Skills and plans.

Rosa spent most of the afternoon learning to climb her improvised rope ladder, her new skill was now invaluable. However, it was difficult to balance quiet breathing and hiding while climbing.

"Skill: Climbing. lvl 1. User can use tools and handholds to go up steep surfaces. Each lvl adds +1 to strength, dexterity and agility."

This skill means that her strength was now two. Rosa equipped her wooden mallet and found that she didn't feel any different.

'Maybe I will see the difference in combat?'

Rosa was exhausted by this time. There was no way that she'd be able to pull off the plan today. Not with the fitful night she had.

It seems she was about to have another sleepless night.

Checking Climbing, the experience bar was halfway to level two. It was then, Rosa decided to take a break and check her surroundings.

The lower city was quiet. Looking out the bell tower, Rosa was surprised to actually see some monsters this time.

One was in the shape of a horse, if a horse had three eyes and razor sharp teeth. Rosa recalled it's name as a Sanguine Stomper and it was a common level twenty monster.

Apt name for a beast that literally runs down its prey and stomps them into paste.

The other was a commonly seen monster in the city: Rodentia. They rarely got to the size of the one she was seeing, she estimated it was about to her waist. The Iris equivalent of a description would be: rats the size of dogs.

'Rare monster. Probably level fifteen. Great.' Rosa thought sarcastically. There was still no sign of the type of monster that cleaved the door off the caretakers house. That monster had to have claws and be as tall as a man.

Iris's gaming instincts screamed that these weren't the only two monsters around of their type. There were probably plenty more where they came from.

'Day two of a monster raid. This is getting serious.' Most monster raids were over in a day. Some lasted longer because the monsters couldn't get through the defenses, like now.

Rosa made her way back in. Break time was over. When night falls, she would have to stop and stay silent. Night heightened monsters abilities straight across the board. Stronger, faster and more perceptive were all traits increased. Why? No one knew.

Well, except the monsters and no one was willing to talk to them. It was a while later that a message chimed in.

"Ding, Climbing has increased to lvl 2. +1 strength, agility and dexterity."

Rosa was soaked in sweat and her arms felt like rubber. The continous use of her arms and legs made her shaky.

'Why can't I be like the cherished chosen ones and not suffer through training.' Rosa grumbled inwardly. The increase in attributes did nothing for her right now but reassure her.

The plan now was to stay atop the bell tower, hopefully leveling up sneak before nightfall. Then, hide until morning and maybe get some sleep. Early morning would see her making her way over to the wall.

Atop the bell tower, Rosa stayed low and watched Sneak's experience bar rise steadily. Sneak didn't require movement to level up, not in this situation anyways.

Sneak rose to level four while quiet breathing hit level five and maxed out. Quiet breathing took away fifteen points of prescence in total. Using quiet breathing and sneak had her presence lowered to four now.

The Hiding skill was at level three and erased seven presence. It was near level four and leveling it up more would probably grant her almost no presence tonight.

A familiar chime of the system came through.

Rosa stared in surprise. It was the exact same mission that she got the first night with the same rewards.

'Fine by me. I won't need the rewards to escape but better to be over prepared then six feet under.'

That also meant her time outside was over. It was nearing dark. Listening for anything nearby yielded no results so Rosa went back in.

The same terrifying howls came about thirty minutes later. Almost simultaneously, Hiding rose to four. Her presence was at two.

Rosa hoped that this meant a monster had to be almost on top of her to find her now. She was so tired she could sleep right then.

A sudden thought sobered Rosa up and had her looking through the daily skill section.

Specifically, Sleeping.

Reading through the daily skill, Rosa stared in horror. Her presence had been twenty seven while she slept that morning. All skills were turned off while action points, health points and mana points were restored.

'I narrowly evaded death. Great, what do I do now?' A skill that Iris saw in other games came to mind. 'I could try it.'

Rosa sat cross legged as she attempted to follow a long forgotten meditation class that Iris did as a joke.

'There's no way I can do a mantra right now. So I will try to listen to the wind and concentrate on that image.' Rosa had a hard time clearing out her intrusive thoughts. Especially with the sounds coming from around her.

A long time passed in the quiet with some distant noise troubling her.

"Ding." Rosa heard a notification chime and opened her eyes wondering when she had closed them.

The notification was for learning meditation. Controlled breathing was another new skill that was now level two. Rosa was stupefied.

A look through the skills answered her questions.

