Duskbound

Crescent Hill was a spiritual site dedicated to Morgus, God of Nature and the Hunt, that had been abandoned by almost everyone a decade ago. Velik didn't necessarily think that was his fault, but he knew it wasn't a coincidence that people had stopped coming out to Crescent Hill once the monsters showed up. Only the most fanatical hunters still came out to leave offerings or pray.

He hadn't really expected Sildra to be one of them, but now that he thought about it, that did explain why she'd been so insistent on risking her life gathering [Moonsilk Blossoms]. It was a religious thing. That wasn't something he remembered her being interested in when they were kids, but people changed and the whole area had undergone a lot of dramatic upheavals in the last decade.

Velik wasn't terribly religious himself. No god had ever come to back him up when he was in trouble, and he was too busy to do stuff like spend an entire night harvesting flowers to leave next to a random rock some people had decided was holy. Morgus was probably the god whose values most closely aligned with Velik's, but he didn't spend a lot of time musing about his spiritual relationship with an absentee deity. If Morgus wanted something, Velik was sure he'd hear about it. Until then, he didn't worry about it.

The shrine itself was a simple stone arch placed at the top of a hill, naturally formed in some way that wasn't immediately apparent to Velik. It was a rough, three-foot-thick hoop of stone that rose ten feet into the air. Five men could walk through it at the same time without trouble. Moss grew across its surface and hung down from the top of the arch, pale green and fuzzy in the moonlight.

It was an unusual enough sight that he could understand why some people might think it was divinely inspired, but Velik had seen plenty of equally strange things out in the wild lands beyond the frontier. This one didn't particularly speak to him. But I guess Sildra sees it differently.

She approached the arch with Gorm trailing behind her by a few feet and began placing the [Moonsilk Blossoms] on the ground around the twin bases. Velik watched with a frown from the bough of a pine tree growing at the base of the hill, unnoticed by either of the other people there.

At first, it seemed like she was just spreading handfuls carelessly, but with each one she tossed out, the pattern became clearer. Somehow, seemingly by sheer coincidence, the petals were drifting down to form a mirror of the arch, a flowery shadow cast by the light of the moon. Soon, the baskets and bags of [Moonsilk Blossoms] were empty, and Sildra stood atop a Crescent Hill adorned in luminous white flowers.

That was when Velik got his first sign that a god was watching, and more, that he approved. The reflected moonlight off the scattered petals grew so bright that the entire hill lit up like it was the middle of the day. Hundreds or thousands of strands of moonlight rose up, obscuring the top of the hill and forcing Gorm back. He scrambled out of the way, slipped on something, and tumbled down the hill to collapse in a heap at the base.

Velik watched anxiously, wondering the whole time if he needed to jump in and pull Sildra out of whatever was happening. After thirty seconds, the light dimmed to reveal his childhood friend standing whole and unharmed beneath the arch. Small arcs of moonlight were dancing across her skin, leaving a trail of white dots that slowly faded.

She took a deep breath and opened her eyes. "It's done."

"What's done?" Gorm asked, sitting upright and scowling at her while he prodded a tender lump that had appeared on his head.

"The offering to Morgus, of course. He has accepted it and given me his blessing."

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"That's… uh… that's fantastic. What does his blessing mean?"

"It means I'm no longer a [Seamstress]," she said.

Velik's breath caught. A divinely granted class change?

Gorm must have been thinking the same thing, because he scrambled to his feet. Velik couldn't see the look on his face, but it was easy to imagine. "He gave you a unique class?"

Sildra laughed. "No, nothing like that. I am simply a [Druid] now. It's what I asked for, and Morgus saw fit to grant my prayer."

Velik had only a vague idea what the class did, beyond that it was some sort of nature priest. He supposed it fit well with a god known for his mastery over the wild lands, but as far as any sort of specific class abilities, he couldn't even begin to guess.

"So, what? You can talk to trees and animals now?"

"Someday, maybe." She trailed off with a frown, then shook her head and refocused her eyes down the hill. "I'm sorry. It's a lot to sort through. Let's head back home for now."

The two left shortly after that, with Gorm trudging through the brush, shoving it aside where he could or hacking a path when he needed to. Sildra practically floated along behind him, her hands reaching out to caress tree trunks and leaves.

When Velik looked at her through the lens of [Predator's Visage], he saw something that wasn't a threat, but which was still dangerous. In a way, she reminded him of a pup – weak now, but growing into a powerful wolf in the near future. Whatever it was a [Druid] did, he didn't want to be on the receiving end of it once she'd grown into the class. Gorm hadn't made it seem that powerful, but Velik was guessing he was missing a few key points.

"What're you going to do now?" Gorm asked at one point when they stopped for a break. Despite the way being clear of monsters, they'd walked or run a lot of miles for one night already. Gorm had enough points in physical to hold up, but Sildra was a different story. She'd been hanging on by her fingertips before, and now that the drive to complete her class change was missing, she was quickly growing tired.

"Whatever Morgus wants me to do. Right now, his desire is that I help cleanse the wild lands near the frontier of this monster infestation."

"Druids can hunt monsters? I thought you were supposed to be peaceful," Gorm said.

"Some druids are healers. I don't think that's what I'll be doing."

Gorm made a show of looking around. "Well, you're not going to be gaining any levels like this."

Velik rolled his eyes and started to circle around behind the pair. There were three monsters sneaking up behind them, probably not too strong for Gorm to handle on his own, but Velik wasn't going to find out.

"No, that's fine," Sildra told her bodyguard. "I need time to read about what my class can do so I can figure out what I should do with it. I suspect…"

"You suspect what?"

She glanced up through the boughs of the trees. "I think my path will be tied to the moon. I'm just not sure how, yet."

"I'm sure it'll come to you," Gorm said. "Ready to start walking again?"

"Yes, I think so. We're only a few miles from Deshir. Let's try to make it back in one push."

"Easier said than done. If we were coming in from the north, it'd be one thing, but the brush is so much thicker from this side."

"There should be a trail somewhere nearby," she said.

"And good luck finding it."

Unable to argue, Sildra simply shrugged and motioned for Gorm to lead the way. Vellik finished his ambush of the three monsters stalking them, wiped his spear on the fur of the least-bloodied corpse, and silently drifted along behind them. He was careful to keep them within the range of his senses, even if he didn't maintain visual contact at all times. Any monsters that he sensed nearby met the same unfortunate fate, that of a quick death with his spear pinning them to the ground.

The pair broke free from the tree line with bare minutes to spare before the sun came up. As soon as Deshir was in sight, Velik broke off and darted away at a much faster speed than he'd been going all night. No longer constrained trying to keep his presence hidden—even though he knew both of his charges suspected he'd been lurking around them—he was able to go for quick kills without the need for subterfuge.

Pushing his physical stat for all he could get from it, he arrived back home in less than an hour. By that point, the sun was up and he'd lost [Duskbound], but it didn't matter. The only thing he had left to do was get some rest before he returned to the deep wood in the evening.

He puttered around his rough little cave for an hour to wind down, got his bag packed and double-checked everything, then laid down and closed his eyes. He tried to sleep, but it escaped him. Instead, he spent an hour wondering about Sildra and her new class, if he could expect to run into her regularly if she was going to be a moon [Druid], whatever that meant. Presumably, she'd be on a similar schedule to him.

He couldn't decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Maybe if she didn't live in Deshir, it'd be easier to decide. He still hadn't found any answers when sleep finally caught up with him.