Archivauld awoke with a start, a panicked whinny from his horse stirring him awake. Though he had no desire to vacate the warmth of his bedroll, duty called.
Slipping on his boots, he grasped the worn haft of his ax, its familiar weight giving him comfort as he peeked outside the tent.
It was the middle of the night, and the fire was burning low casting flickering shadows access the trees. He grumbled, squinting as he glanced around, his human eyesight failing to spot what was making his horse nicker and stomp around nervously.
"Woah girl, easy now," Archivauld said, stepping from his tent, speaking calming words as he approached the mare.
Her nostrils flared as she stomped the ground, her ears standing tall as her tail swished nervously.
His words of comfort did little to calm the mare.
Movement caught his eye from across the fire, a spike of concern filling him as a creature advanced.
Long and sleek, it moved with sublime grace, not making a sound as it advanced.
His human eyes were not nearly as good as his other form, but even the outline of the large fox-like creature was easy to make out. On all fours it reached his shoulders, with tall ears, and two tails that lazily swayed behind it.
Spotting the monster, the horse started freaking out, forcing him to step back as it furiously tugged on the lead.
The tree heaved, and the lead snapped, the horse barreling into the forest as fast as it could run.
Archivuald scowled, never taking his eye from the twin tailed fox as his horse ran away.
"Damnit, you scared her off," Archivuald swore.
The monster didn't reply, pausing near the fire, its long red tongue lolling out almost like a dogs. A massive, monstrous dog with a pension for eating people.
He gripped the haft of his ax tightly, wondering what to do. He had never heard of a nightingale behaving like this before. But then again, Nightingale's were extremely rare to run into, elusive creatures that didn't like to be seen.
Raising his ax, he took a step closer, the monster's head cocking to one side as it studied him. The damned thing seemed much too smart for a monster, whose eyes glimmer with intelligence..
It was also much to sneaky for his liking, and somehow kept finding him. He had no idea what it wanted, but its continued existence was just too prone to backfire.
What if it decided it wanted to eat him? Or others he might be traveling with in the future?
It seemed friendly to him thus far, but it had killed and eaten several of the Red Star bandits in a gruesome fashion.
He hesitated, wondering if he should just kill it. Before he could make up his mind, the monster turned and started walking away.
It paused near the treeline, looking back as if wanting him to follow.
Archivauld frowned, pondering for a moment. Well, what could go wrong? Last time it led him to a hidden camp, perhaps it was doing so again? After a moment's consideration he decided to follow.
For some reason, he just couldn't bring himself to kill it. Something about that adorable furry face. For now, he would hold off until it gave him a good reason. One could say eating Yurlan and Tanur was a good enough reason, but those guys were bandits, the scum of the world so they didn't count.
Given the monsters insistent gaze, he didn't bother to unset his tent. Instead, he slung his travel pack onto his back, before following after the Nightingale.
Archivauld's clothing tore, his muscles feeling like worms were crawling under his skin as he grew several feet in seconds. There was no way he was going to stumble into the wilderness at night in his human form with its terrible eyesight.
Foxy let out an excited growl as it sprang into the forest, leading the way. They were in the middle of nowhere, with the Draukfer mountain only faintly visible in the distance.
Archviauld was nearly to the first rift on his map, and hadn't seen anyone in days. It was expected, considering he was venturing into the less habited, and more dangerous regions of the inner expanse.
Foxy was likely one of the more dangerous monsters out here, but that was never a certainty.
Archivauld darted through the forest, weaving around trees as he sprinted after the agile creature.
As he moved, his claws scuffed on rocks, and he brushed into branches, making a racket. In contrast, the nightingale moved without a sound, seeming to hold back to let him keep up.
Archivauld's wasn't exactly the most subtle in his monster form..
His body radiated an intense cold, frost spreading in every direction as he ran. One thing could be said about being at least seven and a half feet tall with long legs. He could move at a much greater pace than his human form, and his endurance was much better as well.
Even so, he was breathing heavily after keeping up the pace for nearly an hour.
By now, he would have trouble finding his way back to his camp. He was more thankful than ever that he took his pack with its rations, and the map.
The next week would suck without a tent, but he could probably endure.
His racing thoughts were interrupted as they burst into a small clearing. The smell of a rift was heavy on the air, his nose picking it up even before his eyes did.
He slid to a stop on the edge of the clearing, his gaze locking onto the vortex hovering in mid air. The nightingale had paused as well, panting for breath as it looked back at him expectantly.
