by Aleron Kong
It was all Richter could do not to tear the paper into small pieces. The tone of the letter became increasingly insulting and patronizing as he read. It was signed at the bottom.
Besties 4 Life,
Nexus
What the fuck had he done to deserve a being like Nexus, Richter wailed silently! Sion just stood there with a smarmy look on his face. Richter glared at him, and then said, “Come on, shithead.” Richter started walking down towards the village, but Sion cleared his throat and arched an eyebrow. Richter rolled his eyes, “Fine! If you must know, a cockgobbler, or CG for short, is…”
Once everyone still in the village had been accounted for, Richter found out that Nexus had apparently taken people at various times throughout the night. The fact that no one else had seen it happen meant that the asshole Auditor had taken people when they were alone or when anyone else nearby must have been sleeping. Richter was seriously irritated and railed to anyone who would listen that it was just like the douchey cosmic being to pull people into their Trials in a manner that would maximize chaos in the village.
It took an hour to finally calm everyone down, and the final count was that twenty-seven people were missing. It probably would not have caused such a stir in a village of a population greater than six hundred in other circumstances, but as everyone stayed together in large longhouses, the panic had spread quickly.
Despite his irritation with Nexus’s methods, Richter secretly admitted to himself that he was excited to see exactly what Professions his people came back with. He had been wondering about the fact that no one had gone for a trial after the last infusion of experience from the pixie’s birth. He was slightly less excited when he found out exactly who had been taken: Roswan, Krom, Quasea, Zarr, Sumiko, Ulinde, Shiovana, Gloran, the entire nonhuman elder council, and several others. Productivity in the village effectively ground to a halt. Unsurprisingly, people were even more upset when Richter halted construction on the tavern. He wouldn’t risk its quality being lower than what Roswan could create, though. Thankfully, Randolphus still remained behind, and he quickly organized the villagers to compensate the loss of so many village leaders.
Richter actually started thinking that freeing up his afternoons might be a good thing for a week, but as he was preparing his war party to leave for the daily hunt, Elora flew up to him with a small, Dark pixie boy in tow. At this point, the chaos seed was well familiar with the expression on the pixie child’s face. Either the boy’s meidon was coming close to the village, or he was doing a midair peepee dance. Richter was fairly certain that there was a sprite somewhere out in the mists.
The young pixie took up position in Richter’s hood, and the chaos seed took his customary place at the head of the war party. Surprisingly, the pixie’s directions led the war party to the east. Every other sprite that had been brought through the mists had come from the south or west. This hadn’t been a surprise, as the Mist Village sat on the northern boundary of the Forest of Nadria and sprites were forest creatures. To the north were the Serrated Mountains and to the east lay the Azergoth Swamp. Miles of forest still lay to the east of the village, but nowhere near as much as the unbroken leagues of trees to the south and west.
Despite the strangeness of a sprite approaching from the east, Richter still followed the pixie’s directions. The war party traveled quickly. Weeks of hunting had generated hundreds of more war points, and Richter had bought three more ranks of the badge Movement Speed. War parties that he led now traveled 40% faster through forests.
The way was made even easier with Sion scouting ahead and Alma flying overwatch. The shale adder continued to slide along beside its master. Richter had cast the spell Tame about twice a day for the past several weeks. The Blood magic casting ensured loyalty of the subject creature for forty hours, but Richter still used the spell as soon as the twelve-hour cooldown expired. The long cooldown meant that he had only progressed to level two in Blood Magic, but still it was progress.
His frequent use of Tame proved wise as the spell periodically failed to take root in the adder. Each time he reestablished control over the large snake, there was a thrum in his blood that was unmistakable. Eight times over the past several weeks, though, he had felt nothing. If he had waited until the spell was about to elapse to cast Tame in any of those instances, Richter would have found himself in battle with an enraged twenty-foot long predator.
