Blind Chaos - Tales Beneath the Dragoneye Moons

The girl—teenager, several years Ranthia’s senior—wasn’t willing to go back to the camp so readily, so the two stayed up late while they talked. Or, put less generously, the teenager talked while Ranthia boredly stared at the sky.

The moons hung overhead, red and luminous. Ranthia had always admired them, and she was confident that her prior self had done so as well. They were beautiful in a mystical and fantastical sort of way. Xaoc had always oddly ignored any compliments that she sent Him about the moons though. She supposed it was because there were the two moon goddesses, but they were latecomers. It was Xaoc and the other four great gods that crafted their world and brought forth all life found upon Pallos, so Ranthia felt like Xaoc and the other four great gods deserved the praise, domains be damned.

Clearly, He disagreed.

That or, perhaps, it was one of the other members of the five great gods that were responsible for the moons? In addition to Xaoc, God of Chaos, there was Aion, Goddess of Life; Thanatos, God of Death; Papilion, God/dess of Change; and, technically, Seira, Goddess of Order. Could Aion have sculpted the moons to gaze down upon creation? Perhaps Thanatos crafted the moons to remind all that lived of their finite nature? Or perhaps it was some whim of Papilion, as beautiful as it was ephemeral?

Ranthia was the first to admit that she was profoundly biased, but she refused to believe that the stodgy woman that governed order could have crafted something so lovely and important. Surely Pallos was a success despite the woman’s efforts to render it inert and unimpressive. Order was simplicity, it was to surrender progress and innovation, it was—

“You’ve been quiet. I’m not boring you, am I?”

Ranthia blinked up at the plain-looking teen, embarrassed. She had no idea what the girl had been prattling about. It had been about her brothers and sisters when Ranthia last paid attention, but that was… probably some time ago.

“Um, no, it’s not that! It’s just,” Ranthia’s mind groped desperately for an excuse, “I… kind of forgot your name and felt embarrassed?”

Why did her mind have to grab a fragment of the truth!?

The teen laughed. Ranthia’s face colored, but the teen waved her off.

“It’s okay, sorry, I shouldn’t have laughed! I was just worried that I was being annoying, so I’m relieved to know that’s all it was. My name’s Hexara.”

Ranthia had to bite her lip.

…Because it took every fiber of her willpower to resist the urge to laugh. The name sounded ridiculous! It sounded like something a shady alchemist might sell under the counter to those that knew to ask for it.

Ranthia’s certainty that she was a terrible person only increased.

Sleep deprivation sucked. Yes, she was glad that Hexara was alive—and of course the name finally stuck in her memory for the worst of reasons—but she was a growing woman in an 8-year-old body. She needed more than a few hours of sleep.

Her lip was sorer than her cheeks were, she had managed to break the skin when she bit it. Once again, she ambled just behind the woodsman—a couple of paces further back than she had previously, which she hoped was enough—while she tried to practice her magic.

Emphasis on tried, because the day brought a change that made things substantially more difficult: Hexara walked alongside her and continued to try to engage her in conversation.

The kid was either desperate for companionship or oblivious, and Ranthia made no bets on which it was. The little girl that had tried to befriend Ranthia had avoided her ever since the snake incident—the ingrate—but the teenager was in some ways worse.

Ranthia was jarred out of [Spell Reworking] yet again when the teenager suddenly bumped her with her hip.

“You’ve gone quiet again.” The teen innocently answered when Ranthia tried to glare at her.

“Like I said, I have to focus when I use this skill…” It had become an all too familiar exchange.

“You need to learn to focus while you engage with others. It’s an important skill for stylists!” Okay, that part was new.

“…But I don’t want to work on hair?” Ranthia replied lamely.

“Oh silly, the skills of a stylist apply everywhere in life!”

When on Pallos had this girl decided she was an expert?! She had literally just come up with the career path that night! …Well, as far as Ranthia knew, at least.

“Uh-huh.” Ranthia replied, plainly unconvinced.

“It’s true. You have to see the detail of the part you’re working on while keeping the whole and the overall plan in mind. Isn’t that the same with your [Mage] stuff?” The teen queried with innocent curiosity.

…Ranthia had no response.

Grudgingly, she had to admit that the teen had actually made a valid point.

