by Ryan DeBruyn
A few embarrassing minutes later of multiple vendors laughing at him, it turned out it was as easy as thinking leave.
Celestial feces. LEAVE!
Chapter Twenty
Blinking rapidly against the change, Rocky was suddenly in an electronically lit room inside of the seed shop. The room was a sliver, like a piece of a pie. It tapered on one end to a point and had a rounded edge and ceiling on the other. He took a quick moment to learn all the new scrolls and take stock of his new skills.
Pulling out the scrolls, he crumpled them one by one, activating the magic within, and he suddenly knew.
Congratulations! You have learned a new skill, Stealth!
Current rank Weak-Stealth Level 1
Weak-Stealth
Level 1
Use your own internal Ether to manipulate the surrounding light waves and Ether to hide your presence.
Ether cost: 10 personal Ether per second. Increased by the amount of noise made.
Symbiosis:
Weak-Sneak: Decreased by 1% per level.
Dark Ether: Reduces cost by 90% on the value after initial deductions.
Dark Cloak: Reduces the Ether cost of this skill.
Dark Cloak
Convert your inner dark Ether to create a fog that cloaks you, notifies you of danger, and protects you from magic.
Ether cost: 15 personal Ether per second. Increased by the size of the fog.
Symbiosis:
Decreased by 90% if used in conjunction with a Stealth Skill.
Congratulations! You have learned a new skill, Tracking!
Current rank Weak-Tracker Level 1
Congratulations! You have learned a new skill, Herbalist!
Current rank Weak-Herbalist Level 1
Congratulations! You have learned a new skill, Miner!
Current rank Weak-Miner Level 1
Rockland Barkclay Level 16
Health Pool: 200/200
Ether Pool: 190/190
Class: Apprentice-Dark (Azrael) Revenant
Level 1 Leader: Level 1 Strategist
Class Skills: Revenant Blade, Dark Mending, Dark Blade, Dark Cloak
You have 0 stat points and 0 skill points to distribute.
Stamina
*20* (Strength of Body)
Strength
*24* (Strength of Arms)
Agility
27
Dexterity
25
Intelligence
19 (+2)
Wisdom
22
Charisma
24
Luck
7
Weak Skills
Combat Skill (Non-Class)
Swordsmanship 10 (+2)
Combatant 5 (+4)
Stealth 1
Common Skills
Endurance 14 (+1)
Sneak 21 (+2)
Perception 10 (+8)
Camouflage 3
Tracking 1
Analyze 12 (+2)
Profession Skills
Skinning 13
Butcher 13
Mining 1
Herbalist 1
Looking at his skills window and his other skills, Rocky decided he would try to learn new common skills on his own as much as possible. He also slipped on his armor while in the protected room and watched his stats for Strength and Agility jump up five each.
After reading the skills for Stealth and the new symbiosis, Rocky had also checked Dark Cloak. With some quick calculations, Rocky realized he would be using just above two Ether per second to maintain both of the skills simultaneously.
While he didn’t know his Ether regeneration rate. Rocky did know it was definitely going to be high enough to increase the duration from the ninety-five seconds of use that his simple math calculated.
Smiling, Rocky reached up to his ear and allowed his half-mask to cover his lower face, leaving only his eyes and his dark hair visible. Rocky then activated his two skills—Stealth and Dark Cloak.
A deep breath later, he opened the shop door from the interior and exited into the semi-dark area around the hospital. He was fifty-five Crystallized Ether lighter but hopefully better prepared for the immediate future.
Boy, was Rocky glad he had Dark Cloak and Stealth active. Instead of running into a patrolling pair of guards, he found himself facing a small, amassed platoon with guns leveled in his direction. The soft hiss and click of the door behind him seemed to be the cue for one of the men to start talking.
“Hello, stranger. I think it might be a good idea for you to release whatever current skills you are employing. All that darkness makes my militiamen a bit itchy on the trigger.” The man who spoke was standing at the very back of the platoon of men.
Rocky didn’t answer because currently, his heart was trying to jump out of his chest. Instead, he started looking around for escape routes. The militia, as they were calling themselves, had set up a perimeter with the shop acting as a back wall. They were well organized with two ranks and laser rifles in the hands of each soldier.
During the scan, Rocky also noticed the four tanks that were behind the personnel and their accompanying turrets were trained in his direction.
I must have jinxed myself with that thought about tank muzzles. Whyyyyyy?
“Maybe it would be better if I introduce myself. My name is Corsair, and you have just exited my shop. I am the leader of the militia which protects Ottawa.
Now, as I have told all the citizens before, access to this shop is by invitation only, and I don’t remember handing out any of those. I am going to give you a count of three to drop your low-level skills and surrender, or I am going to be forced to kill you and ask questions later!”
Corsair’s voice just screamed depravity to Rocky, and he wanted nothing to do with it. If his assumptions about the militia were correct, then this man could be the one ordering the deaths of survivors. Heart still hammering, Rocky crouched down, quickly having learned through experimentation that his Dark Cloak had a lag in response time.