The war party continued to move forward. After an hour, they found their first prey. The pixie child wanted them to press forward, of course, but when Sion came back stating he had found a herd of gynor elk, Richter called a halt. The sprite moved quietly, silent and almost unseen in his green armor. Hisako had enjoyed a laugh at the story before she resized the sprite armor with her magic. Sion was less than amused as Richter recounted the experience.
Sion hadn’t even needed to relate any details of what he had seen thanks to the mapping ring and the fact that he was the war party’s official scout. Sion had already tagged the enemies, so they appeared as red dots on the chaos seed’s internal map, and red markers showed their position in everyone else’s vision when they were close enough. Richter quickly showed everyone on the physical Traveler’s map where the herd was and then had them all wait. Caulder immediately started giving hushed orders to make a basic defensive perimeter while Richter and Sion did more scouting. As had become protocol, the physical map was left with one of the other party members so they could see the distribution of enemies while he and Sion tagged any monsters the sprite had missed on his first pass.
Richter shooed the pixie child out of his hood and left him with one of the Life magi in the party. He warned the tiny flyer to stay away from the fighting in the strictest terms. The boy pouted and kicked his foot in midair, but he obeyed his liege. It was an interesting trait he had noticed about the small celestial beings. The pixies could be as mischievous as a child in a candy store, but at the end of the day, they followed Richter and Elora’s instructions to the letter.
The two Companions moved forward, circling around the spot where Sion had seen the creatures. Richter had pulled the hood on his Cloak of Concealment up and activated Stealth. Alma flew above, her dark body a natural camouflage against the thick canopy above. The shale adder slid along beside Richter, silent and unseen. Ten minutes later, Richter got his first sight of the animals. In his mind, when he had heard Sion say ‘gynor elk’ he had imagined something that looked like bambi’s uncle. When he finally saw the beasts, he realized… not so much.
The creatures were structurally similar to normal elk. Meaning that they stood on four legs and their heads were shaped like a deer’s. Their horns, however, were three feet long and were multipronged. Each tip ended in a wickedly sharp point. The gynor elk were covered in short brown hair that was almost black. Light green stripes of fur crisscrossed their bodies. Each was six feet tall at the shoulder, and large muscles stood out under their skin. As Richter moved closer, he saw that their hooves were wedged. The tips were hard and sharp enough to leave gouges in the flesh of the bear the beasts were feeding upon.
Red blood covered their muzzles as they reached their heads down and tore pieces of flesh and fur off of the bear. They snapped at one another when one got too close to another’s feeding spot. Richter could see that their mouths were filled with sharp teeth and each had two large fangs in place of incisors. These were not peaceful herbivores. He was looking at deadly pack hunters.
There were five in all, and from the well-masticated state of the bear’s carcass, they were almost done with their meal. Richter knew he couldn’t let these things escape. He had a quick mental conversation with Alma who then flew, quick as an arrow, back towards Caulder. Her ability to have limited communication with others made coordination in the war party much easier. Reaching into his bag, he withdrew his bow and waited.
A few minutes later, the dragonling quietly alighted on a nearby tree branch.
*They are coming, master. I will be ready when the rest of
the war party gets close.*
*Thank you, love,* Richter thought back. A grim smile crossed his face. The elk were about to have a bad time. Since his familiar had been hunting on her own, she had leveled twice over the past weeks. She had then distributed her own points in a way that Richter completely supported. Her Psi Blast was finally level three. It had improved upon her mental attack, and a new feature had been added. Richter had been thrilled when he had read the prompt.
You have chosen to increase your familiar’s ability: Psi Blast to level 3. The mental disruption and health damage are now more powerful. The 5-7 second stun effect is increased to 8-10 seconds, and the health damage will be more severe. A third effect is now added. There is a possibility of disorientation for those affected that will last up to five minutes at the standard AoE of 10 feet. The AoE of this attack can now be widened to 20 feet at the expense of the blast’s strength or narrowed to three feet with an increase in the blast’s effectiveness. Effective range of Psi Blast is now doubled compared to baseline. Cooldown decreased to three and a half minutes.