"You brought me here because you found a rift?" Archivauld asked, his breathing labored. It gave a soft barking yip, a strange sound coming from the monster.
He could only shake his head in bemusement. Well, this was unexpected, though not in a bad way.
A free rift. Perhaps he should keep Foxy around? An excited gleam filled his eyes as he studied the dark vortex. The essence leaking from the otherworldly doorway was stronger than the copper tier rift he cleared the other day, but not overly so. It should be within his grasp, if he took things slowly.
That's right, he could test the waters, and if the monsters were too strong inside, he could always flee.
He nodded to himself. An off the books rift, with all of its Essence, Emblems, and even the Nexus free for the taking. He wouldn't even owe his guild a debt for taking it. Noone had to know.
He grinned, nodding in approval to his new companion..
"Good girl, foxy. Keep this up and I'll have to buy you a gift basket or something," Archivuald said.
The fox-like monster didn't reply, but even so, it bounded forwards and jumped into the rift.
Archivuald could only shrug.
Well, he might have to share, but hopefully Foxy only wanted to eat the other monsters and not his precious essence.
Taking a steadying breath, Archivauld stepped into the swirling vortex. The change was abrupt, and disorienting, the warm summer night replaced by blistering winds, and a landscape covered by snow and ash.
Short, scraggy trees dotted the rolling hills, with a single towering mountain in the distance. Thick plumes of smoke billowed up into the sky, the biting wind slamming into his back.
Archivauld took a deep breath, the smell of ash almost comforting to his nose. His human form would have already been shivering uncontrollably, but to his monster form, it felt like a cool morning breeze. It was almost as if he had returned to the place of his origin.
A monstrous smile spread across his face, exposing rows of razor teeth. Unable to control himself, he let out a ghastly, haunting wail, a sound that echoed for miles across the tundra. He hadn't intended to do that, but somehow, it just felt right.
Standing knee deep in the snow ahead of him, Foxy turned back to face him, the monster's eyes meeting his.
He could see excitement in those eyes, its tails swishing back and forth. Gripping his ax, Archivuald gestured towards the craggy trees.
"Let's go kill some monsters," Archviauld said.
Foxy let out a low growl, taking off like an arrow shot from a bow.
Heart racing, Archivuald took off after her, heading towards the towering volcano in the distance. That place was as good as any to start looking for the Nexus.
As he ran his clawed feet splayed out, exposing a webbing between his long clawed toes he hadn't noticed before allowing him to run across the top of the snow with his feet hardly sinking at all.
After noticing the interesting effect, he discarded his shredded boots. More boots torn beyond repair. He really needed to make sure he took off his boots next time before he changed forms. A good pair of boots were not cheap.
His train of thought was derailed as foxy slid to a stop, whirling as a monster leapt at her from behind a tree. Quick as a snake, Foxy caught a stout hairy monster from mid air, shaking it furiously side to side.
It's blood-curdling screech was cut off as bone snapped, blood showering the snow.
As if on cue, four more quadrupedal monsters leapt from cover, rushing foxy from all sides.
Claws parted fir, and thick blood oozed from a shallow cut in the nightingales flank.
Growling, Foxy showed off her speed and awareness, slamming a large paw into the monsters chest, sending it staggering back.
It happened in a flash, with the remaining monsters closing in on all sides. Archivauld wouldn't let them swarm her. The first one saw him coming too late, his ax already descending towards its back.
Its shriek of agony distracted another, and foxy pounced, grasping the creature and shaking it like a rag doll.
The two remaining monsters must have saw the writing on the wall, as the turned to flee. They were much too slow. Archivauld's silver hair whipped around his face as a cutting wind shot from palm, tearing deep grooves into the monster and its surroundings.
His new wind cutter emblem didn't kill it, but it mangled it bad enough it wasn't a threat anymore.
He turned to chase the last, but Foxy was quicker, melting into the ground in a cloud of darkness and reappearing to snatch the fleeing monster.
Foxy grabbed the smaller creature by the back of the neck, and there was a loud crunch as it whipped the creature
As seemed to be her favorite method of killing, foxy shook it, covering the snow, and Archivuald in gore.
He grimaced.
"Come on foxy, watch it," Archivauld grumbled, picking a piece of gore from his hair.
Foxy dropped its latest victim, limping as she licked at her rear leg.
"Are you hurt?" Archivuald asked, conjuring a golden holy orb above his unnaturally large hand.
Looking at the ball of holy energy gave him the creeps, reminding him of excruciating pain caused when he used it on his monster form.
His leg had been healed by flesh shaper's people leaving a horrible scar and the pain was gone, but the memory still lingered in his mind.