What was worse though, was the fact that it was probably solid advice that it might—might—serve as a new angle to approach her process that maybe might help her get past the wall she had hit on her efforts.

The cutesy little bit of advice had proven itself invaluable. Ranthia emerged from the depths of [Spell Reworking]—which wasn’t quite as absolutely engrossing as it had been—and checked her System notifications.

[*ding!* Congratulations! [Magissistant] has reached level 18! +2 Mana, +2 Mana Regeneration, +1 Magic Power, +1 Magic Control from your class, +1 free stat point for being human, +1 Mana Regeneration from your Element.]

[*ding!* [Light Affinity] has leveled from 14 to level 18!]

[*ding!* [Light Manipulation] has leveled from 11 to level 17!]

[*ding!* [Light Resistance] has leveled from 2 to level 4!]

[*ding!* [Spell Reworking] has leveled from 14 to level 18!]

[*ding!* You have unlocked the Class Skill [Light Blob]!]

[Light Blob]: Why waste time manipulating ambient light into one mass when you’re just making an amorphous blob of light, like a toddler that was given some clay? Skip the middleman! Increased shape control and size with level.

[*ding!* [Identify] has reached level 18!]

“Well?” Hexara immediately asked, with a smug smile.

“…Your advice helped.” Ranthia finally admitted, after a long exhale.

Hexara’s happy squeal was actually kind of cute.

Two weeks had passed on the road. Each day was largely identical. Ranthia woke up, she grabbed a handful of trail rations to munch as the group walked together around the wagons at a speed that was, somehow, less than what any individual member of the group could have walked alone. The group stopped constantly for an unreliable—and often unreasonable—amount of time. The journey resumed. Then the journey halted for dinner and to set up camp, usually within sight of their prior campsite.

Sometimes Hexara walked with Ranthia, sometimes she stayed back with the other kids to help keep an eye on them. She seemed to have emerged from the shell that she had kept around herself while she was with her deceased betrothed, which… well, Ranthia wasn’t going to be the one to speak ill of the dead by drawing inferences. She wasn’t that close to the young woman.

Ranthia continued to practice her magic as she walked and had begun to randomly flood the area in front of the caravan with as bright of light as she could shine through her still-too-shapeless blobs of light. She figured it might help drive away some of the wildlife, since no one in the group seemed to hunt… which really felt like an odd omission for such a journey. Even Ranthia could tell that they were going to run out of food before they reached the next city, and it wasn’t like they let her inventory the supplies.

The others swiftly learned to not look in her direction, perpetually positioned a bit to the left of the front of the caravan. She was a bright child, in every sense of the word, as Hexara joked more than once (as if humor was somehow increasingly witty when repeated). The physical labor required to move as part of the caravan had been good for her natural strength and vitality as well, which was still a stat she desperately needed to boost further.

Realistically, she really should have focused more on her physical training, but she needed to get her magic to an acceptable baseline too. It wasn’t quite a conscious decision to focus on her magic so completely, but it was just kind of what ended up happening.

The bulk of Ranthia’s efforts were focused on refining the shape of her [Light Blob] efforts, as she struggled to make them more human-like. Every point of Magic Control helped and so she had begun to hate the Magic Power<->Magic Control tradeoff intensely. Every eight points in one of the stats decreased the other, and vice-versa (Strength and Dexterity had the same relationship as well, but that wasn’t quite as relevant to her yet). She wanted those two points in each back! She was constantly tempted to dump the rest of her free stats into Magic Control, but she also needed her Magic Power and thus she had split them equally between the two stats every time she used them.

Still pissed her off though, why did the System have to have such a ridiculous cost sink integrated into it?

Ranthia was in the midst of another [Spell Reworking] session when she heard the omnidirectional *ding!* inside her mind. While this wasn’t exactly atypical, for whatever reason it broke her from her focused reverie. Curious, Ranthia checked the newest notification.

[*ding!* Would you like to evolve [Light Blob] into [Homunculus of Light]?]

[Homunculus of Light]: Form vaguely humanoid constructs of light. Range, number of simultaneous constructs and posable nature increase with level. They may destabilize if interacted with.

“Yes!!! Xaoc, I’ve done it!” Ranthia shrieked joyously.

