First order of business was to herd Bia’s obsession out of the stables we commandeered last night. After a nice shower, I headed over to the stables where we put our hexacampi. The others were already there. Lloyd perked up as I arrived, being the only one not engaged in pointless bullshitting. Dan and Rosa are doubtless arguing about something. Bia pats and whispers sweet unworths to a hexacampus.
As I watched the interaction, a wave of disapproval washed over.
“Bia, how much did these cost again?” I asked her.
“I don’t know Ari, numbers are for nerds.” Bia said, not bothering to turn around.
“Ari, you’re looking way too deep into this!” Rosa, joyously. “Sometimes, you just need big crabs in your life.”
I sighed and started helping with the hexacampi.
The hexacampi’s eyes stared blankly at me, to an almost unsettling degree. Thankfully, I was able to hear Bia giggling in time and I moved out of the way before the crab trampled over me. Rosa wasn’t nearly as fortunate, getting kicked back a couple of feet into the cobblestone.
“I’m starting to worry about the combat effectiveness of this group.” Lloyd said, smoothly boarding his hexacampus.
“Everything is fine, you have my word,” Bia said dismissively.
“There seems to be a lot of those going around,” I said, before getting onto my Hexacampus.
“Does anyone know where Dan is?” Rosa said, dusting herself off.
“Right here,” he says from atop another crab.
“How the fuck do you do that?” Rosa jumped. “Did you rank up behind my back or something? Uber-level your stealth skill?”
“Some people are just better than others,” Dan says solemnly. His facade promptly falls apart into laughter.
“Also,” began Lloyd. “Skills don’t actually make you better at something.”
He then turned to look sternly at Rosa. “You’re an adventurer now, you need to know these things.”
I laughed, not sure if he was even joking. That was about the highest level of humour Lloyd had.
“He’s right.” I said as we began moving. “Adventuring is a life or death business. You need to know what you’re doing or it’ll become a death business.”
“Mhmm,” agreed Lloyd, perking up as discussion of his specialist topic cropped up. Oh, that’s probably why he’s always nerding out. From Deliria and all that. Dunno how it took me this long to realize that. “Skills are actually kind of useless. They don’t enhance your ability or limit your ability. They’re purely visual representatives.”
“Please stop,” Rosa said. “I did not sign up for an informative monologue.”
“Oh, we’re only just getting started,” Lloyd beamed. “It’s a long path to Evedast and no one culls the monsters out here. An encounter is inevitable. And I sure as hell am not letting any of you ungrateful fucks die to a big rat or a… beanstalk… or…”
“Or your own stupidity,” I finished. “Probably the largest factor, and that’s not a joke. Which is why it’s imperative you learn.”
“You’re all boring,” Rosa rolled her eyes.
“Okay, fuckin’ pissbaby,” Lloyd rolled his own eyes with the seven-times multiplier of tier seven speed. Well, it’s probably not actually x7. Ask the man himself, I’m no expert.
“He’s right, Ros,” Dan murmured offsidedly. “Fifteen and you still act four.”
“I’m sixteen dumbass!”
“I know, I get it wrong on purpose because I know you’ll be a pissbaby about it.”
“Little shi –”
“Hi, hello,” Bia jumps in, having finally mounted her own hexacampus. “Can we go now? I’d love to lazily quip about here for a few more hours but we got places to go!”
I laughed, but mounted my own crab regardless. “Never thought I’d hear you advocating for efficiency.”
“I am the secret backbone of this group,” Bia said in mock smugness.
***
The stars have reached their bright yellow high-noon luminance and we’re only about halfway to Roriodo – and somehow only just encountered a low-tier monster pack. By which I mean the first monster of the trip – magic levels are too low here. Miraculous for Haelcrien standards and for my writing load. Tier seven does not in fact trivialize pencil soreness.
“How far now?” Bia called from the back of the group. We’d set up a formation on approach to the monsters – such tactics were wholly unnecessary for myself, my sister, and Lloyd, but with zeroes in company it was better safe than sorry.
I checked my tablet. The ping location was still six hundred metres to our east.
