Chapter 34- Stealth is Optional

The best way to hunt down bounties was either catch them in the city, or in their camps in the wild.

If I did this without the help of Mournwalker family, I most likely wouldn't have known where to look, but fortunately, the bandits reported to him thus revealing their last location.

So, we were provided horses that we took out to the wilds to try to find where they might be.

We didn't bother with conversation as we traveled, she had her own reasons and I wanted to focus on Mana Heeding, hoping to catch someone in its radius.

We came to the spot marked where they were supposed to be on the map and found that it was recently moved.

They were sloppy and left obvious tracks that they moved north, towards the mountains. As it was getting dark, we decided to camp for the night in a clearing so we could see if anyone was coming beforehand.

As I set up the campfire, she remained sat there, just staring at me. Not being able to take her stare any longer I blurt out, "You got anything else to do?"

"No." And continues to stare.

"Glad to see that you find me fascinating."

"I find all elves fascinating. You're the tenth I've met and the weirdest one, therefore the most interesting."

"Is that why you wear the ears?"

"Oh, you noticed. Do you like them, I tried to fashion them in your race's likeness. Although, its flawed as I have not properly studied how your ears are. Can I… touch your ears?"

I pause trying to light a fire and turn towards her and see she's sheepishly twiddling her thumbs. "I'll consider it, if you answer some questions first."

She perks up excited, "Alright, ask away."

"How are you so fast?" She takes off her mask, a smile clear on her face.

"I have Tier 3 Enhanced Movement. How I kept appearing behind you was a skill that allows me to teleport behind a target."

"What was that form you took when we fought."

"That was my class ultimate. It allows me to transform or gain a body part from an aligned animal. I only used it at 5% of its true power in our fight, because I thought it was enough."

"What is your class, I thought I knew all of them but yours is unknown?"

"That's because there are secret classes only available to those who met certain requirements prior to the Awakening Ceremony.

Don't ask what the requirements are, you're better off not knowing. My class is Therianopist, which allows me to transform into an animal that deems me compatible. My animal is a crow, which gives me some rather interesting skills and spells."

I finally light the fire, which slowly begins to get bigger.

I sit down on the ground next to it. And pass her a bowl of food I stored beforehand in the storage ring as I also grab one for myself.

While I eat, I process what she's just told me. I clearly don't remember seeing her class either time I was at the Crystal, so you weren't even given the choice unless you met the requirements. Which leads me to believe that there could be many more hidden classes.

Finished with our food, I decide there's no harm in letting her touch my ears.

"Alright you can touch them."

She claps her hands in excitement letting out a "YES!", scooting closer to me.

She reaches out a hand shakily, before gently touching my ear, which she jerks her hand back. Confused I look at her and her once pale face, is completely red, and I have no idea what she's doing. "You ok?"

"Yea I got too excited for a second. Give me a second."

She takes deep breaths for before reaching out and rubbing my ear again. After a second, she reaches out with her other hand and touches my other ear.

Trying to not make the situation awkward, I try to keep the conversation going.

"Is there….."

I don't finish as she puts a finger to my lips shushing me. "Shhhh I'm trying to enjoy this."

I swat her hands away from me, and she pouts, sitting back away from me. "Is there anything you want to ask me?" I question.

Her usually uninterested face changes to that as if she just had an idea suddenly. "Good point, I have a new pet, so I need to know what to feed it, and when."

"I'm not your pet, I won that fight so I wouldn't be your pet."

She glares at me, "No, you won that fight to prove that I would come with you on these bounties, so it was natural for me to let you win. That's the only reason you won and not because of my own mistakes. You won't win an actual fight against me if I went all out."

I sigh, giving up on trying to convince her otherwise. If what she said was true, then I would need to get stronger to contest with her ultimate if that was only 5%.

"I'm going to go ahead and take first watch if you want to get some sleep."

"You don't have to; I have crows all over the area who will watch for us. They'll wake me if something approaches."

"That's convenient. But are they reliable?"

"Well, if I die, they do too so they better be reliable. They're not soul tied to me or anything, but I'd be pissed if they didn't do what I asked and before I died, I'd kill them first."

I nod and lay down to sleep not doubting her words. She eases her way next to me, laying her head on my chest. "What are you doing?" I question.

"The book encouraged sleeping with your pet on the first night to help them get more comfortable with you."

I push her away from me, "That's not necessary. Number one I'm not your pet, number two what would you father think if he found I was like this with his daughter?"

She sits up amused at what I said.

"What? You worried he'll think were together or something? Trust me, you're my pet and as such, I'll never get feelings for you. Plus, I swore I'd never do anything like that with an elf anyway."

I sigh because I see its useless trying to convince her that I'm not her pet, and I just realized that I'm basically leaving my life in her hands while I sleep.

"Just promise me you won't bother me while I sleep unless its urgent. And by that, I mean life threatening or something dangerous is coming. Let's get some sleep and hunt this guy and his other bandits down."

