There had been a cheap polished metal mirror in the room she’d had.

  Ranthia fled back upstairs before the tavern owner could say anything else. She was scrambling, but, somehow, she still moved lightly and smoothly thanks to her [Warrior] class bolstering her dexterity.

  She had to see. She. Had. To. See.

  She reached the room. The mirror was… there!

  …She waited.

  She knew, just knew, what notification she was about to get.

  There was no way the System was going to let her keep it.

  She braced herself for [Sexy] to be taken away.

  …

  Nothing came.

  Ranthia took a deep breath once she accepted that the System wasn’t going to strip her beloved vanity skill from her. She still felt shaky—on the inside, at least—but she slowly moved closer to the mirror and forced herself to look. To really, really look deeply at what she had become.

  Before she got the Mirror element in her first class, her eyes had been a shade of dark brown that she always liked. The Mirror element had given her eyes a polished, almost glittering effect that she grew to admire. Especially once she saw Hexara’s gorgeous eyes with the exact same elemental effect. Giving up on matching the woman she loved was one of the hardest aspects about making her [Warrior] class her lead class.

  When [Blade Dancer] took the level lead her eyes had changed. Her dark brown eyes were still there, but the whites of her eyes had been replaced by a sea of darkness. The effect was unfamiliar, but she’d talked herself into liking it. There was a certain cool mysticalness to it, but at the end of the day they had still been her eyes.

  But now…

  The whites of her eyes were still replaced by the same deep obsidian hue. It was hard to make herself pay attention to it but she thought it might have looked slightly more ‘in motion’ than it used to? Like a whirling, impenetrable darkness. Maybe she just hadn’t looked closely before and that was how it had been since Void touched her eyes instead of Mirror. But she was distracting herself from the worst part of the change.

  [Vision of the Void] had taken her eyes. Where the familiar dark brown had once been, it felt like there was just a hole in her eyeballs. Twin clear pits that reminded her intensely of the void she had once trapped herself within back when she acquired [Distorted Likeness]. It made it extremely difficult to focus on the strange ‘gap’ in her eyes—she wanted nothing more than to recoil away from them.

  She didn’t look like a [Sexy] woman anymore, she looked like a monster hidden within human skin.

  Ranthia choked back the sob that threatened to escape her and closed her eyes. She’d adapt… probably. For now, she needed to compose herself and find her team. She had a job to do.

  “What do you mean they left?” Ranthia demanded.

  She had recovered, she had cleaned herself up, and she went downstairs to get more bad news, it seemed.

  The tavernkeeper snorted, very transparently looking elsewhere as he actively avoided seeing her face—which definitely was helping her increasingly sour mood.

  “It’s been a skosh more than five days, Ranger. Longest class up I’ve ever seen. The message they left for you was just somethin’ like you know where to go.” The man answered while he visibly counted the cracks on a support pillar.

  “…Fuuuck. Okay, fine. Can I get some food I can eat on the road? I’ll start running after them immediately.” Ranthia decided.

  If she didn’t get on the road soon she suspected that she might turn violent.

  “Guards ain’t gonna like you tryin’ to leave while the gates are closed.” The greasy man snarked.

  “What? Why the fuck is the gate closed?” Ranthia tried to keep her building rage out of her voice, she really did.

  “It’s the middle of the fucking night! Something wrong with you, Ranger?” The man turned more guarded and suspicious after he spoke.

  Ranthia’s rage winked out even as she blinked in stunned surprise. Without another word she turned and walked away from the tavernkeeper, straight to the entrance, and threw the door wide open.

  Everything seemed clear and visible, just like it was daytime. Yet when she looked up into the sky she only saw the beautiful, mystical moons that met her gaze. The sky wasn’t blue. The sun wasn’t up.

  “…By Xaoc. Got a new night vision skill when I classed up, never even thought about how weird it was that your tavern was this bright and well lit.” Ranthia called back in… well, not quite an apology, but in recognition that the man had been correct.

  “Seems more weird t’me that you can see a thing with those dead eyes of yours.” The man replied.

  Ranthia probably cringed, since the man immediately started trying to appease her.

  “Ugh, alright, fine. Tell ya what, Ranger. I’ll get you a mug o’ ale and some bread from yesterday and some sausage and cheese. Then can ya piss off back to your room so I can get some bloody shuteye? You can get more food with breakfast. …Just don’t eat downstairs maybe, yeah?”

