You cannot keep doing this to yourself. You’re going to get hurt.

I’m not doing anything!

Faye, honey, please don’t lie to me.

I’m not lying.

Okay. Well, I wanted to tell you that I know it’s hard with your mum being poorly—

She isn’t poorly. She’s been hurt. There’s a difference. She’ll get better now though. It’ll be different.

Okay, honey. I know. I— just, well… I’m here, okay?

The voice of her aunt echoed in and out of her head.

Pain. Heat. Light. Darkness. Pressure.

What’s happening to me?

Spinning vertigo on top of lurching free fall

Faye was lost

Flying

Dead?

No.

Not yet, mum! No!

Tears, awash with pain and grief, stoppered up inside without an outlet.

A tide. An ocean. Hidden away.

It’s for the best. Don’t let him see your weakness.

Don’t let ANYONE SEE.

Faye scrambled awake, fumbling around for belt for her dagger.

“Hey, it’s okay. It’s okay!”

The voice was unfamiliar. She resisted the hands on her, but they were too strong.

“Sssh, it’s okay.”

She was light-headed and wobbly. She turned her head to the side and vomited.

“Urgh, my head,” she mumbled.

“Do you want [Healing Touch]?”

That voice she did recognise. Gavan. The normally quiet man sounded troubled.

Focusing on what she could feel, Faye tried to use her burgeoning senses to get a grip of herself.

The notification was different to normal. This one was more urgent, and she could not dismiss the text.

“What?”

Faye’s vision doubled and she groaned.

You think? Congratulations! My system is a genius.

Faye felt something rush over her, but a moment later the sensation vanished as if it had never been.

Congratulations! You have been granted a boon.

[System Ward] is now active.

What… system ward?

Immediately after receiving the last of the strange notifications, a more ordinary system window opened in Faye’s mind/vision.

~ Boons ~

[Experience Boost — basic]

[Rare] [A minor boost to experience gain, awarded for exceptional ability.]

[Experience Boost — intermediate]

[Rare] [A moderate boost to experience gain, awarded for exceptional ability.]

[Sprite’s Touch]

[Rare] [You have been touched by a sprite. Boosted willpower against sprite-born illusions and skills.]

[System Ward]

[Unique] [Protection from mana poisoning caused by overmana. # This will dissipate upon cresting.]

The information screens didn’t float or double-up in her vision, so she was able to read them, but just as she realised what it meant, they vanished — along with the knowledge of their contents.

This time, as Faye opened her eyes, things were not grossly floating around or spinning.

“Uh, wow, that was worse than my sixteenth birthday…,” she muttered, cradling her head.

She remembered some odd system messages, but try as she might, their specifics would not come to mind.

“Ah, she’s awake, Master Mage!”

Faye blinked and looked around. She had been propped up against one of the wheels of the crafter’s cart. Arran and Ailith were still standing a few dozen paces away, looking out for threats. They both turned at Mich’s call and nodded, returning to their vigil.

Gavan, however, hurried over.

“I hit you with [Healing Touch],” he said, worry writ plainly across his features. “How do you feel?”

Faye flexed her hands and arms, then rubbed her legs a little. “Feeling okay, actually.”

“You’ll be hungry,” Mich said, grinning at her. “Threw up the majority of your breakfast on Wahrn.”

Faye grimaced. “Oh God, did I really?”

Mich grinned. “Aye, funnily enough, he threw up his breakfast on ‘imself, next.”

“Oh, no. Where is he?”

Mich hooked a thumb over his shoulder, and Wahrn was only a half dozen paces away, hacking at the corpse of the beast.

“Working. Don’t worry. The beast’s blood is worse than most anything you have in you.”

Gavan interrupted, “Faye, Arran is concerned. He needs you to go back to the Steading if you feel up to it`.”

“What?” she said, worry lacing her voice. “No, I’m alright. It was just temporary. The bat literally collided with me and—”

Gavan held up a hand, so she stopped.

“The boy, Dáithí, showed up. We told him to get back to the Steading. But these scavengers are a little more aggressive than usual. He’s concerned about the boy.”

Faye let her head hang a little. “Okay,” she said, quietly.

“Head up, Faye, you’re on the job.”

Faye blinked away the tears and nodded. “Yes. Yes, you’re right. Thank you for the healing.”

Faye grabbed the sheaths for her weapons and pulled herself up. She realised she did feel almost a hundred percent. It was incredible. She remembered the greater bat slamming into her and then… fuzzy vague notions of seeing something, and hearing Gavan talk…

She shook her head. That had been close.

