“What are we beginning?” I ask, coming to a stop in front of the group. All eyes shift back toward Arabella.
“An opportunity has presented itself,” she explains. “Currently, there is a force of monsters heading for a small village. I believe that this village is defenseless against such an attack. The adventurers they do have are unprepared for such a sudden attack. It happens, in places where monsters seldom appear, people tend to become complacent. I want the five of you to intercept this group of monsters. If all works out, the village will not even know that you were involved.”
I feel tension settle over me, and looking around at the others, I recognize it is not just me. Excitement dances beneath the muscles of my hands. I have needed to face monsters many times before while being unable to do anything against them. This time shall be different.
“Why do you not take care of the issue yourself,” Coriander asks. “If these creatures are something you believe that we can handle, why do you not simply wipe them away from up here?”
“Does anyone else feel that way?” Arabella asks the rest of the group. No one voices an agreement with Coriander. “See. These four understand that you do not simply waste an opportunity. Have I not tasked each of you with reaching the third rank in just a few years? How do you expect to do that if you allow opportunities such as this to pass you by? I will not compel you to join in the slaughter of vicious monstrosities, but pitting your will against that of these artificial beings in a life or death struggle is assuredly the fastest method of reinforcing your own will, of reinforcing your own soul.”
“It sounds to me that you simply do not want to bother yourself,” Coriander says.
“Correct.” Arabella looks to Kendon. “I am placing you as lead for this. Kendon will have operational authority, follow his directives if you wish to succeed.”
“Do you have more information about what you are sending us against?” Kendon asks, stepping forward to take the lead.
“I do, but I will not divulge it to you. Assessment of these kinds of situations are paramount in controlling the battlefield. I cannot teach you to come to an operational understanding of the initial combat environment with books or illusions. When you arrive, gain an understanding, and formulate a plan.” Arabella steps back, and I see that there is a small door in the flat, waist-high tub that takes up at least half of the platform. She swings it open on well-oiled hinges. “Now, everyone step inside.”
Kendon nods to Arabella, digesting what she told him as he is the first to enter the metal tub, his brother Macille on his heels. I move to follow Macille, but Coriander just about leaps to get in front of me, stepping over the threshold of the tub. Kendon stands inside the corrugated metal, his arm held out as if he were holding the door for the ladies to enter, which, of course, he is not. I step in behind Coriander and catch Arabella grabbing Jor’Mari’s arm and whispering something in his ear. A wide smile splits the celenial’s mouth before he steps up onto the lip of the tub and over.
“Good luck,” Arabella says as she closes the door of the tub once more. Even with all five of us standing inside of it, the tub isn’t the least bit cramped. Once the door is closed, Arabella holds up a finger that bleeds purple energy and runs the wispy trail along the top of the tub, causing a flash of blue scrawling to appear on the inside of the tub all over. The glow of blue continues to brighten enough to blind, the gray of metal disappearing beneath the halo of light that covers my vision. I try to blink away the light, but even closing my eyes is not enough to dispel it. “Don’t die. This would be far too soon.” I hear Arabella say before the blue light changes to white in an instant.
A chill bores into my pores, forcing a violent shiver out of me before the world disappears from beneath my feet. A fraction of a second later, I land on the soft give of grass that crunches beneath my boots. I blink a few more times, realizing that I am no longer on the marble platform, but standing in the middle of a grass field that comes up to my waist. The others are around me as well, all blinking rapidly to clear their vision from the blinding light.
We stand on a hill, an unnatural one created from the land being dug out all around us, filled with pools of green water that smells of eggs and death. Kendon scuffs his boots on the pebbly road that divides the hill in two, running away from us in two directions further than the eye can see. Behind him, Macille is vomiting into the grass and Coriander is stumbling, still trying to get her bearings. Lightheadedness hits me as I take my first step. I stop for a moment, focusing on the distant horizon, and allow my body to adjust to whatever just happened to us before I dare to try moving again.
“Everyone,” Kendon says in a commanding voice, “eyes up.” He loosens the warhammer strapped to his back and points the head toward the far horizon, down the path of the road. “The village is there,” he says. I squint into the distance where he points but cannot see any sign of civilization that way. He points his hammer back in the other direction, down the road. “Which likely means that the threat will come from that direction. There would not be much of a reason to put us on this hill otherwise.”