Ranthia immediately accepted the upgrade. She wanted to dance! She wanted to celebrate! Her mood was so uplifted that she was even tempted to seek out her mother, not that she or her mother had said more than a few terse words to one another since their big fight.

“That’s great little one, don’t suppose whatever you did can help with this?” The woodsman’s voice pulled her attention out of her celebratory haze.

Oddly, there were a large number of rocks on the road, relatively large ones. Rocks from the jungle? How did they get on the road? Ranthia was completely baffled. Nothing she knew could explain such a strange thing. It wasn’t like there was a mountain or a big hill near enough that they could have rolled off of, at least not from what she could see above the canopy.

Ranthia walked over and decided to walk through the rocks to see how big the pile truly was. The gaps would have been sufficient for an adult to squeeze through with a bit of care and patience, but the gaps were trivial for a child to traverse. She slipped through quietly while she stared at the rocks and puzzled at their existence. Perhaps there was a collapsed structure on the other side, some sort of former inn or temporary conjured shelter that had failed?

Instead, Ranthia emerged to find three armed and armored men, with weapons pointed at her.

Fortunately, the trio seemed to be just as confused at the sight of a child as she was of them. Instinctively, she took their moment of indecision to [Identify] the three men.

Each was [Warrior] tagged. Levels 167, 170, and 224.

“Bandits!” Ranthia screamed, at the top of her too-puny lungs.

It was an assumption, but it seemed to be a damned valid one!

Ranthia needed to warn the others, lest any of the idiots that she traveled with were on their way through the rocks. Unfortunately, the men that had their weapons trained on her began to move, spurred into action by her shout.

[*ding!* [Boosted Reflexes] has reached level 15!]

Thanks to her reflexes, Ranthia had just enough time to gather enough light from the surroundings. She made herself glow with the brightest light that she could for a single moment, which caused the men to hesitate and even recoil ever so slightly from her. It wasn’t much, but it was just enough time stolen to allow her to dive back behind the rocks and run through them.

She was surprised at how… calm she felt.

She had no idea where her strange sense of calm came from, not really. It could have been [Combat], [Boosted Reflexes], maybe [Fast Learner], or just her own chaotic knowledge set she inherited with her rebirth. Or maybe it was just that her soul remembered the taste of battle.

That said, she still spared a single moment to rage over the fact that all of her odd knowledge failed to include ‘obstacles blocking the road means bandits!’ It was a damned significant oversight when she knew they existed.

After that moment, she focused on what she could do. The bandits were well equipped and were of a high enough level that the woodsman would barely even slow them down, even if he was half as impressive as he thought he was.

The danger their group was in really couldn’t be overstated.

…Gods, fighting was out of the question. Escape was a joke. That only left…

Already she heard the men she escaped swearing while they called to others. The first three were already bad enough, the fact that there were more of them was absolutely overkill! Desperation cemented her plan.

They had to surrender.

Ranthia emerged from the rocks and saw the familiar face of the woodsman. His face had become a grim mask, and his trusty axe was held ready. Good, he seemed to be in a rational state, he had to listen to her!

“Bandits, we need to—” Ranthia began to speak.

The woodsman roughly shoved her aside, heedless of her words.

Ranthia landed in the dirt and looked up to see the woodsman charge at one of the bandits who had emerged from the jungle. One of the ones the trio had called out to, no doubt.

“No, don’t!” She screamed ineffectually.

The woodsman raised his axe.

A heartbeat later, the bandit’s spear erupted from his back in a bloom of blood. The woodsman died immediately, and his axe fell from his limp grasp. He perished so easily… His tool of trade had never even come close to touching the bandit, before the man had driven his spear through the woodsman’s chest.

In those moments of death, six additional bandits had emerged and already they advanced on the others. The men practically radiated cold violence. Yet the baker, Hexara, and the tavern wench had armed themselves with kitchen knives and stood ready to meet their advance.

Ranthia wasn’t sure what expressions her people wore, there was no time to process it.

This wouldn’t be a fight; it promised to be nothing more than senseless slaughter.

“NO!” Ranthia scrambled to her feet and ran forward as quickly as she could.

One of the bandits kicked at her when she tried to duck past him to reach the others.

[*ding!* [Dodging] has leveled from 10 to level 16!]

[*ding!* [Boosted Reflexes] has leveled from 15 to level 22!]

[*ding!* [Combat] has reached level 15!]