  Ranthia just sighed and accepted the deal.

  She managed to get some sleep and, bolstered by multiple servings of breakfast—her body suddenly realized just how hungry it was once she reintroduced it to food—she finally was ready to set off. The day was bright and warm, things felt… better. At least while people weren’t openly gawking at her monstrous eyes.

  She’d gotten looks occasionally with her Void-touched eyes since the element was rare in Remus, but [Vision of the Void] had made them even more striking and obvious. It sometimes felt like everyone she passed had to gape at her. Yes, she was aware that a large part of it was rooted in her own expectations, but she was bothered by the potential and actual reactions of other people in a way she hadn’t felt since she was a child claiming to be an Adventurer.

  Getting out of town and onto the road helped a lot. It didn’t take her long to start to feel much more like herself once she got into relative isolation.

  Besides, eyes aside, she was still thrilled with [She who Dances with Chaos].

  Her body wanted to move, so Ranthia gleefully danced and skipped along the road until she felt ready to start testing her new Skills. Was she intentionally avoiding thinking about her emotions and her eyes? Yes. But she was also legitimately excited to experiment; experimenting after a class up was one of the most joyous parts of life. Not even [Distorted Likeness] could ever rob Ranthia of that.

  [Vision of the Void] passively gave her (unnervingly good) night vision, but the ability to see through objects seemed to require an active aspect.

  …Which still used mana. Of course it did. As if the Skill’s high impact on her mana regen rate wasn’t enough?! Which reminded her, she had kept her free stats available until after her class up to fix any mana regen issues it gave her, and a bit under half the points would do a lot to help.

  [Mana: 27500/27500]

  [Mana Regen Rate: 6000]

  Better, at least. She didn’t want to expend all of her free stats, they were too helpful to keep on hand for an emergency need. Still, at least this meant her experiments weren’t dropping her mana quite so rapidly.

  Leaves were her first test. To her delight, she could easily see through most of them, though some of the… stems? supports?—whatever the term was—were beyond her.

  She wasn’t entirely surprised that she couldn’t see through trees, though it would have been awesome. It was a level 1 skill though, so her expectations were minimal.

  Sticks were also beyond her. Slightly more annoyingly, even the little one that was like half the width of her little finger was beyond the skill.

  It was only level one, she reminded herself, while she stepped off the road and drew a knife.

  Bark was still too much for her to see through. Ranthia frowned and started peeling layers off of it with her knife until it was so thin she wasn’t sure if even her dexterity was enough to get more off. At that point she could sort of see through it, barely. Not enough to be useful though; it left things pretty hazy and hard to make out.

  Slightly disgruntled, Ranthia returned to the road. [Vision of the Void] was supposed to help keep her safe, but so far it was looking like the skill was a waste of chaotic potential. The night vision was nice, but it wasn’t the point! Especially not with what it did to her eyes…!

  An opportunity came near. As the courier blew past, Ranthia tried to peer through his bag with the skill. Nope, the thick cloth completely blocked her vision.

  [*ding!* [Vision of the Void] has reached level 2!]

  Well, that was something, though her crumbling, thin piece of bark suggested it didn’t do much. It was still only barely see-through. There had to be more to the skill though! Why would it take 1611 of her mana regen rate if it wasn’t a reserve skill? Night vision should have been more efficient than that! Probably, not that she had any idea what she was basing that expectation on.

  She couldn’t exactly test its ability to see through illusions, but she doubted any Mirage classer she met would be ineffectual enough to be bested by a level 2 skill. Maybe if she danced to get the bonus? …No, [True Grace]’s boost was minor enough that the skill would effectively still be level 2; that math was easy. Basically, only her capped skills would get any benefit out of it as things stood, and even that was probably unnoticeable.

  Still, at least [True Grace] obviously offered future benefits. [Vision of the Void] was expensive currently and it was unclear just how it would improve. Ranthia considered the (weird and somewhat confusing) skill description. It did mention something about no longer seeing light, so maybe…

  Ranthia’s head tilted up and her gaze locked onto the sun. For a moment, before she looked away, cursing. The spots she was busy trying to blink out of her vision sure seemed to suggest that she could still be blinded by light. That had been a bit of a stretch, admittedly.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Also, in hindsight, she really should have squinted instead of looking with her eyes wide open and intensely focused.