“Gavan, that bat was only a couple of levels higher than me…”

He frowned. “It was some kind of ability, I think. Its claws were more effective than they should have been.”

He pointed at her belly, and she looked down. Sure enough, there were rents in the armoured gambeson that looked as if a paper bag had been ripped open.

“Uh.”

“You lost a lot of blood. [Healing Touch] is for combat wounds though.”

Faye looked at the mage and grinned. “Well, damn, Mr Mage, you certainly can heal, can’t you?”

Gavan smiled and waved her off. She nodded and jogged over to Arran.

“Gavan said that the kid showed up. How long ago?”

Arran looked her over, and pretended not to stare at the rip in her armour.

“Just after that bat hit you,” he replied. “Gavan patch you up properly?” Though he tried not to show it, Faye could hear the concern in his voice.

Faye nodded, and grinned. She hit Arran lightly on the shoulder. “Of course he did. What, are you doubting your healer, now?”

Arran grinned back. “Nah, ‘course not. Good. That boy’s our responsibility whilst we’re here. Don’t know what the Steader was thinking, letting the boy out of his sight.”

“Kids can get into all sorts of trouble, Arran, come on,” Faye replied. She paused for a moment and cleared her throat. “Are, you, uh, sure you want me to go?”

Arran gave her A Look.

“Yes, Faye. You’re our floating member. Right now, the boy’s a concern if he’s not in the Steading. I have a feeling he wanted to see some monsters. Most young ones do.” He shook his head. “Just make sure he’s at the Steading. Update the Steader on our progress. The crafters are going to keep working until they literally cannot work anymore. I want you to look around the Steading, make sure there’s nothing odd. Something’s riled up these scavengers.”

Faye frowned. “Any ideas what it might be? Or what level?”

He shook his head. “No, that’s why I want your eyes on it. Everything has been on par with you, so far. This close to the Steading’s wards you should be fine, but remember that survival trumps getting a kill. Run if you have to.”

“No problem.”

Giving her one final nod, Arran smiled and clapped a hand to her shoulder. “Good. Get going then. If everything is quiet and the boy’s already home, then get back here.”

“Got it. See you.”

Faye made sure that she still had her swords and the dagger, which were securely sheathed and attached to her belt. Looking across the field once more, she sighted the road and started jogging.

God, please let the boy be at home.

As she jogged back to the road, Faye kept [Swordfighter’s Sense] primed. Every minute or so, she flicked it to active. Now that she knew it was there, she just needed to use the internal switch that was similar to the spell she had.

The more she used it, the quicker she could adjust to the strange sensations that it conveyed. The fields and hillside down to the road were clear. She ran down the slope and hit the dirt of the path at what back home she might have called a sprint.

Here, she was barely breaking a sweat.

The road back to the Steading was smooth enough that she made it in only three flickers of [Swordfighter’s Sense], once again sensing nothing as she went. The dry-stone walls that bordered the road here reminded her immensely of walks in the countryside at home, and the pang of homesickness that accompanied that thought threatened to ruin her composure.

She shrugged it aside as she reached the gate to the land immediately surrounding the Steading, the dry-stone walls transforming into sturdier looking stone walls that were mortared. Once again, the actual fortress that made up the Steading was a slight shock.

When Faye thought of farms, she envisioned a lot of wood and corrugated iron, not giant blocks of stone clearly hewn from the mountains to the south and west of the valley. It looked like the main entryway into the Steading was through an elevated doorway accessed by a stone causeway that rose from the plain gravel of the yard.

Satisfied that the Steader and his family were likely still safely ensconced inside, Faye decided to go through the immediate area before speaking to Steader Bánn. She would feel better being able to report that all was clear here.

She moved to the centre of the yard in front of the Steading and activated [Swordfighter’s Sense].

The aura of her perception expanded outward in its strange way. It did not detect any living thing, monstrous or otherwise, so she deactivated it.

The yard in front of the Steading was mostly empty. The gate opened from the south-west side of the area, the Steading lay at the north edge of the yard, and the eastern edge looked like stables. As Faye made her way over the yard, she could actually see the oxen that their adventuring party had brought with them. Their stalls were open, but something about them felt strange.

Standing before them, Faye closed her eyes and stretched out her burgeoning magical senses. By taking a strand of the magical power inside her and extending it out before her, Faye could get a sense of the mana and magic in the area.

The stalls that the oxen were in thrummed with low-level mana. She had no idea what it meant, but she did not try to touch it or go near the stalls.

“Probably an alarm, or a magical electric fence,” she muttered to herself.

