Dante’s Immortality – Chapter 84
Dante met Addison outside of the tent. He was just wondering what her relationship with the warlord was when she spoke. “Must you tease my father like that? He is already stressed enough. If he loses the contract with your guild it would be a death sentence for him.”
Dante studied her expression. Addison didn’t seem angry, but she did look slightly resentful. She seemed to be hiding it though. He had a feeling that if he wasn’t with the guild she wouldn’t be as respectful. He smiled. “My apologies. In all honesty, I was just trying to get back at my master for an earlier disagreement. Your father was just collateral damage. In the future I’ll be more careful.”
“Thank you.” Addison returned his smile, and seemed to be mollified for the time being.
The two of them walked to a makeshift table with piles of paper on it. A soldier was sitting behind it in a relaxed manor, but as soon as he saw Addison, he shot to his feet and saluted.
Before the soldier could speak, Addison took the initiative. “I need the report on the Redwing unit. You should have it, right?”
The soldier quickly began to rifle through the stacks of paper on the table in front of him. “I don’t have the official write up, but I should have the registration file.” He pulled out a particular piece of paper with a look of satisfaction and handed it to them.
Addison grabbed it. “That will do.” Without even a second glance at the soldier, she walked off without another word.
It left him in a somewhat awkward situation, as he had been left behind with the ignored soldier. Dante nodded to the soldier. “Thank you.” Then he moved to catch up to Addison.
Addison was reading through the paper, handing it to him when she was done. “This is the information you’ll need on the unit we assigned you.”
Dante took the paper, it was filled with nineteen names, and next to them were the corresponding Classifications for that person. The handwriting in each line was different, so it seemed that the members of the Redwing unit had written their own information in.
The first ten were Warriors. Three of them had second Classifications, but none of those second Classifications were combat Classifications. Thankfully, one of those three had a cooking Classification. That unexpected luxury was definitely convenient. There was a bracket added on to the page that encompassed all ten of the Warriors, and the handwriting was far more professional, likely something an officer wrote in after. Written next to the bracket was ‘expendable, and easily replaced’.
After the Warriors came the far more interesting Classifications. Two Geomancers, one of which had a second Classification as a Mage. After those two, there was a Priest, something called a Pathfinder, and a regular Mage.
There were also three standard Ranger Classifications, but they all had stars next to their names, so they likely had some special trait or skill.
The last one of the list was somewhat strange. The Classification had three names, but two of them were crossed out. They were Star Slayer, Astral King, and Astral Slayer. He wasn’t really sure what to think of the last, but he wasn’t going to get his hopes up until he actually met the person.
Dante looked up from the paper. “What does it mean by ‘expendable, and easily replaced’?” He knew exactly what it meant, but wanted the official answer.
Addison glanced at the paper. “The Redwing unit is one of our most elite units, made up of some of our best combatants. Since we can’t afford to lose them, we added ten Warriors that have decent defensive skills for padding. The nice thing about using Warriors for that purpose is that we have plenty of them.”
That was understandable. As his fighting experience increased, he had come to understand how many Warriors picked defensive skills. It would be stupid to not make use of that.
Addison stepped off the makeshift pathway and into an area of tents that had a red flag marking them. To the side of the tents was an open field and a small archery range. Both seemed to be for the exclusive use of the group staying there. “We’re here.”
Dante’s eyes scanned the area, it seemed pretty much standard.
“Redwing unit, line up!”
Addison’s shout was met by a chorus of muffled curses and the ruffling of clothes. Men streamed out of the tents, all of them in various stages of undress, and more than one of them seemed a bit tipsy. They did seem at least somewhat organized though, as they lined up side by side in front of Addison fairly quickly. Towards the end, a single woman walked out of her tent and lined up. He was fairly certain that she was the healer, Tabitha, as that was the only feminine name on his list.
At a glance, he could see a clear divide between the Warriors and the rest of the unit, as they stood to the side and looked far less refined. Not only that, but they were all attentive, as if awaiting an order and ready to carry it out.
The other group looked far more varied. Two looked scholarly, three looked somewhat rugged, and the rest looked completely ordinary. They looked somewhat bored though, as though they had better things they could be doing, and he received more than one look of disdain from those nine. Just looking at them gave him a headache.
Addison glanced over at him and saw the frown on his face. She smirked. “I’ll leave them to you. Come find me if you need someone to show you around.” He was fairly certain that there was double meaning in her tone, something that was reaffirmed when he saw all of the men in his new unit nudging each other and smiling as they glanced between him and Addison.
He didn’t spare Addison another glance, she had likely just made his job even harder.