Foxy did not seem to excited about him suddenly conjuring the orb, letting out a low growl as he took a step forward. Archivuald paused. Oh, right, this probably didn't look good from her perspective.
"I'm not going to hurt you, trust me, I can help," He said in a soothing tone.
Foxy's ears flattened, but she stopped growling. It made him wonder yet again, just how smart Foxy really was?
Taking her reaction as a good sign, he let the orb go. Under his guidance, the orb slowly drifted forward, its golden light doing little to brighten the bleak landscape before melting into her leg.
Foxy yipped in pain, and flinched, but it was over quickly. The wound wasn't fully healed with his knight tier holy orb, but it had stopped bleeding. Foxy gave the wound a tentative lick, surprise on its face as it turned back to him.
It let out a soft bark that sounded like no dog he had ever heard, but its meaning was quite clear. It was a thankyou of sorts.
"You're welcome… So, how do you want to do this? We each get the essence from the monsters we kill?" Archivauld asked.
Foxy barked in agreement. Archivauld, set to work, harvesting the essence from the rapidly cooling corpses.
The foul weather, plus his frosty presence, combined to freeze these monsters rapidly. It was like cutting into a corpsicle, sweat streaming down his back as he finally finished his grizzly task.
He ended with five small shimmering uncut gems of raw essence, each glowing a hue darker than copper. Knight tier essence stones.
Archivuald raised his hand, offering three of them to Foxy, but was summarily ignored. The loud crunch of bone breaking filled the air as Foxy set to eating one of the freshly harvested monsters. She didn't seem interested at all in the essence instead devouring the fresh meat on offer.
Archivauld wasn't going to look a gift fox in the mouth. Without hesitation, he sat in the snow and crushed them each in rapid succession. His arm felt like it was burning as pure essence entered his palm and rushed up his arm. It felt almost as if he chugged a full cup of piping hot coffee as the essence flooded his chest, entering the node that housed his wind cutter emblem.
Five essences might not sound like much, but his newest emblem was at the lowest rank, and these were knight tier essence. The amount of essence each contained was a level of magnitude greater than copper tier.
The node for his wind cutter emblem heated up, its basic pattern coming to life as essence flooded inside. Nothing seemed to happen until the node reached full to bursting. He crushed the fifth essence, and there was a soft pop inside his body. The sensation of a node expanding was hard to describe. It was still the same size, and yet, he could tell it would take at least ten times more essence to expand the node to the next tier.
It would take a lot more essence to rank up the emblem again, but the investment was well worth it.
There were other benefits as well, aside from the direct power up that came with each successive tier advancement. After extensive research on the subject, the Order had discovered that each time a node was awakened to a higher tier, it sent a resonating pulse through the user's body.
The overflow of essence pushed at the boundaries of the user's holy reservoir, causing it to expand. The reservoir would usually contract back after a few days, but not completely.
Each evolution of a node could improve one's essence stores and the higher tier the node, the more benefits you could reap. And of course, awakening divine emblems was even more beneficial given the massive pulse they unleashed with each evolution. This fact was even more exciting considering he was blessed by both deities with two tattoos and two dozen nodes. His future was practically limitless. He could go anywhere, do anything, all he had to do was take it all.
Archivuald took a deep calming breath, pushing down the urge to run head first into a pack of man-eating monsters and cut them all down. He shuddered, pushing down the murderous impulses.
The onset of power creep was a real thing, and he couldn't let it cloud his judgment.
He couldn't enjoy his riches, or growing power if he got himself killed by overestimating himself.
Exhaling, he pushed to his feet from where he sat in the ash covered snow. Foxy was nearby, lying on her back, her long red tongue lolling out to one side, having gorged herself on one of the dead monsters. She might even look quite cute, if not for the blood and gore spattered all around the carcass next to her.
"Are you coming?" Archivuald asked, picking his serviceable ax from here it was lodged into a tree next to him..
Not even opening her eyes, Foxy let off a soft bark, as if to say, five more minutes.
He shrugged. "Your loss. I'm going ahead, you can stay behind if you like. It just means more monsters for me," Archivuald said, starting towards the active volcano far in the distance.
There was a decidedly annoyed bark from behind him, but as expected, Foxy slowly rolled onto her feet and followed. Her grumbling made him smile. What did it say about him that he actually enjoyed having this monster around? He shrugged. Did that make him weird? Probably. But then again, Foxy was a lot more reputable than the circles he walked in these days. That was saying a lot, considering she was a man eating monster.