With the beasts clustered together, Alma should be able to focus her psychic beam to its strongest effect. She flew up into the trees and waited to strike. The other party members made their way through the forest as quietly as possible, save the support team whose sole purpose was to protect Bea. Richter had been able to earn each Scholar one level in the last two weeks by channeling the 20% of the war party’s experience to the noncombatants.
Even though they were trying to be quiet, most of the war party lacked woodcraft or stealth skills. Before they got within thirty yards of the elk, the pack lifted their heads in the direction of the advancing fighters and Richter could see them tense. Whether they then planned to attack or retreat, he would never know, because that was what Alma had been waiting for. In that split second of the elks’ indecision, the dragonling dove from above and unleashed her Psi Blast. The psychic beam caught all five elk broadside, the energy passing easily through the flesh of one to strike the others.
The beasts fell to the ground, legs kicking spasmodically. Blood leaked from their nostrils and one bit through its own tongue as its body locked in rictus. Richter would never know how effective Alma’s level three Psi Blast might have been if he had upgraded it earlier, but with her being a level twenty-nine creature, it packed a serious punch!
Richter dropped his bow as none of the elk had escaped and drew both swords. Alma landed on her master’s shoulders, and her body was enveloped by a golden glow. His familiar cast Soul Trap again and again as Richter’s sword rose and fell. He wasn’t trying for fatal blows. Instead, he targeted the animals’ leg muscles, ensuring that the elk would not rise even if they could fight off the effects of the Psi Blast. Sion was right beside him doing the same. The sprite had been through this process daily and knew what was required. Alma hopped down from Richter’s shoulders with a feral shriek and started draining them. Her level seven Brain Drain dropped their health, stamina, and mana at a prodigious rate, and Richter helped by delivering coups de grace.
The last three elk awoke before they could be put down and started squealing as they tried to escape the butchery Richter and his familiar were delivering, but they could do little more than thrash about on the ground. Even that ceased when Alma latched on, her special psychic attack overcoming their conscious will. In less than three minutes, it was done.
His familiar shot into the air with a cry of triumph drunk on the psychic energy she had absorbed from the predatory animals. Richer smiled at her, enjoying the savagery of his familiar while the last swirl of rainbow light disappeared into his bag. Five more souls were now his to use as fuel for his enchantments. Those were not the only prompts he received.
You have been awarded 2,716 experience (base 62,072 x 0.07 x 1.25 x 0.5) from Brain Drain against Level 11 Gynor Elk.
You have been awarded 1,468 experience (base 33,559 x 0.07 x 1.25 x 0.5) from Brain Drain against Level 8 Gynor Elk.
You have been awarded 1,937 experience (base 44,283 x 0.07 x 1.25 x 0.5) from Brain Drain against Level 9 Gynor Elk.
You have been awarded 919 experience (base 21,008 x 0.07 x 1.25 x 0.5) from Brain Drain against Level 7 Gynor Elk.
You have been awarded 1,135 experience (base 25,931 x 0.07 x 1.25 x 0.5) from Brain Drain against Level 8 Gynor Elk.
For slaying five Gynor Elk, you have been awarded 20 War Points! Total War Points: 112.
Richter had a very good idea about how to spend his new war points. He would attend to that later, though. Now, there was a sprite to save. He looked around and saw that the war party had done as instructed.
When Alma had flown to communicate with Caulder, she had transmitted a single word, “Support.” The sergeant knew that meant Richter and Sion would handle the kills, and the role of the war party was to protect them with a loose perimeter while they worked. The war party, including the auxiliary team, had fanned out in a circle around his position.
The melee fighters held shields and each was paired with a meidon sprite archer. The noncombatant was also always placed inside of the perimeter. The purpose of the other fighters wasn’t to aid Richter, but instead to ensure that other predators didn’t attack, drawn by the sounds of death and combat. Three times over the past several weeks, monsters and dangerous beasts had been drawn by the death cries of Richter’s kills.