By the grace of Xaoc, Ranthia managed to dodge the blow. Had she managed to actually survive the kick, the blow would have likely crippled her with the level difference between her and the level 174 bandit.

The moment she was clear, Ranthia leapt forward and spun back towards the bandits while she gripped her magic and shoved everything she could into [Homunculus of Light].

A single tall humanoid figure forged from brilliant, warm light formed between the bandits and Ranthia’s people. It was much taller than anyone present—roughly twice a human’s size—and it stood with its arms spread as a blockade, positioned immediately behind Ranthia. It was rough, but…

The bandits hesitated! She probably only had a moment, but…

“We have to surrender! We can’t fight, I don’t want anyone else to die over something this fucking stupid! We’re refugees leaving Perinthus; we just survived a plague we have nothing worth killing everyone here over!”

Ranthia tried to condense every thought she had about how to avoid the fight into a single plea, directed to both the bandits and the idiot villagers. The world itself seemed to pause its endless cycle while everyone fell silent for a precious moment or two—which felt like a small slice of eternity—while Ranthia tried and largely failed to stop the trembling that threatened to overtake her.

“You worm-eared idiots! Stand down! By all the gods I told you to NOT kill anyone! That little girl is clearly both smarter and braver than you worthless maggots!”

The reverie shattered when the three bandits that Ranthia had encountered on the other side of the rocks finally finished their traversal of their own obstacle. The highest level one had immediately started to shout at the group, while the other bandits awkwardly lowered their weapons.

The man walked straight to the woodsman and knelt to confirm his status, before he stood again and glared down at the bandit with the bloodied spear.

“Why?” He demanded.

“…He came at me, armed.” The bandit whimpered back.

“A scared woodcutter, half your level and wielding a gods damned tool, was too great a threat to disarm?”

“…No sir.”

The apparent bandit leader sighed and shook his head, before he walked over and knelt in front of Ranthia, though he remained a respectful distance away. His beard seemed like that of a man who had been clean shaven—like every other man she had seen to date—until quite recently. His armor and weaponry were well maintained.

“I’ll defend myself if I have to.” Ranthia challenged him, with her best fierce glare. She wanted to surrender, but that didn’t mean she was some meek child to be toyed with!

[*ding!* [Cute] has reached level 7!]

Godsdamnit.

The man smirked ever so slightly before he steeled his expression. Ranthia stole the opportunity to study the man further… before she realized something obvious. She had seen the same armor before, in Perinthus.

“You’re with the military!” She blurted out.

“We were, yes. But, unfortunately, you had it right the first time little [Mage]. We’re deserters, we left the 3rd Legion and have become shameful bandits. I do apologize for all of this nastiness though; I told these idiots we should just let anyone through unmolested if they came from the Perinthus side. Part of that is on me, your ‘powerful’ spells caught me off-guard.” The man chuckled self-deprecatingly after he finished speaking.

His words finally reminded Ranthia that she still had her spell active, and she hurriedly cancelled it before the last wisps of her mana were drained. It seemed that there was an upkeep cost to [Homunculus of Light], which she hadn’t ever noticed with its predecessor, [Light Blob]. Despite the situation, she still made a mental note that the spell was still too inefficient if it still used mana constantly while active, rather than just an up-front cost. Maybe that was something she could work on and improve? She hoped so…

The bandits, ten in total, escorted the villagers and their wagons off the road and through a cleverly concealed trail to their campsite, where a handful more men waited. The other villagers were relieved of the kitchen knives they had armed themselves with, though Ranthia kept her own concealed knife. No one had searched her, and the villagers had enough sense to not mention it. That or they failed to think of it, but Ranthia was trying to give their surviving members some benefit of the doubt.

One of the bandits made the suggestion that they should tie Ranthia up. The leader lambasted the man for that. After all, in their eyes, she was a tiny kid and a Light aspected [Mage], while he was a grown ass trained soldier armed in Remus’ best Legion-issued equipment.

To everyone’s surprise, the bandits fed the travelers. It was hard to say if the villagers were more surprised by this or if the bandits were. The leader of the bandits had simply declared that the villagers would be their guests for a day or three while he decided what to do.

His men were loyal enough to not challenge his decision, but to Ranthia it seemed a near thing. Each man seemed to go through some level of inner turmoil before they finally assented. It was far from instant, and it spoke of larger problems.

