“Don’t worry about Jay,” Alloha said. “He’s like that sometimes.”

“He just needs to cool off,” Torra rumbled in his deep tenor. “He’ll get over it.” He busied himself chopping potatoes.

“I’ll talk to him if he doesn’t get back before dinner,” Grant promised.

“But why did he get upset?” I asked. “What did I do?”

“It’s not about anything you did,” Alloha assured me. “It’s about what’s going on in his head.”

“He likes to help around camp,” Grant explained. “He’s insecure about his Skill, so it makes him feel useful. You, uh, kind of just did everything for him with your Brands.”

“And don’t forget the super vision thing,” Alloha added. “I bet he’s worried you’ll make a better scout than him.”

“Why would he be insecure about his Skill?” I asked. “You don’t make a big deal about yours, Torra. Isn’t turning into water more useful than glowing hands?”

Torra grinned. “It’s all about having the right attitude,” he said. He dropped a handful of glowing potato chunks into the pot. “I don’t question the gifts Marketh gave me. I know she has a plan for me.”

“Those were just Brands I was using, though,” I pointed out. “They don’t make me special. He can buy the same Brands himself when he has the money.” I glanced at the pot of soup Torra was putting together. It glowed with a faint white light. “Wait, did you use your Skill on our soup?”

Torra winked. “Like I said, I don’t question Marketh’s gifts. The oil my hands make enhances the flavor of food. Trust me.”

I couldn’t stop my mouth from pulling open in a grimace. It felt too much like he’d just added palm sweat to our dinner. “You already added it to… everything?” I asked.

“Don’t worry,” Alloha assured me. “He’s not joking this time. It’s really good. The glow will fade before it’s ready to eat. You won’t even know it’s there.”

“I guess I can give it a chance,” I said. Not for the first time I recalled how little rissian’s knew about germ theory. I decided not to alienate myself from the group by complaining and count myself lucky Torra added his excretions to our food before it was boiled.

Alloha salvaged a few of the feathers from the owl she’d speared, then gathered the rest of the guts in a pile. Included with the feathers were the bones, skin, and offal. I was glad I had others with me that knew how to skin an animal. All I knew about cooking meat was taking off the skin before you cooked it was probably a good idea. Alloha used a small knife to slice up the owl with quick, precise movements. She could somehow tell what meat was “good” and “bad” and pushed all the good meat closer to Torra on the flat board of wood they were using for the meal prep. “Bird’s ready,” she told him. “Somebody else can take care of the remains.”

“I’ll do it,” I volunteered. I was curious about what I could do with a pile of animal guts. So far, I knew I could pull MP out of living material, but what about dead material? I had turned those muggers into dust. That seemed to imply that, until the remains were dusted, I could pull at least something out of them.

“Try to bury them away from the camp,” Alloha said. “We don’t want to attract scavengers in the night.”

“Sounds simple enough,” I said. I was able to get all the guts in just my two cupped hands. Most of the organs were contained in the creature’s skin. I carried the slimy pile gingerly out into the wood, holding it in front so any drippings didn’t land on my clothes. If my Skill didn’t work on this stuff, I was really going to regret volunteering for this. I kept walking longer than necessary. If I was going to risk using my Skill, I wanted to be sure nobody was close enough to see me do it.

I probed the guts with my mind and sensed a dim glimmer of vitality I could pull from. I stopped short of actually activating Consume Vitality. Something had just moved in the periphery of my vision. I glanced around to see if someone had followed me. Someone had. Crouched low in some bushes back the way I’d come, I spotted a dark shape, head poking out of some leaves. It was getting dark out, so I couldn’t make out any details, but I swept my eyes past their hiding spot in case they were watching me. I didn’t want to let on that I’d seen them.

To confirm to myself that I wasn’t just being paranoid, I continued further into the woods. Sure enough, the dark shadow followed me. I wouldn’t be able to tell who they were without turning around and exposing that I’d caught them, so instead, I pretended to go about my business. I found a flat rock and dug a hole to bury the owl guts in. I could see where my watcher was, so after I dropped the guts in and before I pushed the dirt in after it, I leaned forward to block their view and tried draining the glimmer of life I could feel still clinging to the bones. It didn’t make any sound or light. The guts just shriveled to dust in a moment and I covered the hole with dirt.

MP: 74/96 >>> MP: 78/96

The slight risk of being overseen felt worth it for the knowledge I’d gained. I now knew I could drain life from things that had already died. Not much, but some. That bird had been dead for hours. Most of its body had gone into our dinner, yet still there was a drop of vitality I could drain from it. I stood back up and turned back to the camp. My silent watcher had disappeared without so much as a whisper of warning. It had to have been someone from our camp. To make sure my eyes hadn’t been playing tricks on me, I walked over to the tree I’d last seen them crouching behind. There were footprints. Faint, but there. I wasn’t enough of a woodsman to tell much beyond that, but at least I knew for a certainty that someone was watching me.

So what? What did that really tell me? It didn’t mean they actually had suspicions about me. Surely they would do more than silently spy on someone they knew was using black magic. It was probably just sensible caution about the new guy in the party. My most concerning suspicion was that one of my new party members might be a Skinner—the secret cabal Brookie was investigating. I liked to think a global cabal wouldn’t waste their time embedding agents into low-level Adventurer’s Guild parties, so I dismissed that possibility for the time being. Being followed probably just meant someone didn’t trust me, so I decided I would try to figure out who that was without letting on that I knew. The most obvious suspect was the party’s scout that had—

I started. When I looked up from studying the footprints, I saw transparent figure stalking towards me. I stumbled back, heart hammering in my chest too hard to think clearly. All I managed was a wordless cry of, “Gah!” I held a hand out, trying to think of what magic I could use to defend myself.

“Whoa there,” a man’s voice said. “It’s just me. Jay.” The figure was shaped like a person, but I could see branches and shrubs behind them, with only a little distortion. Most of the warping was around the edges of the man-shape. It looked very much as though a figure made of glass was gliding towards me through the forest. If I hadn’t been looking right at it, or if the sunset faded any more, I almost certainly would have missed it.

“Jay?” I asked the figure. “Is that really you?”

“Who else do you know that can turn to water?” he asked. I didn’t think I was intended to actually answer that question, so I didn’t bother. He continued. “I was just burning off some extra MP before bed. Didn’t mean to sneak up on you. I saw movement, so I investigated.”

“I saw something too,” I said. I pointed down at the footprints I’d found. If he’d been the one stalking me, I’d only look foolish if I didn’t state the obvious. “I think someone was following me. It wasn’t you, was it?”