* * *
Galler, lightning mage of Galgandar, had been charged by the military advisor to watch the eccentric in his fight. The military advisor had not been specific in what his duties were at all, simply asking Galler to watch the eccentric if allowed. Galler hadn’t thought much of it when called before the advisor as any clan would seek out to study powerful eccentrics if possible and he simply thought the military advisor was pleased with him, offering him a chance to study the dao of a great warrior.
He’d been sleeping, preparing for his shift as he should, then was called immediately before the clan military advisor. It wasn’t until Galler marched to the wall for his shift that he heard the wild rumors passing between all the clanners, some between those that were walking with him, and others with the various servants and workers supporting the wall as they ran back and forth with supplies.
When rumors of ranged infusion began wafting across the conversations, Galler began to vibrate in fear and wonder. He now knew exactly why the military advisor had given him the opportunity to observe the eccentric and he shivered with excitement for the chance.
He now stood and watched as the eccentric fired his ‘bow’ at the enemies. He’d been informed that it was a commoner tool for the hunter job and been shocked that such a highly effective tool was buried within the commoner line of jobs. There was nothing useful about the commoner and villagers. Every meaningful commoner job had a better duplicate within the metropolitan or citizen line of jobs, yet he’d heard nothing of the hunter nor the powerful tool that also apparently functioned as a potent weapon.
Seeing it in effect, however, slammed home just how powerful it could be for any clan or city. Despite that, it would have still been relegated to an oddity if not for the eccentric proving the impossible; ranged infusion. As soon as the eccentric began infusing his weapons, he closed his eyes and turned every ounce towards his mana senses in an attempt to understand what the eccentric was doing.
As the fight continued, he quickly recognized that the eccentric had two forms of infusion, subtly different from one another. The lesser form was easily recognized by Galler as a typical if modified form of infusion. The infusion itself seemed rather plain and when Galler thought of it, found it obvious. Infusion was infusion. The oddity to the lesser form was somehow a mana swell seemed to bubble in the infusion itself. He wasn’t able to exactly understand what he was feeling, but the infusion had some form of expansion that felt bloated to him. He really wasn’t able to understand it as anything other than that.
The second form, however, was utterly alien to him. He’d never sensed such before, and he shivered in excitement and terror.
* * *
After controlling the front, Joe was able to relax a bit, slowing his fire rate to save on his ammunition, but was still shooting quite a bit more than he was yesterday. A little before noon, his points had dropped to about a third so he swapped to using his mana, creating the little spherical hurricanes in the arrow head. Noon came around and this time Joe noticed several groups of people came along, bringing him food and offering to take over the combat while they ate. They moved in a wave down the line, stopping at each person and offering food and taking over the fight. He didn’t rest long, eating his food rather quickly, but still enjoyed his rest, although he was a bit surprised to not have it yesterday. Why didn’t I get a break yesterday? Seems like a rather good idea?
To assuage his curiosity, he called back to the other four while he was eating, “Why didn’t they do this yesterday? It would have been a nice break.”
The others said nothing, but Kilniara actually giggled and Gwenvair joined her a bit later. Their laughter freed Garnedell and he laughed a bit before responding.
“They did do this. You ignored them and continued to fight, Joe.”
Joe looked back, quirking an eyebrow at the others, “Really?”
Garnedell nodded, smiling brighter, “Yes.”
“Hmmm… so what you are saying is my apprentices failed to let me know. They failed to bring me food while I was working soooo hard!”
Garendell and Kilniara laughed even harder, and even Zilnek smirked at that. Gwenvair said nothing, but shook her head and sighed. Joe smiled and turned back to the fight, giving the others some privacy. Well… at least they’re finally feeling a bit more relaxed!
When he was about done with his meal, Joe took a look at his gains, not wishing to waste too much time on a pittance of experience. He wasn’t surprised to find navigator hadn’t budged at all, but the Primate actually hit thirty five. Neither were that important as he wasn’t going to change them. They were necessary either for changing jobs or to get the job of defending the walls done for the day. He reflexively pinged monster sense once again, even as the purpose for keeping the navigator job returned to him and the skill pinged on a monster beneath the walls.
Grunting, he stepped forward and quickly sniped it, killing it almost instantly before stepping back and sitting down, pinging monster sense again. Empty…. Good. With that, he then looked at the other two jobs he’d taken, looking to his consummate spearmen with some expectation and was surprised to find that it had made it to just a little over level thirty seven. He grinned seeing that, then took a look at pugilist. It made it all the way to level thirty five, which sent Joe’s eyebrows shooting up a bit. He was quite curious to look at what skills he had available, but he pushed it off for the evening and simply swapped it out quickly for the next pugilist job in line. But, when he looked at what was available, he was surprised to find three options: offensive, defensive, and meditative pugilist. I get offensive and defensive… that makes sense… what the heck is meditative? Joe pondered for a bit, his mind whirling at what it might mean before deciding that could be a lot of fun; something completely different. Several seconds later, he had meditative pugilist swapped out for basic pugilist. That’ll be fun to look at tonight!
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With his choice made, he stepped back up to stand at the side of his relief, “Thank you very much. I can take over again.”
The woman fighting for him bowed to him and backed off, “Thank you for your service.”
Joe nodded back, “Your service as well. Have a good day!”
