and bruises she sported now or just pure frustration.

A squirrel flew directly at her face, battering into her teeth. She flinched and stumbled backward, losing her concentration. The squirrel managed to get its claws into her mouth and gum. She bit down, hard. Then grabbed the thing with her left hand, running the whole length of the sword through it with the other.

She screamed out at the squirrels.

“Come on then, you little shits, come and get some!”

But at that moment, the night squirrels — creatures that had swarmed her continuously for… she didn’t know how long — vanished.

The darkness that had accompanied them quickly dissipated, with the light of the moon shining down onto the forest floor once more.

She looked all about, feverishly. She held her sword in both hands but couldn’t see a single night squirrel.

Relief coursed through her, making her legs weak and her knees shake.

“Oh, my God… that could have gotten really bad. Really fucking bad.”

She ran a shivering hand through her hair. Pulling it back from her face. Most of it had escaped the tight braid she’d taken to wearing.

Covered in night squirrel guts and excrement, cutting through living things’ bellies was much more gross than she’d ever imagined, Faye grimaced at the thought of what Arran and the others would say. Or the guards. She supposed the Guild would just use this as an excuse not to let her do more things.

But she grinned, despite all that. She had levelled up. Finally. Not that it had brought her literally anything.

She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath through her nose, coughing briefly at the stench that permeated through to her, but she felt the exertion of the fight drain away.

Until she felt a deep, bass rumble in her chest.

Her eyes snapped open.

She brought up her sword into a middle guard again.

What made the night squirrels run away?

The question she should have been asking already finally made its sluggish way through the molasses she called her thinking mind. Instead of relief at the squirrels disappearing, Faye felt the sudden rush of adrenaline as it squirted into her belly.

Her insides squeezed with anxiety and her heartbeat rose to a crescendo again in an instant. She could feel her pulse at her neck. A rush of blood in her ears muted every forest sound she might have heard.

Fortunately, whatever that bass rumble was didn’t dissipate. Something about the feeling made her turn around. She scrambled to present her sword to her back, to come face to face with a crouched predator. It was akin to the creatures she’d seen in the mountains, she was certain, but that’s all she could think before it jumped for her.

She automatically slashed as the monster launched itself forward, but it was too fast. Its claws reached for her face, inside her reach, before she was able to bring the wooden blade to bear.

Faye scrambled backward. She stumbled, something ensnaring her foot, and she landed hard on her rump. The monster leaped again, but this time she was able to get the point between her and it, which made it perform an acrobatic move to dodge the blade as it came down almost on top of her.

In that moment, it wasn’t able to concentrate on attacking. Faye’s dagger found its side, puncturing its hide. She couldn’t pull it out, the dagger was stuck in its ribs. The creature twisted away, pulling the handle of the dagger out of her fingers. She scrambled to her knees, getting hold of the sword grip properly, despite her hands being covered with blood.

The predatory movement of the monster was not interrupted by the dagger in its side. But it was wary now. It prowled around Faye’s kneeling form. She was able to actually comprehend what it was she was fighting for the first time.

It looked somewhat like a feline, but it had a much longer neck than any terrestrial animal Faye had ever seen. The long neck terminated in a sleek face that had two large, pointed ears. These were held back, flat, against the head as it stalked her.

Its eyes were luminous in the light of the moon, reflecting everything it could see. Faye had no doubt that this thing’s night vision was impeccable.

She wished she had a flare.

It crouched and snapped forward. Its bite hyena-like. The teeth it showed were vicious, thin needles. She had no doubt that this thing would tear her apart if she let it.

It was keeping the side that had the dagger in it away from Faye, but that was almost the only indication it was injured. It was favouring its left side ever so slightly, but not enough to suggest it had a steel blade embedded in its ribs.

“What the hell are you?” Faye murmured. She slowly rose to her feet. Staying crouched close to the ground like that was getting painful. A cramp was threatening to undo everything she’d worked for in that first desperate defence. The added height made Faye feel vulnerable to the predatory gaze of this thing.

It wasn’t until she stood properly, getting her sword in a Fool’s guard that the creature ran for her. She wasn’t in the best stance, but she rushed forward too, shouting and slashing.

Just before it reached her and reached the distance she would be able to cut it, it turned and flashed to the side. Its tail, an incredibly long and thin tail, whipped around and towards her face.

Instinctively, she flinched back and dropped to the ground so that the whip-like limb couldn’t flick her eyes and blind her.

Faye had gotten first blood with her dagger in its side, and now that she looked, she could see it was breathing deeply.

She matched its breaths. The adrenaline spiking into her bloodstream made her hands want to clench and her breath to come erratically, but with an iron grip on her will she tamped down the fear and concentrated on breathing in through the mouth and out of the nose.

Each cycle a measured, conscious process.

They circled one another, stepping unconsciously over roots and rocks, neither one taking their eyes off the other. The moonlight illuminated their tiny battleground in the forest, the stark black and white lighting a strange contrast that made everything more sinister.

But those almost burning predatory eyes didn’t need help being sinister. Faye found herself praying that the adventurers would come find her, take out this creature for her like before.

You wanted to do it yourself, Faye, so just bloody do it.