PART III - LITTLE DEMONSTRATIONS
The brilliant lights continued to collapse together, finally coalescing into a single bright pinpoint, before exploding forward like an arrow as it faded away. It reminded Callie of the effect of the Back to the Future car doing its time-travel thing at eighty-eight miles per hour, a bright streak left glowing in the air.
There were gasps from the crowd, plus an added ‘holy shit!’ from Callie, but the pointing light instinctively drew everyone’s attention into the distance. Far away, maybe four kilometers and at the top of another hill, there was another explosion of light, this one completely fading away as it expanded. Jesca and Artemis emerged from it as if they hadn’t lost a single stride, still running at an all-out gallop.
“There!” Callie screamed, pointing and zooming in with her Silver-improved Eagle Eyes to get a better look. Far off, Jesca had screeched her mount to a halt barely a moment before running into a tree, and looked around in confusion, trying to take in everything that had suddenly changed around her. Even Artemis seemed befuddled at what had happened. Iris, seeing Jesca was gone and where she had reappeared, leapt from Koda’s shoulders and flew off at an unexpected speed, her wings glowing a panicked red bright enough to leave streaks in your eyes.
“Did … did you know unicorns could do that?” Pelidri asked absently, really not addressing anyone specifically. “Or, was that her Beastmaster side?” Nobody seemed to have a response, and the three officers, along with Nevikk sticking close to his father, left where they were standing behind the simple fence, walking up to join Callie and Koda.
Xera raised their hand to shield their eyes, peering off into the distance where Jesca had reappeared. Looking down to Callie, they asked, “You are able to make her out in detail from here. She’s not injured, is she? Nor the unicorn?”
Callie shook her head, still watching the far-off Jesca closely. “She looks confused, which I guess makes perfect sense, but I think that’s it.” She waved her hands high over her head and jumped several times, catching her friend’s distant attention and receiving a hesitant wave back in response, although Jesca’s confusion wasn’t really letting up. “Yep, she’s fine.”
“Well, quite the way to start the morning,” Xera said, their worry actually relaxing as they laughed, somehow managing to take the moment in stride. They looked at Pelidri. “As we discussed over dinner last night, this is a perfect example of just another strange day around here.”
The Arkan looked from Xera, off into the distance, where Jesca and Artemis were beginning a careful walk back to the camp, and then to the back of Callie’s head. Based on the long discussion the officers had the evening before, it sure seemed to him that the little Gnome was the constant nexus of a lot of strange happenings this term. Of course, he knew full well this wasn’t out of the ordinary for Gnomes. Back in Cillisant, where Gnomes were quite a bit more common, there always did seem to be an aura of mild chaos surrounding them. It actually kept things interesting.
“May I see your bow?” Nevikk asked, his eyes wide as he stared at the Heartwood bow Callie had been holding since he’d walked close.
“Nevikk, be polite,” Thorn warned firmly. “Now is not the time.”
“I’d like to see it as well,” Pelidri added, extending his hand.
“Uh, sure,” Callie said, looking between the two Elves, before handing it to the Arkan. “Sorry, he outranks you,” she mumbled to the younger one. Nevikk looked a little bummed, but his father’s hand playfully ruffling the green hair on his head seemed to forestall any objections.
“Masterwork crafting,” Pelidri cooed as he ran his hand over the weapon, lightly tapping one of the Talismans and lightly brushing the green leaves.
“It’s Heartwood,” Callie said before realizing she was probably telling him something he already knew. But her mouth kept going, adding, “donated by Juniper. Then Vonn crafted it and Fizzlebek was able to enchant it.”
Saying nothing in response and stepping forward towards the range, Pelidri raised the bow and aimed, pulling back so an arrow appeared. He had surprisingly good form, and he loosed towards the nearest twenty-five meter target. While his form might have been mostly good, his aim wasn’t great, and he struck low and fifth-ring to the left. Callie found she felt a little miffed he hadn’t asked her permission before actually using it; it felt like a bit of an invasion. Then she immediately realized she really wouldn’t have been in a position to say no even if he had asked, given he was effectively a general and she was a nobody.
Pelidri pulled back again, this time aiming longer towards the fifty meter target. His aim was way off, and the shot went wide and high, completely missing the target and flying off to land a little further downrange.
“Well, it appears my aim is as dreadful as it’s always been,” Pelidri said, walking back to Callie as he shook his head in disbelief. He returned the bow to her, saying nothing more.
