Torwin was content to let Velik take the lead. Much as he hated to admit it, a thousand-mile run had more than worn him out. Even in his youth, he doubted he could have done something that punishing. Galling as it was, he was the weaker half of their partnership.

There was a bright side, however. Velik was in the best mood Torwin had ever seen the usually taciturn young man in. He smiled. He laughed. He made jokes. He tackled the mountain with enthusiasm, more than happy to carve handholds where they were needed to help Torwin follow along after him.

The climb would have been a lot worse without that small, unassuming loop of leather and steel wrapped around Velik’s wrist. Torwin had stowed almost all of his supplies inside the spatial storage tied to the band, everything but a small sack of emergency supplies, his bow, and a quiver of arrows. If the worst should happen and they got separated, Torwin had everything he needed to survive practically everywhere, but Velik was carrying a lot of luxury goods the older hunter normally had to forego.

Torwin wasn’t one to find himself jealous of his fellow hunters, but he was forced to admit a bit in this circumstance. He’d been saving for a spatial storage item for years, but they were so incredibly expensive that he’d never managed it. Velik had done it in a few months.

I guess I should have helped Jensen with those expeditions, after all. Maybe once things calm down, I can sign on for a few.

It wasn’t that he’d been opposed to helping. It was just that the guild was in crisis mode and Torwin couldn’t take time away from dealing with the body snatching monsters that had infested humanity’s first defense against the darkness. The guild was mostly stable now; it was the rest of the country that was falling apart.

That wasn’t really Torwin’s area of expertise, saving people from themselves, but he expected the guild to get involved anyway since it was certain that somewhere in that giant tangle of barons and dukes backstabbing each other was a monster or two egging things on. Maybe I won’t be signing up for any lucrative contracts after all, he thought glumly.

“Can you shoot that down?” Velik asked abruptly, pulling Torwin from his musings.

They were currently clinging to an almost vertical stretch of rock a hundred feet tall, almost exactly halfway up. Velik was a bit closer to the top than Torwin, but not enough that it would make a difference if a monster decided to take a swipe at them. Torwin craned his neck and saw something dark circling behind them, a mile or more above their heads.

“That’s a bit out of my range,” he said. “Probably for the best. Let’s get some ground under our feet before it starts its dive.”

“It’s not going to wait that long.”

Even as Velik said that, Torwin caught the subtle shift in the monster’s outline. Its wings angled downward and the monster swooped in to attack. Grumbling to himself, Torwin dug his feet into the crevice and flexed his leg muscles to hold him upright as he leaned back. His whole core strained with the effort of keeping him steady, but he got his bow off his shoulder and an arrow nocked.

Two months ago, he’d finally merged [Hailstrike] and [Shrapnel] into [Shred], and it had immediately become his new favorite way of killing big, bulky monsters. He empowered the arrow with the skill, paused for a beat to let the diving monster get into range, and let the missile fly a thousand feet straight up on an intercepting course.

The monster wasn’t stupid. It recognized it was being attacked, and it went out of its way to avoid the arrow. That was easy enough; gravity was difficult to fight against and the shot was nowhere near as fast as it might have been. Torwin had anticipated that, however, and he knew how monsters thought. He didn’t know exactly which way it would dodge, but there were really only a few options, and monsters were well known for their aggressive tendencies.

If it had flared its wings to pull out of a dive and flown away, there would have been nothing Torwin could have done to stop its retreat. But it didn’t, just as he knew it wouldn’t. It responded by angling under the arrow and speeding up. That was why the second arrow caught it directly in the face, igniting the power stored in it.

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The arrow lodged perhaps eight inches inside the monster. Then it blew apart, each fragment razor sharp and charged with all the kinetic energy the original shaft had held. A hundred splinters of arrow burst out through its meat and flesh in every direction, tearing it apart and turning it into a bundle of hamburger and black blood raining through the sky.

[You have slain a dire beak raptor (level 41).]

[You have been awarded 1 decarma.]

“That’s new,” Velik commented from above.

“Skill merge I did after you started working with Jensen,” Torwin explained. With a groan, he shouldered his bow again and pulled himself forward to redistribute his weight between his hands and his feet. His legs were on fire, but there was nothing to be done about it now.