"Meditation: lvl 1. User enters a trance like state. For every hour the user successfully mediates, +1 to recovery of all points. User can simultaneously use one passive body skill while meditating of the automatic sub-class."

Overlapped with:

"Note: At higher levels, skill: Meditation will grant bonuses to attributes."

Rosa noticed that any extra information the system gave her usually overlapped the text window it affected.

"Quiet breathing has evolved to controlled breathing."

"Controlled Breathing: lvl 2. Automatic body skill. User can control their breathing rate to adjust certain effects. Automatic: Presence down has been selected. Please equip effects through skill tab."

Clicking on the skill tab and finding her new skill, new information popped up. There were five effects and three were locked. Quiet breathing was listed as maxed out but a new skill had been unlocked, Restful breathing. The effect was to slowly remove exhaustion and restore action points by one per hour.

'Helpful for later.' Rosa mused as she sat in the dark. 'Meditation really helped. I don't feel as tired as I did yesterday.'

Rosa didn't know what time it was and there wasn't any light peeking through the door cracks yet. There hadn't been a reward from the system yet either.

One thing for sure, it wasn't morning.

With nothing better to do, Rosa decided to use Enhanced hearing to listen if anything was nearby.

The range of the skill was good, but it was hard to tell where any noise was actually coming from. Noise travels in waves and being inside didn't help.

Rosa stayed put and decided to level up Hiding while she waited for sunrise. Boredom set in and she began rack her brain for something she could do to keep occupied.

To keep the fear away.

'Most skills need the action done once or twice to activate. What can I do without making noise?'

Remembering the locked skills in Controlled breathing, Rosa got an idea.

She held her breath. Skills like swimming probably had crossover skill trees. Kicking and treading water were just a part of swimming. Holding your breath mattered too.

"Ding!" Rosa was a genius.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rosa was an idiot.

'Why can't I figure this out?' The last one remained unlocked. Heavy breathing and Stopped breathing had been unlocked quite some time ago.

She had tried everything she could think of; breathing fast, breathing shallow, upside-down, through her mouthand through her nose. She was out of ideas.

It was beginning to vex her.

"Ding! You have completed quest-"

It was dawn.

The Inventory was opened as the rewards piled in. Rosa got a throwing knife that was two star, another health potion, a mana potion, plus one to wisdom and speed.

The real treasure was the skill book: Quick dash.

"Ding! You have learned skill: Quick dash. Lvl 1. Activating skill will double dexterity, agility and speed for 15 seconds. Each lvl will increase time by 5 seconds." Rosa was elated until a system note showed up.

"Note: Using this skill will negate any skill involving presence."

'It's a pure battle skill then.' Rosa frowned as she crossed her arms to think. 'If I use it, I risk being found by proximity. That means I can only use it when I am spotted. I will have fifteen seconds to get out of sight and hide or find a place unreachable.'

Rosa looked at her attributes on the status page and inwardly winced. Even doubling her attributes would do little to help her escape.

Almost all monsters had the starting attributes of five in every stat...at level one. Even at seven Rosa knew that much about monsters.

Other worldly knowledge was telling Rosa that she had good basic stats for a thief.

"Ding! Hiding is now level 5. Prescence is now reduced to 0."

Rosa hadn't realized she was so close to a level up. The system surprised her with a reward.

"User has reduced their presence to 0. Hidden achievement unlocked. Generating new title, adding new skill."

'So the system can generate skills like this too?' Rosa contemplated the system before her. It seemed to have a standard for rewards. The higher the rank quest, the better the rewards and rewards are given for completion of set tasks.

"Title: Was that the wind just now? Achieved. Equip titles at the Attribute page."

"Obtained Skill: Camouflage. Lvl 1. By equiping gear with the Camouflage trait, the user will become transparent. Monsters have a 5% chance to agro on sight. % chance rises to 10% if moving when in monster's field of vision."

"Note: Does not work on true sight monsters"

The title granted her a noise reduction while moving. She equipped it immediately.

Rosa looked down at her well-made but dirty and ripped outfit. She had been running around in a tunic, tight fitted pants and simple but soft leather boots. If not for her long hair, she would be mistaken as a little boy.

Her mother had insisted on the warm outfit because the outer wall was windy. It probably saved her life these past two nights.

Regretfully, it didn't have the Camouflage trait.

"Braaaaaaa!" Rosa jumped up at the sudden sound of a war horn. In a flash, the bell tower door was opened and she peeked over the wall in the direction of the other gate.

The monsters were on the move.