Duskbound

"What the hell is a corrupted seed bearer?" Velik asked.

Torwin frowned, but didn't answer. They stood over the corpses of three strange monsters, all of which Velik would have said he recognized. One was an enormous mist toad, probably the biggest Velik had ever seen at close to eight feet tall. The other two were a hookpaw bear and a burrow skinder. At least, that's what they should have been, but the system had other ideas.

"They didn't [Identify] as that until we killed them," Torwin finally said. "That means they've got some sort of skill to hide what they really are."

"Which is?"

"Probably some sort of parasitic monster. Maybe they killed the hosts and took over the meat."

"If so, they had access to the host's skills. The mist toad was leaving clouds of vapor everywhere."

Torwin nodded along. "It's also possible that the hosts were still alive and that the parasites took them over, but I don't think so. We would have gotten notifications for killing the host monsters in that case. These things must somehow copy their hosts abilities, maybe more."

"More?" Velik asked.

"Memories," Torwin clarified. "Monsters that can copy skills usually can copy more than that. Sometimes they're infiltrators."

"You're saying these could get into humans and walk around town?"

'It's… possible."

I've never seen anything like this, and I've been here killing monsters since the beginning. Are these new, or have they already made it back to the frontier? More importantly, now that we know they're out there, is there a way to find them that doesn't involve killing the host?

"What can we do about this?" he asked.

"Well, what would you do if you were by yourself?"

"Put it out of my mind and keep going. I don't have a way to hunt these things down, so there's nothing I can do but keep trying to eliminate the source. I wouldn't even know what they are if not for you."

"That's about all we can do. We'd need some sort of specialist investigator to root these things out, someone with some sort of monster detection skill, and there aren't too many types of classes that can do that. Unless… Can you?"

Velik shook his head. "I had [Intuition] at one point that might have pointed me at a monster in disguise, but I folded it into other skills a while ago. Now it just kind of gives me a vague assessment of relative strength between myself and a monster I'm fighting and helps me spot potential ambushes."

"Hunter types are the most likely to have the requisite skills, but even most classes don't get them," Torwin explained. "I was hoping since yours was unique…"

"I don't have a free skill slot even if I can find something in my class list," Velik said. If only I could get [Phalanx] to merge into [Spear Warden], I could change that.

"Probably for the best. No point in ruining your build taking a niche skill that's situationally useful right now, but which you'll probably never need again once this job is done. For now, I think you've got the right of it. Best thing we can do is keep moving forward until we find the root cause of all these problems."

Once again, Velik lamented the lack of a distance reader on the mana compass. For all he knew, they could be minutes away from the next target. Or maybe it was hours. He'd messed with the parameters he'd set up a few times, trying to find information to narrow things down, but in the end, the best and easiest way to find large sources of mana was when it manifested as a champion elite.

Not that that's led us to anything worth finding, but it's only been a few days. And even if we don't find the source this way, it's still good to get rid of these things. If Chalin really is the one making these things, though, this is the only way I can think of to find him.

Torwin seemed insistent on keeping up with Velik now, even to the point of staying up throughout the night and matching his sleeping cycle. The old hunter was powerful enough that Velik knew the dark didn't really hinder his vision, but he still preferred to work alone. On the other hand, if he was going to be fighting another champion over level 40, he could use some help. It was really a miracle he'd survived the last fight.

They left the three corpses behind and followed the compass west and north toward a small mountain range. Neither of them voiced the fear, but Velik figured Torwin was just as concerned as he was that their next target was behind that natural barrier. It would probably be the work of weeks to circumvent it.

The sun started to rise well before they reached it, and they quickly settled on a location to catch some sleep and worked out a watch rotation. Velik was accustomed to sleeping lightly, but he wasn't going to turn away some extra security when he was at his most vulnerable, especially with the number of monsters in the upper thirties range of levels in the area.

Torwin settled himself in, leaving Velik to do a circuit around the area. It took him about half an hour to kill all the nearby monsters, a feat he accomplished much more easily thanks to his newly upgraded spear. The remaining champion cores he was holding tempted him greatly, but he held firm by reminding himself that selling those would bring him the riches he needed to buy more pieces of gear, and that once this was all over with, he could travel to a city with craftsmen who could make those pieces at a fraction of the price.

All he had to do was think of Torwin's apprentice, a guy who was fairly mediocre as far as his talents went with a similarly unimpressive class to pair with it. But his father had more money than the gods and Jensen was kitted out in all sorts of trinkets that let him hit far above his level. Velik wanted some of those toys for himself.

He was up to just over two thousand decarmas, and if he had to grind the rest of the money out this way, it'd be the work of years. Every champion he killed represented weeks or months of work. From what Velik understood about how champions normally only appeared in dungeons, and that when they died, they didn't leave seeds behind, it was extremely rare to get even a single one, let alone multiples.

There was some way to claim the seeds from a dungeon once its core was destroyed, but that only resulted in one or two, depending on the dungeon's size. A harvest of a dozen or more champion seeds was unheard of. At least, that was what Torwin had told him when he'd asked why they were so valuable.

With his lap around the new camp complete, Velik returned and settled down to do his few hours of watch through the dawn. His spear rested against his shoulder, waiting for the next monster to make the mistake of getting too close to would-be prey.

* * *

Sildra's chest heaved from the exertion of running. No less than seven people had descended on her seconds after she'd killed Vickers, three of them part of the town watch. She'd tried to stammer out an explanation, but they hadn't bothered to talk. As one, they'd advanced on her with pitiless, blank expressions on their face and logging axes or defender's spears held in their hands.

She'd done the only thing she could: she'd run for her life. [Lunar Flare] took something out of her each time she used it, and she was already tired from a night's hunting. Fighting off the flash maw hare and whatever the hell that thing pretending to be Vickers was had taken the rest of her energy. When she'd been immediately confronted with another battle, there'd only been one option.

Unfortunately, her pursuers weren't content to let her go. They'd started a game of cat-and-mouse in the woods, except there were seven cats working cooperatively against her, and she wasn't sure if she could fight back without hurting them. Without any understanding of what had happened to Vickers, she had no clue if she'd killed the man she'd known her whole life or just some monster pretending to be him.

She was half a mile into the forest, hiding in a tree that loomed over a thicket and hoping no one would spot her. The town watch would be the highest level, and thus the most likely to sniff out her hiding place, but she needed a few minutes to recover before she started running again. If nothing else, she wanted her reserves of magic fortified enough to handle three or four casts of [Lunar Flare]. It wasn't that she was planning on killing anyone else, but if it came down to them or her, she knew what her choice would be.

Morgus, tell me what's going on here. Please, I don't know what happened. How do I save these people?

[You have been granted a new quest: Purge the town of Deshir of the corrupted seed bearers.]

With the quest came the knowledge of what her patron deity wanted of her. The system said it in words, but Morgus imparted his directives directly into her mind. Without hesitation, she went into her system menus and found her class skills. It was easy to locate the one she needed.

[You have gained the skill: Eye of the Moon.]

Its description was simple enough. The light of the moon revealed monsters, even if she couldn't see them. Instantly, the location of dozens of monsters in the forest appeared in her mind, including seven human-shaped ones all nearby.

Monsters they are, then. Thank you for marking my path for me. I know what to do from here.