“I’ve got a support skill I’ve been trying to merge into my weapon skill for a while now,” Velik said. They started climbing again while he spoke. “I thought it would be easy. I’ve already got half a dozen skills merged together, but for some reason, it doesn’t seem to want to take.”

Other than the shape changing skill that turned Velik into a monstrous wolf with golden blood, Torwin knew practically nothing about the young hunter’s status. Velik wasn’t the kind of person to share that kind of information.

“Maybe you need to raise the ranks on one or both higher,” Torwin suggested. “It’s easier to merge skills that you understand better.”

“Might be that,” Velik agreed. He crested the top of the ridge, then turned and dropped a length of rope down to Torwin.

“Sometimes the merger just doesn’t happen, even if it seems like it should. Plus, the more skills you have all folded into one, the harder it gets to add another one to the mix.” Torwin grabbed the rope and hauled himself up, hand over hand, in a few seconds. “Thanks.”

The whole rope vanished back into Velik’s bracelet, once again inspiring jealousy in Torwin. I need one of those. I’d never run out of beer again. He ruthlessly quashed that thought down.

“They’re about four hundred thousand decarmas,” Velik said offhandedly, obviously noting Torwin’s lingering gaze.

The old [Ranger] let out a groan. “I know. So expensive. Someday, though. Or maybe a smaller, cheaper one.”

“Jensen mentioned that box he bought cost closer to four million.”

“Four… Morgus’s blood. How’d he even get his hands on that much?”

Velik shrugged. “Vault hunting, I guess.”

“Why did I want to be a monster hunter again?” Torwin muttered, but a smile crept across his lips. Money was nice. Saving people was better. “So, if you feel like sharing, what two skills are you trying to merge?”

Velik considered for a moment, then said, “[Burden of the Beast] and [Aspect of the Wind Tamer].”

The thing about unique classes was they often had skills never seen anywhere else. [Burden of the Beast] was one of them, but Torwin was familiar with the [Aspect] line. Velik’s version was a combat style that focused on speed, precision and battlefield control, which lent itself well to a thrusting weapon like a spear. Torwin wasn’t even a little bit surprised that Velik had it.

“What’s the first one do?” he asked.

“Beast monsters struck become heavier, slowing them down and making it harder for them to move.”

What? That’s insane.

“How… How many hits does it take to lock them down completely?”

“Depends how big it is. The effect seems to be based on the target’s base weight, and probably mitigated by its physical.”

That’s a damn near flawless lock down skill. But I guess if it’s so heavily restricted to a specific monster type, that limits its usefulness. Either way, it’s pretty obvious why those skills aren’t merging together.

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you’re going to struggle to get those two skills to combine,” Torwin said. “You’re trying to stick an offensive control skill into a support skill. That just doesn’t work.”

“What? Why wouldn’t it work? I did it before with [Shepherd’s Cane].”

“That’s impressive, but [Shepherd’s Cane] is missing a lot of the debilitating components your current skill has. It’s the difference between a skill helping you predict an opponent’s move so you can trip them up and one that’s applying a magical effect that directly hinders your target.”

Velik paused to think about that for a second, then said, “Well, shit. There’s got to be some way to make it work.”

“These kinds of problems are common. They stall a lot of people out, which is why the guild teaches you to think about your builds before you start taking skills. It’s not impossible to remove an undesired skill, but it’s not cheap. Then again, I guess decarmas aren’t a barrier for you. The system store has what you want in it. It’s called a skill eater shard.”

Frowning, Velik’s eyes flickered across screens only he could see. “Twenty thousand decarmas. Wow. That’s an expensive mistake to fix.”

“Very much so,” Torwin agreed. “Much better to get help before taking the skill.”

“I think I’ll hang onto it for now. It’s not like it’s useless or anything. I’ll open another skill slot in the next few months. Maybe I can find something to properly merge it with anyway.”

The two kept walking and climbing, occasionally stopping to kill a monster looking for a quick meal, and discussing various hunter skills and what went into them. It was perhaps the longest and friendliest conversation Torwin had ever had with Velik.