Jor’Mari peers over the sheer side of the hill toward the green pools below. “What do these people farm, farts?” he asks before spitting into the pool. His spit sizzles as it splashes into it. At his question, I notice that the grassland that sprawls to either side of the road is pocked with ponds the same color as the liquid below us for as far as the eye can see.
“This is not the time to play around,” Kendon says to Jor’Mari. “We must be serious now and get into a combat mindset.”
Jor’Mari waves him off. “That is for you. Ms. Willian gave me a different assignment from the rest of you. You do not command me.”
Bickering ensues. I turn my attention away from the two of them and run my fingers through the grass that licks at my side. It has been more than a week since the last time that I felt the earth beneath my feet. I didn’t know that I would miss it so much. I look back at the others, noticing that they are all in their combat gear, while I am simply dressed in my morning clothes. I wonder why Arabella thought nothing about it before she sent us off. Were the others warned this would happen and I simply wasn’t?
Macille finishes his retching and wipes his mouth with the back of his gauntleted hand before standing. “Here,” he says, still looking pale. A wave of magic pulses out from his hand to land on all of us.
Guardian’s Bulwark
The defense of armor worn by individuals under this spell’s effect is greatly increased.
“Thank you,” Kendon says, “but we might have waited until these monsters were closer. I do not want your beneficial magic to run out in the middle of combat.”
“You mean those monsters?” Jor’Mari asks, pointing back along the road toward the east. I squint as hard as I can, but I still cannot make out anything against the horizon.
“Ah,” Kendon says, looking to where Jor’Mari motions. “We should prepare then.”
I start to realize that I am the only one who cannot see what everyone else is looking at as seriousness falls over the rest of the group.
“That is unreal,” Coriander says. “How can there be so many?”
A few minutes of the entire group staring toward the horizon later I am finally able to make out the first of the monsters. They begin as the blurry smoke of dirt being kicked into the air as something passes along the road at an incredible pace, finally changing to the blurry outlines of creatures speeding our way out of the distance. There are dozens of them racing toward us, and as I first begin to pick out what it is I am looking at, floating messages appear in the far distance above their heads. Despite the expanse between us, my eyes are able to read the messages as easily as if they were right in front of me.
Trap Hound
Blade Hound
“There must be over thirty,” Macille says. I notice that he is standing at my shoulder.
“Thirty-two that I can see,” I tell him. Four pairs of eyes shift in my direction. “Twenty-seven are rank zero monsters. Five are rank one monsters, something called a Blade Hound.”
Kendon whistles. “Macille told me that you had an ability to identify monsters, but I didn’t expect it to work at such a range.”
I shrug at the group leader, “I’ve never tried it from so far away.” The smile that Kendon flashes my way makes heat rise to my cheeks and I have to turn away from him and look back toward the distance before he can notice. I don’t see any more of the monsters coming out of the distance, and the fact that there are over thirty monsters together is more than I have ever heard of before, but I can’t shake the feeling that there is more going on. Jor’Mari all but confirms as much as he steps away from the road.
“That is my cue to exit. I have my own job to be about,” he says, dropping over the edge of the wall of mud and dirt that makes up the sides of the hill toward the ground forty feet below.
I take a step to follow him, if only just to make sure that he didn’t shatter his legs hitting the ground, but Kendon stops me. “Don’t follow that fool,” he tells me. “Nothing good can come of getting more involved with him than is strictly necessary.”
I catch Macille shooting Kendon a disapproving glare, but Kendon has already turned back toward looking up the road where the pack of monster hounds and dirt fast approach. “They will reach us in less than three minutes,” Kendon says.
“Have you managed to adequately assess the situation then?” Coriander asks, her sarcasm on full display.
