'The gods are fickle' or so the saying goes.

Folklore, scripture, ancient scroll or academic thesis – there are many ways to understand the world around us, but we will never understand it perfectly. Many people may try to convince you they have it all figured out, dear student, but I promise you that they do not. Keep asking why and before long you will hear this ridiculous phrase: 'The gods are fickle'.

It is nothing but an admission of ignorance! The gods are invoked because you don't understand the true causes of what you speak of, and they are fickle because you don't understand what rules they operate by!

The gods are not fickle. They are unknowable. Furthermore, it is likely not to them you should look for answers even if you could know their minds, for I doubt they would deign to enlighten you anyway.

So, with all that being the case, my faithful student, when you ask me how a pathbound Skill is born and I tell you that 'the gods are fickle', you should just as well stop bloody asking me about it.

- Recorded verbatim by First Spider Achidna, reportedly receiving tutelage from Nathlan the Ancient on Skill pathways and their alteration

I pulled the javelin out of the corpse before me and inspected my weapon. It had struck straight through the beast's neck and hit the tree behind it, ruining the point. I let it drop to the ground, grabbed my horn, changed the grip on my jawbone dagger gauntlet and sucked down deep lungfuls of air greedily.

I may have supernaturally enhanced endurance that let me run and climb for hours without issue, but there was something uniquely tiring about the desperate struggle to survive that left me panting after less than a minute of intense effort.

Reviewing the bounty of my recent level, I allocated two points into agility, knowing that I needed it to survive, and then invested the last three points evenly into endurance, perception and cognition.

Status

Ancestry: Human (unevolved)

Level: 18

Class: Blood of the Hills

Titles: God-touched

Attribute allocation:

Strength: 17

Agility: 17

Endurance: 14

Perception: 11

Cognition: 13

Available attributes: 0

Current skills:

Guerrilla Warfare: Level 6. Passive.

Wilderness Endurance Hunter: Level 4. Passive.

Cloven-Hooved: Level 4. Passive.

Heart of the Hills: Level 1. Active.

Check Step: Level 3. Active.

Hill-Folk: Level 2. Active.

Open Skill Slot

Open Skill Slot

I wanted to wait around, recover my breath, and face the remaining wolves when they reached me with at least marginally less wobbly legs. I had no doubt they would be coming soon after the howls I had heard. However, who-or-whatever that had been responsible for burning that corpse and leaving fire-tracks through the forest was also likely responsible for the sound and smell dampening aura. Considering it had now cut off, I assumed they were likely dead.

And if they're not? a small voice whispered in my mind. What if they're another human, clinging to life, desperately waiting for somebody to help them? I knew I couldn't just walk away from that. How often had I wished that somebody would step in and help me over the last month? It's not like I wasn't already planning on killing the rest of the pack anyway – may as well see if I can get the drop on them in the process.

I took another quick look at the corpse of the wolf I had killed, trying to gain confidence from it. I had no injuries to speak of, and I'd done that without the five new attributes I now boasted.

I began to pick my way around trees, keeping my eyes peeled for any hint of movement. A quick blast of Heart of the Hills kept the rising excitement and fear at a reasonable level, for this situation at least, and I started to pick up the pace.

Leaves flashed by in a blur, thick trunks registering only as brown smudges as my feet picked their way through the uncertain terrain without conscious thought. My left arm pumped at my side, the bone weapon swinging in and out of view with each stride, while my right arm stayed steady, the horn held in a loose underslung grip.

My blood sang as I rushed through the woods. I may have been out of my depth when I first arrived, but over a month in the wilderness had left its mark on me. I had killed near enough the entire pack of wolves within two days, and now I was going to finish the job.

I darted over a fallen trunk and then all at once was at the edge of a clearing. Younger, slimmer trees lined the glade, with vibrant green grass covering the ground and wildflowers sprinkled throughout. A single tall stone around head height stood proudly in the centre, and its placement looked significant, rather than natural.

Propped beneath this stone lay a body, clothed in red robes, limp and unmoving. Above the corpse stood a large wolf, supine neck in the midst of rising in response to my entrance. A second, smaller wolf stood nearby, head bowed in supplication and no doubt waiting to partake in the grisly feast.

I took all of this in within a fraction of a second, and rather than hesitating, I leaned in and turned my run into a sprint. Bursting from between the small trunks and high vegetation, I rocketed out into the glade and slammed into the smaller wolf. My right arm was shooting forwards, horn levelled at the wolf's side, even as my body was twisting and my feet pushing off the floor, further aided with the timing by an activation of Check-Step.

I rolled over the wolf's back, my right hand letting go of the splintered spear of keratin as I left it impaled in the flank of the creature beneath me. My feet hit the ground as the first wolf started to fall.

I rushed on.