Leaving the stalls — the others were empty — Faye walked down to the southern edge of the yard. Sitting squat against the edge of the Steading yard were a series of sheds that had stone foundations but used wood for the top halves.

Each one was secured with a metal bar and padlock. A focused blast of [Swordfighter’s Sense] told her that either the skill was incapable of looking inside, or there were truly no hostile entities inside.

I give it fifty-fifty odds.

The sun was still relatively high in the sky, but it was on its descent. Just like Earth, the sun rose in the east and set in the west. Sooner than it should, the sun would set behind the mountains in the west and darkness would fall quickly.

If I were monsters, that’s when I would attack, she thought. She grimaced and turned back to the Steading.

The windows of the building were thin, much more like arrow slits than windows. But there were some that sparkled and flickered with light. Other than the very quiet sounds the oxen were making in their stalls, there was nothing to hear on the Steading. It was eerie.

Striding up the causeway to the entrance to the Steading, Faye was surprised to see the great wooden door part when she was halfway there. The right-hand side leafed open on silent hinges, and Steader Bánn exited with a small scowl.

“Come inside, quickly.”

Faye nodded and hurried through the entryway… into a grand lobby reminiscent of some of the manor houses she had been to back home. The walls were panelled in wood on their lower halves and were painted a pastel yellow on top, contrasting with the deep brown wood nicely. The back left wall was engulfed by a staircase adorned with a thick, beautifully carved wooden banister.

Both the steps up to the first floor and the ground floor were made from a polished stone, and in the centre of the hallway floor was an incredibly intricate mosaic design. It depicted a square of a pattern that vaguely resembled heraldry.

“Thank you for inviting me inside, Steader Bánn.”

The Steader nodded, “Aye, no trouble, lass. You’re a new one, eh? Well, you could do a lot worse than young Arran and ‘is team, that’s fer sure.”

Faye smiled. “Yeah, they’re great. As part of my training, he asked me to come back here to check on things. Is… everything okay?”

Here, Bánn’s eyes flickered. “Dáithí left the Steading, and you’d’a started wi’ that if he’d shown up.”

Faye tried to steady the flicker of her nerves. Her stomach had dropped out with the Steader’s words, though.

“He did,” she said, swallowing nervously, “Arran sent him back here and told me to make sure he’d made it back. Shit,” she cursed, quietly. “I’m sorry, Steader Bánn. I will, of course—”

A woman in a dress somewhat similar to the one the adventurers had bought Faye – a comfortably loose fit, its belt sat high on the waist and the length trailed down to dust the floor, it left a circular opening for the neck, also revealing a beautifully engraved torc of bronze.

“Bánn? Was he with her?” she asked, the moment she entered the hallway.

“No, love, he wasn’t.” Steader Bánn looked back to Faye, gesturing to the woman. “This is my wife, Steader Meirí.”

Meirí’s eyes turned hard. “He’s still out there. Adventurer, I want your word you’ll find him. You bring back my boy.”

Faye nodded, immediately. “Of course, ma’am.”

The woman narrowed her eyes but nodded, curtly. She folded her arms.

Faye did not blame her for the curt orders. She was worried for her son. No one in their right mind would be polite.

“The boy’s a menace, but he’s a good lad,” his father said, “if Arran told ‘im to come back, there’s a reason he ain’t here yet.”

She nodded. “He did seem like the type to run off on his own, sir… uh, sorry, no offence intended.”

Bánn shook his head with a smile and waved a hand.

Faye forged on, “I came back on the north road. I didn’t sense him… but honestly, there is a chance he could hide from me.” She rubbed the back of her beck. “It doesn’t exactly sense allies.”

Steader Bánn looked surprised at Faye’s words, but Steader Meirí cocked her head and asked, “You’re willing to tell us about one of your skills? That’s rare, amongst you adventurer types.” She nodded. “Sounds like you only sense monsters, then?”

Faye shook her head. “Hostile entities, I believe. It would warn me if one of you tried to hit me, for example.”

Steader Bánn laughed. “Ah! That’s useful. But be careful what you say around my boys. They’ll want to test that claim, eh?”

“Dái wouldn’t try to hit you, miss.”

Faye looked up to the top of stairs. A young teen girl was standing there, holding a book in one hand and lightly grazing the banister as she descended the steps.

“But, hostility senses can often pick out allies as well, with practise.”

Faye smiled. “Thank you, I thought that maybe I could sense the others’ presence once. But, honestly, I only unlocked it today.”

Steader Meirí jumped in. “Oh, goodness! Today?”