This time, there was no issue, however. Richter cut a piece of the elk free and threw the bloody chunk to his adder. The snake snapped the morsel up. He had been making an effort to spend time with and feed the snake. Initially he had asked if they were crazy. What he actually said was, “Why the hell would I play with a twenty foot snake?” He decided to trust them, though.
Richter wasn’t sure if the twins’ advice actually held any merit, but he had been able to quickly raise his Beast Bonding skill to level five, so he kept at it. Then he and Alma summoned mist workers to carry the bodies of the gynor elk as well as the bear’s remains. In this world, the practice was ‘waste not.’ Even if the meat were tainted, the skin might still be of some use.
The grey figures trotted off to the west carrying the kills. It was always a possibility that another monster or beast might attack the mist workers, but it hadn’t happened yet. When the only other options were to leave the carcasses or to make the mist workers travel with the war party, sending them back unattended really was the best choice. The war party continued on.
More predators crossed their path, but none were worth chasing down, so the fighters continued, led by the Richter and the pixie child. After a few hours, they were only a mile from the edge of the mists and Richter was starting to wonder if the pixie child might have been wrong. Then red dots began to appear on his mini-map.
Richter called a halt. Five minutes later, Sion dropped down from a tree branch directly in front of Richter. A look of utter disgust and anger was on the sprite’s face. He didn’t so much speak as spit a single word, “Goblins.”
CHAPTER 47 -- Day 140 – Kuborn 30, 15,386 EBG
“They are in the mist, and they are hunting someone. I don’t know how they can see in the mists, but they can! I heard one of them speak in the common tongue. They have wounded a sprite, and now they are hunting him. We do not have time for more scouting; we have to go now!” Sion said urgently.
Richter’s eyes flicked upward as he looked at his minimap. Sion had already spotted over twenty-five enemies in the mists. Who knew how many more there might be? Most of the goblins were still in a knot and the others Sion had spotted had not ranged far from the main group. That meant he could be missing any number of enemy scouts or advanced teams. Even another group of five enemies could be enough to turn the tide of a battle. Taking out beasts was one thing, but taking on an armed band was another. It was true the mists should protect their approach, but if Sion was right, the goblins had already found a way to defeat the village’s enchantment.
Richter regretted not bringing Futen along with the war party. The r
emnant could have gone ahead invisibly and confirmed what Sion saw. It wasn’t standard practice for Richter to take the orb with him on hunts. Futen was just too useful in the village, seeing as how he was the only other being, besides Alma, that could summon the mist workers. Richter had also decided that his war party needed to know how to make do without the remnant in case they had to venture beyond the mists. It was that same reasoning that had motivated him to have Terrod lead his own war party rather than make Richter’s own war band larger. It all meant that his force was comprised of himself, Sion, the ten members of his war party, the five members of the auxiliary group, Bea and the pixie child. Facing a force that was possibly twice as large was not something he looked forward to.
Looking at Sion’s face, though, he knew there wasn’t really a choice here. The one thing he was glad of was that he had put his foot down and demanded that the meidon pixies stay behind during raids. It had caused arguments with the meidon sprites, but seeing as how they had all sworn fealty, it hadn’t been a long discussion. Thankful for small favors, he started giving orders. Now was the time for action.
He pointed to three of the guards in the auxiliary squad. His orders came out clipped, and there was no question of argument, “You three stay with the Scholar. Retreat half a mile back towards the village. Stay in hiding unless you hear from one of us.” The other two guards from the squad were Life magi, and he told them to support Caulder’s strike force. He summoned two mist workers. “If you are attacked or hear sounds of battle getting closer, sacrifice these workers and double time it back to the village. Take the pixie with you.” He looked at the small creature, “You are to follow the commands of the guards to the letter. If they are attacked, you fly as fast as you can straight back to the Quickening and Queen Elora. I know you are worried for your meitu’meidon, and I will retrieve him, but you will do as I command.”
