A conspicuously tall bush tiptoed its way to the edge of the world. It—she—approached the horn laterally, skirting the line where its precipice gave way to the abyss.

She twisted her lips into a faint smile as she cast her eyes into the void. It reminded her of home, of the countless times the maids had rebuked her for getting too close to the manor’s edge, and of the way it felt for the wind to lift her hair while her legs dangled above the cloudy skies. But at the same time, it was wrong.

The problem lay with the empty backdrop. There was nothing but sky, no mountain ranges, no oceans, and no faraway cities could be seen on the horizon, regardless of how far she looked. It was almost like every direction was up—like Borrok Peak and Mirewood Marsh were the only two places in the whole wide world.

Though they were stupidly tenacious, Claire was unimpressed by the borroks as a whole; they didn’t notice her approaching until she was just ten meters away from the cave’s entrance. And even then, the only individual to spot her was a straggler. The bug-monkey opened its mouth, but she paralyzed it and jabbed a blade into its throat. Twisting the bone to and fro, she wrecked the creature’s vocal cords before it could sound the alarm. She moved her antler from its neck once as it gasped for breath and traced the blade down its back. Wrenching open its carapace, she bifurcated its wings before casually tossing it over the edge.

The cat-monkey struggled, but it was unable to regain any of the height it lost, no matter how wildly it flailed its limbs. It shrunk rapidly, remaining visible only because it was the sole speck of black in a sea of whites and blues. A faint flash of red was added to the mix after a brief delay, and then, nothing. Both the foreign hues were removed, purged from the empty canvas.

Log Entry 804
You have slain a level 21 borrok.

Log Entry 805
You have leveled up. Your health and mana have been restored and all harmful status effects have been cleansed.

Your primary class, Llystletein Rogue, has reached level 29.

You have gained 2 ability points.

She slipped through the entrance before any of the others could notice and made her way into the horn. From the outside, the cavern’s interior had appeared boring and bland, but everything changed as she stepped through its mouth. The world began to distort; the colours mixed together, forming a series of blurred lines along the edges of her vision. Walking into the light at the end of the tunnel revealed an environment far larger than any the iron spiral could have possibly contained.

Biting winter winds assailed her as she gazed upon a whitened mountain. Its jagged, snowy peak glimmered in the distance, shining beneath the light of a crescent moon. Evergreen pines could be seen growing in patches, brightening the snow with their glistening, verdant reflections. Countless stars shone upon the landscape, dotting the night with distant clouds dyed in purple and blue. And above it all, a bright line of heavenly bodies, a veritable trail in the sky that stretched from one distant horizon to the other.

Claire pulled her ears inside her cloak with a shiver as she brought her arms to her shoulders. Her mantle wasn’t thick enough to keep out the cold.

While the stains that covered it didn’t immediately freeze, it would only be a matter of time before the blood-soaked garment was transformed into a sheet of ice. Worse yet was the halfbreed’s newfound lack of motivation. Waves of lethargy hit her one after another, urging her to build a fort of blankets and sleep her way through the winter. The mountain’s size was just as discouraging as her reptilian physiology. It was too tall, perhaps even insurmountable in the time remaining, assuming she proved capable of climbing it at all.

There was no telling where her targets were. She hadn’t the faintest clue as to how she was meant to identify the sentinel or the lifegiver, and vandalizing the mountain seemed outright impossible. She simply didn’t have the means to deface anything so massive.

Thinking that she should hunt a wolf for its pelt, Claire spun around, only to find the doorway removed from the otherwise empty space. There were maybe three meters of snow to her rear. And beyond that, nothing but a vast empty sky. She tried waving her hands through the space, but there was no invisible portal, no sudden shift. The mountain was the only reality that remained.

A groan escaped her lips as she reluctantly started up the slope. Unlike the horn, the massive, snowy spike was fully formed right out of the gate. It didn’t suddenly grow with every step—the only aspect that even came close to appreciable.

Her toes were practically frozen by the time she made it to the first wooded patch. The snow was working its way beneath her scales and wrapping her feet in a freezing cold embrace. She needed to breathe deeply to fuel her muscles and wade through the knee-deep banks, but even slow and shallow breaths pained her. Her lungs, ill-suited to the freezing mountain, screamed in agony with every exchange of air.

Leaning against a pine, she cupped both hands around her mouth and looked around for a source of heat. But there was nothing. The only animals nearby were squirrels and small birds; none of their pelts were thick enough to alleviate the lack of warmth.

It felt like she would soon succumb to the cold. More than ever, she wished for the manor’s homely heat, for the bygone opportunity to sit by the hearth and lean into her mother’s loving embrace.

The imagined comfort remained until she forced herself to her feet. It faded rapidly as she recalled the cold sensation of her mother’s scales on the day of her death, of the absence of her father, as he skipped the final farewell to attend some war council or other. And of the way that their relationship had distorted ever since. Each cold memory another step through the snow.

