Frostbitten Wayfarer

The rest of school passed without so much as a hiccup and Zoe found herself in the last week, prepping for her final exam with Emma.

For the first couple weeks after the incident, Zoe found herself checking behind her when she heard a noise she couldn’t recognize immediately. Memories of the terrible interrogation struck fear in her heart, but she worked through it. Joe helped a lot, talking to him about it made her feel so much more comfortable, so much more safe than she expected.

There weren’t any more complete breakdowns on his kitchen floor, but she helped out around the inn a couple times and spent a lot of her time there talking with him. Sometimes about the incident, but most of the time just about anything else. It helped take her mind off of it, made her feel like she could settle into normal life again.

Emma was in the process of making plans to get a place of her own so she could get away from her mom — something she already wanted to do before anyway since her mom never let her have pets. But their relationship had grown tense since Emma’s mom kidnapped Zoe. Emma did come around to understanding her mom’s actions a bit, but couldn’t forgive her for taking it so far.

When she was younger, Emma was given a few gold every year as an allowance and with the income she’d get as a hunter after the course, she hoped to be able to get a loan on a house of her own. And then two cats, she kept insisting. She’d always loved cats.

Zoe’s mana orb charging continued to prove lucrative for her. Ren thankfully never finished his experiments and Zoe had already paid off the two gold debt she had to the school. She fumbled around in her bag as she counted her coins. Fifty silver, seventy six copper. The richest she’d been since she stupidly threw herself at the poison testing.

The classes were interesting. Archery and dagger fighting introductory courses were both done in the first week and the students were all given their magical keys for the different training facilities. Zoe put them both to good work, even long after she got her dagger-fighting skill. She was excited to finish up her last week and check all of her skills progress. It was spread out quite a lot but it was still two months of dedicated, proper training to many of her skills. She expected big numbers.

At one point, Zoe decided to try and toggle her Vampyric Senses off, which was a mistake she promised never to make again. Vampyric Charm being disabled was noticeable after she’d switched it on and off a few times. Like a slight tingling in her eyes, an itch resolved with a swift blink.

But Vampyric Senses was so much more integral to her being, to what she was now. She could feel her flesh warping inside her head, feel the connections with her senses being severed. And that wasn’t even mentioning the horrible feeling of having all of your senses dampened so intensely in an instant. She had forgotten how restricting having normal, human senses felt. Every shadow so intense and noticeable, distant words not even audible to her.

No, Vampyric Senses was a skill she was more than content having on all the time. Her other skills she never even bothered turning off — regeneration and resistance were far too important for her continued survival. And turning off her archery while she was trying to level it up? That just seemed silly.

“Do you think we’ll get extra points for finding one of the instructors?” Emma asked her.

They were sitting in the library, planning for their final exam. It was to be a one week camping trip with minimal supplies. They would need to build a livable camp and survive off the land for the full week, and then they would be graded on their performance. Groups were permitted, so Zoe and Emma decided to tackle it together.

School was over afterwards, regardless of their grade, but the instructors insisted that getting a good grade on your final exam here would help their future prospects as hunters. Zoe had her doubts — neither Penny nor Herb had even so much as mentioned the school and they both seemed to be doing just fine.

But the two girls found it fun to plan and try to get the best grade they could anyway.

“Maybe. I don’t think we should make it a priority though, lets just have a nice week camping out in the forest.” Zoe answered.

“Awww, come on. You’ve got your fancy eyes and everything, it’ll be so easy for us!” Emma whined.

Zoe had confided in Emma a couple weeks back about her vampyric abilities and her Patient Decider feat. More and more she was beginning to think that there wasn’t even a reason to keep them secret anyway. What was somebody going to do? Kidnap her? That already happened when she was keeping them a secret.

In a sick twist of fate, had she not been secretive about what she had, she probably would’ve figured out that her charm skill was illegal and could be disabled sooner. And then Emma’s mom wouldn’t have had a problem with her.

She didn’t feel like broadcasting her vampyric skills and fancy feat to everybody in town, but friends could know, she decided. They just wouldn’t get to know that she was from a different plane of existence. That felt like she might be made into a science experiment.

“Look, if I see somebody then I’ll tell you okay? But I’m still only level eight, I doubt I’ll see a red mark specifically trying to not be seen by me, let alone a blue mark if we end up with one of them.” Zoe said.

“Fine, fine. I thought it would be funny. I was thinking about my cats-” Emma said.

“You don’t have any cats yet, you know?" Zoe said.

“Yet!” She pointed at Zoe. “I was thinking Oliver’s a good name for a cat.”

“So about the camping trip we’re supposed to go on tomorrow?” Zoe asked.

“We already went over it, Zoe. We’ll set up a tree house, you’ll take all the watches since you don’t need to sleep anyway.” She smiled and then put on a dramatic voice. “And I’ll sleep lots then shoot any boars that dare to encroach on our holy territory! Since I’m a normal human who can make decisions without spending twenty years on them.”

Zoe laughed. “Yeah, I don’t think the instructors are going to appreciate that very much. And maybe I wanna sleep at some point too!”

“Do you?” Emma asked.

“No, but that’s not the point!” Zoe chided.

“Fine,” Emma drawled. “We need a source of water anyway and animals probably aren’t going to just wander into our camp. Realistically, we only really need to get one deer and we’re fine for food with the school’s ring.”

The school had lent them some supplies for making their exam go a little smoother. A small one bag storage ring that Emma was wearing and some basic survival gear — clear plastic looking bags, tents, some simple cookware, whatever they might end up needing. Plus some armour and weapons, but they both only took the light leather armour since they already had the rest on their own.

