Guerrilla's Cloak. Inferior. You can become more difficult to detect in any environment where you do not have control. The ability is strongest in urban alleyways, dense forests, or underground tunnels, but weakens in open, well-guarded areas. While hidden, you deal 5% additional damage on your first attack.

  When I first triggered the cloak, I felt the tug at both my mana and stamina channels. The mana weaved outward like threads into the environment, while the stamina moved inward, slowing my internal energy signature, pulling it tighter to my core, like I was folding myself into the world.

  The reason that it worked better in dense cover like alleyways, forests, and tunnels, lay in the way the ambient energy existed in such areas. The narrower areas have more cracks, shadows, and branches within, creating a sort of ambient clutter to the energy. My cloak caused the energy around me to bend and scatter, like water over rocks, masking my presence.

  As I passed between alleyways, the cloak had to work harder to fight against the cleaner, more ordered energy within the open space. The cloak sputters as it struggles to mask its presence, like trying to hide a blot of ink on a blank page or within clear water.

  As for the sneak attack damage boost, that was a little more technical. My tightened core, when released during the first attack, snaps out like spring steel snapping free. After the attack, the cloak fizzles and the concealment breaks.

  Internal energies like health, stamina, and mana were more definable than the true aspects of using one’s pathways. Doing anything expends energy, even doing nothing, which is why one feels tired at the end of a day where one didn’t really do anything but lounge around reading or playing video games or whatever pre-System. The brain processing stimuli from vision, hearing, etc., expends some energy. It would be miniscule, but there.

  Being able to consume all kinds of energy, would it be possible to consume the energy intended for perception using my cloak?

  HUNGER!

  As I internally asked the question, my hunger responded. It was ready. The mana threads that weaved outward pulled in, weaving into a thin coating across my entire body.

  HUNGER!

  The stamina that was once used to mask my core push outward, intertwined among the barrier of mana across my body.

  HUNGER!

  New to the equation, so to speak, I felt vital energy infused across the coating, amplifying the hunger affinity from my core’s three forms.

  Guerrilla’s Cloak. Inferior. adapts to Ravenous Cloak. Uncommon.

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  Ravenous Cloak. Uncommon. You become more difficult to detect in any environment, as your hunger consumes the perceptions around you. The more powerful the attempted perception, the higher the cost to the cloak. While hidden, you deal 15% additional damage on your first attack, recovering 50% of the damage done as your Ravenous Cloak consumes some of your foe. In addition, while hidden, you can determine the approximate location of any creatures whose gaze is consumed by your cloak.

  DING! Class: Hypocrite Revolutionary has increased from Level 15 to Level 17.

  DING! Race: Omnis Vorare has increased from Level 14 to Level 15.

  Two rarity increases, two class, and one race level! I pumped my fist as I decided to trust my new cloak and stepped out to stalk closer to the stag. I could feel the high perception of the beast and the subsequent drain on my energy. Manageable, if a bit higher than I would like.

  The stag was so tall that I could easily stand beneath it, and as I ran between its legs I thrust my razorclaw blades deep across its stomach. The cloak broke as the hungry energy drank deeply from the stag, restoring some of my own as I was sprayed with blood.

  The beast roared in rage and pain, instinctually spinning and dropping its head. An arc of lightning struck me and I was flung into an adjacent building, crashing through concrete, glass, and steel. I landed hard on the other side of the building, grunting in pain, and quickly activated the cloak just in time as the stag burst around the corner, lightning branching out in a wide attack across the road.

  I leapt high into the air, dodging the spell and trying to land behind the beast, but its magic blast pushed it backward, and I landed on its back, facing its hind end. I dug the claws of my feet into the stag’s side, and it roared as it bucked, trying to throw me off. I felt the cloak absorb some of the vitality of the stag as my claws dug in, and my four arms went to work furiously slashing and goring into the patriarch’s backside. Dark blue blood poured over my secured legs as I was bucked around.

  In an act of desperation, the beast charged against a building, scraping me against the sturdy materials. Pain shot through my right leg and arms as I was dragged and snagged on a set of exposed rebar, ripping me off the beast.

  “Gah, fuck me,” I muttered as the stag reared to face me. Its antlers grew brighter and brighter as it charged up, stomping a hoof. I was starting to pull myself free when the stag began its attack.

  Vines erupted around the deer and wrapped around its legs as it surged forward, throwing off its balance and making it fall to the side. The lightning strike that it launched at me was knocked to the side, only grazing me as a roaring hippo man landed on the beast’s side, burying his axe deeply into its neck.

  I spasmed on the ground for several moments as the lightning raged through me. My health dropped to around ten percent and I felt the skin on my left side burning and cracking.

  The stag made a swift movement, knocking Gregory away from it. The axe was still buried in its neck as it stood. Gregory made a motion and the axe pulled free, flying to return to his hands. The patriarch sent a quick bolt at him, striking the ground with an explosion that knocked Gregory away. Cari was somewhere I couldn’t see, but more vines arrived and tried to wrap around the stag, who struggled for a moment before breaking free of their grasp.

  A moment was all I needed. My arms wrapped around the stags neck and I bit down where the axe wound was already closing up, ripping out large bites. My feasting sparked my vitality, and I felt my health recovery improve as I was thrashed around. This time, my position kept me from the antlers and the hooves, as well as being too awkward to be scraped off via building smashing.

  Not that it didn’t try.

  Cari and Gregory moved in to help, only to watch the enormous deer run headlong into the heavily damaged adjacent building, which had finally had enough and imploded upon itself, sending a cloud of dust that enveloped about twenty city blocks.