"I can see that you don't yet understand. How is this land ours?

To that I ask; how is it not? We do not claim these mountains under any illusion of sovereignty, nor do we seek to keep their borders. This land exists, and we exist as part of it. Would you ask the lightning-weasels if they own the mounds of moss they burrow within? Would you ask the rivers if they own their beds?

My father travelled far and wide, and the stories he told me of the lowlanders shocked me. He said you decimate entire forests, drain lakes and tunnel through mountains...

You are welcome in this land, and my people will not contest your settling here, but if you seek to change these mountains, you will draw the ire of its denizens. Should you tunnel too deep, the great bears will be shaken from their slumber. Should you build too tall, the storm-rooks will come down from their perches. Should you spread too far…

Well, then the barbarians will come calling. Respect the land or face its wrath."

- Excerpt from the speech of Barbarian King Solomense to the Ashkanian refugees following the fall of the 2nd age, as described in 'The Untamed Lands – A Warning To Settlers' by unknown author.

When I wasn't busy planning vengeance against Francis and his underlings, I'd spent most of my brief time in captivity pining after my companions. They were the only friends I had in all the world.

Other than Sally the Tinkerer, I suppose, but I doubt she thought of us as such – simply another customer, more than likely. One that had either done her a small favour or brought more trouble down on her head. Only time would tell.

It was more significant for me, though – she was one of the few people I knew by name. There was Jacklin with her magical flatbreads, the now dead mercenaries, and a handful of others who my life had touched, but not in any significant way; we'd met a few traders and shared food and wine with them on our lonely trek from the Iona Chasm to the Copper Canyons. Pleasant evenings all considered, but devoid of true connection.

What I was coming to realise now as I skipped along a steep ridgeline, the earth falling away to either side of me and my sure footing all that kept me among the clouds, was that I was lonely. I liked my companions – most of the time, anyway – but there were only three of them. I needed something other than Nathlan's precise analysis, Vera's hard-bitten cynicism, or Jorge's folksy meanderings, sometimes.

It almost sounded harsh, as if they weren't enough for me, but I didn't see it that way. No man is an island, after all, and a continent can't stand on the shoulders of three people, no matter how great they might be. I'd learned how the world works, learned a little about myself, even, and now I wanted to learn about others. How did people live in this world? What did they care about? What were their problems?

I could ask my companions, I suppose, but I was reticent for some reason. They were all wanderers, continually on the move. They were all in their own ways cagey about their past, and so were reluctant to speak about a simple peaceful life that now alluded them. The life that most in this world enjoyed. The life I might want to enjoy myself one day, once I was strong and stable enough to secure it.

These weren't exactly new thoughts, but running had a way of calming the mind and letting thoughts float to the surface. Clearly, my lacking social circle was something I placed great importance on, along with my lacking memories, and my future growth. That I was focusing solely on my companions and their deficiencies right now probably told me more about my mental state than any truth about life.

Because it had been barely three days since we'd left that ravine where I'd met the Subakir, and already we were all thoroughly sick of each other. It was nothing major, but the flight and chase from Colchet had been stressful for everyone. The confrontation beneath the earth even more so, and while the dangers had now passed, it took our bodies some time to metabolise it.

Nathlan was the healthiest. He'd been worried, of course, but it was mostly out of his hands, and he'd not had to make any choices. He'd also missed the final battle, and while the revelations of Jorge's hidden ideology might be surprising, he seemed to find it easy enough to slip into his existing worldview. For my scholarly friend, the world today looked much like it had last week.

Vera was doing well also, but she had a new intensity about her. An itchiness, like she couldn't wait to get moving, and any delay was a slight inconvenience for her. She obviously understood we couldn't just spring through the mountains right now as we were, and didn't seem to begrudge Nathlan and I our pace, but there was a focus in everything that she did that made it hard to really connect with her now.

