The afternoon sun hung low over Twinfire as we gathered near the village's small harbor. We had been playing for around six hours, give or take.

  "So we split up," Lothras said, adjusting the straps on his scabbard. He looked weird without a shield, almost naked. "I'll handle the sales in Oakenlight. Sell whatever we had agreed upon, maybe net us five-six gold each."

  "Don’t forget your shield," Athos said.

  The Paladin nodded. "I'll find something suitable." He paused, then added with a hint of his usual arrogance, "I should hit level 19 on the way. The dungeon experience was substantial."

  I did the mental math. Lothras had been level eighteen going into the dungeon, and he'd survived the entire run. Between the clearing experience, the boss kills, and the first-clear bonus, he'd probably accumulated enough to be close to the next threshold.

  "I'll be in Oakenlight for at least a few hours. Meet me there when you're done with whatever you're planning."

  "I'm heading to Dukewood," Kara announced. "There's a quest I picked up days ago that I never finished. The mayor, who is surprisingly handsome, by the way," she winked, "asked me to look for missing villagers."

  “Just be careful, don’t start another major storyline without us,” Athos said.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll behave,” she stretched high, and suddenly I felt the need to look away. “What will you do?”

  “I’m pretty close to level 18,” the Swordsman said. “Orion should be the same, right?”

  "We're both sitting at around a hundred thousand experience," I said. "Fifty thousand short of level eighteen. We should explore the forest near Twinfire, see what's out there. Grind a bit, then meet everyone in Oakenlight to resupply."

  "The volcanic forest?" Kara raised an eyebrow. "I've heard rumors about that place. Strange creatures, supposedly."

  "Strange creatures mean interesting loot," Athos replied with a grin. "And good experience."

  "Just don't die again," Lothras said dryly. "Dying twice in one day would be embarrassing."

  "Your concern is touching," I shot back.

  The paladin almost smiled. Almost.

  We said our goodbyes at the dock. Lothras boarded the boat to Oakenlight, his white armor gleaming in the afternoon light, still wearing the signs of battle.

  Kara headed south along the coastal path toward Dukewood, her red hair reflecting the warm sunlight.

  Athos and I exchanged a single look, then made our way towards the woods.

  Twinfire's forest was unlike anything else I'd seen in Tidemark.

  The trees were twisted, their bark black and cracked, with veins of dull orange running through them like lava. Steam rose from fissures in the ground, and the air carried a faint sulfurous smell that reminded me of the burial site's deeper chambers.

  "Volcanic activity," Athos observed, stepping carefully around a small vent that hissed with escaping gas. "The whole region must sit on top of geothermal springs."

  "Makes sense," I agreed. "Twinfire is named for its hot springs, after all."

  “We should pay a visit to them,” he replied. “Some players were talking about it on the forums. It’s like a Japanese onsen; incredibly pleasant.”

  We pushed deeper into the forest, moving past the lower-level creatures that inhabited the outskirts. We didn’t want to waste time killing low-level mobs.

  And I also don’t like the idea of hunting weak animals, I thought. Doesn’t feel right after my encounter with the Stag.

  We found our spot about twenty minutes in.

  The first Cinderbark Wolf emerged from behind a black tree, its appearance making me stop in my tracks.

  The creature's body was composed of dark wood and burning ember, as if someone had carved a wolf from charcoal and set it alight. Orange veins pulsed through its form, just as the trees around us, and its eyes shone with fierce red light. Smoke curled from its joints with every movement.

  "That looks menacing," Athos breathed.

  The wolf snarled. It sounded like a campfire crackling. Then it lunged towards us.

  I put an arrow through its skull before it covered half the distance. Another one finished the job.

  The creature collapsed, its body hitting the ground with a wooden sound.

  Up close, I could see that it wasn't truly alive in the conventional sense. It was more like an animated construct, made of wood and mystic fire, in the shape of a predator.

  "These aren't natural animals," I said, lowering my bow. "They're... something else."

  "Magical constructs? Corrupted spirits?" Athos nudged the corpse with his boot. "Either way, they're hostile. And they give good experience."

  He was right.

  I had no problem grinding them down.

  "Let's move," I said. "There are bound to be more."

  The next two hours were a blur of efficient grinding.

  Athos and I fell into a rhythm that required almost no verbal communication. He'd engage the melee threats while I provided ranged support, or I'd kite dangerous targets while he flanked for killing strikes.

  Our synergy was remarkable; partly because we got to know each other during the tournament, and partly because we honed our teamwork in the dungeon beforehand.

  Mostly, because we were both top-notch experts.

  Cinderbark Wolves came in packs of three to five, their levels ranging from fifteen to seventeen. We cut through them like a hot knife through butter, our combined damage overwhelming their defenses before they could mount any real threat.

