Lily and I charged in from opposite sides of the red mask. I hoped Lily understood the danger those weapons possessed; especially at her low level, one wrong move could be fatal. But she had a trickster Path—she was born into this world with a System, and that is what she’d chosen.

  I don’t think other monsters interacted with the System the same way I did, but leveling up and selecting Paths were a natural part of this world.

  Just like animals from Earth, nobody taught a beaver how to build a dam or a spider how to spin a web, or a lion how to hunt. So many things animals of Earth just know that they are supposed to do because they are crucial for survival—we call it instinct, but what IS instinct? In this world, leveling up and evolving through the System were crucial for survival. Even if their interaction with it wasn’t translated through floating blue screens—Lily selected her Path, it gave her skills, she knew how to use them, and I had to trust her.

  The red mask swept the pole at me; I had to back off. Her reach allowed her to keep me at bay one-handed, but I saw her eyes were focused on Lily.

  I barked a warning; the woman had seen Lily’s skill once already, and she seemed to be looking out for it now.

  This time, Lily did something different. Instead of one fake body, she split into two, both charging at her adversary.

  The red mask growled in frustration, and maybe with a bit of fear. She plunged her dagger at one Lily—going right through—while the other Lily leapt at her chest, pouncing with enough speed to knock her down. The red mask’s focus went fully on Lily, whose frantic bites at her mask did little damage but kept her pinned.

  The pole arced haphazardly in my direction but I leapt over it and aimed for the other arm that was now plunging a dagger at Lily. I successfully intercepted it, casting {Crippling Bite} and snapping my jaws right on her elbow joint and twisting

  I did good damage, I could tell by the red masks scream, but I did not feel the telltale crunching of bone that I had hoped for. She rolled, trying to shake us off, but I let go and instantly tried again—{Crippling Bite}!

  But a voice dinged in my head.

  [Sorry, you have insufficient mana to use that skill.]

  Crap!

  I barked at Lily to retreat while I targeted the red mask’s wrist so I could at least control the dagger’s movement.

  I snapped my jaws down right on target, then clenched my teeth and ripped and pulled, but I did not feel I was doing any real damage. The leather bracer around her lower arm was too thick for my teeth to get through, but I was at least succeeding in stopping her from using the dagger.

  Lily heeded my warning bark, already disengaging, and perhaps realizing her attacks were not having any effect.

  When the pole plunged at me, I let go of her wrist and ran, barely getting away from it in time.

  After a short sprint, I spun to a stop right beside Lily, kicking up dirt. We were a good distance away now and turned to face our opponent.

  The red-masked woman tried to stand once again, but her broken ankle caused her to instantly fall back to her knee with a wince.

  Dagger in one hand, electric pole in the other, those hollow eyes stared us down, assessing our next move. Then, surprisingly, she dropped her dagger. What was she doing? She still held the pole forward defensively as she reached behind herself, grabbing something else. A ranged weapon? I gave Lily a warning growl.

  But when her hand revealed itself from behind her back, she was holding a small red potion bottle, which she flicked the cork off of with her thumb before bringing it to her lips, emptying it with three tough gulps.

  A healing potion? Those things exist in this world? That is so not fair! Why didn’t any of my prey drop any healing potions?!

  I checked my vitals.

  Vitals

  Health: 96 / 175

  Mana: 25 / 185

  Stamina: 80 / 172

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  So 25 mana isn’t enough for a Crippling Bite? No wonder I ran out so quickly. But how about a Marrow Sense?

  I gave it a shot—{Marrow Sense}!

  I saw her colored skeleton appear within her, but already the red and yellow parts that I had previously damaged were shifting colors, the red turning yellow. All except for her one ankle that had started red remained that color.

  She angrily smashed the glass bottle on the ground, shattering it into tiny shards, and picked up her dagger as she stood and tested her footing. This time she did not fall or wince.

  Not fair! This is so not fair! She really was healed!

  I barked at Lily: “Retreat!”

  We both turned and ran. This area led into a slope that headed downhill. We couldn’t jump for the trees from this height, so running lower on the pass was our best bet to get down to the forest and off the mountainside. Survival until nightfall really was our only chance; then, if we could continue to elude them through the cover of darkness, maybe we could get far enough for them to lose our trail.

  That was the only chance I could now think of. Once again, I felt like prey—and I hated it!

  I heard the red-masked woman whistle, and above us something dove through the canopy—a Direwing!

  It didn’t go for us, however. I suppose they really were mainly used as mounts, not like the bigger hawk-like birds the dragon rider seemed to control that were called Night Harriers.