She had never been the most approachable person in the world – being over six foot tall, filled with muscle, wearing a more or less permanent glower when resting and often heavily armoured painted a slightly less than friendly picture right off the bat. I'd often thought of her as a caged tiger, pacing behind the bars, lethal and dangerous. Now, she felt like a tiger in the wild, just waiting to go on the hunt once more.

Jorge was the worst, by far. He was friendly and approachable, as always, and his calming influence was still very much present… but it felt forced. It was clear to see he was grappling with the implications of what we'd heard and seen. His whole concept of how the world worked had been ever so slightly shaken, and while I didn't see personally what the big fuss was about, small cracks could wreak havoc on even the steadiest of foundations, as I well knew.

So it didn't take long for the excitement of our reunion to fade. It had been building for a few days now; jokes had stopped landing, compliments for food were missing, each of us was getting visibly more frustrated with the normal jobs of setting up and packing down camp each night. Minor bickering became arguments, and we were in danger of breaking out into a true disagreement. Nothing personal as far as I could tell, but we were all just a bit sick of each other by now.

Constant companionship will d that to a group sometimes, though, and we were all adults, luckily. Nobody had to come out and say it for us to know we were running low on patience and needed some time alone. Even I – as obtuse as a person could humanly be – could pick up the hints. And so here I was, ostensibly scouting ahead, but honestly just enjoying running across the skyline of Tsanderos.

The peaks reared before me, white heads breaching the sea of low-hanging cloud like titanic leviathans of the deep. Behind me the ridgeline vanished beneath that bone-coloured ocean where I knew my companions were even now trudging up steep gulleys and through scree slopes under the oppressive weight of the heavy cloud. I had already put in the work, though, so here I ran – free beneath the open sky, able to marvel at the beauty and scale of the world around me.

I enjoyed the scouting, letting my eyes pick over the terrain and looking out for any signs of interesting creatures. Interesting not in the academic sense of the word that Nathlan would no doubt spring upon; 'what new creature in a new biome does not have interesting stories to tell?' he would no doubt ask, full of affront at my lack of scholarly curiosity. No, interesting in this case referred to either danger, or opportunity. So often two sides of the same case, and no more so than now.

I wasn't particularly adept at it, but I was still acting as a scout right now, so I needed to make sure no powerful creatures were lying in ambush, waiting to attack my companions at an inopportune moment. That was the danger. But I also needed to get stronger. I had 10 levels to gain before I hit the limit of the 1st tier, and I would only gain those by fighting and killing dangerous creatures. So, any ambush predators would also present significant opportunity to me.

And not only ambush predators hunting us, but any creatures that might put up a good fight. I had learned Jorge's lessons well and knew how to track creatures in the hills. I knew what to look out for; scat here, footprints in a snowdrift there. The smell of urine and shed fur, a trickle of blood on rock, prints in the mud near small water sources. I kept my sense speeled, and every now and then I'd use my stone-sense, too, granted to me by Faultline.

It was still low-levelled, as I'd not managed to gain much new experience in the last few days, hence my unmoving level. But I'd worked hard, and I was delving further into the Skill's secrets every day. With guidance from all my companions, but most notably Nathlan, I was growing by leaps and bounds.

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I could climb up almost any stone surface now, widening existing minute cracks within the rock to form gaps big enough to use as hand and footholds. I couldn't yet do much more than widen and pressure existing faults within a stone structure, but I was gaining more control each day. I could now channel the direction I wanted the fracture to move in, and even link up small fault lines within rock, assuming they were close enough together. Nathlan seemed impressed by the latter use of the skill, pushing me to try and carve patterns within rock with the aim of one day forming runic circles or warding patterns invisibly through the microstructure of stone below my enemy's feet.

The problem was, I knew nothing of runecraft and the underlying magical theory behind it and had no real desire to learn. Sure, it was interesting in an abstract sense, but I knew myself well by this point. I didn't have the dedication to work at something so theoretically dense; I preferred to use my body, to see the immediate effect on the world around me, and let that progression drive me forwards. Burying myself in books for a few years to achieve an arguably greater level of power and versatility was not something that excited me when I had other viable paths to follow.