She spotted several groups of borroks on her way up the mountain, each of which was summarily avoided. She couldn’t afford to pick a fight with her body so lacking in strength. She could barely react to her feet against the ground.

Eventually, after what felt like an eternity of staving off the reaper, she came across a system of caves carved into the side of a tall, stone wall. In and of themselves, the environmental details were hardly worth noting. Nay, what caught her attention was not the system of caverns, but the single hollow cavity illuminated by a flickering orange glow.

She could tell from the crackling that touched her ears through the howling winds. It came from an active flame. Finally, a source of heat.

She approached it with caution, hugging the wall as she snuck up on its entrance. A bulking humanoid shadow revealed a single occupant, a man with a bowl between his hands and his legs crossed in front of the flame.

Peering inside presented her with a being made almost entirely of fur. Its colouring was not too different from her own, white with a tinge of blue. But unlike the halfbreed, it wasn’t shivering in its nonexistent boots.

Claire gulped as she reached for her mace. She didn’t recognize the creature’s species, but she knew right away that it was the solution she needed—its skin would provide her with a layer of armour thick enough to ward off the winter winds.

But her plan ended in an immediate failure. It turned around as she neared it and revealed an invisible face covered in the same fur as its frame. The only feature she could make out was a single colossal eye as wide as her forearm was long.

“You, visitor? Visitor, sit.” The cyclops grunted as it gestured towards the icy bench by the open flame. It spoke Marish, the common tongue, but its accent was thick and difficult to interpret.

Claire was hesitant to obey. Her heart was still pounding from the would-be assassination attempt, and she had countless doubts as to its intentions. But after a moment of silence, she pulled her hand away from her weapon and joined it around the fire.

A cursory glance confirmed the cave as the hairy man’s home. Several pieces of icy furniture, chairs, benches, and tables, were strewn throughout the space. Their designs were haphazard, but the material used in their construction was beautiful, clear enough to see through with only the slightest hint of distortion.

There were some other supplies as well, some meats and furs stashed in a corner, just far enough that it was only faintly lit. There was a mountain of fresh wood as well, its size second only to the massive pile already tucked beneath the bubbling cauldron. There was another pine seated right beside it, freshly stripped and ready to be harvested for heat.

The pot itself made for a less pleasant sight. It was filled with a murky red liquid, with skulls, fruits, and even a fistful of tied branches intermingled within. It was clearly a barbarian’s meal, an unappetizing mess that only a primitive savage could enjoy.

Settled in her seat, Claire took a deep, warm breath and looked up at the towering yeti. It was more than double her height, perhaps even triple if its massive, crystalline horn was factored into the equation.

She could feel her feet thawing as the flames tickled her toes and stoked the life back into her flesh, but discomfort remained at a high. The giant loomed over her like a watchful hound. She nearly jumped out of her skin when it raised one of its hands and cast a spell. If its fingers had drawn any closer, the rogue surely would have bared her dagger and attacked, but the tension drained from her shoulders when she realized it was forming a massive bowl.

“Visitor, eat?”

The cyclops dipped the container inside its pot and presented its contents. The retching scent that spewed from the vessel pulled her attention to the eye that lay within, the eye that looked almost identical to the furry creature’s.

It had been a full day since she last ate, but the halfbreed refused the concoction with a shake of the head. It was a rejection that came with a dose of danger. Among some of the less developed but supposedly intelligent races, like the lizardmen of Talihir, refusing kindness was no different from declaring open hostilities. Claire was ready to fight, but evidently, the one-eyed bear did not subscribe to that particular philosophy. It spent a moment eyeing her suspiciously, but soon relented and returned the stew to the pot, bowl, eye, and all.

“Me, hunter. What, you?”

“I’m just passing through.”

“Pass, here? Mountain, nothing.” It snorted as it leaned forward and rested its arms on its legs. “Borrok, only.”

“I’m here for the borroks.”

“Kill?”

Claire nodded. “Yes. Kill.”

“Okay. Visitor, borrok, kill. Visitor, friend.” The one-eyed beast smiled with its eyelids; both the top and bottom came together to form an upwards curve.

Nodding, with her eyes still sitting on its hands, Claire activated Llystletein Authority and quickly browsed its tiny list. Eventually, after a brief, reluctant delay, she selected the newest entry and brought it into the world. She still despised the thought of eating the flying amphibians, but a basket of stale bread wasn’t going to cut it. She needed something warmer, and there was hardly another choice.

She was about to dig in when she determined that there was a firm gaze fixed upon her. Looking between the cyclops and the dish, which appeared to be what had drawn the creature’s interest, she decided to take only one wing for herself before pushing the rest toward him.

