Lore

Lore it is.

Presence just felt less like a certainty.

Unlocking Lore skill felt like it should have hurt. Even with just the single point, your mind is utterly flooded with knowledge.

And yet, none of it felt new in any way. All of it was vague memories, half-remembered dreams, and ancient truths that sat at the very core of your existence, simply unlocked and brought forth to your conscious awareness.

Excitedly you brought up your stat sheet to see if you were right about your suppositions, and if you were, what changes had been wrought upon your shadowform.

Ancestral form - You are of the Shadowfurs, and can still call upon your ancestry at will. Every (600-Occult) minutes, when obscured from direct light, you gain (Lore/5 rounded to the closest) number of Ancestral Form Charges. Minimal number of charges is 1.*
-Shadowwalk - 1 AF charge: You can turn into a fox made of shadows for (¼ Wits, rounded up) seconds. While in shadowform you ignore physical obstacles at will, but treat light as if it was solid, with hardness and solidity dependent upon the brightness of the light’s source

You were floored.

Not from the actual gains; those were practically non-existent and to be expected from a single point in a skill.

No, what struck you speechless were the implications. Those were earth-shattering.

Not only was your long-ass cooldown turned into a long-ass charge time… And, yeah sure, you'll need to raise lore to 7 to actually gain another charge, but that at least should be easy. Grinding any skill to lvl 5 could be accomplished in a matter of hours, and getting it to lvl 10 should not take more than a day or two. And that was discounting your SP.

No, what was actually important was the change in format. It all but told you that you could gain additional powers out of the Ancestral Form.

And, to top it all off, there was still an asterisk next to the feat, which meant… Unlocking more benefits and maybe even powers was just 3SP away.

Your mental fingers itched to go through with it and see what it got you.

But… This was big. Much, much bigger than just you.

You needed advice posthaste.

Luckily, you were already on your way to the best person you could think of, outside of something wildly improbable and unfeasible like getting to one of the Clan elders.

You were off to see Boss.

Theoretically, Boss was just a single lvl7 Rogue.

In practice, Boss was the single oldest Shadowfur mob in the Ruins of Kemono-kai zone.

She was there all the way back in the Test-realms. Rumor had it that she had even been present during the Great Server Split. Among the first 200 Foxkin ever spawned!

Your trek took a fair few hours, not helped in the least by the fact that you took time to gather every resource node and hunt every critter you found along the way, but that was just common sense.

Fortunately, Boss did not move too far from her spawn location. Unfortunately, she was part of a mixed clan outrider group, which meant you needed to find an inconspicuous way to approach her without alerting the other-clanners.

Normally, you'd just approach and ask for a quiet word. Your new name meant trying to do that would get the attention of everyone.

So you had to be a sneaky fox…

"What are you sneaking about? And since when do you have a name?" The best laid plans of kitsune and nezumi often went awry. You all but jumped out of your own skin at the youngish voice coming from behind you.

Thankfully, the one who spoke and spooked you turned out not to be a stranger.

It was a lvl 4 priest of your clan.

"Tenko-Sama's Tits and bounteous loins kit, you spooked the shadow ancestor out of me! Sheesh! Look, I'll explain everything, but I need you to do something important for me. I need you to get Boss to come talk with me, without drawing the attention of the others, OK? This is important. Clan business! It needs to be handled discreetly." You quietly whisper-hiss at him. Your face drawn into as serious an expression as you were capable of making it.

He gave you a dubious look but eventually nodded in agreement.

"This better be some explanation. Where do you want to meet? Because anyone could just wander here. Like I just did…"

You bit out a caustic curse.

Damnation and misfortune… The kit was right. You had not thought of that.

Funnily enough, it was your newest skill that came to your rescue.

You remembered, or maybe your lore skill had given you, a memory of a hidden spot nearby. Not just hidden, but concealed.

"Good point. Come with her to meet me at the tree that grew around the old column. You know the place?"

The priest looked puzzled but nodded in compliance.

The nook was easy to get to, if you knew about it in the first place.

A simple space between an old, ruined wall outcrop and the tree trunk. You just had to climb the first branch, swing around to the column, and slide down into the concealed crevice.

Easy.

At least easy for you and Boss. The kit had some problems imitating your movements, belying his low DEX score.

"So, what is this all about?" As usual, Boss was being brusque and to the point.

To save time, you opt to start by sharing your Status screen with the two of them.

The only change to Boss's expression was a slight widening, followed immediately by an equally slight narrowing of her eyes.

"Explain!" She ordered curtly.

So you did.

About your inability to affect your own basement cave, your hunt for adventurers so you could gain a claimant crystal, the events at the temple, and your deductions and deal with Hayami.

And then what you found out when you checked your level up.

Boss took it all calmly and with great composure.

The priest… Not so much…

"Are you insane?!? Dealing with falsefaces and… hmph…" He ranted until Boss shut him up.

With a swipe of her tail across his muzzle.

Which only sounded painless and comfy.

Hint, hint. It very much was not. It stung like bajeezus.

"Hush. He did the right thing. Falseface clan is treacherous, but we can be equally so. And the one thing both of our clans can agree on is that rousing Tenko-sama in their Yako aspect would be a disaster for all. No, this is almost certainly legit. They would not offer a mythic-level claimant crystal for anything less. That is a faction-level item, or I'll eat my own tail. And bestowing a name… That was no accident. Doing something like that comes at a cost. Also, you need a name to use any claimant crystal. No, this was all a plot, all right, and Shin here figured enough on his own to become a player rather than a pawn." She mused decisively… And then shrewdly squinted at you.

"And as for unlocks… Ordinarily, I'd tell you to just take all three and be satisfied with your monumentally good fortune, because there is no way you are ever going to encounter a set of circumstances that would grant you even a singular unlock once, much less a second time. Shit like that only happens under a really fucking fiddly and specific set of circumstances, usually surrounding an event of great and terrible import or some shit like that. Server-wide crap, at minimum. One more reason to believe your deal with Falsface is on the up and up. But if we manage this? I suspect you are going to see a lot of interesting times heading your way, right quick. Most of them not of the fun kind. So, yeah. Hold on for now, until you actually hold that mythic in one hand and the Coat of the Night in the other, and see what you get then."

You were caught completely off guard by her analysis and apparent expectations.

"I hardly think…" You begin to sputter an answer but get whipped by her tail across your snout for your efforts.

"Save it kit. Time's a-thickin'. Me and the Junior here will get back to the group now; after everyone else goes to sleep, the two of us and the other rogue will set forth for the temple. You good for anyone else?"

Before you could answer, the priest interjected.

"Actually, ma'am… The Ranger had spawned in the south not two hours ago. If no players have managed to track him yet…"

The Ranger was a majorly big deal.

One of the two guaranteed wandering Rare spawns of the zone.

He only spawned once per day in the evening and had more than a dozen possible spawn points.

Add, most importantly to you and your goals, he was a lvl 15, an elite, and a Shadowfur.

Getting him for this mission would all but guarantee success and then some and be a powerful deterrent for any possibility of Falseface treachery.

Boss definitely seemed to agree, judging by her toothy grin.

"Well, fuck me, that changes things. Junior, you get back to the camp, and tell the other rogue what we are doing. Listen to him on the way to the temple, because traveling at night, just the two of you could get dangerous. If anyone asks where I went, you tell them, I ran off to track down The Ranger and drag him into bushes to fuck his brains out. Which won't even be a lie, just not the whole truth. As for you Shin, what are you waiting for? Go on! Get going! There's no time for lolygaggin'. Off with ya!"