Problems that might well end up their problem, since the leader seemed to be the only thing that stood between them and whatever ill fate the other men deigned to inflict upon them.

The woodsman’s funeral pyre was barely acknowledged. The bandit that killed him meandered in the vicinity around it, guilt writ upon his face, though even that failed to convince him to approach properly. A couple of the others from the group had stood by while it started, but they soon departed.

Ranthia, awkwardly, stood vigil over it. She prayed for the man—whose name she had never learned—and asked Xaoc to grant the man an extra modicum of wisdom for his next life.

He needed it.

Night fell, but Ranthia was unable to sleep. The bandits—proving they had more sense than anyone she had met since she left the temple after she was healed—kept watch, with two per shift atop a roughly constructed watchtower that was only as tall as two or maybe three men. Still, their vigilance meant that there was no escape. The men still had military discipline and weren’t stupid enough to shirk watch duty in a dangerous jungle. They did, however, turn a blind eye to the tavern wench’s visits to a few tents that night as she tried to plead for her life and safety in the best way she knew how.

Ranthia wouldn’t judge her for that.

She just sat in the section of camp they had been ordered to stay inside and kept her own watch on the men that controlled their fates.

The next day heralded a sky that was dark and grey in all directions. The air was heavy with the threat of rain and the villagers and bandits focused their morning on the preparation of shelter after a quick breakfast. The deluge, as usual, started well before anyone was ready. Choice curses all around! Ranthia even learned some new ones that she could work into her repertoire.

That evening, everyone was huddled under a large make-shift pavilion canopy set up over the cooking area. They ate warm, bland stew and waited nervously for the decision from the leader of the bandits. He had promised to give his decision over dinner, likely to appease his men.

Ranthia flagged heavily from her lack of sleep, but she started awake any time anyone cleared their throat or made any sort of unusual vocalized noise. Her life had consisted entirely of living at the mercy and whims of others. She was sick of it, though there was little that an 8-year-old could do, except be awake to learn what was to come.

At last, the leader of the bandit crew entered. The noise fell and Ranthia physically shook away her drowsiness.

“Alright, I’ve come to a decision. Folks, I am sorry for this, but we will be taking all the coin you had and any other valuables, like jewelry and such. Though this isn’t a terrible deal for you, because I’m sending three of my men with you. They’ll be your escorts, who can keep you folks safe. Your group is too small and far too low in level to get through the Kadan Jungle safely. Just think of the coin and valuables as the cost of hire.”

Briefly, the bandits and villagers seemed to be united in their protest.

The discussion dragged late into the night and, somehow, during it the origin story of the 3rd Legion soldiers turned bandits came out. Apparently, the group was comprised of the soldiers that worked directly under a commanding officer who was sentenced to execution by the Rangers in Perinthus (maybe Remus wasn’t so terrible if greedy corruption from officials earned the death penalty). The group deserted the 3rd Legion out of concern that they would be punished for their connection to the man and the fact that they had followed his orders. They feared that they were certain to be sent back to the front lines—again—to be removed from sight and mind.

Ranthia was always eager to learn about her world and she was drowsy enough to be a touch short-sighted. It was a perfect blend that allowed her to ask what was, apparently, her most damning question yet.

“Who are we at war with?”

She was immediately unnerved by the looks that she got from nearly every single person—villager and bandit both—that was present.

The discussions continued, despite the brief pause induced by that interruption. No one had deigned to answer her, and it seemed the group had come to the unspoken consensus to pretend that the bizarre child hadn’t spoken at all.

In summary, the three bandits that were to guard them had been newly attached to the group and were innocent of following the problematic orders of the condemned officer. Their names weren’t well known, and the bandit leader was confident that they would be able to disappear into a medium-sized town and find a new life.

In the end, the bandits agreed with the plan without any overt complaints, though two of the three that were being sent off seemed to have mixed feelings about leaving their companions. The villagers were less than convinced, despite the bandits’ insistence that three high level warriors for the scant valuables the convoy had was a steal. In spite of that, the villagers were concerned about what they would do when they reached a new town with no money and, of course, they were displeased with the fact that the valuables were literally being stolen.