  She continued to trigger [Vision of the Void] periodically while she continued down the road, but her tests were largely complete. She was fishing for levels more than anything at that point when she spotted something novel—something she hadn’t tried to gaze through yet. Her mind turned to her other new skills.

  [Sustained Chaos] could be tested, but she also kind of hated to destroy any of her knives until she caught up with the others and had access to her supply of spares. She already had started to treat knives as single use, and with [Strengthen Blade] gone that was an absolute fact of life now. It was annoying, but it was nowhere near worth using a skill slot just to, effectively, double the amount of disposable blades she carried—at the risk of perforating herself with shards of metal again.

  Also, throwing knives while she travelled the roads was basically asking for an incident.

  [Echoes of Devastation] clearly worked differently than [Cross Strike] had but testing it had most of the same problems as testing [Sustained Chaos]. Odds were she wouldn’t be able to test it until the next time they got into a combat encounter.

  Ranthia drew looks from the odd traveller as she danced down the road, but she wasn’t bothered. Her eyes might have drawn their attention anyway, and she would much rather be remembered as the whimsical dancing Ranger instead of the scary inhuman Ranger. Plus, it was practice for [True Grace]. …Probably!

  So Ranthia whistled, danced, activated skills, and generally avoided deep thought. [Vision of the Void] seemed happy to level as she practiced it, and she could already see through the thinnest of things pretty easily. It even looked like she was starting to be able to see through layers of leaves to some extent. She could probably even see through thin strips of cloth, not that she wanted to dirty any of her bandages to test—

  Ranthia blinked. How had she missed that possibility? The damned present Hunting left her—the blindfold that had been the bane of her existence back when she was in the Academy.

  It would hide her eyes and save her [Sexy] face! And if she was right about [Vision of the Void], she was all but certain that she’d be able to see right through it as if it weren’t there! She never imagined being impatient to be able to put on the blindfold, but there she was. Suddenly she was impatient to catch up.

  At last, she caught up with her team. As she closed in on the wagon, she executed a glorious spinning leap, managing to open the back of the wagon and shove the door clear with her momentum. Then she landed smoothly and swept into the wagon while she pulled the door shut behind her.

  Only to find herself with multiple weapons pointed at her. Though her fellow Rangers groused once they realized it was her.

  “Announce yourself next time, Ranger.” Leoios scolded her from the driver’s seat.

  “Sorry~!” Ranthia called, already busy getting into her chest.

  [*ding!* [Vision of the Void] has leveled from 1 to level 26!]

  [*ding!* [True Grace] has leveled from 1 to level 11!]

  It had been a good little solo journey.

  Ranthia had reported, generally, on what her new class upgrade did. More dancer-y than ever. The ability to throw knives with her skills. Excessively creepy eyes that let her see in the dark and through her blindfold. Would go through knives faster than ever. Specifics and weaknesses were left out, but her team needed to know what she could do.

  Secundia had made good progress too in her new classes. Back before the incident with the bandits, she had upgraded her Metal [Mage] class to be Mirror aspected and her Fire [Mage] class to be Radiance aspected. The woman had been inspired by Ranthia’s fondness for trickiness and came up with her own way to make use of it: [Polyhedral Shine Stones] that she could strike with potent, narrow beams of Radiance to scatter and reflect her beams to strike from unexpected angles. She’d been practicing too and was already getting surprisingly well versed at not hitting her allies with the reflected beams.

  Mettlea had also made some progress and could now concentrate the Poison he conjured into blobs that scattered a little less readily on the wind. His numbing Poison was slowly leveling up towards usefulness too, which had them optimistic that he’d be able to use his second class more by the end of the round.

  Pibius had, allegedly, gotten a new skill while Ranthia was gone that improved the speed with which he could build up for his big steam explosions, but he couldn’t exactly safely demonstrate that for the group. Especially not in the wagon.

  Overall, the mood was optimistic.

  “I’m back! I got the supplies you asked for.” Ranthia called out as she approached.

