[h3]Rat Party[/h3]
[quote=System:Ed]
Skill Gain: Breath Control I (0.8 > 1.0)!
Through cardiovascular exercise and breathing techniques, the efficiency of your lungs has increased. You can hold your breath for longer, and breathe more steadily even under great effort or stress. Stamina usage for most physical Skills is reduced for one minute after this Skill is used. If this skill is used after a battle, Stamina restoration is sped up for one minute.

Skill Gain: Mana Strike I (0.7 > 1.0)!
Infuse a physical attack with non-elemental Magic to increase its damage. The attack's physical type of damage is unaffected, but Magic damage is simply added. Thus a creature with Slash Resistance would still take the Magic Damage if this Skill were used with a sword. Like Mana Orb, this technique is malleable and often a starting point for other forms of enchanting skills.

Skill Gain: Point Strike I (0.6 > 1.0)!
With a discerning eye, take aim at an oppenent's weak point and concentrate your own power into a single point of attack. Slightly increase the power of any attack, and gain an increased chance for a Critical Hit. Using this Skill in conjunction with other attack Skills, however, may cause it to lose effectiveness.

Skill Gain: Strengthen I (0.6 > 1.0)!
Using magical energy channeled through your muscles, temporarily increase your base physical strength! Though it consumes more mana than many other beginner spells, its boost is equivalent to the passive skill Stronger I. At this Rank, this skill lasts roughly one minute.

You are experiencing a Fast Rate in Experience Growth.
[/quote]

[quote=System:Asteria]
Skill Gain: Slash I (0.7 > 1.0)!
Expend Stamina to increase the power of a Slashing physical attack.

Skill Gain: Suppress Presence I (0.6 > 1.0)!
Using your magical power, you subtly mask your presence from the senses of others around you. By comparison, it's a similar ability to those shy people who seem to disappear at the corner of the crowd's vision as they hover in the corner.
[/quote]

The rats rested, from mid-afternoon until the evening sun set. At one point, just as the stars were beginning to peek out, the creak of wagon wheels drifted on the air and a distant light appeared from the direction of the lakeside town. Ed lay in the tall grass, the dark robe he had stolen from the dead kobold helping to conceal his body in the shadows. Asteria and Mother Rat were back inside the barrow at this point, but they could see out the entry way.

A black wagon, drawn by a brace of gray mules, stopped along the road. A tall figure, in a coat with long black tails and a deep hood, stood from the driver's seat. From the build, it seemed to be a male. A sword with a broad scabbard and a hilt that looked like it had been made from black, twisted wood, hung from his hip. He pulled on two white, velvet gloves, immaculately clean, then picked up a cane with a red, crystalline sphere atop its head. Hopping down from the cart, he walked over to the side of the road and looked in the ditch, not too far from where Ed lay...

He tapped one of the human bandit's bodies with the butt of his walking stick. A shimmering white mist seemed to roll over the corpses...and suddenly they didn't seem to smell so badly, despite laying out in the sun for most of the day. The hooded figure seemed to be muttering something, one hand held near his head. A prayer? Then he used his cane to gesture at the ground, and mounds of earth rose up beneath the bodies. Moving his strange wand like a conductor's baton, he bade the rolling soil to carry the bodies up out of the ditch, about thirty feet away from the road. Then, holding the stick, he began to gesture with his free hand instead. In moments the ground had swallowed up the bodies, and the earth packed itself down.

Then he turned to the bodies of the remaining hobgoblin and the kobold. These he did not pray over. Instead, he reached down with one hand and grabbed the hobgoblin by the arm. With a grunt, and only that one arm, he tossed the body all the way across the ditch into the back of his cart. One of the mules brayed in irritation as the weight thumped across the wooden floorboards. The hooded figure paid his animal no mind. Off sailed the kobold as well.

There were just a few spots of blood on those immaculate white gloves. The black clad man pulled them off, first one hand and then the other, in such a way that his pale skin never touched the blood and the gloves were rolled into a sort of pouch. He returned them to his pocket. Then he climbed up onto the wagon, clicked his tongue at the mules, and turned back towards Laketown. The orange glow of the little lantern, held on a shepherd's crook fastened to one corner of the cart, tilted this way and that as it slowly disappeared into the night...

By the time the rats re-grouped and planned to put their Bandit Hunting plan into action, Asteria and Mother Rat had eaten some of the hobgoblin meat remaining in the shelter. Asteria had also suckled on the juices of several tall stalks of grass out in the field. If she had been any thirstier, such little sustenance would have been of no help, but it slaked her Dry Throat. And she was now Well Fed, according to the system. Her stamina recovered much faster and was full again sooner than Ed's. He had neglected to eat or seek out anything to drink, in favor of just focusing on his breathing and trying to stretch or massage the soreness out of his muscles. His stamina did eventually recover, and it seemed he had gained several new skills...but his lips were still a little dry, and he felt the slow burn of hunger in his gut.

As they began their journey, with Asteria scouting ahead and using her Beast Senses to try and stay abreast of any threat, the night fell proper with a chill breeze. Asteria soon heard a familiar shuffling and clicking, and the rustle of the grass, quite some distance away. Now knowing what direction to look in, she would be able to see, poking its head up out of the ground, a Myrminor Scout. It didn't seem to have any awareness of the rodent trio's presence, and it was far enough away that even if it found them and tried to pursue them it probably couldn't ever catch them. They could avoid it at their leisure, or attempt to sneak up on it and end the fight quickly...

Over the hill in the distance, as the wind changed direction, the rats could smell a hint of smoke...