?Creature: [Voracrest] (Avian)
Average Tier: III
Summary:
A raptor looking monster. Possesses razor teeth and wings composed of many sharp cartilage fragments. Small three-clawed hands are attached to the ends of the wings. They are covered in feathers that stay soft until hit, at which point they harden to protect the raptor.
“Only a few hundred metres,” I said, checking my tablet. “Don’t you have your own scanner?”
“Nope!”
“Buy one in Troltano. Or maybe Evedast, but I don’t know how developed their adventuring industry is there. Lloyd, you can go in now.”
“Alright,” said the Golden Boy, then dismounted his crab and dashed into the trees with the scrape of daggers leaving scabbards.
“What’s he doing?” Rosa asked.
“Gathering intel in advance,” Bia said matter of factly. “Usually we wouldn’t for low-tier mons, but –”
“He’s killing all but two of the tier oners so you two can have a fair fight,” I corrected offhandedly. “Don’t sugarcoat things for them Bia. It’s bad practice and there’s no way exactly two tier one voracrest manifest. Sad excuse for a pack.”
“Oh, come on Ari,” Bia rolled her eyes. “Intelligent people might know so, but stupid is the Verosaven family motto!”
“That was unwarranted,” said Dan. He was somehow keeping his balance while standing upright on a moving hexacampus, putting on his armour.
“Fuck you,” said Rosa. She was miserably failing to tie the one knot on her weird enchanted cloak-thing, crouching on her mount while looking like she thought she was standing and this was a legendary feat of acrobatics.
Trees and shrubbery rolled past us as we inched closer towards the pack of voracrest. This section of the forest was closer to the more temperate centre of Haelcrien, so the trees spaced further, which meant we could take the hexacampi hunting without getting them stuck. I mean, maybe that would’ve been better. I’d have an excuse to cut em up north Haelcrien’s mostly inland, and I’ve never tried crab before. Heard it tastes good though. Also, it’d piss Bia off and that’s always a plus.
I checked the scanner again – fifty metres. Sure enough, my tier seven senses promptly picked up the oily scent of monsters. They all seemed to smell like that – probably a side effect of the Governance’s production process. You’d feel them too, like you could feel ranked fae and just about any ranked creature. Something about the whole Presence thing with the high rankers.
“Stop!” I called as my ears picked up the whistling of wind. Lloyd’s back.
The rest of the party halted their hexacampi and dismounted as a gilded blur spun into being in front of us, daggers still twirling in his hands as they reentered their sheaths.
“Cleared to two voracrest as requested,” Lloyd said curtly. The man was weird when adventuring; usually he’s more casual but the moment a modicum of danger comes into play he turns into a drill sergeant. He shrugs towards Dan and Rosa. “You can send the zeroes in now.”
I waved the party forwards, following the scanner.
“The zeroes have a name,” Rosa said, fooling around with a bow and arrow and definitely holding them wrong. I’m not expert but I still know some archery basics. The Verosavens, on the other hand, never took a combat education.
“Maybe it’d have been prudent,” Dan said after an exasperated glance. “To hold off on giving this girl dangerous weaponry until she can take an archery course.”
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“I’m sure she’ll be fine,” Bia said, conjuring her scythe. The siblings should be able to handle this one, but better safe than sorry. I summoned my dagger.
“She is right here!”
“And so are the voracrest,” I notified them. Right on cue, a shrill reptilian call preceded a blurry figure launching out of the trees. Rosa shrieked as a forty pound mass of feathers and scales crashed into her and began tearing at her with razor claws.
“You’re a ranged specialization, Rosa!” I called in the best approximation of encouragement my sarcastic voice could manage. I threw out a stack of shields between her incredibly non-durable gear and the voracrest’s incisors. She sighed in relief under the respite.
“Now, this is where you expertly roll away before –”
Another scream and the smell of fresh blood. The voracrest are on her again from the side. Immortals help us all, these people are too incompetent. And Bia, that’s not religious, that’s fact based. They found gods or some shit in the Void a few years ago and all the old trinitians are still freaking out. I turned away. Lloyd will clean up her attacker.
The other voracrest wooshed through the trees and at me. I punched the thing in the side and it spontaneously redirected at Dan, who seemed slightly more prepared and already had his shield up. With a surprising amount of precision, he spins with knife in hand and plunges it into the raptor’s chest. “You seem oddly good at this,” I said.