"Oh, I do enjoy a good killing. And don't worry I'll make sure the guy suffers this time, but you do know that if you're doing business with us, you'll have to get your hands dirty eventually. Good night."

"Good night." As I lay back down, I think of what she said.

I had a general idea of what the Mournwalker family did, and that Adriana was fascinated with torture.

My first kill that wasn't a monster was the bandit that tried to ambush, and I didn't feel anything after killing him.

Maybe it was because the clone did it and not me, but I'm sure that's not how it worked. I remember how I felt in the dungeon years prior when I first killed the goblin, a weird feeling that was too small to fully understand it, but I didn't feel it again.

Thankfully, the pondering helped me drift off to sleep faster.

A loud cawing makes me jump up out my sleep grasping my weapons. I take a look around, with a slight headache, to find a crow next to me, just staring at me.

"If you start talking, I honestly wouldn't be surprised."

"Don't be ridiculous, they don't even talk to me, much less you." I look behind me to see Adriana sitting on a rock causally eating something she kept in her storage ring.

I follow suit and bring out a bowl of sliced fruit and start picking out my favorites to eat first before working on the rest. While we're eating, Adriana just nonchalantly says,

"My crows found the bandit camp were looking for last night by the way. From what they've seen there's only 10 of them, none look to be past Tier 1 so it'll be pretty boring."

"Tier 1?" I question.

"Yea that's how we evaluate a person's strength based on the guild here. If you know a person's class, then you can know what tier they are by their strongest skill or spell. You just have to know what you're looking for."

"I thought people couldn't remember other class skills and spells from the Crystal, you would forget immediately when you leave it." I question.

"Ah yes that is true, and you'll know that in everything, there is a loophole. You're not ready to know yet so don't stress yourself over the small things."

Finishing breakfast, we head directly to where the crows saw the bandit camp, it was only a 30-minute ride further north and as we near their camp, we leave the horses a little back.

I activate Stealth and creep among the bushes until their camp comes into view. I see tents made out of fur forming a circle, men walking around or sitting, with different crates and carts with various goods all about the place. I let Mana Heeding spread and the locations of all 10 men come into view. I scan each one until I find the strongest one and bring up his status.

Race: Human

Class: Trapper LVL 10

Health: 200

Mana: 500

No active blessings/curses

I decide to treat this as a stealth mission and go unnoticed until we deal with the last guy and summon a clone.

Drawing a dagger, I cast Invisibility and slowly creep towards a guy in a tent laying down. I send the clone on the other side of the camp to catch any people alone as well. Lifting the folds on the tent, I slip in and see the bandit sleeping.

It's all too easy for me to kneel beside him and I place my dagger next to his neck, but I hesitate as I become anxious. I take a deep breath and exhale before I cover the bandits' mouth and slice his throat. He jumps awake thrashing, but I keep him under control until his eyes roll to the back of his head and stops.

In my chest I feel an uncomfortable tight knot forming in my chest next to my heart. I feel anger, despair, jealousy, and depression all at once as my head throbs in a rhythm.

I place a shaking hand on the ground as I try to assess what's wrong with me. Through the throbbing, I focus on my mana flow, and among the flowing blue currents, in my chest is a small black dot. I try to focus on it to make out what it is, but as I do, it disappears, along with everything I just felt.

Standing to my feet, I notice that my clone has also dispatched its target and is now awaiting further instruction. I send it after a guy moving barrels onto crates as I am now fine and have to keep going myself.

I recast Invisibility and head over to two guys talking to each other. Theyre facing each other and if I mess up, one will alert the rest and I was still trying to be as stealthy as possible.

I stand next to them as they continue their conversation about the best time they've looted. With my dagger still drawn, I reach around a guy and tap him on his shoulder, causing him to look away from both the guy he was talking to and where I current was beside him.

I then slash the throat of the other guy he was talking to bringing me out of Invisibility as he starts choking on his own blood.

He falls into the distracted guy, grabbing onto him and slipping blood on his clothes, which makes the guy turn back around. With him facing us again, I stab into his chest, while covering his mouth as he panics, finally noticing me.

He screams into my hand, but its muffled, and he clutches my arm, trying to wrestle the dagger out his chest. Seeing he wasn't immediately dead, I bring the dagger out then stab him again, and repeat until he falls to the ground, lifeless.

"You're taking your sweet time with this." Adriana appears right next to me, scaring the wits out of me.

"I'm an Assassin, I'm doing this stealthy." I respond holding up my bloodied daggers for her to see.

"Ok true, but you don't need to. These guys are a joke and doing this isn't a challenge for you at all. Like come on you tapped a guy on his shoulder and killed the other. Your best option was to take advantage of your speed and get this over with. Save the stealth for bandits in the city."

She had a well-made point no matter how basic it was. I had so many movement abilities that not taking advantage of them was a waste.