“I have,” Kendon answers without caring. “Even if they are mostly rank zero monsters, that many hitting us all at once would overwhelm any defense that Macille or I would be able to put up to slow them. Coriander, when they get close enough, hit them with a flash to disorient them. Simple monsters will likely stop their charge if they are attacked that way. Macille and I will block the road.” He motions toward Coriander and me. “The two of you will begin to launch magical attacks while staying away from the monsters. Be careful of any that make it around the two of us. We will meet them at the bottom of the hill, so any that slip around us should be easy to spot. Be wary of them. Even a rank zero monster can kill a rank one magician if they get lucky.”
Overhead, clouds pass in front of the sun, leaving us in shadow as the monsters come rushing on. I can tell the moment that the monsters pick us out, standing in plain view on the top of the hill as we prepare for the moment when our two groups will clash.
A bark cracks over the world like thunder. The monsters charging down the road answer the booming sound with a chorus of howls that build in pitch as they pour forward toward us, rising higher and higher until they become a melody of nails scraping at the inside of my eardrums. Then another voice answers, one that drowns out all other joins the howling. It rumbles low enough to shake the earth and is powerful enough that the grass seems to bow in the wake of its booming. The hounds run on, silent now, faster than before as they look to meet the two men bearing shields on the hill with the mass of their charge. Macille loosens his shoulders as he sets his feet in the middle of the road, unsheathing the sword on his hip and bringing the side of the blade in line with the huge shield he bears.
Warmth and terror begin to roll over me as the monsters approach. The heat on the back of my neck seems to draw my stomach up with it, and I struggle for a moment to keep the bile from rising to the back of my throat. The dull thumping of my heart begins to beat in my ears as I feel my feet begin to tap, ready to run or fight, but never to freeze.
What are we doing? I think to myself. Even Halford, a man whom I have never seen a monster even come close to taking down until he fought the Azure Rabbit by himself had never dared to put his group against so many monsters at once. I look at the backs of the two elven brothers in front of me and know that neither is as strong as my brother was at rank one. How can they possibly hope to come out of the other side of this fight?
I feel the rumbling of the ground beneath my boots. The monsters are only a hundred meters away now and show no sign of slowing. Movement out of the right side of my vision catches my attention. Coriander takes a few steps backward, and I am about to call her out for trying to flee before the fight begins, but I notice the light swelling between her hands.
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“Don’t look, idiot!” The command from the elven noble is harsh enough that I can’t help but look away from her. I realize how stupid I have been, wasting this time as the monsters have come rushing toward us doing nothing, when I could have been pouring mana into a Dragonfire Bolt. They’re too close, seconds away now. There is no time to charge one, but I begin to anyway.
The heat on my skin comes from inside of me. I feel sweat dripping down the simple shirt I wear, pooling on my back and standing out on my forehead. I can see the monsters more clearly than ever. The rank zero hounds appear like coyotes, rabid and dripping trails of drool as they run, two horns emerging out of either side of their jaws, almost closing to a point in front of their snouts. The rank one hounds are worse, they each have at least five of the horns sticking out of their heads to ring together in front of their mouths, and their bodies are more muscled than even a wolf.
Heat burns along my skin as my own heart thumps in my ears. In a few seconds I might be dead. Why is it then that I can’t keep a stupid grin off of my face?
“Ready,” I hear Coriander yell behind me.
In unison, both Macille and Kendon crouch behind their shields, fully ready to take the impact of over thirty beasts charging into them. A second before the collision, the world turns black and white.
Though whatever Coriander does is behind me, my eyes ache as she unleashes her spell. All of the color drains out of the world, the grass, earth, and road becoming a black deeper than anything I have seen before and the sky turning a crystal white. In almost the same second the world changes, I see a set of ethereal armor wreath Macille. The monsters who are little more than white outlines on the blackened world fall into chaos as the first of their numbers collide with Macille and Kendon. The crunching of metal on bone and flesh is the loudest sound that I have ever heard, but the two men hold as the second line of monsters stops in their tracks, confused, only to be slammed into from behind by the rest of their charging pack.
Kendon is the first one to move as the world of black and white begins to fade, swinging his huge sledge into the head of the rank zero hound that collided with him. Some liquid streaks off of the head of the hammer, clear and vicious, and burns the fur and skin of the hound even before the metal head of the hammer lands against it. Whatever effect the liquid has on the power of Kendon’s strike seems irrelevant as the hound’s head whips sideways, its vertebrae cracking down its back. As color begins to return to the world, the rank zero hound falls to the ground, dead in an instant.
