The Journey of Alanna:

Alanna swished the vial around, watching the sickly pink extract swirl around a blood red core. She was having second thoughts.

To say the faceless smelled nasty when she cut it open to harvest her next extract components was an understatement. In addition, its meat quickly turned gooey and runny after the thing died, so harvesting from its body had been disgusting to say the least.

However, this was her route to power. So uncorked the vial, and the smell that came from the fluid hadn't improved much. She pinched her sensitive nose shut and downed the liquid.

Within moments she felt her whole world spin and her stomach turn. She had to fight to keep the extract down long enough for her body to process it. She curled into the fetal position, clutching her stomach for several minutes before the feeling passed.

"Half-Rabbitfolk Peasant.

Level 4

Hitpoints: 35/35

Mana: 8/8

Strength: 16

Dexterity: 19

Constitution: 17

Intelligence: 13

Wisdom: 15

Charisma: 16

Experience: 60.1%.

Feats: [Good Runner (Racial)], [Great Hearing (Racial)], [Weather Reader (Class)], [Darkvision (Racial)], [Goblin Trapfinding (Racial)] [Plant Analyzer (Class)], [Animal Analyzer (Class)], [Tremorsense, Lesser (Racial)], [Enhanced Reflexes, Lesser (Mutation)], [Poison Resistance, Lesser (Racial)], [Alraune's Pheromones, Lesser (Racial)], [Ambidextrous (Trait)], [Unicorn Immunity (Racial)], [Unicorn Magic, Locked (Racial)], [Lesser Scent Tracking (Racial)], [Shaped By Hard Labor (Achievement)], [Blood Feeder (Racial)]

Conditions: None"

She saw her new feat and pulled it up.

"Blood Feeder: Your body has adapted to a diet of blood. Drinking blood no longer sickens you and your body can extract a meal's worth of nutrients from a decent blood meal. In addition, you heal small amounts of health for every gulp of blood consumed."

Alanna's heart dropped as she read the description.

"Ew, you've gotta be kidding me! A monster that rare and this is all I get?! When am I ever even going to use this!?"

She got behind her desk and flipped open her notebook, angrily scribbling down her thoughts in one eloquently-worded passage.

"Some monster extracts are more useful than others."

Later that night, Alanna and Nywen clanked together their tankards full of ale. "Cheers to us for saving the town!" they told each other before taking a long sip. Alanna had never had ale before, but she found she liked it.

"So, what would have happened if you hadn't killed it?" Nywen asked.

Alanna rapped her fingers on the table a few times, shifting through her memory for the specific details she read about faceless.

"If it drinks enough blood from enough humanoids, at the next full moon, it forms a cocoon around itself, and at dawn emerges as a doppelganger. Those aren't just a way higher level monster, they don't need to drink anyone's blood to take on their face or voice. If they've seen you, or heard your voice, they can mimic it. Unlike the faceless whose skin eventually falls off, forcing it to take a new disguise, the doppelganger can stay in any disguise it has for as long as it likes."

"Woah," Nywen says. "So if we hadn't killed it..."

"It would have probably taken on a disguise as some random villager and hidden in the crowd," Alanna confirmed. "If we even managed to find it amidst all those villagers it might have killed us anyway as it would have been way stronger."

Nywen paused for a moment, her brow furrowing as she considered that hypothetical future that never was, then smiled at Alanna. "Then here's to you for saving the village!" she said as she downed the rest of her ale. She then shot Alanna a playful grin. "Finish your drink, I want to show you something."

Alanna obliged, downing the rest of her ale, leaving a pleasant warmth to radiate from her stomach to the rest of her body. They paid for their drinks and Nywen led them to an old storehouse near Wildbrook's central fort. It had fallen out of use due to lack of maintenance, but it was still intact. Nywen showed Alanna a flight of stairs behind the building, leading to the storehouse's roof. There she laid down on the straw, padding the spot next to her for Alanna to join her.

Alanna settled into the stray next to Nywen. It was comfortable, if a little exposed, though from their position nobody in the town below would be able to see them.

"I found this spot when I first came here," Nywen said. "I didn't have enough coin to afford a room, so I slept here during my first night. That's when I discovered how beautiful the stars look from here, away from all the torches."

Nywen pointed up and Alanna's gaze followed, and for a moment, she was lost in the beauty of the night's sky. The stars sparkled above them in a tapestry that just went on forever.