  They were in a tiny little forgettable town that barely justified its existence because the journey between the previous town and the next city took a hair too long. The town was so small that they didn’t have a mayor or governor, they just kind of loosely allowed themselves to be ‘led’ by whichever man happened to be the eldest (equal rights for women seemed… slow to roll out in some of Remus’ backwaters). The latest ‘honored elder’ had established a rather asinine rule against foreign or traveling merchants, to protect their local shops. External merchants with no affiliation to the local traders had to pay high taxes to even take their goods into the city, then needed to apply for a special—expensive—permit that took weeks to grant if they wanted to sell in town. Since this was ridiculous, the town had, helpfully, created a road that circled around the town’s walls for merchants that weren’t willing to deal with it (aka, all of them).

  There was even space cleared so outside merchants could set up and sell just outside the town gates, albeit with the understanding that the city guard would not help or involve themselves in the event of monsters, dinosaurs, or thieves.

  There Ranthia had met a woman and her kid sister that were trying to become traveling merchants, though the duo had gotten somewhat stuck. They needed some supplies to keep moving, but they couldn’t even take their cart into town without paying the taxes. The younger sister was too little to buy what they needed, and the woman strongly (and probably accurately) suspected her cart would be picked clean if she left it (relatedly, a [Merchant]/[Warrior] build felt strange, no matter how practical it was).

  Which was why Ranthia felt like a pile of supplies with legs at the moment; she was indulging in a bit of women’s solidarity. Plus, there was the fact that the town’s inane rules annoyed her, but Leoios had made it clear that their rules weren’t to be challenged. That, somehow, wasn’t the Rangers’ job—not that Ranthia agreed. Unfortunately, she respected the man too much to challenge him on it.

  …And, yes, there was the minor fact that the sisters were selling something that Ranthia desperately needed.

  Among the other assorted items in their goods were a pair of beautiful wedding rings, one for each spouse. Rings were so much more practical than bangles or other larger pieces of jewelry, and the rings were also gorgeous works of art with fine detail worked into the gold. The best part though—which drew Ranthia’s hidden eye immediately—was that each ring bore nearly identical gems that were only two levels away from being the exact shade of green of Hexara’s eyes.

  Ranthia probably could search all of Remus and not find a more perfect match!

  Ever since she saw the rings, Ranthia’s head remained filled with nonstop daydreams of her plans to marry Hexara. Of them each wearing one of those rings as they settled into domestic bliss. She had to have them, and what better way to start negotiations than to butter the merchant up with a big favor? It seemed especially important since Ranthia had fairly limited personal funds left, after helping Vera—Vert damnit—and the nonstop onslaught of little expenses that resulted from her life on the road.

  “Thank you so much, how can I ever repay you?” The woman offered.

  A perfect opening!

  “Well, maybe there’s something among your wares that might catch my eye that you might offer me a good price for?” Ranthia offered, putting in a conscious effort to keep her excitement out of her voice. She didn’t want to give away the game! Nothing drove prices up quite like a desperate customer that had to have something.

  “Take a look, I’m sure we can come to an agreement.” The woman enthusiastically replied. Good, she was hungry for a sale!

  Ranthia reviewed the goods and took a closer look at several items on display. The woman, as expected of a traveling merchant, had a bit of everything. Dyes, tunics, ribbons, jewelry, knives, tools, a bedroll, a stack of straw hats, little carvings, symbols of the five gods for display or for wearing, and even a set of decently carved bone dice for Tali.

  “What do you want for the paired rings?” Ranthia finally asked, trying not to hold her breath.

  “Still can’t believe you can see with that blindfold on. Skills can be so crazy. …Oh, those rings.” The merchant seemed to turn a bit frostier out of nowhere.

  She named a price, one that was three rods more than Ranthia had. It wasn’t a promising start; Ranthia wasn’t sure she could talk the woman down that far. Still, she had to try!

  They went back and forth for a bit, until…

  “Okay, actually, you know what? I can’t do this in good conscience. Those damned rings are nothing but a curse for my family. They brought my mother and I nothing but heartache. I’ll tell you this plainly: every marriage those rings would have been—or, in one case, were—a part of has ended in misery. If you still want ‘em after hearing that, they’re yours for your offered price.” The merchant decided.

  “Done! I’ll be right back with my rods!” Ranthia all but squealed.

  She was off instantly, dancing openly through the city streets. Superstition never bothered her (her initial worries about getting assigned to Team 13 didn’t count), it wasn’t like the rings had anything to do with the fae or any other real danger. It was just one or two bits of bad luck coupled with terrible choice in partners. That wasn’t a concern for her.

  She would marry Hexara with those rings. She only had just over a year left in her round; spring was already in bloom which meant that they were less than a season away from being halfway done.