Macille lets loose with his own strike against the monster that collided with his own shield. The sword he bears bleeds a green light, and as he drives it forward toward the rank one hound, he splits the creature in half.
Some of the monsters are already recovering. A Blade Hound tries to snap off Kendon’s head, but he brings his shield up in time to slap its jaw away with a crunch. Another, a Trap Hound, tries to circle around Kendon and bite into his side. I throw my dragonfire at it.
The blob of fire sails at the Trap Hound faster than an arrow, and when it collides with the monster’s scraggy brown fur, the monster bursts into flame. I watch, completely unable to understand what has happened until the howling monster has already collapsed to the road, spasming. The only thing I have ever used my dragonfire against before has been the Desert Spearman, and it hardly did anything against that monster. When the dragonfire hits the Trap Hound, the fire did not spread over its fur in a wave of burning. The fur simply seemed to all burst into flame at once. I don’t have time to linger on the sight as more of the monsters seem to be recovering from the blinding affliction. Though it isn’t the first time I have ever killed a monster, it is the first time that I have done so with my own power.
Kendon beats back the Trap Hound with his hammer every time it jumps forward to try and bite at him, the horns around its head opening like a hand and snapping closed alongside its teeth. The clear liquid that sprays from Kendon’s hammer burns and corrodes the hair and skin of the monster, leaving an acrid smell in the air that overpowers the dirt that has been kicked up. Macille cuts at the same Blade Hound, but his sword has lost its green glow, and doesn’t bite into the monster with the same strength anymore.
I realize that I am standing here doing nothing, and I begin to pour mana into my hands to create another dragonfire bolt. A line of black and white energy streaks forth from beside me, hitting the wounded Blade Hound in the shoulder and continuing on to piece through two Trap Hounds before colliding into the pebbles of the road, kicking up a spray of rocks. Smoke rises from the clean holes born through the three monsters hit by the beam of energy. The two Trap Hounds fall to the road dead as the wounded rank one monster in front of Kendon buckles, its front-left leg giving out. Kendon gives the monster no chance to collect itself, jumping forward as he raises his hammer over his head. Black lightning crackles around the head of the hammer a second before he brings it down squarely on the head of the monster with a thundercrack. The blow nails the Blade Hound’s head into the road, dead, but the sound seems to bring the rest of the hounds out of their blinded stupor.
The hounds growl as they look at the two elven men holding a line on the hill ahead of them. Arabella chose a genius place to put us for this battle. The road is narrow enough as it runs over the artificial hill that even the lithe hounds have a hard time getting around the two men that hold them at bay. I glance to my right at Coriander and see her holding two fingers together as black and white light pools at their tip. As one of the Blade Hounds lurches forward to engage with Macille, I hurl another Dragonfire Bolt.
The Blade Hound attempts to dodge the bolt as it comes for it, but at this close of a range, it has no chance. When the dragonfire collides with the Blade Hound, the monster does not simply burst into flame as the Trap Hound had, but the fire seems to stick to the creature’s fur where it collided and begins to burn. The Blade Hound leaps away before Macille can end it with a strike from his sword which is glowing with green power once more, and rolls on the road, smothering the spreading dragonfire with dirt.
Three more Trap Hounds spring forward at Macille as another two go for Kendon. I do not even bother to try and channel more mana into my dragonfire than it would naturally have as I fire another Dragonfire Bolt, hitting one of the rank zero monsters and causing it to ignite instantly. Macille brings his sword down on one of the Trap Hounds, the glowing green blade cutting through it like it was made of butter as the glow of the sword instantly fades. When the other Trap Hound attempts to bite down on Macille’s sword arm, in a flash, ethereal armor coats the man, trapping the monster’s teeth as Macille brings his shield up and caves the hound’s head in.
