Solo Strategy

The Bracelets of the Night Sisters, or, as they were otherwise known, the Order of the Night Huntresses.

Huntresses...

It was all in plain sight, right before my nose. Here were the artifacts of the Order of the Hunt, and sitting next to me was the future goddess of that very Hunt.

Coincidence? I'd eat my orc belt without ketchup if this was nothing more than chance.

Of course, it was just a hypothesis, and Scully could be a Shard of some other Aspect, but... No, it was definitely Artemis. Just like she was described in Greek myths: ruthless and at the same time scandalously beautiful. And dangerous...

Thoughts raced through my mind at the speed of a Concorde flying above the clouds. No, I was certainly right. I simply couldn't be wrong!

I watched closely as Scully rolled up the sleeves of her shirt to her elbows. Cautiously, as if handling a grenade without a pin, she put the bracelet on her left wrist, listened to her sensations, and then quickly fastened the second one on her right forearm. Standing up, without taking her eyes off me, as if guided by some intuition, she touched one bracelet to the other. A barely visible shimmer like heat haze rippled over her forearms, and... her arms were suddenly bare.

Wait. But where were the bracelets?! They had vanished without a trace. Just bare arms. I reached out with my Perception aura—and felt nothing.

"But... How?" was all I could utter, extending my hand toward the huntress's skin.

"Magic!" Scully exclaimed like a little girl who had received a long-awaited toy, eagerly allowing me to touch where the bracelets should have been.

My fingers felt only skin: smooth, warm, pleasant to the touch.

Jerking my hand back, I began to think. More precisely, I never stopped, but now I was doing it in accelerated mode. As soon as Scully connected the bracelets, they vanished. Or rather, disappeared from sight, not vanished entirely—the cunning look in the girl's eyes hinted at that. And... In its own way, it made sense.

The Order of the Night Sisters. According to Wayne, they acted as avengers, which meant that the wearers of the bracelets must have been able to stealthily approach their targets. If these bracelets were visible, any target would know at a glance who had come for their soul. So, one of the properties of these artifacts was stealth and concealment. If you looked at it objectively, what else would you expect from the goddess of Shadows?

"I was told these bracelets are weapons," I hinted.

"Yes, I feel something like that," Scully nodded.

Then she began to glance around and, turning to the river, carefully examined the opposite steep bank. Slowly, like in slow-motion footage, the Australian archery champion raised her hands as if holding a pistol in each.

I didn't notice her do or say anything, but suddenly, a pair of spears, seemingly made of embodied Twilight, shot from her hands. In an instant, they slammed into the earthen wall of the opposite bank, leaving neat holes that went deep inside. 'Shadow Spear!' I immediately recognized the spell from the arsenal of the Mistress of Shadows.

"Pierced about ten meters," Scully said, squinting like a sniper peering through a scope. Then she flinched, looked around, and added, "Better clean this up."

A low-rank earth spell flew off from her hands, and the slope on the opposite bank settled a bit, burying under a small landslide the traces of the shadow spell.

Taking a deep breath, I tried to relax, not letting anger overwhelm me. No, it wasn't anger at Scully; she had nothing to do with it. I just didn't like being used as a silent tool, even if the heartless user was fate or someone else's luck. To distract myself from the anger, I asked a question:

"When did you manage to gain Affinity with Shadows?"

Scully looked at me with such pure, honest eyes, as if she didn't understand what I was asking.

"Let's skip the games. These bracelets can be used only by a woman possessing Affinity with Shadows, no one else."

"Only by a woman?" The huntress smiled and nodded to some thought of her own. "So that's why you kept them in your backpack instead of wearing them yourself."

"And you also need Affinity with Shadows," I shrugged, feigning disappointment.

"And you don't have..." She made an ambiguous gesture with her hand. "That Affinity?"

Why lie when you can show the truth? Or rather, part of it. I visualized the Sign of Affinity with Light.

"What do you think?" I asked innocently.

"Hm-m-m." For a moment, I thought she wouldn't fall for such a trick, but then she slowly nodded and looked away. "Convincing."

"And by the way, it's not nice to take what's not yours," I said, folding my arms and stepping forward. "Put them back where you found them."

I expected her to jump aside or hide her hands behind her back, but what happened next made my jaw drop.