The storage ring was just to keep unnecessary waste to a minimum. With so many students going out on their final exam, that could be many animals killed for sustenance. Without some means of preserving the food, most of the animal would be wasted. A deer you killed on day one wouldn’t still be edible food on day five without some way of preserving the meat.

Not to mention all the bones and hide that would just rot in the forest which could be put to much better use by the school to make tools or replenish some of their damaged supplies.

Zoe and Emma looked at the map of the school’s section of forest on the table between them. There weren’t any sources of water within the zone the school had. Students were allowed to leave, and an instructor would follow them, so the option to go to a nearby river was present.

But Zoe and Emma both agreed that you would be docked points for that. There were other options available for getting water and leaving the ‘safe’ area felt like announcing you never paid attention to all the times the instructors specifically told them to always take the safest path.

“We’re not explorers, we’re hunters,” the instructors kept saying.

“I think we should go to near the north west section, personally.” Zoe said, pointing to where she meant on the map.

It was relatively sparse forest, full of lush vegetation. Foraging for food would be simple and water would be accessible by collecting dew or plant transpiration moisture without too much effort.

Had they done this a few weeks prior they could have taken advantage of the plentiful snow that covered the forest. But most of it had melted as the spring drew to an end.

“Hmmm,” Emma scrunched her face as she thought about it. “Yeah, I’m okay with that. Lots of green there, and plenty of sunlight.”

“Yeah I was thinking water should be our first priority. It’s probably fine regardless of where we go, but the more leaves we can have near us and in the sun the better, I think.” Zoe said.

“Okay, so we go to the northwest flag pole, find a nice tree to call home and build a cool treehouse. Sounds like a plan to me.” Emma laughed.

Zoe rolled her eyes, “We build a hammock, at best.”

“And then go find a deer feeding ground to get ourselves dinner for the week! I’m surprised they’re making this a five day thing, all we really need to do to survive is get water and one kill. We’ll be done on the first day!” Emma announced.

Zoe sighed.

They were not done on the first day. Getting out to the northwest flag pole was simple enough and they set up a simple camp. A fire-pit next to their tent, and plenty of the more vibrant green leaves surrounding them covered in the clear bags, tied tight to the branches.

By the time they had everything set up, it was mid afternoon and the pair decided to try and find some tracks they could follow to their dinner.

The tracking skill was something Zoe found quite interesting. The way it worked in synergy with her Vampyric Senses was incredible. They both served a similar purpose, helping her find her ‘prey’ as the system loved to say, but they accomplished the goal in very different ways.

Her Vampyric Senses gave her what could only be described as a very primal instinct, every little detail screaming at her, but so loudly that she never knew what was actually doing the screaming.

On the other hand, her Tracking skill did the very opposite. Each detail was itself so important, her attention drawn to each one so naturally. On its own it seemed quite powerful for a hunter, but combined with her superior senses?

She could smell the cracked seeds from a few feet away, see the broken branches from an almost unlimited distance it seemed. Details began to stand out to her more than ever before and figuring out where an animal had gone or come from was as effortless as breathing for her.

The only issue was, animals didn’t seem to like being around the north west section of the school’s designated zone. They found a few tracks before nightfall, but following them always took them farther outside, rather than inwards to where they’d always be near a flag pole.

“Ahhhh!” Emma screamed. “I’m hungry and tired. I’m tingry. Hungred. Why does hangry work so well but tirgry doesn’t?”

Zoe chuckled, “Told you it’d be harder than you thought. Screaming’s not helping, by the way.”

“I know but it’s getting dark so I can’t do anything now anyway and you’re not leaving me alone out here, even if an instructor’s watching.” Emma said.

“Back to camp then? We could try wandering inwards tomorrow, or just hang out around where we found the deer tracks earlier and hope that it decides to wander back through tomorrow too. Maybe it has a regular routine it follows every day.” Zoe said.

“I vote we go inwards. There’s deer in this forest, there’s gotta be or the instructors would have made their zone bigger.” Emma whined.

When they got back to camp, they harvested all the water that had accumulated in the bags throughout the day. It wasn’t a tonne, but with all the bags they had up they got a few litres of water. They poured it as carefully as they could into water skins the school provided and then set up the bags on different branches for the night.

“I know I joked about you taking all the watches but I am okay with taking first watch too if you want?" Emma asked.

“No, I don’t get tired anymore. Not from just being awake, anyway. Wouldn’t make sense to have you take watch. Besides, I see better at night than you anyway.” Zoe answered.

“Okay… just, if you do wanna sleep I’m okay with it you know?” Emma said, and tucked herself into the tent. She stuck her head back out again a moment later, “Good night Zoe!”

“Good night, Emma. I’ll wake you when the sun rises if you’re not up already.” Zoe responded.

Emma closed up the tent, and Zoe heard her breathing fall into a much more regular pattern a few minutes later.

The night passed without a crazed boar attack and Zoe shook Emma awake when the sun began to rise again.

“Mmmm? Oh. Morning already? Awww… I was having such a good dream too.” Emma rubbed her eyes.

“It’s called rheum, you know?” Zoe asked.

“What?” Emma asked.

“Yeah, that gunk in your eyes. It’s called rheum. Just a weird thing I know for some reason.” Zoe said.

Emma shook her head. “What are you. Dammit! Now I can’t even remember my dream. Ahhh it was so good too. I think you were there? I remember a cat was doing something.”

“Housewarming party?” Zoe asked.

“No, I think we were on a boat that was flying in the sky underwater through the forest? The cat was the pilot or something.” Emma stood up and massaged her back.

“Dreams are so weird.” Zoe said.

“Yeah.” Emma said.