Nevikk stepped up as if he was the next in line to get to play with the bow, but Thorn quickly grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back out of the way. “I said not now,” he warned firmly. There was a definite note of irritation in his voice, as well as a sense of apology.
“Since our mounted Beastmaster appears to be absent for a while,” Xera began, addressing Callie and changing the focus of the conversation before Nevikk could raise a further stink, “perhaps you could share with the Arkan one of your unique skills? Perhaps one of your constructs would be a good demonstration?”
Callie inwardly groaned. She’d known and largely accepted it would be only a matter of time before she was going to be put on display for the visiting Arkan, and had expected it to happen the day before. She’d even gone over in her head how best to present her melded powers in an easy-to-digest and interesting manner. But the news of the King Regents had put a halt on the rest of the training day, which then left her still full of unresolved stomach-churning dread. While the evening music distractions had helped, as had tending to Vanis and the result of his justifiable breakdown, the nervousness had still been lurking, never really letting up.
“Sure! I’d be happy to!” Callie said with a lying brightness. She walked forward a couple steps to assure everyone was behind her, and then focused.
SUMMON MODULAR TURRET - WALKING BASE/REINFORCED BODY/STANDARD HEART/FOUR HEADS
This was arguably one of Callie’s most-imposing of her new modular turrets. While it didn’t have any special attacks, or float like one with a levitating base, it was able to walk and simultaneously shoot at up to four targets at once, as well as absorb a good bit of abuse. Of course, it did use all twelve of her charges, and without any stored in either of her Talismans, it would be a bit before she had enough to summon a second one.
In a pulsating cascade of light, the turret came into existence. It immediately reoriented itself, crouching the dog-like legs and turning slightly to make itself level, but also seeming excited to get moving. At the top, stacked like four crossbow-pancakes, were the shooting heads, each rotating back-and-forth slightly as if to stretch, equally eager and ready for action. Before Pelidri or Nevikk could say anything, Callie waved the construct forward, trying to project a casual, confident attitude. The turret began to walk, the four legs lifting high to step over imperfections in the ground. Callie focused briefly at four different targets, and each head swung to take aim before loosing its magical bolt.
The ability to mentally control the turret was limited to a range of around one-hundred meters or so, and Callie ordered it out to a bit less than that, plunking crossbow bolts every couple of seconds into targets as it walked by. Pelidri raised an eyebrow in consideration, while Thorn and Xera both stood like proud parents showing off their kid at a school recital or soccer game. Callie grinned up at the Arkan, beaming herself.
“This is another of this camp’s melded skills, right?” Pelidri finally asked, before adding, “Of course, it must be.”
“It’s based in part on the Gnome Tinker trait,” Callie said. She mentally ordered the turret to cease shooting and walk back towards the group. “We come up with crazy things.”
Before long, the construct came to a halt before them, and Pelidri walked up to it, inspecting carefully. He gingerly tapped it with a finger, and then pushed a little harder with the same. The base, sensing the pressure, pressed back as it adjusted itself to keep everything level. Pelidri pushed again, this time even harder and with his whole hand. Again the turret pushed back as best it could, but needed to take a step to maintain balance.
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
“There’s an armored version, too,” Callie narrated, “and one that is weaker than that.”
“How many versions of this can you make?” the Arkan asked.
“Lots! It’s made up of different parts, and I can mix and match those parts.” Callie continued, explaining the overview of the Modular Turret skill, and eventually pulling up the description to just read off and get everything exact. Pelidri listened in rapt attention, interrupted only when the existing turret unsummoned itself as its roughly ten-minute duration expired.
Following the explanation of the skill, Pelidri had Callie summon another walking turret with Burst Shot capabilities, and then a second that floated in the air armed with Rapid Fire. His memory of the skill’s details was uncanny, and he dictated exactly which modules he wanted assembled the moment there were enough charges available. Only those two variants were summoned, as ultimately the Arkan proved not nearly as giddy-excitable as Thorn and Reynard had been. Sure, he sort of seemed intrigued, and appeared to find the skill tactically quite interesting, but he didn’t geek out about it like the other two had, focusing instead on the practical. He also seemed a little distracted.
“I presume you have other melded skills, like the other recruits?” Pelidri asked, having apparently seen what he needed from the turrets and ready to move on. There was still the one construct floating in front of them, and Callie mentally commanded it to move off to the side out of the way. It would eventually collapse in on itself if it wasn’t needed for something else.
