The Man, the Wolf, and the Hawk

Marriane felt the hair on her arms begin to stand on end as she followed her companions deeper into the forest. While they weren't too far from the village that they had all been dropped in during what the villagers called the great shift. They were still deeper into the dense trees too where they had to be on guard from any potential predators.

Pushing her blonde hair out her face, Marriane felt herself trying to watch all directions at once incase of an ambush or attack.

'This shouldn't be happening, I shouldn't be here', she thought with pursed lips.

The great shift had occurred to her just as it had the others, only for her it had occurred just as she was about to enter her first job interview out of college. Before arriving in this place she had been dreading the interview, doing all she possibly could to prepare for it. Including having her hair done professionally, getting her nails painted a nice but business-like color, and picking out the perfect button up shirt and skirt for the occasion. She had never been big on fashion, but she'd told herself that this was the one occasion she needed to look a good as she could.

It had been near three weeks since she'd missed the interview and arrived in this world. Now her hair was nappy, covered in dirt and grass, her nice skirt and shirt were stained with mud and sweat, and her nails were in tatters.

Before she'd tried her best to look like a put together adult, now she looked like a tattered wild woman. If she'd known she was going to end up in another world, she would have at least dressed comfortable, a t-shirt and some shorts rather than a skirt and a button up.

Marriane could still remember the confusion she felt when she woke up just outside the village, face down in wet morning grass, surrounded by other "chosen".

It hadn't been long before they'd found out they were in someplace called Rivercross, medieval style fishing village on a world called Ria. That had been one of the biggest surprises, it appeared that the infinite planes were exactly that. A connected series of planes that, according to the locals spanned an infinite number of worlds and realms.

What the difference between a world and realm was she had little clue. But she'd decided not to take the words of the villagers too heart, they seemed nice enough, but their knowledge seemed more primitive than that of her own world. Still, some of what they said had helped immensely.

For one magic was real in this place, which made sense considering how all of the chosen had gotten there in the first place. They also had told the chosen there were portals that could take them to other worlds, though only a few of the portals stayed in place. Others appeared at random, taking whoever went inside wherever "eternity willed".

The villagers all seemed to worship the idea of eternal time with reverence, treating the concept more akin to god than immeasurable time.

They had been introduced well enough into this world when they'd arrived, both by the villagers and the unknown voices in the white world. While there were still dozens of questions that could be asked, at least all of them had been given a path too follow.

"Once you obtain enough power, you will be able to return home", Marriane remembered one of the voices saying to her.

Thanks to the system they all knew that killing creatures was the fastest way to gain that power. And it wasn't like the system had left them defenseless, after all it had given each chosen their pick of a series of weapons unique to each person. Yet that didn't mean the task was easy by any means.

In fact, out of the thirty or so chosen that had arrived in the village. Near half of them were already dead, with most of the survivors either sticking together in close teams. Or finding some way of making money within the village so they could eat, forgoing the monster slaying completely. Of course, there was one or two outliers in their numbers, those who had decided to go off on their own to hunt monsters in the forest closest the village. Most of those chosen had died, their bodies found by one of the two remaining teams.

Marriane felt bad for them, though she couldn't help but think of them as fools. Especially when she thought of the monsters that roamed the forest.

Wolves with antlers, giant hawks the size of dogs, snakes two handwidth's wide. All easily capable of killing a human being, and all more than happy to view the untrained chosen as prey.

It was because of that reason that Marriane had joined a team as soon as she could. A decision she was more than happy she had made. Not only did the starting weapon she chose, a bow, come in handy but she'd found a group of truly capable people. Far more so than Marriane was herself.

At the head of their team was Erial, who had become their makeshift leader due to her skill with a blade. She was a raven hair girl with bright green eyes and a medium height, and unlike many of the chosen she had actual combat training. She'd told the group that she'd started kendo when she was only a child, and considering her starting weapon was a katana she'd quickly become a well-known fighter amongst the chosen.

Marriane glanced at the woman, who was younger than she was by three years making her nineteen years old. And yet she carried herself like she was a woman experienced with life, always seeming to possess a calm demeaner even when fighting. Though her clothing she'd arrived in was in ruins, a simple pair of jogging shorts and a plain white shirt, she still seemed to possess a beauty about her. If anything, her rough look only added to that beauty, giving her a fierce prettiness that shouldn't have worked and yet somehow did.

Erial was one of the most capable chosen, and one of the only one of them to reach the novice rank since arriving. The villagers didn't have any magic users among them, but they had told them just how rare it was to reach Novice only three weeks after awakening. Those of them that new of Erial's rank had even taken to treating her with more respect and even calling her a genius.

Marriane couldn't help but feel jealous of the younger woman, but at the same time she was also extremely grateful that Erial had become part of her party.

