A week’s worth of growth and Creep was already wise as a human adult. But now he was conflicted. He had killed and watched and taught and had reached a point in his small existence where the biggest question of his mind brought the biggest turning point of his life.

 “What am I doing here?” he had no answer to the question the first time it had popped up in his mind. First, he thought he was there to kill. So he killed. Then he thought he was there to teach. So he taught. Now he was the only one alive.

The death of his companions didn’t make him angry. Anger and revenge, these are aggressive sentiments, and Creep is simply, emotionless. During his days of hiding and observing, he had noticed a pattern. The humans invade, the bats resist, and both kill each other; the corpses disappear, more humans invade, and a fresh crop of bats take place of the dead. It was an endless cycle. It didn’t matter whether he killed or taught. His interruptions in the cycle held no meaning. Until now he wasn’t sure what to do next; not until his wisdom crossed the twenty-five point mark.

When he saw the humans getting up and leaving, he decided. I’ll follow them. He didn’t know why the humans were trespassing. Their targets, the bats, were confined. He hadn’t seen anyone leave, yet. He had tried to go the way the humans arrived, but found nothing- just an empty wall, blocking his path. He knew that one part of the human’s reason involved the experience he and, possibly, they, received for slaughtering each other, but this alone wasn’t the answer. The experience increased his level, but an increase in level gave no rewards. Even if the humans did receive rewards for their struggle, he hadn’t.

The motive behind their constant struggle to go deeper into the colony had always intrigued him, but none had managed to pass his group. Now that a group of humans had managed to get past, he was curious. What made them the predators at the top of the food chain? What were they -the bats- fighting for? He wanted to see where the humans were going, and what they were trying to find. So he followed them, hiding in his stealth.

Following the humans he watched them slaughter his fellows, collect their corpses, rest, and hold conversations. They went from chamber to chamber, killing every bat, youngling, teen or adult. They spared no one.

 “This place is acting weird,” Jason commented while slicing the ears of an adult. He proceeded to remove the adult’s wings when Josh replied.

“What was so special about that surface chamber? Why did those bats know strategy, while others are simply following their old routine of attacking with numbers without any rhyme or rhythm? Are the changes not widespread? Did we miss something?” he said while gorging a teen bats brain out of its skull.
 
“It’s unfortunate,” Gwen sighed. “And it seems like we won’t be getting that reward, boys.”

“Do you think it is possible that the recent guild notice about the disappearances-”
Josh interrupted him before he could complete his sentence. “Now, now- the bats there were unique, but they weren’t that difficult to handle,” Josh said looking toward his companions, casting a hygiene skill on his hands to clean the blood.

“That’s because we had you.” Gwen looked up and said, but her eyes met with Jason’s -who had his eyebrows raised in question- and she quickly looked away; her heart beat elevating once again.

Creep was closely following behind them. He had to stay near. His poor eyesight didn’t allow him to stay at a safe distance. If anything, this closeness allowed him to hear their voices. Although his language analysis was still in progress, it had jumped up by 5% three times already during his stalking. The new words, sentences, and structures were helping him a lot.

His success with stealth was only possible because of his uncanny stillness. To the humans, he looked similar to a small rock growth. Moreover, he was small, much smaller than the other younglings. With his wings around his torso, and head tucked, he looked even smaller than a potato. The trio had no chance of finding him.

The trio decimated three more chambers full of bats on their way to the deeper depths of the colony. They followed a map. Soon, they were on the path which went straight toward the nursery. Creep had to decide whether to attack or not if they entered the tunnel, but the humans ignored the tunnel as if they couldn’t even see it. It was clearly there, but those fools had no idea!

They strictly followed the map, moving through the tunnel without wandering off, and finally reached the last chamber marked on their map.

“Well, here we are.”
“Will we reach the boss room this time?” Josh said, looking worried.
“Well- we can always come back,” Jason replied, knocking his shield to check its condition.
“And you have a barrier this time. We can definitely win.” Both men stared at her. She’s too damn confident. They thought. Their eyes met and they smiled.
“Yeah, let’s go.”

The chamber they entered was big: High ceilings, a jagged floor full of rock growth, a dark roof, knee-length water which flowed down the slop and into the room blocked by a closed door, on the other side of the chamber, barely visible from the entrance.

Jason sent four light balls inside the chamber and conjured a barrier for protection. The light balls lit the chamber. The few younglings, already awake, screamed in agony. The teens hid in shade. The adult bats attacked.

“Thank god- everything’s normal here.”
“Don’t diddle dawdle. We can talk about that after taking care of them.” The archer said and shot an arrow straight toward one of the adults. The arrow created no sounds. It was probably her skill. But the adult dodged it.

Once the teens and the younglings adjusted to the sudden presence of light, the fight became a slugfest. The younglings came upon them in a tide. The warrior slaughtered them. The archer picked them from afar.

The teens helped the younglings and chipped at their strength. When the number of younglings decreased to half, the adults entered the fray. There were three adult bats- the highest number of any chamber, enough to keep the three of them occupied.

Jason ran around with his shield in front of him, hacking at the teens and the younglings. Josh and Gwen hid inside the barrier and kept two adults and a few other bats occupied. The stalemate continued for ten minutes before one of the teens managed to paralyze the warrior, and while the priest was dispelling the paralysis, two teens and an adult sent a swirling barrage of wind cutters toward the barrier.

Because Josh couldn’t concentrate, the barrier which had held against everything until now developed cracks. There is no way the barrier would have held against a bash.