“I do,” Callie said. “One skill and then an interesting perk.”
“Really interesting, in fact,” Thorn added.
Before diving into the complexities of the Effect Layering perk, Callie chose to demonstrate her easier-to-digest Summon Grapple skill. She called up the hook with its attached bit of fluttering rope, twisting the barbs in and out a couple of times to show the Arkan its operation, before presenting it to him.
Pelidri raised one of his white eyebrows again, the other one this time, as he inspected the grapple, repeating the open and close process as Callie had shown. This was also the first time Xera had seen the skill used, although they’d heard about it from one of Thorn’s reports, and they were quite intrigued by the action as well.
“This is for your bow?” he asked, gesturing towards the nock. “Why is this rope here?”
“I can shoot it with my bow, or it can also be thrown. The rope is optional at summon time and it will spool out up to twenty meters,” Callie explained.
Pelidri made a considering gesture with his face and tossed the hook a couple of times in his hands to get a feel for the weight. Then he moved forward a couple steps before winding up for an underhand horseshoe-like throw as he looked towards the side of the range. Unlike Vonn’s absolutely dreadful throwing attempt earlier in the week, Pelidri was deadly accurate. The rope seemed to unwind as it flew through the air, the hook coming to rest just on the other side of a small pile of surplus hay bales, the rope draped over the top. The Arkan bent and picked up the magical rope, pulling it taut between his hands as Shul’an had that first day to test its strength, and then gave the whole thing a yank. The hook followed the rope, snagging on the bale and pulling it over.
“Quite useful,” Pelidri said, dropping the rope and turning back to Callie. “Should we ever have a need to infiltrate a castle, we now know who to bring along.” There was a chuckle around the group, as well as from those gathered behind the fence. “You had something else to share?” he continued, noticeably not laughing along at his joke, apparently all business. Or maybe, it wasn’t even a joke? The excited tone he’d shown towards Jesca’s demonstration, and the others the day before, seemed to have nearly completely faded.
“You’ll love this one,” Thorn said quietly to the Arkan as he pulled Nevikk in close.
“I assumed they’d want me to demonstrate this for you,” Callie said, gesturing towards Thorn and Xera. “Rather than try to explain how it works, I think it will be easier if I just show you.” She looked about. “Has anyone seen Jesca yet? Or know where she is? I don’t want her coming over the hill while I’m doing this.”
“She went around,” a voice called from the fence, and Callie turned to see Shul’an and Thucax had both arrived as well. Likely they were as bored as everyone else and saw the commotion in the Ranger area. “I think she’ll be coming in the south entrance. She’s not able to fly back yet.” The two hadn’t been here earlier when Jesca was riding, so someone must have shared with them how their fellow Ranger had teleported away.
“Good,” Callie replied. She made a motion for everyone to stand back, and was pleased to see that nobody resisted or questioned her, considering the rank differences. Just to be sure, though, she looked at Nevikk and added, “I need you to stay close to your father, understood?” She didn’t want him getting excited and doing something foolish when the arrows started to fly. He’d already been a little over-eager about the turrets and playing with her bow.
Mentally calling up the prepared script in her head, Callie began. “So,” Callie said, readying herself on the line and facing Pelidri, “you know that Rangers get different types of magical attacks. For example, this is Multishot.” She loosed a quintet of arrows towards the twenty-five meter target, one hitting dead center while the other four formed a near-perfect diamond around it..
The Arkan nodded, raising an eyebrow at the pristine grouping of the five arrows. “Excellent accuracy, Little One. Far better than I could do.” He’d been rather cold towards Callie so far, so it was nice to receive that small bit of praise.
Surprised and not sure how to respond, Callie gave a simple ‘thanks’ before refocusing on her pre-scripted demonstration. “We also have this one called Rapid Fire.” As before, she used the skill, this time unleashing six arrows in a stream towards the fifty-meter target. They each hit in a six-centimeter sized grouping in the center.
“Naturally,” Pelidri replied, acknowledging Callie. He’d obviously seen both skills used before and seemed eager to know where this was going.
“So, Arkan, what would happen if you could combine the effects together?” Callie asked, directing the question specifically towards him. It seemed as if there was a collective holding of breaths from everyone while the Elf contemplated the question. Thorn actually had an eager look on his face, as if trying to will Pelidri to understand.