It was a present. But the monster did not accept it. Visible puffs of air spewed from its single nostril, kicking up its fur, as its eye turned bloodshot; it was about as far from happy as she was from home.

“You, say sorry!” it snarled. “Me, hunter! You, visitor! Hunter, me!” The creature stomped right up to her without any concern for the objects between them. One of its legs smashed into the pot, kicking it aside and splattering its contents all over the frozen cave, while the other tore through a bench and stomped it to shattered bits.

It was upon her in a heartbeat. Its tall frame shook with every breath it took. Its big fuzzy hands were balled into fists and its gaping maw was dripping with foam and slobber.

“Back off,” she said.

“No! No, no, no! Hunter, no you! Hunter, me!” It lashed out with a punch, but Claire darted between its legs and evaded the telegraphed attack. The cyclops crafted a large icicle as it spun around, a tiny kitchen knife by its standards, but a full-blown longsword by most others.

Claire drew a dagger and caught the creature’s blade with a parry. Her weapon was substandard, makeshift at best, but it remained far superior to the brittle medium employed by her foe. The ice broke upon contact, shattering into a thousand shards that vanished before they so much as touched the ground.

But she was still sent flying.

The force of the blow knocked her off her feet and threw her out of the cave. She landed over a dozen meters away, inside a bank of snow.

The cyclops leapt through the sky, nearly crushing her beneath its five-fingered feet, but Claire rose from the numbing white powder just in time to dodge. She grabbed a longer antler and slashed at the creature’s leg when she passed it by, but to no avail. All the dense hair between her blade and its skin dulled the blow to the point that it failed to draw blood.

It retaliated with its other leg, lifting the limb and kicking backwards like a horse. The motion was faster and more dexterous than anything she would have expected, but it didn’t catch her off guard. Durham had delivered a thousand similar blows during her lessons. And though she had hardly taken his advice to heart, she knew exactly how she was supposed to react.

Ducking underneath the attack, she bashed the butt of her dagger straight into the yeti’s shin. Again, no blood was drawn, but a howl of pain erupted from the creature’s throat. The sudden, unexpected stimulus led its leg to lurch forward with an uncontrolled spasm.

Another opportunity.

Claire pushed with her knees and thrust her antler straight up into the primate’s loins. She had half expected the monster to collapse where it stood, but it shrugged off the blow and caught her with a sideways kick.

The halfbreed crossed her arms just in time to stop the blow from breaking her ribs, but again, she was sent flying. Her second excursion ended with her back violently smashed against a tree. Its frozen needles pricked her and its jagged wooden branches tore into her body, shredding her garments and rending her flesh. Her scales were no better off. They were ripped from their places, their roots replaced with splinters.

Still, she hurried to her feet, and just in time. No sooner had she relocated than an overhead slash landed on her backrest. Another attack followed, but again, even with her arms numb, Claire swung an antler and forced a collision. And again, the ice gave way to bone. It happened once, twice, thrice. The yeti’s blade broke every time, but the rogue failed to seize the advantage. Its attacks were too heavy. Her arms were knocked back after every clash, and her feet were forced deeper into the snow. It was only by diving between its legs again that she was allowed a moment of respite.

Glancing at her weapons elicited a grumble. The shorter antler wasn’t chipped enough to be discarded, but its longer counterpart was filled with cracks.

She coated the weapon in a thick layer of quicksilver and threw it as the monster turned to face her. To nobody’s surprise, it was summarily dismissed. A flick of the wolly wrist sent it flying into the snow. But she was not discouraged.

She kicked off the icy terrain and dashed at the towering gorilla. She sidestepped a swing and spun past a stab before leaping towards its massive eye with her dagger coated in poison. Her aim was true. But the critical weakness remained unscathed. 

The cyclopean sasquatch reeled its head back as she thrust her blade and caught her dead on with the headbutt that followed. Its crystalline horn nearly gored her, but she shifted the angle of her blade and stopped it shy of impaling her. Claire tumbled through the air and landed on her feet, but she wasn’t quick enough to recover. Her foe was upon her in a heartbeat, forcing her to parry blow after blow. She could feel her arms creaking and her hips screaming as the shock of every strike coursed through her body. Every attack was a loss of ground. Slowly but surely, she was being pushed back towards a patch of wooded land.

The primate’s intelligence only added to her problems. It was holding its legs much closer together—there was no longer any room for her to slip through them. Her only choice was to endure the assault.

She nearly panicked when her dagger shattered. The only other blade in sight was the half-broken blade buried in the snow. But it was precisely that which inspired her to recall her newfound magic. Reaching past the monster, she magically pulled the glimmering, half-broken antler and turned it into a piercing bolt. The weapon whistled through the air and pierced the cyclops’ back. Its mercury-coated blade ripped through fur and muscle alike, stopping only when its tip emerged from the other end of the yeti’s body.

