Empathy predicts attacks

Without a doubt, I’d sensed his approach that time, finding him long before my eyes spotted him. I’d felt something, a flash of dread that I knew wasn’t my own and I’d simply…known where it was coming from. It was new sense that I assumed I owed to my new skill Empathy, different from my elementals or enhanced vision in a way that was hard to truly explain. But it wasn’t something I could see nor something being fed to me by another; I simply…knew. I could feel the Auras around me flickering in a way that I just understood, and I’d known Keppel was about to attack, that Nora was dying, that Ren was slowly succumbing and was distracted by what was happening to Nora, that all around me villagers were panicking, fleeing, succumbing—

At first I’d been unsure of what I was feeling, like I’d opened my eyes for the first time to a mix of color and shape but hadn’t been able to understand what it meant. But now…I felt it all, something flowing and extreme and powerful. The immensity of it all should have been too much for a person to bear.

Thankfully, I was the Gamer—and the Gamer’s Mind didn’t do overwhelmed. I noted the new world of sensation around me, skimmed it quickly, and dismissed most of it as not immediately important. Then I focused on what was, thinking through the implications as I forced Nora’s heart to keep beating.