"I haven't looked at the stars like this since I was a little kid," Alanna said with a chuckle.

"In the desert the stars are always beautiful," Nywen reminisced. "But the further you go from home, the more the stars change. Not in a bad way. I very much enjoy the idea that every place has its own stars watching them, and that if you're ever lost, you can always look up at the stars and tell how close you are to home. My only regret is that in the big cities all but the brightest stars become very hard to see."

Alanna smiled at that thought. She couldn't quite recall what the stars looked like in Birchhaven, or if they were different from the ones she was looking at right now. She wished she had memorized them now. She noticed that Nywen had fallen silent, and when she turned she noticed the half-catfolk was staring at her intently.

"I am curious, Alanna. What made you choose to become an adventurer?"

Alanna had to think about her answer. She thought of Solizzar, and the knowledge he had entrusted her with, but saying that it had been entirely due to him she made this choice wouldn't have been entirely correct either, so she formulated an answer that, if not entirely complete, was at least true.

"I... I never felt like I was in control of my life. As soon as I got old enough to understand what my Class meant I kind of felt trapped. Like I had no choice but to plow a field somewhere, if I was lucky enough to even get hired by some land owner. Adventurers always sounded so free. They could go anywhere, no matter where they were born or their race. They could use their power to defeat monsters, save people and change the world for the better."

"So you wanted to be a hero?" Nywen asked with a knowing smirk.

Alanna's face flushed with embarrassment. "I didn't mean for it to come out so childish," she said, chiding herself for making it obvious she got most of her inspiration from the books she read as a child.

"It's fine, Alanna," Nywen said, chuckling. "If anything, it's admirable. Most people become adventurers because they seek wealth, or glory, or power. It's refreshing to work with someone like you."

Alanna continued to blush, though it was now fueled with a sense of pride at Nywen's praise. "What made you become an adventurer?" Alanna asked.

Some of Nywen's mirth seemed to disappear at that question.

"Among my people, you can only be an adventurer two ways. You stay with your tribe to protect them from harm as they travel the sands, or... You go to the Sultana and ask for permission to leave the desert. That comes with a price, however. You must serve in her Royal Guard for several years. Then you become one of the Sultana's enforcers, who fight her battles for her and maintain control over her realm by doing bad things to people who disagree with her."

Alanna took a few moments to take in this information. "So... You served in the Royal Guard?" Alanna asked.

"No," Nywen said innocently, turning her gaze back towards the night's sky while Alanna blinked in confusion.

"I thought you said you needed to get the Sultana's permission to leave the desert?" Alanna asked.

"I did," Nywen replied.

Then it clicked for Alanna. "You ran away!"

"I snuck away. Much better!" Nywen replied.

"So, you're a fugitive now?"

"If you don't report to the Sultana, chances are she doesn't even know you exist. If you don't get caught trying to leave along the Merchant's Road then no harm, no foul."

"That's why you need all this money to go home," Alanna says with a laugh. "You need to grease every palm along the way to make sure nobody rats you out."

Nywen chuckled, though it was subdued.

"So, when do you think you'll have enough gold to do so?"

"In a few more quests, I think. My mother will be happy to see me return. She didn't want me to become an adventurer at all. Said it was too dangerous."

"Do you miss your family?"

"I do. I miss Veryo, our smith. Always had a tale to share about the many places the tribe had been. I miss Jekkeir, leader of our hunters, and how he would always boast about this one dune wyrm he managed to drive off, but for which he never had any proof to back up the claim. I miss my mom, overbearing as she may be."

Nywen's gaze seemed to drift off towards the east, as though she was looking at something far away, something no one else could see. "But I think most of all I miss the sound the wind makes as it blows through the desert sand. The sound of infinite grains all pouring over each other... They have nothing like that here."

Alanna noticed how Nywen's tone was becoming more morose, so she decided to interject, hoping to distract Nywen with a story of her own. She swallowed hard before she started.

"I grew up in Birchhaven, up north," Alanna began. "At the Orphanage of Sylvarra's Grace. It's this really big, fancy building on the outside, with a big courtyard surrounded by a wall, but when you get close you notice the place is an old dump, mainly because the headmistress has the kids do most of the repairs. It's cheaper that way and she'd say something like 'you'll get valuable experience this way.' By the gods, I hated it there."