Ranthia, on the other hand, really felt that their frustration should have been tempered by the knowledge that they really didn’t have much choice. Complaining that the people robbing you weren’t being generous enough about it was just plain stupid. They were being allowed to leave—which was more than a little dangerous to the survival of traitors turned bandits—and the men that were to accompany them were likely to be the sole reason they made it anywhere alive.

Not that the group had ever listened to her about their safety.

At long last, the group finally called it a night. The sun had set an age ago, and Ranthia was so glad that it was done. Their safety seemed to be mostly assured, and she needed sleep badly.

Yet while the people ambled off for their various sleeping arrangements, Ranthia’s mother caught her attention and indicated a quiet part of the camp. Between the lack of anything over there, how late it was, and the downpour there was likely a bit of privacy to be had there, or at least the closest facsimile to privacy they were likely to find. The woman then slipped out, as soon as she knew that Ranthia had seen.

Ranthia slowly walked to the designated location, after a very necessary visit to the latrine. It had been a very long meeting! It wasn’t just that she wasn’t looking forward to another argument. And she knew it was going to be another argument. Honestly, Ranthia was pretty sick of dealing with it; her mother had been nothing but abusive her entire life (as far as she knew).

Ranthia arrived and looked around… had her mother not waited? There was nothing over there. Just when Ranthia cursed aloud and was about to storm off, her mother stepped out from around the pile of logs and pointed one of the bandit’s short swords at her own daughter.

Ranthia tensed and her hand instinctively drew her knife from its hiding place. [Combat] and [Knives] automatically adjusted her stance, before she even had time to think.

…Because she had no idea what to think.

“What are you!? Are you some changeling that devoured and replaced my little Amaranthia, or did that whore of a [Healer] do this to you somehow? Give my sweet little girl back!” The mother demanded, her voice an angry hiss as she struggled to both yell and whisper at the same time.

A whirlwind of emotions filled Ranthia’s mind, and the sensation seemed to spread across her entire body. There was anger and outrage at being threatened and her mother’s disbelief in her humanity. Righteous fury over the attractive young [Healer] that had saved her life being accused and being called a whore. Fear and uncertainty at the concept of crossing blades with her mother, even if the woman had basically been little more than an abusive stranger to her. And, of course, there was a small nugget of guilt since she ultimately had no idea if she even was truly Ranthia.

The anger, outrage, and righteous fury won out. Ranthia moved a step closer to the blade pointed at her, her own knife held up defensively. A snarl covered her face as she basically dared her mother to attack, before her response tore out of her mouth in a low, angry tone.

“So, it’s my fault I lost my memory, or worse the fault lies with the sweet woman who saved my life!? Tell me, Mother,” the word was spat acidly, “just how long was I sick? How long did you leave me dying before you heard about a healer that would actually work for free?”

That was one thing she had pieced together after the pretty [Healer] and the other Rangers had left Perinthus. Ranthia realized that she had never seen a single coin change hands. Further, the Ranger [Healer] had no cash box in the room, nor was anyone else present carrying a swollen coin purse. The older [Healer], the one that had merely confirmed the useful one’s prognosis, had required hard coin and made a grand show of reducing his fee since he wasn’t treating Ranthia, merely confirming what they had already been told.

Shock and guilt covered the stranger she used to call Mother’s face, but only for a moment.

“Don’t you turn this back on me! I know you and those brats you used to play with would play Soldiers Versus Formorians, not that I ever approved. Everyone in Remus knows about the eternal war! And you, you haven’t acted at all like my Amaranthia ever since you woke up asking who I am! You’ve known and done things that make no sense, but you never know what you’re supposed to!”

The rain made it impossible to tell if either of them shed tears while they faced off and pointed weapons at one another. But both women seemed to reach the same conclusion: Whatever bond they had, it had frayed badly with their previous argument… and then and there it had died.

“I don’t have to listen to this shit! I was left for dead and maybe it’s for the best I don’t remember my life with you! Xaoc is all I need, and I pledge before His name that I. Am. Human! You fucking, horrible idiot!” Ranthia snapped.

She then shoved the knife back into hiding, and in her anger, she nearly sliced straight through her tunic and into her hip in the process. Ranthia barely even noticed the damage to her tunic, she just presented the other woman with her middle finger before she turned and stormed off through the rain.