Scully brought her hands together, and the bracelets "materialized" on her forearms again. I noticed that one of the moonstones on each had seemingly dimmed. Then, the future goddess of the Hunt unclasped them and, removing them from her arms, carefully placed them on the black fabric.

Uh... Had she been replaced? The Scully I knew would never just give up something that had already stuck to her playful hands. I couldn't believe it! Yet, there the bracelets were, lying on the fabric, and the girl herself even took half a step back.

To regain my composure after the Aussie's unexpected act, I repeated my question:

"How did you manage to gain Affinity with Shadow?"

Tearing her greedy gaze from the bracelets, Scully turned her head to me and then smiled innocently:

"It just happened... I didn't expect it myself. It all started with a simple Task Board in a small town west of Rur." Scully poked the coals with a stick and continued. "Children started disappearing from the villages around the city. Not too many, but enough to make the authorities nervous. As I dug deeper, I found out that kids were disappearing not only from the surrounding villages but also from the city's slums. Only those who wouldn't be missed: orphans, children of parents who'd hit rock bottom... " The huntress's face became like a wax mask. "I won't go into details, but in just a couple of days, I found the one responsible."

The future Goddess of the Hunt paused her story, took a flask from her belt, and drank from it. From the aroma that reached me, I guessed it contained wine, likely young and light, almost non-alcoholic. After drinking, she offered the flask to me, and I didn't refuse. I didn't care for young wines, finding them too sour, but declining would have been impolite. Once I returned it, Scully hung the flask back on her belt and continued:

"There was a priest of Seguna in the city. A completely deranged scumbag. He was the one kidnapping children and sacrificing them to create some Shadow Creature. Wanted to get revenge on someone using this monster forged by Shadows from the children's blood." She waved her hand dismissively. "I didn't delve into the details; like in any sizable city, there was quite a tangle of intrigues. Anyway, I tracked that bastard... Followed him to a secret temple of the Night Mistress. And when he was absorbed in his ritual, I drove an arrow into his mad skull." She sighed heavily. "That's when I broke my bow. But to time the shot, I had to watch him slit the throats of two girls with his own hands. Watch and endure until he was lost in the mystery and disconnected from reality, because I couldn't have handled a Priest of Diamond—especially at an altar—in a direct fight."

She fell silent, as if sinking into unpleasant memories. Meanwhile, I pictured the situation and realized I wasn't sure I'd have had the willpower not to throw myself into a hopeless attack at the sight of kids being murdered. Chills the size of fists ran down my spine, and I understood that I would never have wanted to be in Scully's place then.

"That creature… I can't bring myself to call him human," the Aussie hissed. "Even with an arrow in his skull, he was still alive, and I had to finish him off with a spear. And when I thought it was all over, that bastard's body exploded like a howitzer shell. Only my armor and Spirit Armor saved me. But even then, I was thrown aside so hard that I literally crashed my forehead into Seguna's altar."

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"Uh…" That's when I stopped understanding anything and voiced my thoughts aloud. "Wait. You killed a priest of Seguna near Her altar, then touched that very altar—and you're alive? You weren't struck down on the spot for killing a priest?"

"Yes, as you can see, I'm alive," she spread her arms, smiling, it seemed to me, somewhat guiltily. "In short, the Night Mistress and I had a nice chat."

She what? Had a nice chat with the Echo of the goddess of Night Cool? How so?

"Here's the thing," Scully's smirk was more like a predatory grin. "Turns out, Seguna isn't opposed to the creation of Shadow Monsters; I'd even say she's all for it. And as for the child sacrifices, well, if she's not indifferent, she's very close to it. But there's a catch. You see, that priest wasn't choosing the right children… If he had been kidnapping the offspring of nobility or the wealthy, that would be one thing. But fearing persecution from the authorities and nobles, he chose the most defenseless: orphans, the destitute…"

"The destitute," I echoed. "And Seguna is considered the goddess of those who have lost everything. Whereas Orphans are under the protection of Dairin, her sister."

"Exactly," the huntress nodded, "you get it. So, eliminating Seguna's priest by my hand was deemed justified and even pleasing to the Goddess. That's when I gained Affinity with Shadows."

"Amazing…"

What else could I say? I was genuinely shocked by her story! Not because she, at Opal, killed a Diamond. That part was clear: one let his guard down, and the other was a future goddess of the Hunt, so an arrow to the skull was a natural outcome. But for Seguna to approve the killing of her priest, even one who had strayed from the faith? Strange things happened under this foreign sky.