Faye held up a hand. “The active portion. But this is a distraction. Sorry. Steader Bánn, Steader Meirí, is there roof access?”

“I’ll take her up, Mam,” the girl replied.

Steader Meirí looked up at her daughter, the resemblance was clear, and nodded once. “Make sure Maccan doesn’t follow you out.”

“Come on, fastest way is upstairs,” the girl said, before turning and hurrying back up the steps she had just come down. Faye nodded to the parents, both of whom were clearly concerned but were happy to let Faye get their son back. For now.

Whilst the grandiloquence of the hallway had been a surprise, the muted stateliness of the first floor was perhaps a little closer to what Faye had expected. The first floor looked lived-in. Boxes, clothing, and the occasional book were scattered across bookshelves and the floor.

The girl turned back to check Faye was following.

“The view is good; I’m guessing you’re hoping to see Dái from up there?”

Faye nodded. “Or some sign of monsters if not him. I’m Faye, by the way.”

The girl smiled. “I’m Ceri. Come on, it’s up here!” She pulled a rope that had been innocuously tucked behind a hook on the wall. Pulling it activated something in the ceiling. What looked like an ordinary attic access hatch was actually a semi-magical trapdoor.

With a burst of violet light, the solid ceiling split and came down in a mechanical set of steps. Ceri indicated Faye should head up, so she did. There was a dim light ahead, also a shade of violet. It cast a strange glow, but it was more than enough to see the outline of a metal bar and the handle that would lift it from its resting place.

Opening the door, Faye stepped out onto the roof with a small gasp. It was stunning. The sun had just touched the tip of the mountains and its orange glow radiated across the Steaders’ valley. Long shadows stretched across the lands and in the dim light, Faye was not sure she would be able to see anything at all.

Ceri stepped up to the parapet with Faye.

“I come up here as often as Mam lets me.”

“It’s stunning.”

“I know. Dái is probably trying to fight something, you know.”

Faye looked askance at the teen. “Yeah?”

“Uhuh,” she replied. “He’s desperate to get his class.”

She knew how he felt, if that was the case. “He seems young,” she said, after a minute.

“He’s only two years younger than I am,” Ceri replied, she was looking out over the tilled and cultivated fields, but Faye heard the undercurrent in her voice.

“And you have your class already.”

“Yes. He thinks that he should have his, too. I told him that he doesn’t have to rush. He does this a lot, though. Whenever something happens that gets him out there.”

Ceri indicated the valley, and the wider world, with a wave of a hand.

The teen did not seem so young to Faye when she spoke like that. But her heart ached. To have to grow up so fast. Did these kids even get to have childhoods?

“I told my Da that I’ll stay until Dái gets his class. He doesn’t say anything, but I know he’s worried what Dái’ll do if I get to go off on an ‘adventure’ before he’s got one.”

Faye grimaced. Probably something as stupid as leaving in the middle of the night without anyone else and only a basic training weapon to get some experience.

“I know how he feels,” she said. “I understand wanting to be stronger.”

Ceri looked at her with surprise. “What do you mean?”

Faye smiled. “I’m not exactly a veteran adventurer, Ceri. I’m very new at this.”

Ceri nodded. “That’s why you’re out with Gavan and the others, isn’t it? To get experience.”

“It is. And let’s make sure your brother gets the chance to do that as well.”

The girl nodded. The shadows were growing fast, and the light was already fading. Faye looked across the valley with a growing sense of unease.

[Swordfighter’s Sense] did not have the range to scout everything from up here, but even with the height advantage there was very little Faye could see. She tried not to let the always-present weight on her shoulders bring her mood down further.

She looked north, toward where Arran and the others were harvesting the beast’s corpse. It was almost wholly in shadow already… but there was something—

“Faye, look!”

Faye whipped around. Ceri was on the other side of the roof, leaning over the parapet and pointing at something. She raced over, coming to a halt with her hands on the stone.

“Where?” she demanded.

“Look at the gate, follow the road left by two finger widths, then up at the tree line.”

Faye followed the surprisingly coherent directions. The light at that part of the road was dim, but not completely gone.

Her heart skipped a beat.

She did not need the light of the day to see the monsters chasing Dáithí. They glowed with a deep crimson light that instantly filled her with dread. Their other features were hard to make out, but their eyes and gaping maws shone. They were roughly the size of Dáithí, but were not quite as fast, because he was able to keep ahead of them.

“What are they?” she whispered.

“I have no idea,” Ceri replied. “Please, help him, Faye.”

Faye didn’t bother responding. She turned and flung herself to the doorway that led down into the Steading.