Callie waited just long enough for the Arkan to make a move, either with an answer or to respond he wasn’t sure. She layered up an instant-cast Multishot and a Rapid Fire together, letting loose a swarm of six arrows that each broke into five, for a total of thirty. She had aimed towards the center of the range, which put both the twenty-five and the fifty meter targets in the now-wider-at-Silver aiming cone. Callie directed arrows towards each, as well as sending a half-dozen onwards towards the seventy-five for good measure. Unfortunately, she wasn’t quite as accurate as she wanted to be, as it was complicated to picture that many targets at once and the Arkan was making her nervous, but they all hit within the center four rings.
Pelidri rubbed his beard several times in consideration, eyes flicking to the three targets, before the arrows eventually unsummoned. You could see his brain mulling over what he’d seen, but at the same time, he didn’t seem to quite understand the exponential power that came with the Layering perk.
“I can also combine other effects too. For example, Piercing Shot along with Multi-shot.” She quickly powered up and loosed five arrows, which all blew through the nearest target. “There are some limitations on what combinations work, but generally I can combine up to three different skills without issues. Four is really hard on my mana, though, and it almost scrambled my brain both times I’ve done it.” Then she paused, cocking her head. “Although I haven’t tried at Silver, yet.”
“Let’s not do that,” Thorn warned, holding up his paw before Callie got any bright ideas.
“You said when I arrived that you killed a basilisk with explosive arrows,” Pelidri said, still stroking his beard and showing again how sharp his memory was. He apparently didn’t miss much. “Was that, perhaps, with this skill?”
“It’s a perk, actually,” Callie corrected, and then immediately felt like an idiot for that. “But yes, I can create an explosive arrow by combining Piercing and Burst shots.”
“Show me.”
Callie looked briefly to Thorn, thinking that she shouldn’t really be blowing anything up, but he just gave her a permissive nod. Nobody was really going to say no to the Arkan, and shrugging, she focused on the fifty-meter target and let fly a single Explosive Shot. The results were as expected, and in a flash of light and sound, the contained flashbang effect blew most of the pile of hay bales apart. The silence of the small crowd was ominous as they all looked to the Arkan, as if waiting to see what his verdict was going to be. Pelidri showed no emotion, just continuing to stare down the range and rub his bearded chin.
“Um …” Callie hedged, looking to Xera and then to Thorn. The lack of response was actually getting irritating, or maybe worrisome.
Xera was the first to speak up. “You see the potential, Arkan?”
“Perhaps. Still, she’s only one Ranger,” Pelidri said almost dismissively. “I don’t see how it is going to swing a battle significantly. Her small size makes her quite fragile, as well, perhaps even a liability.”
An irritated murmur went up among the recruits in the crowd. They didn’t like someone diminishing one of their own. In fact, both Shul’an and Thucax actually seemed angry about the Arkan’s response, which was especially quite uncharacteristic for Shul’an. The Salamanderkin was always reliably professional.
“Let’s just show him the big one,” Koda said quietly, his voice having a bit of a protective growl to it. His paws had been turned into tightly clenched fists. Then he looked at Thorn. “Let her do it.”
Thorn and Xera exchanged looks, the Commandant giving a subtle nod of agreement. “Perhaps Recruit Koda is correct,” Thorn said, smiling. “Recruit Callie, please demonstrate your attack for use against large masses. Kela won’t be happy, but her people will understand, and it will give the Geomancers something to do.”
“Uh, if you say so,” Callie said carefully. She did a spot-check on her mana, feeling she was more than fine for a three-layer spectacle.
BURST SHOT + PIERCING SHOT + RAIN OF ARROWS 6 METERS
It took a few moments for all the layers to assemble, but soon it was ready. Callie swallowed, knowing she hadn’t missed something in the sequence, but worried all the same. The glowing arrow standing by in the bow hummed with increased power, eager to fly. She did one more check just to make sure nobody was in the target area, and then let loose.
As the arrow flew off, Callie quickly set her bow down. “Arkan, you may want to cover your ears,” she warned as she plugged her own. Overhead, one arrow had become five, followed by each splitting into five again, before splitting into another three, for a number-happy seventy-five missiles arcing overhead. Pelidri's apparent contemplative daydreaming had been broken at hearing his rank called out, and he looked around, seeing that nearly everyone else had covered their ears, too. He barely managed to do the same, and then the bombs fell.