The larger wolf had turned to face me by this point, muzzle stained red and covered with flecks of viscera from where it had been shoved into the belly of the corpse. The sight was utterly terrifying, and I felt my resolve begin to crumble, a trickle of fear rapidly widening into a rushing river against the walls of my courage.

I activated Heart of the Hills almost by reflex, and felt those mental walls harden. The sight was still horrifying, but I felt like I was observing from afar, able to look on dispassionately rather than drown in my emotions.

Its grisly appearance had succeeded in making me hesitate momentarily, but I needn't have worried, as the wolf leapt forwards an instant later giving me no time for further consideration. I dropped to the floor and slid as it lunged over my head, but I had no time to take advantage of the positioning before we both spun to face one another again. I caught a flash of the smaller wolf feebly attempting to regain its footing from its position on its side and then my view was obscured by black fur and snapping teeth.

I fell back against the stone and managed to interpose my bone gauntlet between the jaws coming for my face. There was a crunching sound followed by a heavy vibration running up my arm. As the wolf withdrew again, a few flakes of bone fall to the ground beside me, exposing the entire left mandible of the jawbone dangling at an angle from a new crack in the centre of the jawbone.

The large animal watched me, eyes gleaming as if revelling in the triumph of ruining my weapon. I reached down, gripping onto either side of the jawbone and wrenching my hands apart with all my strength. The bone snapped in two neatly along the new crack, separating into two roughly equal parts.

Readjusting, my left hand still gripped the shirt-wrapped handle with a jagged-edged bone almost a foot long emerging past my clenched fist, parallel to my arm and with a vaguely circular head. My right hand now clutched a smaller sliver of bone, thin and wickedly pointed, with only a few dulled incisors and half a jawbone as grip.

I raised both arms and grinned a bloody-toothed smile. Never in my entire life had I felt the rush of emotions pounding through my system as I did at this moment. I had never been more alive, more present. My skin tingled, every hair on my body standing on end and my muscles thrumming with power.

I thought to activate Heart of the Hills again, to ensure I wouldn't make any rash decisions, but I could feel that indescribable space within myself emptying rapidly during the fight, and wanted to conserve enough of whatever substance that filled it – mystical or metaphysical or otherwise – so that I could activate Check-Step again if needed.

I wasn't confident in facing this creature without that skill available to boost not just my movement but my reaction time as well. I needed to bait it and expose something vital for me to stab, but I had no way to do so without either dying or sacrificing an entire arm.

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Sure, I could shove an arm between its jaws and stab it in the mouth while hoping to cut its throat out with my other hand, but even if everything went flawlessly – a big if – I'd still have a horribly mauled hand and forearm, or more likely no hand at all. That was not a sacrifice I was willing to make at this stage, given the several-week journey that still stood between me and the first sign of civilisation. A pyrrhic victory was no victory at all.

My brief reprieve was over as the wolf lunged in again and I ducked to the side frantically. It didn't manage to make contact this time, but it had closed the distance between us. I couldn't avoid another charge like that, and I wasn't willing to risk letting the battle head to the ground yet.

The wolf seemed to come to the same conclusions as me, as it lunged again, seeking to drive me back away from the stone in the clearing's centre. I activated Check-Step again and juked aside, stabbing out with the thin bone blade into its head as it moved past.

I felt the blade skitter off something solid, snapping just above my fist. The resistance from the bone splintering caused the teeth I was gripping to dig into my palm, and I let go of the now useless weapon. It fell to the ground bloodied at both ends.

Not pausing to turn and instead trusting that the wolf was right on my tail, I dove towards the central stone and the body that lay propped against it. I hit the floor and rolled, grabbing the savaged body off the ground and wrenching it in between me and the descending fangs of the wolf that had followed. It crashed into me. Jaws closed around the chest and shoulder of the corpse, and I felt the breath leave my lungs from the impact alone.

I jammed my still-functional bone dagger into its neck as my head hit the stone behind me. The impact rocked my mind, lights twinkling in my vision and darkness flooding the edges. All that kept me conscious were the violent noises emerging from the jaws only inches from my face. I punched my left hand out repeatedly, short sharp jabs with the bone knife thudding into the exposed flesh of the wolf's lithe neck.

My blows lacked strength, woozy and disorientated as I was, but I used every inch of control I still had over my body to hold on to the bone in my hand and keep stabbing until I felt hot blood gush down my wrist to coat my arm. Another impact rocked my head as the wolf above collapsed entirely onto me, its neck covering my face and my view of the world vanishing.

The feeling of fresh air bathing my sticky face and neck brought me back to consciousness. I tried to open my eyes, but they were glued shut with congealing blood. I brought my hand up to rub my eyes clear and felt my elbow crack into something solid, hearing a yelp which tapered into a deep growl.

My panic at the noise was enough to force my eyes open, and I was met with the visage of a mouth rearing above me. My arms shot out and I caught the jaws of the wolf descending towards my face.