The silence lasting for nearly five minutes was broken by Scully, who voiced a question:

"Listen, why do you need these bracelets? I mean, you're clearly not a woman," the huntress raised her eyebrows in silent inquiry, and seeing my reaction, she continued. "Besides, you have Light, not Shadow. So, why do you need them?"

"These bracelets are shadow artifacts, for possessing which the paladin order would quickly have your head. So, I planned to turn them in. Not to the Light Ones, they would at best say thanks, but to the Artifactors' Guild," I smiled as openly as possible, finishing, "Of course, for a good price."

"And how much would they pay?" Scully's voice held a carefully hidden tension.

"A thousand gold for one, and two and a half for a complete pair."

I didn't know the exact prices, and for such unique items, the value was calculated individually, but I tried not to lie.

"Why don't I buy them from you?" asked the future goddess of the Hunt bluntly.

"Didn't you hear me? Let me repeat: possession of these artifacts is punishable by death."

"Who's going to find out anyway..." the Aussie dismissed my argument. "When I put them on, I immediately knew how to use them. And here's what I'll tell you: in stealth mode, which is the passive mode of wearing the bracelets, they can't be detected by ordinary scanning magic. Only special artifacts can reveal these bracelets on my hands. And, of course, I'd have to avoid Antares' altars. But that's no great loss. Besides, now that I have Affinity with Shadows, I doubt that approaching light altars would be such a good idea."

Hmm. I'd been racking my brain over how to get the bracelets back to her after she'd obediently returned them, and here she was, offering to buy them straight out. And of course, I'd made the mistake of giving her the real price… I should have quoted five times less, so she'd buy them for sure and I could finally be rid of this handleless suitcase![1]

"Yeah, I don't really care who I sell them to," I drawled, pretending to hesitate.

Instead of responding, Scully pulled out a pouch the size of two fists from behind her back, previously hidden by her armor, untied the drawstrings, and turned it upside down. Coins started raining onto the ground. One, two... ten... a hundred... another hundred... Gold mixed with silver, but there was more gold. For half a minute, coins poured out of the clearly enchanted pouch before it showed its bottom.

"That's a thousand and a half. Exactly. You can count it. I'll owe you another thousand," the huntress said, not taking her eyes off me.

"I don't like being owed," I grimaced theatrically, keeping my gaze on the spatial artifact. "Let's do this: a thousand and a half, and the pouch, the very one in your hands."

"Cutting me deep, aren't you!" Scully growled, but her tone betrayed her.

"Alright. A thousand and the pouch," I relented slightly.

"Or maybe..."

"No deal without the pouch!" I crossed my arms, starting a staring contest.

Scully was the first to give in. At first, I thought we wouldn't agree, and she'd put her rope to use, but no, she held back.

"Deal!" she said, jumping to her feet and extending her open hand.

"Deal," I agreed, sealing the transaction with a handshake.

After we counted the money, I began examining the magical pouch. It was the creation of a master-artifactor, based on ritual magic. The pouch itself was made of thin yet remarkably sturdy leather and stitched with a fine silvery thread forming a strange, slightly hypnotic pattern—if you stared at it for too long, your eyes seemed to get lost in the weave. According to Scully, it could hold about four kilograms of coins, and their weight was barely felt. A handy thing, though it had a significant limitation: it could only store coins or precious stones; anything else disrupted the artifact's function, turning it into an ordinary pouch. Even so, it was a very useful acquisition.

Almost all the gold scattered on the grass ended up in my new purse, while Scully kept the silver for herself.

As I tossed the coins inside, I was thrilled like a little child. Yes, thanks to my memory of the future, I knew about such things, but it was one thing to have vague recollections and quite another to hold this marvel in my hands. Where the huntress got such a rarity, I didn't ask. She could have bought it—which I found hard to believe—or acquired it as a trophy, perhaps from the body of that priest of the Night Mistress she had finished off.

While tossing gold into the purse like pebbles into a river pool, I kept glancing at the future goddess of the Hunt. After gathering all the silver, she approached the bracelets, squatted next to them, and took them in her hands. For a while, she admired the delicate patterns on the surface of the shadow artifacts, then rolled up her sleeves and put the bracelets on. She brought her wrists together, touching the bracelets, which disappeared from view again. Then she spent about three minutes examining her forearms, nodded in satisfaction at some thought, and smoothed down her sleeves, covering her seemingly "bare" arms.