  Still, this wasn’t good, because as the Direwing swept towards the red-masked woman, it skidded momentarily on the ground beside her, slowing down enough for her to hop on and straddle its back, and then they were airborne again.

  She probably couldn’t outrun us on foot—everyone knew dogs were faster than humans, though maybe the right skills could change that. Still, the Direwing more than made up for the difference in mobility between us.

  We continued to run downhill, but she was gaining on us and swooping lower. Could the Direwing snatch Lily? I didn’t know, but as the broken bits of sunlight that made it through the canopy and onto the ground in front of us were disturbed, I knew I couldn’t just run and hope for the best.

  She swept low, aiming right at us, the electrified pole extended towards Lily. I leaped up at the last second and grabbed the pole with my teeth—it was the only thing I could do to protect my sister, and the result to myself was unsurprisingly very bad.

  I felt that horrible pain course through my body, seizing me in such a way I couldn’t even break my jaw free at first. My feet lifted off the ground as I was carried a short distance before falling loose. I hit the ground hard, rolling down the slope. Dirt and dust caked into the dagger wound along my backside, and I eventually rolled to a stop.

  The pain receded, but slowly. It was a struggle to stand. I forced my head up to see the rider arc upwards and disappear through the canopy again. It seemed tight turns were not possible for her, so she needed to get above the trees to change direction. Still, I knew she’d be swooping down for round two soon enough.

  I felt Lily nudge me and bark in a panic, telling me to get moving. I forced my legs to move, slowly at first, but soon I was up to speed again. I checked my vitals.

  Vitals

  Health: 70 / 175

  Mana: 5 / 185

  Stamina: 40 / 172

  Things were not looking good. I was a fool to think we could actually defeat her. We had a good start when we first attacked, but levels mattered, and hers was surely much higher than ours. For all of Lily’s efforts, she did little in the way of real damage. My Crippling Bite was effective for stopping her mobility, but doing true lethal damage was beyond me. I only beat that other red mask the one time because she had already been on death’s door.

  As I heard a rustle from the branches overhead, I got over the shock enough to at least keep up with Lily, and we continued to run. But it wouldn’t be enough; even if we avoided the next attack, and the one after that, we couldn’t keep this up all day. Not only that, she had at least one ally on the way to help her. This was just too much, and it wasn’t fair!

  Then, as the pass turned down towards a new landing, I saw what might be our last hope—a cave!

  I barked at Lily, signaling towards it, and she seemed to understand. Further ahead of us, our problems only got worse as a second Direwing rider broke through the canopy. Perhaps the woman had also signaled him to our location last time she ascended upwards. If fighting was not in the cards before, that was certainly the case now.

  I dug deep, probably draining the last of my stamina for this mad dash towards the mouth of the cave. Both behind us and in front of us the riders swooped lower. The one in front tilted, riding along the cliff face, spraying pebbles and dust from his speed, and lowering his pole towards us.

  But we reached the cave just in time, ducking into it to feel the wind of his Direwing whipping the fur of my tail.

  The cave was dark—very dark. Lily whimpered uncertainly, both of us panting. Luckily, my Night Vision helped and I was glad to see this cave was not only darker but also much deeper than our den. We were smaller than those humans; maybe if we could find some small passages to slink through, we really could lose them. Or maybe we would just find ourselves staring into a dead end and waiting to be collected by the humans.

  I heard the screech of a Direwing echo in from the cave mouth, and then two sets of boots hitting the ground—the riders had landed, and they would be coming for us.

  I growled and nodded forward, Lily understanding and running alongside me. I couldn’t maintain my top speed anymore, and apparently neither could she, but we should still be faster than human legs.

  The cave sloped down, the cavern still wide, but narrowing the further we went. Far behind us I could hear them running, their steps echoing towards us, bouncing off the walls.

  One male voice shouted, “Damn it, Geirna! You couldn’t handle two pups? Healing Potions are expensive!”

  “Screw yourself. The bigger one is far higher level than we thought.”

  “You were just careless!”

  “I said screw off!”

  Hopefully they wasted enough energy arguing that they burned through their own stamina before catching us.

  Then, we got another lucky break as the path through the cave split in two directions. I didn’t have time to stop and contemplate which would be the better route, but if there were more splits like this, it would only get harder and harder for our pursuers to track us.

  The path I chose sloped even lower, but as we went, I saw a faint glowing light coming around the next bend in the path, and as I sniffed, I smelled the fresh scent of water.

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