  …And Ranthia would have to somehow make a handful of coins last that long. Oh well, she could do without luxuries for the rest of the round.

  Love was worth enduring a bit of discomfort for.

  Ranthia’s 22nd birthday arrived and she immediately discovered why everyone else had transparently evaded Secundia’s attempts to learn when their birthday was.

  The instant that Ranthia began to stir from her slumber on the day of the birthday, the exuberant woman pounced on her with a hug. While loudly singing some sort of song about celebrating birthdays that Ranthia was unable to appreciate between the well-meaning woman’s shrill—yet thunderous—singing voice and the fact that Ranthia’s face was buried in her cleavage. The rest of the team was groaning and threatening Secundia to no avail while Ranthia desperately fought for air.

  All too soon, Ranthia found herself, still groggy, staring at a massive cake covered in fruit preserves. She had never been Pallos’ biggest fan of sweets. They were fine, but they weren’t anything she’d buy when left to her own devices. She had only ever sought them out when she was trying to be a good girlfriend, since every woman she had ever been with had a fondness for them. And yet she was being asked to eat a sweet cake covered in sweet fruit goo for breakfast.

  Worst of all, the cake was positively massive, plainly meant for an actual large celebration, not eight Rangers.

  No, worst of all was the fact that they had left the last city three days ago. The colossal confection was stale, far too much, and almost painfully sweet.

  Ranthia still politely thanked Secundia and made appropriate noises of appreciation while she forced herself to eat it. Secundia meant well, she really did. And Ranthia could genuinely appreciate that. Even if she wished the woman had shown it in a different way.

  They were nearing a town Ranthia actually recognized the name of: Massilix. The grand city that dared to touch The Ocean (the body of water, not the Sentinel). Many that spoke of it—without visiting—bought into the weird [Bard] songs that convinced them that endless water was somehow romantic. Ranthia hadn’t been impressed when she had passed through with Tatius and Pupius back when she was young, and she doubted she’d be impressed now that she was a proper adult.

  Plus, she knew how damned deadly The Ocean truly was. The people that lived there had to be absolutely unhinged to stay.

  Worse, it also meant that they were nearing their next stop after it, one that Ranthia outright dreaded. Perinthus. Her hometown, where she was reborn. A place of terror and abuse, as far as her memories were concerned.

  So, yes, she was more than a little relieved when the nastiest storm she had ever experienced forced them to halt. Republius had been muttering for days about not liking the skyline, but for Ranthia it felt like it came out of nowhere. The winds were so savage that Leoios had to call for Penticus, Mettlea, and Ranthia to wrest the wheels off the wagon while Republius did what he could to root it in place. Pibius was given free rein to draw as much mana from the wagon as he needed to conjure enough stone to help brace the wagon and make shelter for their newest pair of horses. He had to make it thick and patch it nearly daily.

  They ended up grounded there for almost a full week. None of them had experienced a storm so savage before, though Republius had mentioned records of them. Apparently, they were called hurricanes (or maybe typhoons? Apparently, people disagreed on the name, and it alternated periodically).

  By the time it finally ended, Ranthia was perfectly happy to never see one again. She hadn’t slept well the entire time, eternally paranoid that the storm would just blow everything away if she closed her eyes for too long. It didn’t help that they had to call for Pibius often when his stone structure started to crack or come undone by sheer windforce or the impact of small objects. [Vision of the Void] still couldn’t see through her eyelids, though she could now see through a bit more than she could before. She had even accidentally gotten entirely too much of an eyeful of Secundia when the tunic-clad woman pranced into her line of sight while she was practicing with the skill.

  Not that there was much else she could do. They didn’t have enough space for anyone to seriously do martial practice. So Ranthia just practiced with [Vision of the Void] while she daydreamed about various ways to propose to her girlfriend once the round ended. Beyond that, about all she could do was pray to Xaoc or swap stories with the others. Even Tali was boring, since Leoios refused to let them gamble, lest they undermine their ability to work as a team.

  But all storms ended eventually, and soon after Republius cleared them to resume their journey. …As soon as they scattered the conjured stone deep into the woods and finished reassembling the wagon.

  Maybe if she was lucky they were delayed long enough to skip Perinthus?

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  Nozomi Matsuoka.

  Sarah "Neila" Elkins.