To my right, Coriander jumps to the side to adjust her angle, and as she practically kneels on the ground, she lets loose another beam of white and black light that pierces straight through the two Trap Hounds in front of Kendon and into another three behind. All five fall dead to the ground in the same instant. I hurl more dragonfire into the mass of monsters that are clustering at the bottom of the hill, unsure if I manage to hit anything.
At once, three Blade Hounds rush forward together, and it is all that Kendon and Macille can do to prevent them from getting past. A Trap hound bounds around Macille as he is busy with two Blade Hounds, racing toward me. I hurl fire at the monster, but it manages to duck the attack. Before I can summon more fire, it is on me, its terrible teeth closing around my calf as the two horns on either side of its neck pincer into the meat of my leg.
I scream, falling backward on my ass and start hitting the monster in the head with my fist, but it feels like its bones might as well be made of metal. The Trap Hound starts shaking its head back and forth, ripping its teeth into my leg with each shake of its head. The pain is sharp, I am screaming as I punch the monster, and just out of my vision I see another pair of Trap Hounds make it past Kendon to attack Coriander. The difference is that she is wearing leather armor that covers her arms and legs, and I am in a shirt a pants that are quickly becoming soaked in my own blood.
Macille turns away from the monsters in front of him to try and reach me, but as he turns the Blade Hound on his left jumps forward, biting down on his shoulder. I don’t believe its teeth pierce the man’s heavy armor, but the monster’s weight drags him to the ground.
An anger that I have never felt before begins to well up inside me, sapping the terror out of my screams and changing them to something feral. I grab the Trap Hound’s head between my hands and pour fire over it without a care as to whether or not I might set myself alight along with it. The second the orange flames flash over the monster’s fur I feel its teeth dig deeper into my leg as it struggles to survive the burning, but I scream into its fearful eyes and hold its head between my palms until I feel bone beneath my fingers.
I don’t know how long the monster has been dead for by the time I let go of its head, but it can’t have been more than a few seconds. I pry its jaws off of my leg. Blood seeps from the wound, and I know before I even try that it would be impossible to stand. I am angrier in this moment than I could have ever fathomed before. I feel something that I never have for these monsters before, real, deep hatred.
Macille is in front of me on the incline of the road, fighting from his back as one Blade Hound tries to rip the shield out of hand while another tries to bite at his neck. His sword lies in the dirt behind him. I don’t spare time to check on Coriander and Kendon. A mote of dragonfire appears in my hand in an instant, and I hurl it at the monster trying to bite down on Macille’s neck. The orange fire splashes into the top of the monster’s head, and it jumps back, scraping at its head as the fire slowly starts to spread over its fur. In a fraction of a second, I check my mana, 125/160.
My hatred makes me reckless, something probably helped along by the blood loss. The dragonfire only takes a fraction of a second to condense in my hands, and using both now, I hurl bolt after bolt without a care for trying to make them more powerful than they naturally are. I put three of the dragonfire bolt’s into the Blade Hound that is already sizzling before I am confident that it has no chance to put the fire out. I hit the other still struggling for Macille’s shield in the eye with another bolt. It dies instantly.
I don’t stop. The mass of rank zero monsters at the bottom of the hill continues to advance on Macille as he lays on his back, and I throw eight more dragonfire bolts into their mass, missing almost half, but setting enough alight with orange flames that the monsters separate in a cloud of chaos to avoid the fire spreading between them. A splitting pain in my head stops me before I can conjure another bolt, mana 6/160. Most of my mana spent in under three seconds.
I try to plant my palm on the road beneath me, but somehow manage to miss the ground, and fall onto my back to stare up at the blue sky that swims in my vision. There is a tingling in my fingertips. I blink and watch as the clouds overhead lurch forward strangely, the pounding in my head only growing more intense. I can still hear the others fighting, but I can’t seem to lift my head. I feel tears pool in my eyes. I don’t allow them to fall. The sky above me lurches forward once more, and then there is Macille there, kneeling over me, green light pouring out from between his fingers.
“Why didn’t you do that against the Desert Spearman?” he asks me.
That is when I feel a tear roll down my cheek. The pain in my leg is more than I can take, and I grab his shoulder and gasp as Macille places his hand on my wound. The sound of battle has disappeared along with the pounding of my head.