The second of her group was Austin, a large man of twenty years old who had been a college wrestler before arriving in the infinite planes. He was near six foot two in height (around 1.88 meters), with chiseled good looks, broad shoulders, and sandy blonde hair. He had chosen a longsword as his starting weapon. After arriving in the village, one of the more generous inhabitants had given him a shield to match the weapon. That left him the second most capable of their group, as he was surprisingly good at using the old wooden shield.

Third was Jin, a slim man of just eighteen years old who wielded a simple shortsword. Out of the four of them he was the least capable in combat, less so than Marriane herself. Yet he was also one of the only chosen to start off with their affinity already assigned. More than that, his affinity allowed him to heal others and replenish their stamina. Making him extremely useful both during and after fights. He had a shy demeaner, with a very skinny build, short black hair and sunken looks. Though after awakening and gaining some soul points his former sickly appearance had improved greatly.

Lastly that left Marriane herself, who acted as the archer for her party. When she'd been in high school, she'd done archery club for about three weeks before giving up on it to focus on her grades. While that wasn't much in the way of training, it was better than nothing. At least that was what she'd thought when choosing the bow in the first place. That and it would be far safer of her to stay at a distance with enemies and shoot at them from safety.

After having participated in several battles with her group, she knew that too not be the case. In fact, she had found it near impossible to hit a moving target during the heat and panic of battle. Over time she'd improved significantly, now able to hit most of her arrows as long as she took her time to aim before firing. Yet even then she'd only managed to fatally wound a small handful of the beasts they'd killed together. Most of the time her arrows only serving to make creatures keep their distance, or flinch from a glancing blow.

Possibly because of that she'd yet to receive her affinity yet, even though she earned a shared portion of the soul points earned from the beasts her team killed.

As Marriane was deep in thought she suddenly looked up at the sign of sudden movement. Erial was raising her hand to tell them to stop, suddenly pausing Marriane reached up to draw and arrow from the quiver the voice had given her with her weapon.

Knocking the arrow, she waited her heartbeat pounding in her chest as she watched with worried anticipation.

'I hate this feeling', she thought bitterly.

The uncomfortable feeling of fear, the rapid racing of her pulse, the way her entire body tingled as if waiting for some unknown strike. All of it was too much, too overwhelming, which was part of the reason she hadn't been able to land arrows in the heat of battle.

Although Erial kept her hand up, nothing seemed to happen as they all stood there in anticipation of an attack. None of them question Erial though, she'd already awakened her affinity and her first skill had been the ability to see the most vulnerable parts of others. Though Marriane didn't truly understand it, somehow that ability gave her a sense for incoming danger, which was likely the only reason their party was still alive.

"What is it Erial?", Austin asked, his normally optimistic voice a fierce whisper.

"An earth snake", Erial replied, her voice unnaturally calm.

Marriane paled, out of all the beasts they'd met in the forest the earth snake was by far the most dangerous. It was as large as the pythons from earth, only it was brown dirt cover. While they weren't overly magical in any sense, they were easily large enough to swallow a human whole and very fast when it came to lunging at their prey. Their party had already managed to kill one, each of them receiving a full two points for the kill. Usually, their prey only gave them one each, which only showed just how dangerous the snakes were.

'And the villagers said most of the ones in the earlier parts of the forest are adolescents. Which is why they can't use magic', Marriane shivered at the thought of fighting a fully grown version of the snake.

"Well, is it going to attack us?", Jin asked, his voice barely more than a squeak.

"I don't know, the entire side of its body is a weak point, so I don't think its focused on us", she said.

Marriane scooted to the side of the party in hopes of catching a glimpse of the snake but had no luck.

Then a growling sound erupted from the front of the party, followed by the sound of two beasts clashing in a maelstrom of hissing and bestial growls.

"Something- something just attacked it. A wolf", Erial said, sounding surprised.

"What?", Marriane asked, before looking again.

This time with the wolf being a stark grey color she was able to see the clash from afar. Horrifyingly the wolf was the largest she'd ever seen in either world, its shoulder coming up to her chest with wide shoulders, a sleek head and long dark brown claws.

The snake was coiled up now and striking at the wolf any time it got close, yet the wolf seemed to account for that. It would leap forward as if striking eh snake, and then hop to the side at Lazer speed before delivering a bite to the side of the snake's body.

The result was a quick accumulation of wounds of the snake's side. Eventually the wolf's luck seemed to run out as the snake struck forward in a sudden tactic change, its jaws grasping it by the leg and producing a welp. Of course, by then the snake was a mess of bleeding wounds and torn scales. Then to Marriane's wonder something strange happened.

In a dangerously fast speed one of the falcon creatures that inhabited the forest appeared, swooping down and driving its dangerously sharp claws into the snake's brain. It twitched once and was still.

At the far end of the clearing a man walked out, whistled, and held out his hand as the bird landed on his arm. Then he approached the wolf and laid a hand on its fur, before bending down and checking its wound.