He then deactivated Dark Cloak and leaped up and angled backward with all of his significant Strength. His body sailed into the air and above the rounded roof of the shop, which he landed softly upon a moment later. With his high levels of Strength, Agility, and Dexterity, the fifteen-foot-high roof had been a pretty simple leap.
Down below, the militia still pointed their guns at the black smoke, which hung swirling in the air.
As Rocky watched, the smoke slowly began to dissipate, but he didn’t stick around to see the ending. Instead, he leaped off the other side of the roof and sprinted out of the electric light of the hospital.
By looking at his Dark Ether gauge, he was terribly aware of the massive increase in the draw once he had released Dark Cloak. In fact, it had spiked up even more when he was under the floodlights of the hospital. Rocky just barely made it out of the camp and into the high grass before his Ether pool went dry.
There was a brief moment of fatigue but not the crazy drain that he had experienced when casting a one use skill that caused Ether pool depletion. It would seem that he needed to train Stealth quite a bit more if he planned on using it during daylight or other, less naturally concealing excursions.
A rage filled scream tore through the morning night sky, and Rocky felt his focus jump up a few more notches when he assumed Corsair had just figured out his ploy. He started moving away as fast as he could without disturbing the long grass. Otherwise, it would be a dead give away to anyone searching for him.
Rocky was going to need to figure out how best to use Dark Cloak during lighted excursions and daylight hours; its effects on protection and receptive field ability were too valuable to be only useful at night. In addition, it took time to roil and fully cover his body which made it more prudent to activate it before the moment combat began.
His night wasn’t close to over, and he felt his mind sharpen its focus further. Face impassive, Rocky heard shouts begin echoing from behind him in the dire
ction of the hospital. It would seem he had thoroughly kicked the proverbial hornet’s nest by pissing off the militia leader. He crouched low, further obfuscating the view of him by getting below the top of the grass.
Distant tank treads began moving with audible clacks, and Rocky knew he was about to have the entire military out in force looking for him in the darkness. A quick glance at his Ether bar told him he had regained close to twenty points since he had bottomed out, but his Ether needed to climb a bit higher before he would be able to activate both skills and make his escape.
Will I have enough time? Damnit! I didn’t Analyze a single one of the military men or Corsair. I guess a tank muzzle will make your brain skip a few things.
Rocky continued to move through the grass, careful to avoid any direction he could hear an obvious patrol traveling in. This made it a bit awkward as he struggled to maintain a bearing while weaving through discovered groups. A moment later, he was forced to stop altogether because he could hear noise in nearly every direction.
“Anything on your end?” a voice called through the dark night. Rocky peaked his head above the grass for a moment and saw three patrols closing in on each other, each one looking rumpled in a way that spoke of being roused out of bed before their regular hours.
“Nothing, Scott! Honestly, how did one man steal thousands of the city’s Crystallized Ether? If he is that good, how are we supposed to find him and at night, too? This guy is probably a superhero or something!” The second man seemed pissed off about the theft.
What the hell? I didn’t take anything!
Rocky attempted to Analyze members from the group but no matter how many times he tried, nothing happened. At first, he thought it was because he didn’t have a clear line of sight through the waving grass, so he risked raising his head a bit higher, hoping to get a bit more information on their relative levels. Unfortunately, he had the same result and was unwilling to risk getting caught by getting closer to figure out if it was a range problem on his Analyze skill.
“Alright, Richard, calm down. Corsair said he wanted him alive for questioning. I don’t understand either. Why would someone steal the Crystals we were going to use to help them?” the initial man, Scott, responded, sounding extremely confused.
The patrols had now met up and were each nodding along with the conversation. “Whatever! Just radio it in, Joey. I hope we catch him. I have some questions to ask the smoke ninja!” The group of three patrols each turned a different direction and moved away from each other.
None of them went in his direction which was back towards the hospital, so he breathed out his held breath and continued skulking through the grass. Those groups seemed to be out here under decidedly false pretenses.
For the next ten minutes, Rocky ducked and dodged, making very little progress towards Nepean and his family’s suburb. He felt his mind chomping at the bit in frustration, but the good news was that he now had enough Ether to activate his skills and speed up his plodding progress.
A few moments later, Rocky was traveling at a fast clip, smoothly running at close to thirty kilometers an hour. He could probably sprint quite a bit faster, but he still was trying not to alert anyone of his presence. His progress was even better as he got farther out from the hospital and the patrols had to cover more ground.
Sneaking out with the light beginning to crest was much less comfortable than coming in had been, mainly because Rocky’s Dark Cloak would soon be a giveaway rather than an advantage. Yet, once he was nearing Nepean, the patrols became so scarce it was almost surreal.
The militia, while large, didn’t have near enough men to cover an area the size of what Ottawa used to encompass. Rocky assumed they were concentrating their search nearer to the command center of the hospital as well.