I strained with all my might against the crushing force pushing inexorably towards my face. The cacophony of noise was overwhelming, the ringing in my head and snarling of the wolf mixing into a discordant melody as bloody foam dripped onto my face from the slavering creature above me.

This was it. I was dead. What a shitty last thought to have, my inner critic helpfully interjected through the repeated dinging reverberating through my head.

I tried to activate Check-Step in a last-ditch attempt to save myself from the crushing inevitability of the descending jaws but whatever power I used to activate my Skills with was now dry. My hands were punctured in multiple places by pointed teeth, tendons standing out stark against the tanned skin of my forearms as I tried futilely to prevent those same teeth from piercing my neck.

The ringing in my head continued mercilessly as I fought the wolf to a standstill, unable to push the jaws away from my bared neck and the wolf unable to push through my body's final, desperate last stand.

It was a cruel irony that I'd managed to kill almost the entire pack and even the two largest wolves I'd ever seen in single combat, only to finally be killed off by a small, wounded afterthought that I'd not been able to properly finish off.

Although was that strictly true? Had I killed both considering I'd only got the one leve-

The ringing!

You have killed a Tarkenzi Maned-Wolf (level 30). Experience gained.

You have reached level 19. Attribute points available for allocation.

Check-Step has gained in level. Check-Step – level 4.

Hill-Folk has gained in Level. Hill-Folk – level 3.

I allocated all five attribute points into strength and saw the shaking in my arms steady in an instant. A sublime feeling of power flooded into my muscles, energy coursing through my veins. The heaviness in my limbs abruptly dropped away, and my gritted teeth widened into a rictus grin as I sat up, forcing away the jaws almost effortlessly.

The wolf growled as I forced it back a step and tried to yank itself free. My grip was unyielding though. Hard oak, aged by time and weather but stronger because of it. With a shout of defiance, I ripped my hands apart to either side of my body. The wolf's jaw shattered, and it howled in pain as it fell back.

I stood to my full height, head no longer ringing and revelling in the feeling of new strength coursing through every inch of my body. A single stride took me to the pitiful creature on the ground, still pierced with my horn from earlier. I ripped it out and stabbed it back down through its chest in a single fluid motion, sparing it further pain.

You have killed a Tarkenzi Maned-Wolf (level 14). Experience gained.

The clouds above had coalesced sometime in the last hour, and now they finally let go their swollen payloads in a gentle fuzzy rain. My chest moved rhythmically, not heaving for each breath but instead inhaling smoothly and steadily. The skin on my face, neck, and forearms was coated with drying blood. It had cooled and congealed in the dry morning sun, so it must have taken the injured wolf a while to crawl towards the central stone and pull the two corpses off my chest before I'd awoken.

I looked to the sky and allowed the cool rain to wash away the sticky blood from my face, revelling in the feeling of victory. A primal desire took hold in my heart, and I let loose a bellow to the clouds above, roaring like an animal and proclaiming to all the world that I had lived and my enemies had not.

Another faint ringing interrupted me, and I flicked my attention to the notification in my mind.

Skill gained – Indomitable Prey. Open skill slots available, skill integrated.

Indomitable prey – Active. You have been the target of many predators, but their bones lie in the dust while you continue ever onwards. You have lived in the shadow of titans and survived. You are the last prey the pack will ever see, the final challenge for any hunter. Use this skill to remind all who would seek to make you prey, that you are not to be taken lightly.

Error. Skill 'Indomitable Prey' is incompatible with current level. Holding.

I laughed at the sky as the information flashed through my mind, validation from the system backing up my own feelings of vindication. I had won. Without trickery or subterfuge or much of anything at all, I had faced down the leaders of their pack and survived. A few sticks and bones against their claws and teeth.

I stopped laughing and sagged, a puppet with its strings cut. Laying back on the ground, I cradled my injured hand to my chest and just lay there on the thick, lush grass, stray flowers tickling my skin. I let the rain wash over me, misting on my skin, and just breathed with the world for long moments.

After the rain had gone and the sun returned to warm my soaked skin, I lifted my head from the ground and checked myself over again. I tore more strips from my tattered shirt – barely an effort to do so now – and wrapped the puncture wounds in my hand. I stripped out of my ruined trousers, noticing a long cut along my thigh that I'd missed until now. A few inches to the left and I'd have bled out in a heartbeat. Lucky, I thought, but then I moved on.

I set about the grisly task of searching the body of the red-robed figure who had fallen to the wolves. The robe itself was in surprisingly good condition, and when I shrugged it over my shoulders, I found only a small tear in the stomach, surrounded by a faint discoloration from all the blood and viscera. I tried not to think too heavily about what exactly was on the robe as it rested against my bare skin, and simply thanked whatever god had brought me here that the robe was already red to begin with.