The beast faltered, but remained on its feet. Stumbling forward as it roared, it threw a blow far quicker than any in its record. Claire leapt out of the way, but she lacked the speed to fully escape. The blade cut deep. It tore through her muscles and ripped apart her veins. And yet, there were only a few drops of blood. A thick layer of ice spread from the incision on the halfbreed’s forearm and captured everything from her elbow down.

The bizarre wound distracted her. She was so caught up in the ensuing panic that she failed to notice the incoming kick to her gut. The heavy blow sent her flying through the forest, past the trees and into a tiny shrub.

She didn’t get up right away. She couldn’t. Her mouth was filled with the taste of iron and her stomach was screaming at the top of its lungs.

Her head was spinning and her eyes were blurry. They didn’t clear up, no matter how many times she blinked. But even with her sight distorted, she could easily make out the cyclops. The towering brute was pushing its way through the trees, approaching in near silence. Any branches too inconvenient to displace were cut apart, split in half by the blade it had in hand. Strangely, none of the wood reacted like her arm. It all remained exactly as it was, untouched by the biting frost.

Wiping the crimson drool off her lips, Claire got to her feet and reached for her remaining sword, only to stop halfway in favour of a weaponless stance. She already knew that the blade would get her nowhere. The yeti wasn’t mindless—a trait that served as equal parts strength and vulnerability.

The rogue took a deep breath, leapt to the side as the giant stepped forward, and prepared to attack. Unperturbed, the cyclops followed her intently and raised its weapon overhead. There was a brief window where it obscured its own vision with its bulky, hairy arm.

And that was when she moved. 

Expelling all of the air she held in her lungs, the half-lamia spat. A stream of blood and saliva nailed the furry beast’s eye. Along with an extra surprise.

It was a tooth. A tooth she had torn out with her very own tongue. Unlike her mother, Claire didn’t have any venom glands, but she compensated by coating the projectile with a layer of raven-made fuel.

For once, the yeti recoiled, screaming in pain as a vector shoved the fang deeper and deeper into its ocular socket. And then, right as it neared the far end, the spell was reversed, torn out of its eyeball through a completely different route. Over and over, the process was repeated. The large jagged blade sawed its way through the monster’s eye like a dagger through a traitor’s heart.

Her foe flailed wildly, stabbing at where she had been before she sealed its sight. But it didn’t hit her. She had already moved a whole ten meters away, just barely within range of her most reliable spell. Fifty casts later, the cyclops’ signature organ was gone, torn to bits. Her mana was half depleted, but her opponent was on its knees, clutching its face and howling in pain.

That was when she finally approached. Mace in hand, she smashed the weapon into its neck full force. It didn’t break after the first hit, nor after the second, but Claire didn’t lose heart. She continued whacking at its spine with every last bit of strength she could muster. Until she suddenly couldn’t.

A fist smashed into her shoulder and sent her flying. The force of the blow shattered her arm instantly. Agony coursed through her system. She could feel every splintered bone, each broken fragment digging its way into her flesh. But she didn’t scream. She couldn’t. The attack had winded her; there was no air left in her lungs.

Breathing tortured her, and not just because of the cold. Blood was dripping from her lips with no signs of stopping.

She tried to raise her arm, but the limb wouldn’t respond. It continued to do nothing but hang limply at her side, no matter how desperately she barked her commands.

The blinded beast started stumbling in her direction, screeching as it grew ever closer with each step. She managed to force her body to rise, but she couldn’t run. The best she could manage was an awkward hobble. The blind gorilla was faster. She had to fight.

Clenching her jaws, Claire put her magic to work. Her mace flew forwards and propelled itself into the yeti’s neck, followed shortly by the blades hanging off her waist and thighs. They were fired straight into the various organs scattered throughout its frame. She even manipulated the weapon already embedded in its chest, pushing it back and forth to spread the quicksilver that coated its surface. Soon, the yeti’s once-white fur was dyed a deep red. Still, the fuzzy, behemoth charged. The only thing that was able to halt its advance was a full-force Paralyzing Gaze.

In the meantime, the halfbreed stumbled towards a tree and ripped off a small branch with her teeth. The wooden implement was soon coated in a layer of fruity poison and thrown with a twist of the neck.

The prickly stick flew off in a random direction when she first launched it, but a quick magical tweak sent it into one of the furry creature’s open wounds. The toxin forced a series of constant sneezes, but the monster was undeterred. It kept moving, advancing on her with its icy weapon in hand.

Its lack of sight made its attacks easy to dodge, even with her body so sluggish. Evading a particularly big swing, Claire leapt onto its head and started stomping at its neck. She enhanced the brutal attacks by jumping as high as she could and magically accelerating her feet as she descended. She was the axe—the axe that served as the cyclops’ executioner.

Three heavy strikes later, there was a resounding crack.

The battle had finally drawn to a close.