Nywen's eyes softened as she listened to Alanna talk about herself. "So you never knew your parents?" she asked, the pity evident in her voice.

"Nope," Alanna said nonchalantly. "They called everyone my age 'orphans of the war,' because we were all born either during or in the aftermath of the Great War. The Headmistress said most of us were just abandoned on her doorstep with little more than the blanket we were wrapped in. No idea if my parents were soldiers, peasants, nobles... I'm guessing they didn't side with the Elves, on account of... Well, you know. Definitely no elf in my ancestral line," she said, flicking one of her rabbit ears for emphasis.

"So there were many of you?" Nywen asked.

"There were. From what I heard the Human Federation liked to conscript Beastfolk into their armies. If you had a good Class they'd send you in as shock troops, if you had a bad one... You'd be fodder for the enemy to waste arrows and spells on. When the war ended both sides took their professional troops out of each other's territories, but a lot of people, soldiers and otherwise, were left behind on the wrong side of the border. The Elven Queen offered leniency to anyone who willingly surrendered to the authorities, which is how most of the Lower District in Birchhaven got populated. A lot of those people had to start over from scratch, and anyone who was born during that time was often just out of luck. Not enough copper to go around to feed everyone, especially the non-elves."

Alanna sighed as she recalled faces she tried hard to forget. "We had a lot of different Beastfolk there when I was younger, most of them half-breeds like us. Horsefolk, taurusfolk, dogfolk... The ones with good Classes always got adopted out first to be soldiers or adventurers, sponsored by someone or the other. After that they picked up the half-elves. The elves didn't... Didn't really like the kids that didn't look like them. The last kids to get adopted out were the ones who they knew would grow up stronger than the rest of us, like the taurusfolk and horsefolk half-breeds, or half-orcs."

"You make it sound like a slave market," Nywen said, distaste clear in her tone.

"Wasn't it?" Alanna asked, unable to keep the bitterness out of her voice. "Being sponsored meant someone else was going to provide for your needs in exchange for debt. You'd be forced to pay off that debt, and it was always something huge. Even if you became an adventurer, being sponsored meant most of your gold for the first few years you worked would go to your sponsor, provided you didn't try to bail out and leave the country. If you were a peasant, you might finally pay off your debt when you're old and gray."

"Did you have any other options?" Nywen asked.

"Yeah, stay at the orphanage until you hit eighteen, then get kicked out onto the street. If you were lucky enough to be pretty you might get taken in by a whoremonger, otherwise your survival depended on your ability to beg for coin or steal food and not get caught."

"Alanna... That sounds awful," Nywen said.

Alanna nodded. "We were all afraid of ending up like that. And we were all afraid of becoming friends, because most of us would never see each other again after adoption. So we kept our distance from each other, but I'd be lying if I said that it didn't hurt to see familiar faces leave."

"So, how did you get out?" It seemed to Alanna that her story had at least taken Nywen's mind off of her own past and that she was genuinely curious about hers. So, she took a deep breath.

"The duke's daughter showed up on my eighteenth birthday and sponsored me. Said she needed an assistant, which turned out to be a big joke. She just wanted a toy to play around with, and when her dad caught us in the act she pinned the whole thing on me. He had me exiled as punishment."

"A toy?" Nywen asked, her eyes narrowing as she continued to listen to Alanna's explanation, until it struck her what Alanna was talking about. "No... You can't be serious," Nywen said, but when she saw no amusement on Alanna's face, she understood it wasn't a joke.

"After that I uh... I came to Wildbrook, and started trying to be an adventurer," Alanna said, avoiding her encounter with Solizzar entirely.

"But how did you get all those different feats?" Nywen asked. Of course Alanna should've seen that coming, she had known Nywen long enough to know the Half-catfolk wouldn't let a question like that lie.

"I don't know," Alanna lied. She really could not come up with a good explanation. Feats could be granted by performing specific actions in addition to gaining them from leveling up your Class, but those would be marked as (Achievement) feats, which hers were not.

Nywen rose an eyebrow. Alanna swallowed dryly as she hoped the Rogue would not pry further. Nywen made a soft, rumbling noise with her throat, as though she was considering something.