  I tried skinning our kills, but to my surprise, the act required Woodcutting instead of Skinning & Processing, which was bad news since my Woodcutting skill was stuck at 6.

  I only managed to gather materials from one in every ten tries, and they were mostly common [Cinderbark Branch] -es. At least my Woodcutting skill was steadily rising.

  The Hounds were larger, more aggressive variants. They moved faster and hit harder, their burning jaws capable of inflicting a nasty damage-over-time effect on contact.

  But they were still no match for our coordination.

  Then we saw something bigger.

  The Bears were a real challenge. Massive creatures, nearly three meters tall when they reared up on their back legs. Their bodies were thick and hard to get through. Each swipe of their claws could take a significant chunk out of a player's health bar.

  We learned to respect them quickly.

  "Incoming, left side!" Athos called out as a Bear crashed through the bushes with roaring flames.

  I Quick Stepped right, putting distance between us, and opened fire.

  “Burning Arrow!”

  -226!

  -32!

  -32!

  They had decent fire resistance.

  “Piercing Shot!”

  -352!

  I then continued firing basic attacks, building up the poison stacks and chipping away at its health.

  Athos met the creature head-on, Rising Tide already building as he traded blows with the massive beast. His blade carved deep marks in its wooden hide.

  The Bear reared up for an overhead slam, but Athos rolled clear. I fired a fully-charged Fan of Arrows into its exposed chest, and the creature staggered.

  Athos finished it with Saltstone Edge, the crescent wave of energy cleaving through the beast’s torso.

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  "Good kill," I said, already scanning for the next target.

  "Your damage is ridiculous," Athos replied, shaking ash from his blade. "And why are you walking so much faster than me?"

  "I have movement speed boost in forests from a title. Also +5 to Luck."

  “+5?!” he couldn’t believe it. “You can have the last hits, then.”

  We pushed deeper.

  About another hour of grinding later we were discussing whether to head back to Oakenlight when we found it.

  The clearing opened up suddenly, the twisted trees giving way to a glade maybe twenty meters across.

  The ground here was different: it was covered in a thick layer of ash, dotted with small fires that burned at random.

  And in the center stood something that made both of us stop dead in our tracks.

  It must have been a regular tree once, and I had no idea what happened to it, but the change was kind of terrifying.

  It was six meters tall, its trunk twisted into a vaguely humanoid shape with two massive arms ending in clawed branches.

  Its bark was black as night, veins pulsing with molten orange fire, like heartbeat.

  A face of sorts had formed in its upper trunk; two burning eyes and a jagged slash of a mouth that leaked smoke.

  It slowly turned toward us, with a sound like trees cracking and grinding against each other.

  "Well," Athos said quietly, "that should push us to 18."

  The Woodwalker let out a sound that was part roar, part the crackling of an enormous bonfire. The ground shook as it took a step toward us, its foot sinking into the ashen soil.

  "Same strategy as the dungeon guardians?" I asked, already drawing my bow.

  "Adapted for two players instead of four." Athos drew his sword. "I'll keep it occupied. You grind it down."

  "On your mark."

  He charged.

  The Woodwalker swung one enormous arm in a horizontal sweep that would have flattened a normal player.

  Athos ducked under it with a Quick Step, came up inside the creature's guard, and drove his blade into its trunk.

  -232!

  Sparks flew. The monster roared.

  I opened fire.

  Burning Arrow struck its shoulder, flames spreading across the dry wood.

  -256!

  -34!

  -34!

  Piercing Shot punched through its midsection, leaving a hole.

  -355!

  Basic attacks followed in rapid succession, each one chipping away at its health bar.

  The Woodwalker retaliated with surprising speed. Its second arm came around in a backhanded swipe that caught Athos across the chest, sending him tumbling across the clearing.

  -203!

  "I'm fine!" he shouted, already rolling to his feet. "Just proccing Rising Tide!"

  “Yeah, right,” I rolled my eyes.

  I dropped a Web Trap in the creature's path and continued firing.

  The silk caught its leg, slowing its pursuit of Athos just long enough for him to recover and reengage.

  The Woodwalker planted its feet and raised both arms overhead. The veins across its body pulsed brighter, and I felt the temperature spike again.

  "Incoming!" I warned.

  It slammed both fists into the ground.

  A wave of fire erupted outward from the impact point, spreading across the clearing in an expanding circle.

  Athos used Comet to launch himself over the flames, landing behind the creature and immediately counterattacked.

  I Quick Stepped backward, the fire wave passing just in front of my boots, and resumed firing the moment I had solid footing.

  We fell into a rhythm.

  Athos would engage, drawing the Woodwalker's attention and building Rising Tide stacks with each exchange.

  When it wound up for a major attack, he'd disengage, and I'd punish the tree-man with ranged damage while it was animation locked.

  Then Athos’d go back in, and the cycle would repeat.

