Null Pulse!

Meditate!

With Cassandra and Alden grabbed in each arm, Logan side lunged and rocketed them with him ten feet to the left. He didn't have enough time to charge the skill long enough to take them further.

Cassandra wasted no time, weaving a ward into place even as they were moving. Logan watched in the slow motion of Meditate, mere inches away from the twin beam of fire and blue electricity.

The fire struck her ward first. Some of the flaming tongues recoiled off it, but the sheer strength of the source attack made her ward ripple like a soap bubble being blown on. Some of the fiery tongues passed through.

Where the fire at least recognized the integrity of the ward before distorting it, the electric blue beam sliced directly through it as if it wasn't there. Once that happened, the entire ward burst

Heat blistered his right shoulder, which faced the blast. Cassandra was on his right, too, though, and she had taken most of the damage.

Even through Logan's slowed-down observations of this, she went limp in his arms.

Time snapped back at full speed like a rubber band as the three of them rolled an extra few feet to a stop. The blue-and-red death ray churned the earth where they had stood moments before.

Logan rolled Cassandra onto her back, and her eyelids were partly open. He pressed a hand to her neck. She still had a pulse, but it was weak.

"Spheres!" Alden cursed as he grabbed an ornate health potion, clearly higher quality than any Logan had seen so far, and tipped it into Cassandra's lightly parted lips. The mage pressed her chin closed and squeezed her nostrils until she swallowed. "Logan, do you have a scroll of consciousness? Or any Snapwake Salts?"

The beam rolled and Logan feared it might tear into them, but it went the other way. It completely destroyed the inn they had saved moments ago. As chaos continued around them, Cassandra's health stabilized, but the unconscious debuff remained.

"I don't. Maybe the apothecary has—" he cut himself off, remembering the apothecary had died, according to his grayed out quest to retrieve the man some gray cave moss. Logan raked a hand through his hair, but he might as well search for the salts anyway.

Alden agreed to guard Cassandra, and he pulled the child and her cat safety beside Cassandra.

Logan darted off to the apothecary shop, Nugget flying behind him.

On the way to the apothecary, he passed the vendor's square. Only embers remained of various carts and stalls. A frail hand reached out from behind a ruined booth.

"Help, please!"

It was a fallen, older lady.

Something with tentacles floated in the air ahead, and any moment it might turn and see him. With how exposed he was, he didn't even read the new quest that popped up. He just picked the fallen woman up. "Here, let's get to safety."

He ducked into an alley that ran parallel to the the main drag, carrying the woman in princess style with her elbow around his neck and knees and spine each supported by his extended arms.

"But the monster that marked me is over here."

Of course it is. "Okay, don't worry." He paused and noticed how tightly she clenched her eyes shut. "Are you hurt?" he asked, hoping his hasty, bumpy running gait wasn't inflicting any pain.

She swatted him on the chin. "I'm not made of porcelain, young man. I analyzed the monster before it marked me, and when I got the notification I was marked, I slammed my eyes closed."

Logan opened his jaw to stretch it and relieve the residual ache from her hit. The woman probably had more strength than he expected. He asked what the monster did, and the gist of it was that it marked someone to borrow their sensory perceptions. As long as it could see what she saw, it would know where to find her, which is why she wasn't opening her eyes.

She shivered when she told him about the other thing it could do when it flayed someone's mind once it marked them.

And the monster was the tentacled thing, floating just beyond this building, between him and the apothecary shop.

Logan slowed and entered stealth mode. He couldn't leave the woman behind, but he also needed to get those salts from the apothecary's shop. He asked if she had stealth and could stay quiet, and she nodded wordlessly.

He crept to the edge of the building until he got a good view of the monster. It was floating so high, even its dangling tentacles were still a good fifteen feet off the ground. It was drifting toward the roof.

Name: Tentacled Stalker Type: Monster Level: 32 Health: 86/86 Mana: 93/124 Lore: A predatory horror that brands its prey with a Mindmirror Sigil, turning their own senses into a beacon and a weapon. It stalks from the edge of awareness, feeding off the psychic backlash. When close, it tears into the mind directly, dealing increased psychic damage. So don't let it get close. Strength: Main body elasticity, retractable tentacles Weakness: The tentacles

Stealth is level 21! Stealth is level 22!

Analyze is level 28!

Logan winced. "Okay, stay here and keep your eyes closed. I'll get it to mark me, and the moment it does, you run into the apothecary shop. I'll figure something out and meet you there in a moment."

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

On Logan's request, Nugget stayed to watch over the woman.

He took a deep breath, then climbed up the wood siding for a better view of the rubble-riddled streets. He remembered a time climbing these same buildings where he had struggled immensely, but his climbing abilities were so strong now, it was nothing.

Once he got to the upper ledge, he peeked over. Just when he thought things couldn't get any worse, he saw a chicken pecking at the ground at the apothecary's corner. The eaves were keeping it from the monster's sight, but a few feet further and the chicken would be an easy target.

New quest available! Save Miss Josephine from certain death! Reward: 10 copper coins. Accept? YES/NO

He distinctly remembered this chicken. He had gotten the Void affinity with Null Pulse when chasing it the first time around. Well, now he was going to use Null Pulse to save it.

Quest accepted!

He quietly reached around the corner of the rooftop eave like he was on monkeybars rounding a 90-degree angle. He had earned a threshold perk for his Climbing skill. The perk was called Vicelock, and it improved his grip strength while stationary.