"That's quite the tale, Alanna. I suppose we both ended up here because of a troubled history." Nywen eventually stated. Alanna breathed a sigh of relief, both at Nywen not probing and at having told someone her life's story. Nywen smiled at Alanna, and she could see the reflection of the stars above twinkle in Nywen's dark eyes. "I'm grateful we met. A pair of troubled souls such as us make for a perfect team, don't we?"

Alanna found herself lost in those beautiful dark eyes, feeling as though for just that one instant of time, the whole universe had stopped for the two of them to share this moment. She felt Nywen's hand gently take hers. She let it happen, enjoying the warmth of Nywen's touch, until she remembered what happened the last time Nywen hugged her and she recoiled.

"I'm-I'm sorry!" she said, her heart pounding in her chest.

"It's-it's okay!" Nywen said. "I get it. After what that duke's daughter did to you I should've known you might not be very touchy-feely. I apologize."

"It's not your fault, really! I was really enjoying myself, being here with you. I just-I've never had a friend like you before. I don't want anything to ruin that." She looked at her own hand, still feeling a phantom sensation of warmth that faded rapidly. "Did I ruin the moment?"

"I'm still here, aren't I?" Nywen asked with a smirk. "Let's just enjoy the stars for a little while longer. Tomorrow there's someone I want you to meet. He'll help you put that gold you've been saving up to good use. Just... Promise me something, okay?"

"Promise you what?"

"Promise me you'll be patient with him."

Alanna wasn't sure she liked the sound of that. Her concerns were soon forgotten as together they watched the moon crawl over the distant mountains and lazily follow its trajectory across the night's sky. It was quite late by the time they decided to go back home to the guild and get some rest for the night, but Alanna considered it an evening well spent.

The elven Ranger named Barwick ran through the forest as fast as his legs could take him. He cursed under his breath every few steps, damning each of the five gods in turn for his ill luck. This was supposed to just be a scouting quest for some easy pocket change, and now his entire squad was dead. They hadn't even spared his hawk, Ace, shot straight from the sky by a crossbow bolt.

The gleaming armor of his attackers had left little doubt as to who they were: soldiers from the Human Federation. Border clashes between scouts from both sides were not that unheard of, though the expanse and danger posed by No Man's Land kept them mercifully rare.

What he and his group of Rangers and Rogues ran into had not been a mere scouting party. The humans had gathered in force, and when they ambushed his party the battle had been extremely one-sided.

Barwick told himself he didn't abandon his group. The battle was already lost. The only sensible thing to do was for one person to return to Wildbrook and sound the alarm. He kept telling himself that, until he heard the sound of hooves behind him.

He turned just in time to see a cloaked figure, clearly a female human wearing a long, flowing, blue robe, before the flash of a lightning bolt seared itself into his retinas. Blinding pain ripped through his back and he fell to the ground, his legs rendered useless.

"You have taken 29 damage!"

It was an absurd amount of damage to strike someone his level. If it hadn't been for the health potion he had consumed earlier it would've completely knocked him out, though with the amount of pain he was feeling he wished it had.

A few moments passed as the smell of singed meat filled his nostrils. Soon enough, armored footsteps approached him.

"What do we do with him?" one gruff voice asked a feminine one.

"Kill him, and add him to the pile. We need more carrion."

Barwick did not have a chance to ask what they were talking about before the tip of a polearm entered the back of his skull, and his vision darkened for the last time.

Alanna awoke the next morning. She had grown quite attached to her little suite at the Adventurer's Guild, and while it wasn't the most economical choice, she greatly enjoyed the relative luxury of having her own bed, kitchen and bathroom.

She met with Nywen as they had agreed the previous night after she cleaned herself up and got dressed. She brought her short sword with her, as Nywen explained it was time for it to get sharpened, and to get an upgrade to go with it.

The smith's workshop was on the same property as the Adventurer Guild's office, though it was in a separate building from the other facilities, due to the noise and smoke. Nywen explained that while there were other smiths in town that would sell to adventurers, the Guild had a tendency to attract talent, so with a few exceptions you'd find the best quality arms and armor at the Guild itself.

They opened the door to the storefront section of the smith's office, causing a little bell to ring. Inside were suits of plated armor, mail shirts and light leather armor sets put on display on mannequins. Racks displayed blades, axes, spears, polearms and bows. Alanna noticed the style was rather distinct, but not elven.