  Our teamwork was seamless. Every time the monster tried to focus on one of us, the other would hit it hard enough to demand attention. Every time it used an area attack, we'd already be moving to safe positions.

  The Woodwalker was getting desperate. Its attacks became wilder, less coordinated. Branches snapped off its arms as it swung, leaving trails of cinder and ash.

  At thirty percent, it tried something new.

  The creature's chest split open, revealing a core of pure molten energy. Heat washed over the clearing as it began to unleash an ultimate attack. A beam of some sort.

  "The core!" I shouted. "Hit the core!"

  Athos was already moving. Blade Rush carried him to the Woodwalker's base, and he drove his sword directly into the exposed weak point.

  -1,847!

  The creature screamed. That was an insanely big number; the weak spot really was weak this time.

  The charging attack fizzled.

  I added my own contribution. Piercing Shot, aimed directly at the same spot.

  -1,203!

  It was still vulnerable, though not as much as when it was charging.

  The Woodwalker tried to close its chest to protect its core, but we didn't give it the chance. Athos, using Rising Tide's full power, was moving almost too fast to follow as he carved chunk after chunk from the monster's torso.

  I emptied my mana into a final barrage. Fan of Arrows. Burning Arrow. Everything I had.

  The Woodwalker swayed. Its burning eyes flickered.

  Athos leaped back, giving me a clear shot. “Last hit, Mr. Luck!”

  I drew one last arrow, charged it for a finishing Piercing Shot, and released.

  -1,192!

  The arrow flew true, punching through the weakened core and out the other side.

  The Cinderbark Woodwalker let out one final, shuddering groan. Then it collapsed, its massive body crashing to the ground and breaking apart into a shower of ash and dying embers.

  ?I stood in the ash-covered clearing, breathing hard, watching the notification fade.

  Level eighteen. Finally.

  Across from me, Athos was grinning, his own level-up notification presumably identical to mine.

  "That," he said, "was satisfying."

  "Agreed." I walked toward the Woodwalker's remains, curious about what it had dropped. "Let's see what we got," I said after putting five more points into Agility.

  I just realized something. Wasn’t Cyrus’ staff called the Cinderbark Staff? He must have gotten the crafting materials from here.

  I picked up the loot.

  I stood there, reading the weapon’s description time and time again. 5 luck, indeed.

  I showed it to Athos.

  “Whoa,” he gasped. “That is an unfairly strong bow!”

  “High attack power, bonus to Dexterity, and an insane skill. This is a better drop than anything we’d got from the Dungeon!” I couldn’t believe my eyes.

  “Thank your lucky title,” he said. “You’ll lose Silk Shot, though.”

  "Wait, I can't just keep it," I said.

  "Yes, you can," Athos shook his head, then sat down on a trunk. "Look... We cleared the Twinfire Burial Site, right?"

  "We did."

  "Well, we almost didn't. And it was the easier of the two dungeons." He looked me in the eye. "We need every single power up we can get our hands on."

  I couldn't disagree with that.

  "This bow could net us what, fifty-sixty gold? There's nothing we can do with fifteen gold each that could help us clear the Ravenmere Catacombs." He stood up. "But this? This puts you on a whole other level."

  "Thank you, Athos," I said sincerely.

  "But as I said, you will miss Silk Shot."

  That was the least of my worries. The tournament had shown me how good I was with item swapping; changing back for a movement skill was still in my repertoire.

  The second drop was a crafting material, and when I picked it up, I understood immediately why it was special.

  "Exquisite material," I breathed. "This could be turned into something powerful, for sure."

  “I will always go with you whenever there’s an elite or a boss in a forest,” Athos disclaimed.

  “Take it,” I said. “As the future leader of Second Wind, there will be plenty of players under you who’d appreciate an item made with this.”

  He nodded. “Thank you. I already know who to give it to.”

  "We should head to Oakenlight," I said. "Meet up with Lothras and Kara, resupply, and start planning for tomorrow."

  Athos nodded, sheathing his sword. "Level eighteen. New gear options. New skill possibilities." He grinned. "Things are starting to get interesting."

  ? Overpowers: Magical Girl Crossover [Grimlight Psychological/Genre based Power System] ?

  by Moawar

  He, Life, had a simple job.

  His responsibility as an Overpower was to make sure that fiction stories and the characters in them follow their dictated path. He always did his job well enough, not more or less than was needed.

  His latest assignment, however, would, in retrospect, prove to be his most challenging one of all.

  He would find himself in a unfamiliar world. There he'll have to quickly adapt to guide Nozomi.

  The strongest magical girl with the potential to accidentally destroy those she seeks to protect in her fight against evil.

  What to Expect:

  -If you like the psychological aspects of Madoka Magica and the mixing of different genres a crossover story brings then this story is for you