“It’s not going to hold out.”
“Leave it to me. Both of you get out!” The archer said and removed an unusually thick arrow with a bludgeoning tip, and fired it. The arrow raced toward the crowd of bats. The bats dodged. However, just after flying a few more feet, the arrow exploded. It killed all the younglings. The teens flew out of the cloud battered and bruised. The adults grew angry from their screams.

Gwen winced at the loss of her arrow. It was an expensive one.

Their barrier broke, unfortunately. But the fire and smoke scared the bats, and pushed them away from the trio, toward the other side of the hall.

“Quick, let’s go. We can’t let them latch onto us.” Gwen said and the trio unhesitatingly started running toward the entrance.

In their hurry, they didn’t notice a bat silently falling toward them from the ceiling. Creep didn’t have to attack, but when he saw the chance, he took it. He wanted to know where the human’s destination laid, but what was the difference between them being dead and gone? Absolutely none.

He didn’t target the warrior or the priest. The warrior was clad in armor and although the priest was a paper tiger, he wasn’t the one whom Creep considered a threat.

He attacked Gwen. He considered an archer, a threat of the highest level, after all. He still had his wings wrapped around his body when he fell, leading to a perfectly silent ambush. His stealth aided him. No noise. No sight. No surprises.

He had watched, and watched, and watched the humans use their weapons to kill. Now he was going to use them as an example and try his findings on them. The dagger he held penetrated through Gwen’s skull, killing her on the spot. Josh -who was running behind her- saw Creep appear moments before her death. He could only watch. Stunned, he watched her body stumble and fall.  By the time he reacted, Creep had already taken flight. A few wing flaps and he was gone before anyone could do anything about him.

“NO!” Josh screamed in agony.

Jason saw him stop. He noticed Gwen’s body in front of him, lying motionlessly in her pooling blood with a dagger sticking out of her skull. His eyes turned blood red; he almost staggered to a stop. Sounds turned off. A piercing pain erupted from his chest. His heart almost stopped with his steps. Tears welled up in his eyes. He stabbed his sword HARD in the ground to stay balanced; gritted his teeth to hold the scream inside his throat. His throat felt so dry. He gulped. The saliva felt like barbs gorging his insides. His glove clanked when he clenched his sword. The next step he took felt so heavy. He wanted to drop dead- die, Kill! The emotions which Creep hadn’t ever felt, the rage which should have swallowed his reasoning, the temper which should have burned his calm, they came, erupted, willed him to take revenge, filled him with hatred, then stopped. Without stopping, he kept moving. He didn’t look back. He couldn’t.

His momentum pulled the sword out of the ground, which he pushed back into the scabbard on his back, grabbed Josh’s robe, and dragged him away- whilst not stopping for a single second.

“No!” Josh’s scream echoed in the chamber behind them as they darted out.

Creep peered at them as they left, hiding in the middle of the ecstatic bats. He took note of their actions. He saw none of them follow the humans- As if they couldn’t leave. He would have noticed a criticizing glare being directed at him by the adults if he wasn’t occupied by the messages ringing inside his head.

[You, a monster, used a foreign tool to do your biding.] [WIS +1]

 

[Title: Wielder unlocked.]

[You receive an extra point in Strength every time you level up.]

 

[You successfully ambushed and killed your opponent in one strike.] [Agility +1]

 

[Stealth has risen to level 6][Agility +2] [Your presence fades even further.]

 

[Title: Ambush unlocked]

[You receive an extra point in Agility every time you level up.]

 

[Skill: Dagger mastery unlocked][Lv-1][Passive] [Helps you wield the daggers.] [Lv-1; daggers are small weapons, perfect for an ambush. A successful ambush deals twice the damage.] [Strength +2, Agility +2, Intelligence +1]

 

[You have leveled up.]
[You have leveled up.]
[You have leveled up.]

[You are now a level seven Teen cave bat.]

[Congratulations! You finally have 10 points in Strength.]

[Skill: Motor control unlocked.] [LV-1] [Passive] [This skill increases your control over your body.] [Requirement: STR- 10; AGI- 25] [Effect: STR +1; AGI +1]

 

[You have survived till level five without distributing your stats points.] [All stats +1]

[You, sir, are a survivor.]

[Title: Survivor unlocked.

[You receive an extra point in constitution every time you level up.]

 

[You have survived till level six without distributing your stats points.] [All stats +2]

 

[Congratulations! You finally have 10 points in the attribute constitution.]

[Skill: Stamina regeneration (I) unlocked][Passive][LV-1] [The skill helps your body to recover from stress at a slow rate.] [Effect: +Constitution x skill level/hour] [+1 max St/level]

 

[You have survived till level seven without distributing your stats points.] [All stats +3]

 

Creep-07
Level	7	Species	Young Cave BAt
Health	88/88	Stamina	94/95 [+14/hr]
Mana	0/383	Gender	Male
Titles
Emotionless, Wielder, Ambush, Survivor
Stats: (*) attributes can’t be enhanced with skill points.
Strength	19	Intelligence	70
Agility	26	Wisdom*	33
Constitution	14	Charm	10
Luck	6	Free skill points	60
Skills:
Passive	Computing(3), Sound sense(5),Eidetic memory(-), Analyze(2),  Motor-Control(1), Stamina regeneration(I)(1),
Active	Echolocation(3), Flying(2), Bite(2), Stealth(6), Burst(1)