'Seed of Chaos' System

One by one, the Heroes continued killing Hell Wolves, their clumsy motions often making it so that it took multiple strikes to actually kill the things, even though they were restrained and couldn't escape. Most followed Cadence's example and aimed for the brain, since it proved effective, though Max (the "Incarnation of Fire") and Keenan (the necromancer) aimed for the heart. Neither found it right away and ended up making a bit of a fool of themselves.

When it came Alesha's turn, she could barely hold herself back from simply sucking the thing dry. Watching all these Hell Wolves die was more painful than she would have expected. Though, the pain mostly came from seeing the students' clumsy attacks and seeing the wolves' blood go to waste. In the end, Alesha slashed the beast's throat and licked the bloody knife, thinking she might be able to get away with that if she made it look like she was trying to be cool. Instead, she got a bunch of weird looks from her peers. Not that she cared. She was, at the time, too distracted with the delicious taste of the Hell Wolf's blood. She found it difficult to walk away from its corpse, but she managed.

A murmur of confusion went through the soldiers when a golden swirl of light failed to appear around her after it died. Captain Swallow held her back, then checked to see if it was alive; when she found that it was dead, Alesha was released and told to rejoin the other Heroes, but to stick around afterwards.

After that, the remaining couple Heroes killed their Hell Wolves, and Captain Swallow explained how training would proceed after that point. Even though today was their first day, they would still be engaging in other training activities before being given dinner, assigned rooms and released for the day. She explained that the most rudimentary knowledge was too important to put off for another day. Then, she briefly covered the basics of what their training over the next few months would be about. 

It would consist of instruction on the ways of the Kingdom (geography, the monetary system, basic political structure), battle tactics, different kinds of monsters and demons, basic hunter/adventurer skills, and equipment types and maintenance. Of course, this was all in addition to the training specific to Heroes -- hunting monsters, leveling up, and learning how to effectively utilize their Class and Skills. She explained that this was in order to ensure that they could function well as Heroes, effectively punishing the enemy while not accidentally hurting their allies. 

"It almost feels like they're teaching us how to live in this world, not how to be heroes," someone whispered. Alesha couldn't tell who it was.

The Captain hadn't missed this remark. "Yes, I suppose you could put it that way," she said. "However, how can you function as a Hero if you don't know how to use a map to get to where you need to go? When you face the Demon King's army, what are you going to do if you know nothing about troop movements? What happens if you face an unknown kind of monster while you're traveling and you don't know what its weak point is? How will you proceed if your equipment breaks down because you weren't maintaining it properly, and you're too far from any blacksmith to replace it? My job is to prepare you so that you will be able to cope well with any given situation. You never know what you will face in war. Do you understand?"

The students nodded and confirmed their understanding.

"Good. Now, your physical fitness training will begin. Haley, get them started on that, and Alesha, come here." The white-armored Captain gestured for Alesha to join her on the platform again. 

Sending suspicious or curious gazes her way, the others followed a soldier off to another part of the courtyard, where they began following the soldier's lead in physical exercises.

"Alright, Alesha," the Captain said when Alesha joined her. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but you have not leveled up, is that right?"

"No, I haven't," Alesha said.

Captain Swallow gestured at a nearby soldier, who had a few sheets of paper in her hand. The soldier handed Captain Swallow the papers. For the first time, Alesha realized that all the soldiers here were women. What was up with that? Nervously, Alesha shifted her weight from foot to foot and back again.

"Hmm," the Captain said, "I'm not seeing anything here to explain why you wouldn't have leveled up. Everything looks fine, at least with the priest's normal Appraisal. Though I am curious, what does your 'Plunder' skill do?"

Shocked that the Captain knew about her skill, which she herself had forgotten existed, Alesha jumped in surprise. "Ah, um," she said to buy time while she pulled up her Status to check.

*****

PLUNDER, LEVEL 1 - Steals the skill(s) of the target. Requires drinking a pint of blood per skill.

*****

Ah, great, it was a vampirism trait. She was a little abashed to have missed it while trying to figure out a way to survive in this world without being able to level up, but she was more concerned with how to answer the Captain's question at the moment. What would the Captain do if she answered honestly? Would she question her species, or worse, kill her? She had just been thinking about this a few minutes ago, and was not happy to find herself face to face with the very real possibility of execution due to racism this quickly. 

The Captain noticed Alesha's discomfort and narrowed her eyes. "Speak, Hero Alesha. I'm not going to kill you unless I deem you a threat to the King."

But that's exactly what I'm worried about, Alesha grumbled internally, That you'll decide I'm a threat to the King as soon as you figure out I'm part vampire!

Looking into the Captain's eyes, Alesha felt cornered, and was certain her life hung in the balance. Would her life be in less danger if she answered quickly?

She took a deep breath and tried to be brave. There was nothing she could do if Captain Swallow decided she needed to die; not without her Chaotic Dragon racial traits, not without Korak, not without a way to teleport out of danger. She wouldn't be conveniently summoned away like she was during the interrogation back on Elantris. 

"Plunder allows me to steal skills by drinking a certain amount of a target's blood," Alesha finally said.