While his enthusiasm for raw magic wasn't something I could quite keep up with, his knowledge was profound, and his guidance did help push me far further and faster than if I were alone. Visualisation exercises, 'dexterity' exercises – by which he meant the ability to make fine adjustments with my magic rather than body – and other small tests and games to expand the way I used the skill were incredibly effective.

I was now at the point where I could sense stone easily and naturally. My domain for the stone-sense was roughly a fifty-foot sphere around myself, but I could double that distance if I pushed in a single direction. The further my sense moved away from my body, the weaker and less precise it became.

My control over the stone itself became more precise too. I could sculpt it more fluidly than to begin with and was gaining some measure of delicacy over the way I manipulated the material. I was still no sculptor, but I could create rough cracks and lines quickly and under duress. I was even experimenting with creating divots and holes under my opponent's feet while fighting, and that seemed to be a promising line of advancement if I could keep working at it.

Obviously, the Skill was heavily dependent on the environment, as it only worked on stone, and most effectively on stone that was heterogeneous, lit through with twisting cracks and broken lattices. In the high mountains, where scree slopes were plentiful and the earth was filled with sediment and minerals, I was in my element.

It was unlikely I would have such control when in arable farmland. There were technicalities around what counted as stone that I'd not yet dived into. Could I manipulate sand one day? Coral? Crystal? Probably not. I was no scholar or mage, and I had little hope of expanding my current Skill use into true understanding. I would be happy to simply control and manipulate the environment I spent time in. Simply control the mountains – what a thought!

I had no doubt that once I began to fight and kill once more, and that experience flooded into my soul, the Skill constellation of Faultline would be one of the first to flex and grow. Now, as my feet flitted over broken rocks and carried me effortlessly up the gradual incline, my core fed mana to the Skill intermittently, giving me flashes of the area around me. Without it, I would have missed the skull, lodged in a small crack a dozen feet to my right out of sight, and so I wouldn't have noticed beneath it the fresh scratches in the rock from tough claws, nor the hoof-marks in the ground beneath left by whatever predator had chased, and ultimately found, its prey.

It was a useful Skill, though nothing revolutionary, when used to augment my other senses, but I knew it would become an essential part of my skillset once I could leverage it in fights. To get more out of it though, I'd have to level it further.

Luckily, that fit into my plans rather neatly. I breathed in the pure air and sighed. I was surrounded by stone. Time to kill as many birds as possible.

Time passed, and with its passage my strength grew.

One level, then two, then three and swiftly four. I had gained 20 attributes to spend in less than a month, and as we moved through deep valleys and winding gorges, I could feel the power coursing through my body. I'd been tempted to hold off on spending the bounty of my levels so that I could increase my attributes all at once rather than incrementally. Ostensibly to 'make optimal decisions' or something, but really, I think I just wanted to experience the rush of power that increasing so many attributes in one go would give me. Perhaps I could be called an addict by now, but gods! The rush of increasing even a single attribute by five points was indescribable; I could hardly be blamed for wondering what it would be like.

Jorge had shot that idea down mercilessly. I needed more time to get used to my enhanced body, and hording attributes would only hinder that pursuit. Stupid, practical Jorge.

In any case, I was stronger than ever, and the myriad wounds I'd sustained in my battle with the Crimson Lions had fixed themselves up. Jorge had explained that while he could have fixed me up in an emergency, it would be better to let my natural regeneration deal with the injuries. My relatively high endurance attribute would handle most of the small niggles within the day, and the cracked ribs would set themselves properly following Vera's careful bandaging of my torso. Healing naturally not only conserved resources, but also gave me an idea of how long it took me to heal.