How long has it been? I wonder. I check my vital energies: Healing Points 23/70, Mana 16/160. It can’t have been that long.
“Do you think you can sit up?” Macille asks me.
I attempt to prop myself up on an elbow, but I still feel so weak. Macille helps me up, and I can see that the flesh around where the monster sunk its teeth into my leg has mostly healed. The ground beneath me is a painting of red dirt.
“Thank you,” I barely manage to whisper.
“I should be the one thanking you,” he replies. Macille pulls a skin of water from his belt and hands it to me. I choke the water down until I am left sputtering. “You burned up those two monsters that were trying to rip my throat out.”
“The least I could do,” I answer. I try to stand, but my leg still feels numb, and I can’t manage to put any weight on it.
“Stay here for a while longer,” Macille tells me. “I am going to check on Coriander again. Get your strength back.”
I look to my right to see Kendon sitting in the road, looking down on the carnage of the dead monsters that leave a smeared trail of blood all the way to the bottom of the hill. Coriander lies on the road similar to me, except she has blood covering the left side of her neck and the armor over her shoulder has been ripped open. I can tell from the torn fabric that she took a nasty bite to the shoulder. Sweat stands out on her alabaster skin as she stares up at the sky. She notices my looking and meets my eyes for a second before she goes back to staring up.
Looking down at my own wound again, I see that almost the entire pant leg has been burned away. Despite knowing how ridiculous I look, I can’t bring myself to feel embarrassed about essentially wearing only half a pair of pants. The idea of what might have happened if the monster dug into my stomach instead of my leg flashes through my thoughts for a second, but I throw that away with a shake of my head. No use dwelling on it.
“Are you available now?” I hear a voice ask as Galea appears in my vision, holding a bundle of the messages between her claws. “I was waiting until you weren’t busy any longer.”
“Sure,” I tell the small dragon mentally.
Galea smiles at me as she turns the messages so that I can read them.
You have defeated Trap Hound x27
You have defeated Blade Hound x5
THRESHOLD FOR SOUL REINFORCEMENT REACHED!
THRESHOLD FOR SOUL REINFORCEMENT REACHED!
THRESHOLD FOR SOUL REINFORCEMENT REACHED!
My eyes widen as I read the messages. I have been training for more than a week every day in the gymnasium, but apparently one battle in which I nearly died was enough to make up for three times that effort. Of course, I immediately want to go through with the soul reinforcement, but deciding to go to sleep in the middle of the road might be a poor decision.
A few more minutes pass as Macille moves back and forth between Coriander and myself, applying healing magic that I did not even know he had. It seems like that might have been something that would have come in handy against the Desert Spearman. Then again, in our fights against the monster, there hadn’t exactly been an opportunity for him to use it.
“Do you think that you can disenchant these monsters now?” Kendon asks me after I am strong enough to regain my feet. I nod to him, and start moving between the monster corpses, touching them with my oldest magical ability and transforming them into mostly leather and meat. A few times I need to dodge the odd fang or claw that comes hurtling at my head when I use the ability, but with my improved attributes, doing so is trivial. Macille and Kendon both agree that I should take all of the coin that manifests from the ability for myself. Apparently, doing so is standard in adventuring parties, something that Halford had never before bothered to let me know.
It doesn’t take us very long to find Jor’Mari once we go looking for him. The man sits in a clearing in the grass almost a mile away from the hill where we had our pitched battle. Jor’Mari is covered in viscera and blood when we find him, but he looks up at us, his smiling, pointed teeth the color of blood. Behind him, dead with a hole eaten through its torso, the hulking form of a wolf bigger than any monster that I have ever seen lays in the grass.
“Did you all finish your fight?” Jor’Mari asks as we step through the grass toward him.
Kendon says nothing for a long moment as he looks at the corpse of the monstrous wolf. “What rank?
“Second,” Jor’Mari says, looking back at the wolf. “Probably. I don’t have a fancy artifact that tells me that kind of thing.” Jor’Mari turns his attention my direction and I flinch under the man’s gaze. “You can disenchant the body, right? Hurry up and do it. I need to get to bed back in the manor.”