With one hand holding the rafter, he tucked his knees up as if he were doing a cannonball into a pool. He groaned at the strain it put on his abs and shoulders, but pushed through. He had been able to do this move when he was a kid, but this was the first he had done it since then, and he was sure his points invested in strength were the reason for that, even if it wasn't his strongest stat.

He carefully extended his knees and his free palm to plant all three against the wall, spreading them slightly and angling himself for the monster.

Null Pulse!

He charged it for two seconds, then rocketed.

He didn't expect chunks of wood to fly out from the impact. They landed on the white-haired woman and she yelped. The noise and motion startled Miss Josephine, and Logan glanced down just long enough to see the woman had opened her eyes to yell at him to be careful. Which, if he understood the monster's abilities, meant it now had a frame of reference not only for her, but for Logan too.

As he rocketed toward the monster, he got the notification.

Warning! You have been marked with a Mindmirror Sigil. Objective: Hide

No, System, I'm not hiding today.

He lost the element of surprise, and the monster's body curved outward at the middle, temporarily shaping itself like an elastic banana. Logan had been aiming for its tentacles, but instead his outstretched gauntlet only connected with the rubbery squid-like body and did no damage.

Logan collided with a chimney, his shoulder slamming into the plaster coating.

Pain Resistance is level 40!

The monster had bounced away from the impact of Logan's non-damaging strike, but now it turned around and surged toward him, like a squid swimming through air. And if it reached him, it was going to flay his mind.

Arcane Attunement!

Violet psychic mana gathered toward the monster, like water funneling into a drain.

Logan quickly rounded the chimney, trying to think of how he could evade it. Right now, it was following his movements, and he didn't enjoy being the one being tracked, let alone by a tracking method superior to his own Unrelenting Hunt.

Then again, it was only tracking him as long as his eyes were open.

As Logan rounded a dormer's corner, he gripped the amulet of bleed immunity hanging around his neck. The lost time in the Ruined Wilds had been long enough to reset his affinity-swapping cooldown.

Life affinity touchpoint detected. Would you like to assume the Life affinity? YES/NO

You have assumed the Life affinity! Penalty: Void affinity lost. You may not use any Void-aligned skills that require mana until your Void affinity is restored.

Right after he rounded the corner, he clenched his eyes shut.

Rather than continue down this path, he backed up a step and went to the far side of the dormer. The thing was slow moving and wouldn't have reached this field of vision yet. If it was going off the last thing he had seen, it would think he was still heading on the other side of this outcropping.

Feral Echo!

He waited with his eyes closed until he detected the monster by the proximity of its vital signs.

Stealth is level 23!

Feral Echo is level 24!

It drew closer, and for a moment he feared it still knew where to find him. But at the last second, it turned the corner, following Logan's false trail based on his last visual.

He smirked, and crept around the back, eyes still closed as he followed the monster's vitals. He was drawing close enough that he was ready to open his eyes and slash at its tentacles when his toe met no resistance as he kept stalking along the roof.

He had reached the edge, and the monster was just out of reach. If Logan opened his eyes, he might have enough time to kick off with a jump. He just didn't have the extra boost available from Null Pulse, so he'd have to rely on his legs' natural strength.

Before he did, though, the little woman cried out. "Not Miss Josephine!"

Logan detected the new addition of the woman's heartbeat with Feral Echo as she raced toward the chicken.

Your pursuer has changed targets. You are no longer marked!

Logan sighed and opened his eyes. The squid monster was now drifting down. If he had been a little faster, he could have crept up to it. But now he was too high up.

But he had a skill ready for the fall.

Eldertread!

He leaped off the roof, falling a fraction slower than gravity should account for, but still faster than the thing moved. Its tentacles wriggled behind it, and he slashed through them as quickly as he could.

The whole creature writhed and convulsed, then suddenly dropped with gravity, this time now falling faster than Logan.

You have killed a level 32 Tentacled Stalker! Experience gained!

Apparently, killing it had cut off whatever gravity-defying levitation it possessed. Logan descended at his reduced speed, just in time to meet the woman, who cradled Miss Josephine in her arms.

"Come on, let's head inside," he said as he ushered bird and woman both into the apothecary shop. He grabbed the pearlescent violet core dropped by the monster and tucked it into his storage bag, not wanting to open up his storage ripple in front of a stranger.

Inside, the shop showed signs of struggle, and Logan felt a twinge of sympathy for the fallen apothecary. That feeling doubled when he saw a sprawled hand coming from behind the corner. He made a silent promise to return and give the apothecary closure and respectful treatment, but right now he had to prevent the same fate from befalling this little old woman, and he still had to find something for Cassandra who was probably still unconscious.

He wandered behind the counter, analyzing bottles left and right. "Come on, come on…"

He rifled through everything, stepping over jagged glass of broken vials. Nothing on the shelves looked like any kind of smelling salts or anything else that might restore consciousness. He still grabbed some various salves and potions just to have on hand.

Nugget let out a small whimper and Logan followed his eyes to the shattered glass he had stepped over on the floor. Analyze didn't work on the broken remnants, but he could still read the physical label.

It was the Snapwake Salts, but they were soaked through with some other spilled potion.

He shared a sorry look with Nugget. Luck really was something, wasn't it?

As he looked at the wasted smelling salts that would have restored Cassandra, his heart skipped a beat as footsteps approached. But it was just the woman.

"I'm sorry dear, is that what you were hoping to find in here?"

Logan nodded. "My friend needs it, and we don't have a healer."

She looked thoughtful. "It's been a while since I've made my own, but it is a simple recipe."

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