“I’m an innkeeper,” Dan replied, taking out another knife and using the two blades like chopsticks in the soup of the raptor’s forehead. “You adventurers think monsters are bad, but customer service is a whole other frontier.”
Rosa stumbled over while downing a healing potion, her shirt covered in scratches and blood. Her flesh began to weave back together. Bia was looting the voracrest a ways away – Rose had done no damage to it and therefore would get nothing from trying to loot it. Strictly speaking, tier zeroes shouldn’t be using tier three healing potions, but Bia, Lloyd, and I don’t buy anything lower and it’s usually fine.
She collapsed by a tree and gasped passively.
“I think I’d rather serve drinks.”
“Good,” Dan said. “You can do that instead of making dinner as compensation for your gear.”
Rosa didn’t bother respond, groaning as her flesh sizzled to health. Dan tapped and looted the corpse, the currency energy flowing into him along with the experience. Bluish light enveloped him for a second – he grinned.
“Well wouldya look at that,” Lloyd grinned as well, walking over and giving Dan a pat on the back. “Welcome to the club.”
“Your membership is the lowest tier,” I added. “But at least the Governance isn’t an inherently capitalist system.”
“Well, the higher tier rank advantages are a little bit –”
“Lloyd, we live in northern Haelcrien. No high tierers are coming up here.”
“...Fair enough.”
“Oh, that’s nice,” Dan said. “”
?> Item mailed from [Dan Verosaven]
You have [RANKED UP] to [TIER I]
+6 Attribute Points
+Resistance against [TIER 0]
You may now live off of metaphysical energy instead of food
To next tier: 1000 EXP
“Why don’t I get one?” Rosa asked.
“You did literally nothing except scream and get scratched,” I turned to look at her pointedly.
“And you, are a big meanie.”
“Aww, don’t worry Rosie,” Bia purred. “I’ll take ya out to murder a hamster later, aye?”
I shook my head with a laugh, then turned back to the competent one.
“We’ll set you up with a specialization ritual sometime later, yeah?”
“What’s that for again?”
I rolled my eyes. “Lloyd.”
He rolled his eyes too. “Ars, why me?”
“You’re the Governance lore guy,” I shrugged. “Makes sense.”
“Oh, come on, you know just as much.”
“And if I’m forced to explain it to specimens of this intellect I will have to kill myself.”
“Fine.” He dismissed his weapons. Dunno why he does that, he has sheaths. Actually, why have sheaths if his weapons are conjured??? “So, a specialization basically makes it so the abilities you manifest are all fine tuned to synergize with each other and have a cohesive theme. You can still gain abilities and rank up without one, but the power set gets disorganized and nothing works together.”
Dan gave a thumbs up.
“Right,” Rosa said slowly. “Got it. How d’you get abilities anyway?”
I slid a hand down my face. Sometimes I forget these two grew up here.
“By trying,” I started. “That includes actually killing something, which you’ve yet to –”
Thankfully, Lloyd has us covered.
“- learn about, so it’s perfectly reasonable to be terrible at it the first time around!” He smiles a grin as gilded as his hair. Not that his teeth are, uh, yellow. Just shiny. “You get abilities when you do something important, when you cross a monumental point in your life. Dan didn’t get one here because he killed the thing way too easily, and you’ll probably need more danger to manifest something.”
“More danger?” Rosa groaned.
“Or you could take the coward’s way out,” I said irritably. “Buy an ability manifestation off of someone, though it’ll be hells expensive if it’s anything at all specialized.”
“Y’know…” Rosa moved her eyes in a rare moment of thought. “I could take making dinner for another few months if it nets me fireballs.”
“I’m on board with that.” Dan said.
***
Another few hours of travel later and the stars are dimming over stone walls in the distance. We’ve entered Haelcrien’s plains and you can see for kilometres in every direction – yet the lone impending shadow of Evedast is the only sign of civilization. It’s a miracle Haelcrien hasn’t been invaded by Carioneth yet. Our north is mostly uninhabited,low-tier land, and those fuckers are the most aggressive nation of the planet. If the Autumn Kingdom and it’s disproportionate population to ambient magic ratio wasn’t around, we’d’ve been conquered centuries ago.