She said nothing, backing away and moving on as Joe was already firing arrows back out into the field of monsters. He needed to do a bit of clean up as the lady fighting not been able to keep the monsters as far back as he’d hoped. He soon had the line of monsters pushed back pretty far and kept them back there. After he had the line pushed back, Joe began relaxing again. During this time, he noticed that the several of the craftsmen on the ground below him rushed out and grabbed some of the corpses and pulled them back behind the line. Joe watched them for a bit while still maintaining the line he’d made. After about ten or so minutes, he noticed that there were no more corpses near the line. Oh! Right… that… Joe sighed and reevaluated his plans.
He immediately let one of the bigger more ‘valuable’ monsters through, at least by what he could guess with his poor judgment. He waited until the monster was just about to the guard line and brought it down. Soon, Joe was keeping most of the beasts at bay, but letting a couple through to make it just to the guard line and killing it before it could actually do any damage. The people below seemed to quickly realize what he was doing and a barely audible drowned out cheer came from below and Joe smiled, glad he was able to help out those below.
He continued to make sure that a monster made it through ever couple of minutes, usually trying to let the bigger ones through as he noticed most seemed to gravitate to the larger beasts. After a little while, he finally realized he really didn’t know what was valuable or not and decided it might be a good idea to get some help.
“Hey! Gwenvair! Mind if you could come help me really quick?”
He waiting for a few moments before Gwenvair finally came forward and he looked back to find her hiding behind him, seeming to be quite fearful. Joe looked back a bit then returned to his fighting, but was not concerned.
“What’s wrong, Gwenvair?”
Gwenvair said nothing for a bit before replying, “It’s… very dangerous for me to be here. I could easily die.”
Joe cocked his head, “Nothing has even come close to hitting me up here. Will they hit you?”
“Some of the monsters can cry out… their attacks are very dangerous.”
Joe blinked at that, now growing a bit concerned, “Oh! Yeah. Have any happened yet?”
Gwenvair looked at him in surprise before nodding, “Yes… several today already.”
“Oh… uh… I haven’t noticed it at all. They must be pretty weak.”
It was Gwenvair’s turn to look at Joe in shock and she shook her head, “They… are attacks that can harm the entire body.”
Joe didn’t say anything, his thoughts now a bit worried and his focus less on the monster line, “Then… maybe stay right behind me. Maybe… no… if it is a sonic attack… it’ll still hurt you. Never mind. Just head back to safety. Sorry. I gotta get used to these things.”
Gwenvair nodded, grateful, “No. It’s fine. Thank you. I’ll leave right away. But, what did you need?”
“Oh… I was just going to ask if anyone could point out the valuable monsters in the horde down there. Then I could let them through so the craftsmen can get them. Right now, I don’t know what is valuable or not.”
Gwenvair nodded at that, seeming excited, “I may not be able to help you, but let me see if I could find someone who can help!”
She ran back to the lower wall quickly and Joe quickly lost track of whatever was happening behind him, returning to maintaining the line and letting a monster through every once in a while. An indeterminate amount of time later, Joe felt someone standing at his side and glanced over after firing a couple arrows, several monsters having pushed a bit closer than he’d expected.
“Yes? How can I help?”
“You asked for advice, eccentric?”
It took Joe a few moments to understand before he excitedly pointed out to the monsters, “Oh! Right! Tell me what monsters are valuable and I’ll let them through so the butchers and workers below can work on the best ones!”
The man beside him bowed then began to call out differing monsters, at first using their names but then beginning to describe them when Joe showed confusion. It took about a half an hour for Joe to become comfortable, but soon the two of them were working well together, keeping the monsters well back from the line while also letting in a steady stream of valuable beasts for the butchers and crafters. He soon became quite comfortable having the man by his side and he became lost in moment, the arrows flying whenever they needed.
Time went on, and Joe pulled up a mana point up into his line of sight. He looked at it carefully and found it to be just shy of being full. Maybe… about 90%? Something like that? Joe sent out another dozen arrows while he mulled over the idea of returning to mana point arrows or not before finally deciding to let them fill up completely as his personal mana tank was still refilling quite rapidly comparatively. This disparity caught Joe’s attention, and he went into autopilot firing his arrows as he mulled over the idea. Why DOES my mana refill faster? What makes it faster than say… the mana points? Joe pulled up a point and let it float around beside him, trying to peer at it closely. But a cry from his ‘valuable monster’ helper broke him from his thoughts and he found the man excitedly pointing out a largish cat like creature that seemed to be made almost entirely of shadows.
Joe took his question and packaged it neatly in the ‘need to think about this later’ box to set aside for later. The shadow cat had slipped forward through the lines rather easily, a bit faster than the static row of creatures, and Joe let it slip through. When it made it through to the front, Joe held his shots, focusing on the shadow cat. Fast! Way… too fast! Joe’s thoughts skittered with the realization and quickly slapped a point into the arrow head as he feared the shadow cat’s body would skid into the line of defenders and harm the guards. But even as the mana point melded into the arrow head and the arrow slipped from his fingers, the cat tensed and leapt to the side, easily dodging his arrow which sunk into the dirt at its side.
Joe cursed and brought another arrow up, mana point infused and already flying. Again, the cat leapt, this time backwards. Joe began a cat and mouse game, arrow after arrow flying even as the cat preternaturally leapt from him side to side, back and forward. Joe’s fire rate increase, slamming arrows as fast as he could at the creature and with the next arrow, he stuttered, realizing he had no more mana points. All of them were either in the ground or struggling to return to him. The creature seemed to remain tense for a moment before it looked up at him, then grinned. Ooh… it’s… intelligent?!