"Raven," Scully turned to me, shaking her hands, "now that we're, let's say, partners..." My eyebrows shot up in silent surprise. "We made a deal, so we're partners," she explained her reasoning. "So, as your business partner, care to tell me what you're doing here?" She gestured around us. "Don't take me for a fool. You didn't run so fast that you tore your shoes just to sit by this forest river."

"I wanted to verify a legend," I replied evasively.

"What legend?" Scully sat down on the grass, watching me intently.

She wouldn't let it go? Definitely not. And no matter how I felt about her, she was a Shard, so I needed to build a good relationship with her. So that in the future, she wouldn't dismiss my words but listen to them.

"A long time ago..."

I ended up telling her the story of the war between two clans and how the remnants of the losing side's castle were nearby.

"Oh, Raven," the huntress shook her head after listening to me. "You're so grown up, yet you believe in fairy tales. There are dozens of such legends in every village, even the smallest ones. Don't try to fool me; checking each of these stories would take a lifetime."

"I just needed to clear my head," I admitted.

Then I sighed and told her about the earthlings who had decided to join the paladin corps and perished in the Inverted Tower of Antares, trying to pass the trial.

"I don't know why, but their death threw me off balance. Even though I barely knew them," I grimaced, gesturing for Scully's flask and taking a big swig of the sour wine. "So I decided to go for a run, to occupy myself with something mindless."

"A sad story," Scully nodded, and I felt she meant it. "But you do understand that over the centuries, treasure hunters have thoroughly combed through those ruins you're looking for. Even if something was there once, it's long been found. There's nothing there now."

"I understand," I said stubbornly, bowing my head. "But I just felt like trying anyway."

"That happens," the Australian archery champion unexpectedly agreed. "I went through something similar back on Earth. And indeed, doing something different can help deal with such negative emotions."

Getting to her feet, Scully jumped up and listened in to the jingle of coins in her regular purse at her belt. She grimaced and began rearranging the money so it wouldn't jingle with sudden movements. When she finished this simple but, admittedly, useful task, she glanced at me with an inexplicable twinkle in her eyes.

"Raven!" she beamed. "I'm appointing you as my lucky charm!" And before I could ask what she meant, the girl, resembling a famous actress from the "X-Files" series, continued, "Every meeting with you brings me luck." Taking a step towards me, she looked me straight in the eye. "Let me hug you! Exclusively as a lucky charm!"

From such forwardness, I even took a step back. Not that I didn't want to be hugged... Quite the opposite. I did. But that was exactly what made me step back.

"It's not convenient to hug in armor," I muttered, feeling my ears turn red.

"So, is that a problem?!"

Her sweet and charming smile was intimidating, and the fact that she reached for her belt, clearly intending to unfasten it, scared me even more.

My fear was based on the fact that I wasn't sure I could stick to just hugging. In fact, I was growing increasingly certain that it wouldn't end with just that.

Did I really need this? It would be one thing if she were just a pretty huntress, but she was a Shard. In the Last Cycle, I'd already gotten burned by getting involved with one of the future goddesses, and making the same mistake twice...

Gathering the remnants of my dwindling will, I stopped Scully with a negative gesture.

"No hugs!" I said, rather too fast.

"Why are you being such an oversized wombat?" the huntress frowned. "I'm being all friendly, and he..."

"Scully," I decided to be honest and continued, "I'm just afraid I won't be able to hold back, and it won't end with just hugs. I can't trust myself!"

"Am I against it?" The future goddess of the Hunt winked and reached for her belt again.

"Scully, please, no," I almost shouted, feeling the last remnants of control slipping away.

"Why not?!" Scully's eyes widened, but she removed her hands from the belt clasp.

"We've just arrived in a new world, and I believe it's not the right time for relationships," I offered the only argument that came to mind.

For about ten seconds, Scully looked at me in surprise, then took two quick steps closer and whispered, her hot breath scorching my ears:

"Did I say anything about relationships?"

And that was when the last remnants of my self-control abandoned me…

[1] Translator's note: a "handless suitcase" is something that's become inconvenient or useless, but still feels too valuable, expensive, or meaningful to just throw it away. I couldn't find a suitable English equivalent for this idiom, but I also didn't want to include a literal explanation in the text.