Evedast fast approaches as the stars shy away. Vyne fruit orchards dotted with farmhouses wafted the smell of earth onto the path, as it transitioned from dirt and gravel to smooth stone-paved road.
“Will they even let us in at this hour?” Bia asked. Glad to see she was finally out of her area of expertise.
“Don’t know,” I shrugged. “I’ll bust the doors open if they don’t.”
“Oooh, careful around here,” Rosa sneered. “They might have actual competent adventurers in town.”
“No, doubt it,” I replied. “Monsters get scared off by the walls’ ritual inlays anyway, there’s no need. At most they’ll buy some monster parts from nomadic adventurers and they don’t come through often, it’s usually just merchants that bought the parts and carry them out here.”
“That’s still a chance…”
“Shut up, we’re here.”
Bia waved the hexacampi to an eerily synchronized stop before closed, impressive-looking gates. I hopped off and approached the door and gave it a knock. Interlocked ritual circles appeared on the wood in response to my touch, tendrils of glowing mist following. They tapped my fingers a few times and withdrew, satisfied. The doors swung open and closed behind us.
“Oooh, automatic,” Bia grinned. “Fancy. Maybe I should study ritual circles sometime.”
“Your work ethic wouldn’t let you, and you’d probably blow up the house too,” I said.
“Shut up.”
Bia and the Verosavs took the crabs to a stable while Lloyd and I went off to find a place to stay. I headed directly to the next ring-road as this one seemed to be residential. Commercial and residential rings usually alternated in the Governance’s city designs, with administrative sectors in the centre and other important buildings spread throughout.
Not many people were out this late, but the one man nearby seemed to heading directly towards us. Reddish hair, eyes, and beard, wearing an overextravagant sheriff’s hat and some manner of suit and combat robe mesh. Some manner of Presence too – Rosa was unintentionally right that there were high rankers in town. High rank meant either adventurer or nepobaby experience buyer, but incurred wariness regardless.
“Hello there!” said the man, waltzing over with hands in pockets. “Lost?”
“Not particularly,” I said. “Who are you?”
Lloyd pushed me back with an exasperated glare.
“Forgive my rude friend,” he said. “We’re doing fine, but thanks anyway. What’s your name?”
“You just said the same thing I did,” I told him.
“You are impolite.”
“I’m exactly what I intend to be.”
“Don’t worry ‘bout that, I was just as bad when your parents were in school,” he chuckled. “Well if ya looking for a place to stay, there’s a nice inn down the street. Dollar Dragon or something, good room service and cheap price for six of you people.”
“Right,” Lloyd said. “...but how did you know we needed an inn?”
“You’re adventurers,” he said. “And tier seven at that. Not common ‘round here.”
I raised an eyebrow. Being able to tell our exact rank meant either an even higher rank than the twenty-thirty that I’d guessed, or a ridiculous attribute point allotment to Soul.
“Far enough,” I supposed. “So, what’s your name? Kinda dodged the question.”
“You can call me… Arodorros.”
“Odd name,” I said. “You high society around here? Aristocracy, however much of that’s left?”
“Oh, no, not around here. All the way from north Rueleva.”
“That’d be Dawne Kingdom territory. They don’t let people in nor out of that place. You can’t be from there.”
“Mhmm,” he shrugged.
“...Well, thank you for the advice,” I said. “See you around?”
“Certainly,” he smiled a little too genuinely, and walked off the exact direction he came.
I turned to Lloyd. “Stalker, d’you think?”
“Why would he stalk us?”
“Gods know. Maybe he really is from Dawne. The Unions don’t even know what those fuckers are up to, we certainly wouldn’t.”
“But… why us?”
“Might not be us. Some kind of generalized survey on Haelcrien adventurers or something.”
“I think you’re being a little stupid here,” Lloyd said.
“What?”
“Your hourglass.”
My eyes widened. “Fuuuck.”
“What’s with the darn hourglass anyway? And why won’t you just give it to Grim?”
“Well, god knows what Grim woul d do with it, and there’s no reason for it to keep its word and actually leave.”
“But it would’ve gotten you out without the whole breaking your ribs thing.”
“That’s… Lloyd, we can discuss this when we find a room and not the middle of a fucking public street.”