It was anywhere between five and six in the morning because that was a typical time for sunrise in the summer months in this region of the world. Rocky felt his breath catch and had a bit of a panic, noticing that people were going to be setting their schedule with the rising sun.
Grimacing, he turned off his Dark Cloak because the sun was honestly getting too bright for it to be anything other than a sign pointing right at his position. Then he decided to take the last portion of the trip with the fastest speed he could manage, so Rocky sprinted through the long grass that used to be city buildings, roads, and landmarks. He hoped that anyone who might see signs of his passage would assume it was a monster before connecting the dots to the shop ‘thief’.
Rocky’s stomach was clenched with worry, worry that he would arrive too late to see the hunting groups that were staying in the schools around Nepean.
Not to mention his only sense of direction without any roads or landmarks was to put the sunrise at his back and run the opposite way while also veering slightly to his left, which he hoped meant he was traveling southwest.
Rocky didn’t have Stealth engaged and noticed that his pool was already halfway full. He was still attempting to make less noise to avoid patrols, but he didn’t need to worry. By the time he spotted a landmark he had recognized, he hadn’t seen any additional patrols for quite some time.
Merivale High School, which looked utterly unmarred by damage, rose out of the long grass, and Rocky veered towards it. This wasn’t the closest school to his house, but it warranted a check.
He saw a pocket of four small, burning campfires, each one with a metal grate, spit, or people holding sticks circling it. It would seem Rocky had arrived in time for breakfast. Trying not to quell his rising excitement, he slowed his pace, so the grass wasn’t parting around him as viciously.
Taking a quick peek at his Ether bar, Rocky saw he had managed to regain nearly three quarters, and he felt his breathing get easier knowing he had something in his back pocket. During the run over here, Rocky had confirmed his Ether regen rate was at least high enough to maintain Stealth at a jog, if barely.
So Rocky re-engaged Stealth and chose to keep the skill active for now while also keeping a close eye on his Ether pool. He hoped that because he was consciously trying not to make a sound, his regen would be more than enough to keep the skill going, perhaps even continue to restore some of his lost Ether simultaneously.
Despite not immediately seeing any recognizable faces in the group, Rocky continued to stand there and listened to the tired conversation of a man who sat holding a stick of meat over the fire. He attempted to Analyze the man at the fire but again must have been out of range. This time, he saw no harm in attempting to figure out the problem so he crept in closer until the skill returned some information.
When it finally returned information, Rocky was within fifty meters of the fire and well into the clearing with full line of sight.
Jack Greally
Level 8
Apprentice-Brigand
“I hope we get Joe and his group as escorts today,” Jack said with a touch of complaint in his voice. “I am getting really sick and tired of the escorts who just sit there idly when we fight then take all of those crystals they prize so much at the end of the day. At least Joe’s team helps us fight. I swear, some of the other groups would just let us die if we were in trouble.”
People nodded at the man’s words, which led Rocky to believe that this sentiment was not contained to the man speaking. This gave Rocky some more information, and as he dreaded most, it wasn’t good. It would seem that Corsair was using a small fraction of bad apples within the larger organization of the militia.
Rocky was smiling because he was extremely happy to see some discontent among survivors when it came to the militia, especially discontent with certain groups of the military men because it confirmed his theory, but now he was also at a loss as to how to deal with a small group of bad eggs inside of a larger whole.
Corsair must have formed an inner core, but the other groups were being lied to.
His smile twisted. Rocky was no expert on spy games or political maneuvering. He really only knew one way of dealing with opponents. That way
had been taught over his sports career; you challenged them head on and pit your strength against theirs. This cloak and dagger nonsense was going to be an issue if he stayed, and he momentarily considered just finding his family and leaving.
A twang of emotion reverberated through Rocky, and he dismissed that idle thought immediately, knowing he couldn’t leave these people to die needlessly if he had a chance of saving them. During his musings, the man had continued talking.
“The last group of escorts told us that the militia itself was almost fully stocked and that they would start purchasing weapons for survivors soon. The man also hinted at trying to take out that massive golem in the center of the old downtown core.”
There were a few groans as if Jack had overtaxed this particular conversation already. “You all have heard the rumors too!” he exclaimed, beginning to become animated and gesturing around the group with his meat on a stick. “You have heard that the thing is easily the height of a skyscraper and as thick as two soccer fields.
That’s why they are buying so many tanks and rifles. They plan to bombard the abomination from range. They say once it’s dead they are going to go after that massive, white crocodile beast.” The rest of the survivors were purposefully ignoring Jack at this point, and his face was growing redder by the moment.
Jack’s inevitable outburst was saved by the arrival of a tank with two men accompanying it. The man who moments ago appeared to be at risk of bursting the throbbing vein in his forehead jumped to his feet. He underwent a change so drastic, Rocky was reminded of a kid on Christmas.
“Joe!” Jack said, clearly not paying attention to anything else, as his meat was no longer even above the fire. The man that must have been Joe poked his tired, weary head out from the top of the tank and gave a mock salute before he began climbing out and started greeting everyone by name.