It was tempting to think he was just being an ass, but I had to acknowledge that it was actually a fair point. Experience is the greatest teacher, after all, and the way I seemed to be living my life – dangerously – involved trading minor injuries to impart greater ones on my opponents. I wasn't some 'eye for an eye' berserker or anything, but I did tend to get hurt in small ways in many of my fights. Add to that my outside of combat experiences – climbing, running and otherwise flinging myself around the mountains like I was in a giant playground – also gave me my share of scrapes.

I made calculated risks, and so I needed to have a firm grasp on what the realistic consequence of each action was. I'd only get that by experiencing the downtime and recovery of my actions, rather than relying on some magical potion plucked from the void by my high-level mentor.

Shaking off the thought, I reviewed the recent gains I'd made.

Status:

Ancestry: Human (unevolved)

Level: 44

Class: Blood of the Hills

Titles: God-touched

Attribute allocation:

Strength: 66

Agility: 50

Endurance: 36

Perception: 25

Cognition: 35

Available attributes: 0

Current skills:

Guerrilla Warfare: Level 10. Passive.

Wilderness Endurance Hunter: Level 9. Passive.

Heart of the Hills: Level 6. Active.

Check Step: Level 10. Active.

Indomitable Prey: Level 9. Active.

The Forgotten Spear: Level 8. Passive.

Mountain-Born: Level 9. Passive

Faultline: Level 6. Active.

I'd decided to pump up my cognition in order to get the most out of Nathlan's lessons. I knew it didn't make me smarter, per se, but I did find myself able to retain and access the knowledge I learned a little easier, and the ability to concentrate harder and for longer was definitely a nice bonus for such mentally strenuous work.

I'd then rounded out the rest of my attributes to as close to even numbers as I could get. I liked the symmetry. Arbitrary? Yes, but that's just what felt nice. I still intended to focus heavily on strength and agility, and would further specialise as time went on, but I did want to stay more of a jack of all trades rather than a master of one.

Also, Jorge had hinted that attribute allocation could influence what options you were given on classing up a tier. I wanted to keep a varied approach, and besides, with the rare combat class, I had the attributes to spare.

And it was a good thing too, because I would need them. The creature I was chasing was far beyond my level, and I would need every advantage I could eek out just to survive this hunt.

My blood sang as I rushed through the pine forest cloaking the steep valley, mounds of earth and fallen logs unable to bar my path as I leaped and ducked above, around and beneath them, all the while feeling the wind push against me as I kept my speed up.

I could hear my hunting partner yipping with excitement as she sprinted alongside me, separated by half a mile of open air on the other side of the valley but keeping pace effortlessly. I could barely see her, only the occasional cry reassuring me she was near, and the rare flash of silver I sometimes saw through the trunks and underbrush normally obscuring my view.

My stone-sense could pick up the reliable thumping of heavy hooves as our quarry fled in panic. The fact that I still couldn't catch even a glimpse of the massive creature was a bit of a worry given how it was lighting up in my new sense so dramatically. It implied that the creature was bigger than I'd expected, even considering the advice Jorge had given me before I set off on this hunt. 'Don't back it into a corner and don't get too close until it's nearly done – they are far too strong for you to stand toe to hoof with.'

I was taking his words to heart and closing in slowly with the giant herbivore. I was almost tempted to believe that the lack of predatory instincts might make this animal less dangerous, but thankfully, the months in the wild had wiped away some of that naivete.

Ferns whipped past my legs as I ran after the thumping creature ahead, still just out of sight. As I began to close in though, I started to see the signs of its passage more clearly; splashes of water dripping from bushes, tiny icicles rapidly melting on the bottom of overhanging leaves, frost littering the ground in little clumps where pine needles had adhered to one another as if to ward off the chill.

The rhythmic thumping in my stone-sense suddenly shifted, and I looked up in time to see a wall of bristling ice spikes blocking my path. It was too close, and I was going too fast to stop. Shit.

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