I stand, activating Blessing of the Hare and Enhanced Movement on myself. Knowing where the remaining bandits are, I sprint towards the nearest who was sharpening his blade against a rock.

He must have been too focused on what he was doing that he didn't notice me run straight up to him stabbing him through the stomach.

The force of how fast I was going knocks him from where he was sitting, to a nearby tent, causing it to fall on the people inside.

The guy I stabbed dies instantly and the people who were inside the tent struggled to get free of the tent. I draw my second dagger and stab at any lumps I see in the fallen tent, causing pained shouts and bloodstains where I stab until all goes quiet.

The commotion alerts the rest of the camp and our target comes out of his tent along with the only two bandits left. Hes a skinny, rather short young guy with brown hair in leather armor and the other bandits were in just armor of fur.

"Ugh. Just when I thought today was going to be a good day, someone has to try to be the hero and mess everything up. Just who are you that you think you can come and try to stop us?"

"Eric. Day Ruiner of soon to be dead men that cross Lord Mournwalker for the last time."

At the mention of Mournwalkers' name his eyes grow wide. "No, there's no way you found us. Kill him and we must gather everyone and escape."

The two bandits draw their swords and charge, but the second guy sudden splits open spilling blood as my clone reveals itself in front of him with a bloodied shadow dagger.

The trapper stumbles back from surprise and a long thin blade erupts from his stomach. Adriana steps out from behind him pulling her blade out from him as well and he falls to his knees.

"Damn you, a sneak attack. You'll pay for that you…." He trails off as he finally looks up and sees the mask Adriana is wearing and pales.

"T-t-the Mourn Daughter? No please spare me. I'm sorry, I will do better next time, just give me another chance." As he's pleading for his life with his arms outspread, she takes the blade and swipes it across them. She then tosses a bottle on the ground in front of him.

"If you can pick that potion up and heal yourself, you're free to go. If not, I'll just put you out of your misery."

Hope flashes through his eyes as he reaches forward to grab the bottle. But when his hand touches the bottle, he is unable to wrap his fingers around it. Confused he tries again with both hands, but neither can pick up the bottle. He looks at his arms and sees a trail of blood sliding down from his wrists and he understands what happened.

"You tricked me. But I can be of service to Lord Mournwalker, don't kill me." She walks slowly towards him, and he tries to get up to run, but his legs don't work and he falls backwards. She picks his head up from the dirt and says,

"The moment that he sent me means that he doesn't have a use for you anymore. But don't worry, I have a use for you. Come and feast." She drops his head and walks away as crows fly towards him and blocks our view of him, but we can hear his screams of pain.

The first guy witnessed all of this happen and as Adriana walked away, he turns to me, fear clearly on his face. He slowly drops to his knees tossing his weapon to the side and falls face first in front of me.

"Please spare me. I legit just joined them three days ago and have nothing to do with what they did." Well, we did kill a lot of other bandits before him and he's the first to actually try to be sorry. I didn't mind letting him go.

If he tried some funny business like try to kill me with a hidden blade, I was faster than him, so I wasn't worried. Before I could respond to anything he said, Adriana appears behind me and whispers in my ear.

"We're not leaving survivors here, only trophies. If you make it quick, it won't bother you as much."

I stand there as I realized that my intention to actually let him go wasn't going to cut it. He was associated with them; therefore, his end was already determined the moment he joined.

But I had to be the one to end him as Adriana was clear that she wasn't planning on killing a defenseless man. I take her advice and decide to do it quickly.

I took my dagger and with a trembling hand, I plunge it into the back of the unsuspecting man, who looks up grabbing my hand. Pain and betrayal on his face, he looks me dead in the eyes and manages out a mournful,

"Why?" I don't respond, or more like I can't respond as I am shaken to the core.

As his grip on my hand gets weaker, a notification appears.

[You have unlocked the skill Merciless- Someone begged for their life and submitted themselves before you and you still killed them. Anytime a target gives up from fighting you, you can activate this skill to finish them, gaining 10% of their health and mana to your own permanently.]

I read it and the first sentence makes me sick as I look at my hands and think about what just happened. Adriana slaps me on the back, "Don't get all dreary on me now, we still have work to do."

To claim a bounty, you must either bring the head of the target, or provide proof of their either capture, or death. Thankfully, she told the crows not to touch his head, but the rest of his body was picked clean.

It was an easy task of pulling his head from his skeletal body, but the others required more time as I brought a spare knife to handle this kind of work. Didn't help that that I was too distracted to focus on the task at hand. His pained "why" kept playing through my head over and over again.

After an hour I finished and stored the heads in my storage ring where we made our way back to the horses. We took the ride back in silence as I wasn't in a talking mood. We arrived back in the city a little after dark where I decided to deal with the bounties tomorrow and parted ways with Adriana.

As I entered the inn where I stayed, I paid no attention to anyone, just heading to my room entirely skipping dinner because I wasn't hungry. I don't bother taking off my boots or armor and just flopped straight into the bed and fall immediately to sleep.