Honestly, she truly expected to have to dodge a sword thrust at her back, but the older woman surprised her by making no move at all. Not that it stopped Ranthia from storming off.

She was too angry to sleep after that, no matter how exhausted she was. Instead, she climbed the rickety watchtower and sat down with the bandits up there. The men ignored her for a while, until one of them moved closer to get her under the oil-treated cloak he wore to ward off at least some of the rain.

…Ranthia still wasn’t sure if the water on her face was just the rain, or if she had started crying at some point through all that. She refused to taste it and find out, she just angrily told herself that it didn’t matter. Instead, she just sat there and raged in silence throughout the night.

Two nights without sleep wouldn’t kill her.

The next morning, when the bandits gathered for their morning drills—despite the torrential downpour—Ranthia joined them. None of the men said a word, instead a couple of them simply made a space for her in their formation and allowed her to join them.

In a surprise that only she failed to see coming, Ranthia proved to be utterly incapable of keeping up with the former soldiers. She was frustrated and exhausted beyond reason afterwards, but she could only promise herself that she would do better. She was trapped in the body of an 8-year-old, but she had to become capable of protecting herself. And she knew that she had to get to that level immediately.

Clearly, no one else would ever be there for her.

The plan was for the villagers and their escort to depart a couple of days after the rains stopped. The roads needed to be dry enough for the slow wagons to avoid getting stuck, and each day everyone expected the rains to conclude sometime that day. For better or worse, nature had other plans, and it rained just often enough for everything to stay wet and muddy for the next few weeks. The villagers complained and fretted about the weather; they were eager to get away from the ‘dangerous’ bandits as soon as possible.

Ranthia, on the other hand, was grateful for the delay. No, she was ecstatic about it.

Each day she continued to train as often as her body allowed, both with the bandits and by herself. One of the bandits that was to escort them when they left even began to help train her knife combat and helped to hone and polish her style (apparently her spat with her mother had drawn eyes and the fact that she was armed was kind of an open secret, though her mother had a terribly bruised wrist for a while from when she was disarmed over her stolen sword). The training was also great for Ranthia’s body, even if it was hard and her best efforts paled in comparison to even the casual displays of competency that the trained soldiers presented.

But she improved. Bit by bit and day by day.

The bandits had proven to be a fascinating sounding board for her plans, at least for her immediate plans to become stronger and self-reliant. They had no [Mages] in their number, but they had trained alongside many. And, frankly, they had a strong sense of viability in combat. Her magic looked impressive but, as they were fond of pointing out, functionally it did nothing. Immobile human-ish glowing figures had a certain shock value the soldiers admitted, but they were right about the fact that her light figures had no offensive or defensive function and were easily dispersed. Worse, Ranthia proved to be unable to even conjure them without shelter when it rained, each droplet just completely annihilated her efforts to keep the light shaped.

Ranthia valued their input, but she was still cagey with her plans for her future class evolutions. In the end, she only trusted them a little, which seemed fair given that they were traitors that had captured their group, stolen their money, and killed one of their number. Rather than get into her second magic class and her hopes to merge the two—and eventually become as close to unkillable as she could imagine—Ranthia instead convinced the bandits that melee combat was the answer to what she would do when she surprised a foe with the figures of light.

Of course, that begged the obvious question, and the bandits were quick to ask why she didn’t use a bow instead of a knife. Range made it easier to deal with surprised targets, and even Ranthia had to admit that archery had a strong synergy with her current build. Ranthia had hated to give anything away to people that weren’t truly allies, but they were persistent. Finally, Ranthia admitted that she planned to take a Dark-aspected melee [Warrior] for her second class. It was true, after all! …It just wasn’t actually her immediate plan; it was something she had planned for much later on.

She ended up a bit pigeonholed though. The ex-soldiers unanimously just kind of decided for her that her future [Warrior] class was going to wield knives. Ranthia… hadn’t really decided what weapon she wanted to wield. She was able to practice the basic forms with a short sword, but even lighter blades were mildly impractically sized for an 8-year-old (and there was no way she could conceal it on her person). Spears… well, she could thrust one—somewhat awkwardly—but that was it. Ranthia was confident that knives were the ideal weapon for children. …But that didn’t necessarily mean that she intended to always wield one.