Rifling through the inner pockets, I found a small pouch of coins of a denomination I didn't recognise and a small pair of tweezers. So much for the spoils of war. Two delicate silver bangles were wrapped around one wrist, and I grabbed those too, shaping them over my own forearms. It was better than nothing.

Shrugging, I returned to the corpse and stripped first its boots and then trousers. The boots were too small for me to use, and I placed them in a discard pile to the side. The trousers were also too small, but perhaps they could serve come other purpose. I removed its simple shirt, intending to cannibalise it for more strips of cloth to keep as bandages, but faltered as I realised the body belonged to a woman.

Its – her – face had been mauled beyond recognition by the jaws of the large wolf, likely the blow that killed her, and so I hadn't recognised the gender of the body until I removed her shirt and noticed the binder across her chest. I suddenly sat back on my haunches, staring at the body without seeing.

I wasn't sure why this small detail stood out to me, but I suddenly stopped thinking of the corpse as a thing. This was the body of a person. A thinking, breathing person who had possessed hopes and dreams and fears and doubts, just as I did.

I instinctively felt guilty for disrobing her, feeling for a moment as if I was prying into something I shouldn't. The feeling was brushed away quickly – this was a corpse with belongings that I needed, and the woman who had owned them clearly had no further need of them. But the brief hesitation suddenly made me realise that I was dealing with a person again for the first time in a month and a half.

It was a reminder of how radically things had shifted. I saw a woman with her skull crushed beyond recognition and a gaping hole in her guts and my first thought was whether she might be carrying anything that I could use. My first instinct was to cannibalise her gear, instead of checking to see who she was.

It was a dramatic descent from civility to barbarity and its speed was shocking. Two months ago, I'd been doing… I wasn't sure exactly, but I felt in my heart that it hadn't involved dead bodies and copious amounts of violence.

My eyes wandered back to the body before me, and I hurriedly went about searching it once more. Rather than checking her pockets for items of use to me, I returned to my search hoping for something that could indicate who she was.

Did she have family in the area? Was there a memento I could bring to her loved ones? Perhaps a partner and even children? I hoped not, for I was not equipped for a conversation like that. But then Jorge had clearly said that the outpost was the closest thing to civilisation this side of the mountains. There shouldn't be people out here in an untouched valley. I had seen no sign of logging or mining or anything wrought with human hands yet, after all.

My mind stilled, a possibility slipping itself into my awareness that slowed my movements and forced me to consider it without distraction. What if this woman was one of the ones hunting Jorge, Vera and Nathlan? The ones that had tied me up and attempted to take me off somewhere for something. It felt silly to pick sides with so little information, but one group had hogtied me and looked at me like a piece of meat on a skewer, and the other had freed me and given me, if not much help, then at least some advice. Manners went a long way in my book, it seemed.

I wanted to rip through her belongings and find answers right now, but I activated Heart of the Hills to give myself some space to process the varying emotions I was feeling. Again, I felt something inside me strain at the expenditure, but the draw was less dramatic than before. Whatever font of power within me that allowed me to activate my skills was growing.

After a moment to compose myself, I searched the nearby forest for a depression or trench of some kind. I found a downed tree, upturned recently enough that the earth dislodged by its roots being heaved out of the ground had not yet been fully filled with forest detritus. A short trip back to the glade, and I stripped the body before carrying it over my shoulder to the impromptu grave. I placed the corpse gently into the depression in the earth and covered it as much as possible with leaves, loose earth and finally a few rocks and logs.

As far as graves went it was not a particularly good one, but it was the best I could do at this point considering my injuries. That was death though; the best you'll get and never good enough.

I returned to the clearing and set about laying out all her possessions. The robe I would wear; it was of fine quality, thicker than my cloak and with more coverage. It seemed to be of the same make as my old cloak, pooling on the ground around my feet like a bloodstain when I crouched. Newer was better though. Whatever Journey through the mountains she had experienced was clearly less taxing than my own, for my cloak was a threadbare mess at this point, while hers sported only a few tears and holes.

The shirt I tore into strips, and the chest binding would work similarly well to help secure my belongings. The boots were useless in their current form, and I didn't want to blunt my eating knife on the tough leather, so I set them aside again. I kept the coins, as well as an ivory signet ring I had taken from her hand, depositing it in the same waxy pouch as the coins.

I found no letters, maps, or paper of any kind, and no hint of a bag or knapsack either. Ultimately, I was little better off than before, but I had gained a powerful-looking skill, and my drive to reach the outpost had risen dramatically.

I craved human contact – conversation, acknowledgement of my own humanity, someone to listen to my stories and give me answers in turn. As I set to gathering dry wood for a fire and butchering the carcasses of the wolves, I allowed my thoughts to wonder towards my erstwhile companions, wondering fruitlessly whether they would be waiting for me after all this time.

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