Still, Ranthia was willing to admit that they gave her some great suggestions for how to modify her training regimen to help her improve the class quality of her future [Warrior] class. The knife drills helped her immediately and she could reconsider her training regimen in the future when she found her perfect partner weapon, she supposed. Plus, overall, it was for the best if she adopted their suggestions immediately. It wasn’t like the weight of her efforts would escape the System’s notice over time, if anything they’d stack up even further.

And, in the end, she needed every advantage that she could get.

Ranthia had been excessively nervous about doing it, but after she sat at level 32 for several days she finally caved and decided to trust the bandits with her safety while she classed up. The bandit leader was nice enough to lend her his personal tent for the process, but she was still nervous about it.

It took her more time to decide to class up than she spent in the world within. Once she finally accepted that no one was coming in to… do whatever, Ranthia finally settled in and triggered her class up.

Her guide simply presented a pale red-wrapped blade to her and, since there wasn’t really another option that was worth considering…

…Ranthia eventually emerged from the tent as a [Deceptive Decoy Mage] and was one step closer to her goals for her build. The class did everything she had dared hope for, aside from the System miraculously handing her an advanced element out of nowhere. Look, there was a difference between what you dared to realistically hope for and what you dreamed in your heart, and the latter was almost always disappointed.

To celebrate, as soon as she emerged from the tent with a smile on her face, the bandit leader grinned and presented her with a gift to celebrate her successful class up.

He held out a belt that had been cut down to fit her with only a double loop. It was a nice leather belt, of course, but the real gifts were the two military-issue knives sheathed on either side of it. Ranthia made the polite, expected noise about being unable to accept the gift; but she put the belt on even while she made the noises. The thick knives were made for slashing and were an incomparable upgrade to the increasingly chipped piece of trash she had pilfered from a gutter.

Of course, this meant her training had to be refocused on a dual knife style, and she had just gotten used to her previous drills.

Oh well, it was worth it!

It proved to require more than a little effort to retrain her body and instincts to a dual weapon style. Ranthia needed to adapt, but it was undeniably worth it. The dual knife style that she adapted from the dual short swords one of their—eventual—escorts demonstrated promised to be far more effective than a single knife, since she could slash and defend or double up on her slashes. Every bit mattered with her limited reach.

Plus, sticking with knives for training made more sense while she was trapped in her current physique than drilling with heavier weaponry that she was only barely able to use. And, well, she was fond of her new knives. They were sharp, well-maintained, and literally designed for use in combat. They were beautiful and a wondrous upgrade from what she had before. …Not that a rusty, fragile piece of literal garbage was difficult to surpass.

Ranthia did feel some remorse though, a bit of guilt that stemmed from the fact that she allowed the bandits to assume she was just a (somewhat proverbial) step away from unlocking her second class and becoming a knife-focused [Warrior], but there was no way that she was going to return the knives. She needed them and she loved them. The knives had immediately become a part of her routine and every night she carefully maintained them before she prayed to Xaoc and went to sleep.

It was nearly a month after they were supposed to have left—and was mere days after she had received her knives—when the group finally departed. The persistent rains had stopped the day she classed up (not that she believed there was any correlation, not even for an instant), and the sky had finally cleared. Ranthia felt like a changed woman—girl, whatever—but she was still determined to continue to improve. She wasn’t quite confident (or delusional) enough to believe that she was independent yet, but she was going to get there.

[Name: Ranthia]

[Species: Human]

[Age: 8]

[Mana: 640/640]

[Mana Regen Rate: 851]

[Stats:]

[Free Stats: 2]

[Strength: 11]

[Dexterity: 34]

[Vitality: 9]

[Speed: 9]

[Mana: 64]

[Mana Regeneration: 91]

[Magic Power: 37]

[Magic Control: 37]

[Class 1: [Deceptive Decoy Mage – Light (35)]]

[Light Affinity: 35]

[Light Manipulation: 35]

[Light Resistance: 21]

[Spell Reworking: 35]

[Homunculus of Light: 35]

[Light Conjuration: 6]

[Light Haze: 9]

-

[Class 2: Locked]

[Class 3: Locked]

[General Skills:]

[Identify: 35]

[Combat: 35]

[Knives: 35]

[Dodging: 30]

[Boosted Reflexes: 35]

[Fast Learner: 29]

[Parrying: 12]

[Cute: 8]