Dante gave a faint smile. “My name is Dante, and for the foreseeable future, I’ll be the captain of the Redwing unit.” He did his best to seem mature, as he knew his young age would be a problem. He did so by restraining his enthusiasm as much as possible, while at the same time trying to give off a feeling of confidence. Despite his efforts, several members of the Redwing unit frowned when they heard his words. They looked at him like he was an idiot.
On the bright side, that was only half of the ‘elite’ combatants. The others in that group didn’t seem to care, and all of the Warriors looked at him with respect as soon as he said he was the captain. He already liked them.
For the time being, he ignored the looks. “I see that we are missing one person, who is it?” He looked at the Warriors, only nine of them were present.
They all looked at each other, then one spoke up. “Jacob got caught deserting, so he had his hand removed and is working the latrines.”
Dante froze up for a fraction of a second, then glossed over it. Not only was Jacob the cook, but the question of why people had their hands removed had been answered. Despite all of the questions he had, he didn’t ask about it. He didn’t want to seem incompetent, and he could always ask Victoria later.
His good mood now destroyed due to the loss of the cook, Dante continued. “The enemies’ main force should arrive in two days. Until then, I’ll be getting a feel for everyone’s skills and begin working on our coordination. I already have a list of everyone’s Classifications, but I did have a few questions.”
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As Dante looked down at his paper, he heard a disdainful snort from one of the elite combatants. Dante looked up, eyes narrowing. It was one of the scholarly looking combatants. Just looking at the man made him irritated. “Aldric Prelich.”
One of the ordinary looking men glanced up, attentive. “Sir?”
“Your listed Classification is ‘Pathfinder’, could you give me a summary of it.”
The man nodded. “It’s a scouting combat Classification. I only have one skill, it lets me clearly sense anything within the vicinity of the arrows I shoot with the skill. The range is a radius of 100 feet around the shot arrow, and the mana cost is rather low. I can keep five of them going at a time.”
Dante nodded, that skill was actually incredibly useful, given the right application. He looked down at the piece of paper. The rest of his questions had to do with the combatants skills themselves and could be handled later as the other Classifications were self-explanatory, aside from one. “Daniel Salway.”
This time the irritating man who snorted at him looked up. “What?” His voice was filled irritation, as though he couldn’t believe that Dante would dare call upon him.
Dante twitched, his desire to kill idiot in front of him was growing. “Could you explain your Classification?”
“Can you not read?”
He wished he would have asked Victoria or Addison about the punishment he was allowed to deal out, but he wouldn’t have thought it would be necessary. “Ah, yes. Astral Star King Slayer, my apologies.” That earned a few smirks from several of the other combatants, and Daniel looked infuriated. Dante ignored him. “Does anyone know what this idiot’s Classification is?”
The healer, Tabitha, spoke up. “He’s just a Mage. Has a rare skill though.”
Daniel glared at her, then crossed his arms over his chest. “The only thing a Classification determines is the skill that a combatant can have and the attributes they can earn. By that logic, how could I, with such a rare skill, be a common Mage?”
If he wasn’t so aggravating, he may have thought Daniel had a point. As it was, Daniel’s skill had better be a good one to warrant this level of irritation. He couldn’t fathom how anyone could be so disrespectful to a commanding officer. “Alright, that’s basically all I wanted to do today. Meet here at sunrise tomorrow, we will go over everyone’s skills then. Any questions before I go?”
Daniel didn’t miss a beat. “Why are you the new captain of our unit?”
Dante ignored the question as he looked at Tabitha, she had seemed helpful so far. “Who was the leader before I arrived.”
Tabitha jabbed a finger at Daniel. “He was.”
That confirmed his suspicions. Dante looked at them. “Did no one tell you I was coming to take command of the unit?” Several people shook their heads in answer.
Daniel’s reaction made a bit more sense, something still had to be done about him though. “I apologize. I had thought that you all knew I was coming.” Dante pulled the guild ring out of his storage and slipped it on. He didn’t make it a habit of wearing it, as it made the gauntlet uncomfortable to wear. “I am the new captain of the Redwing unit because Warlord Vidal signed a contract with my guild.”
Daniel’s complexion paled and the other members of the unit looked at him in shock, which was one of the most satisfying things he had ever seen. Dante glanced down at the ring, he may need to wear it more often in the wastelands. The guild’s notoriety was ridiculous.
The members of the Redwing unit also seemed to be completely taken aback by his skill. He didn’t bother hiding his abilities, Victoria had already told him that he didn’t need to.
Dante stared Daniel down. “Were there any other questions?” No one said anything. Dante smiled. “I’ll see you here tomorrow morning then, don’t be late.”
Dante left the area. That had both gone better and worse than he had thought it would. He should have started with the guild ring on.
The rest of his day was spent acquiring a tent and the other accommodations he needed. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to get one as large as the warlord’s, but he did get one large enough for his bed. He had it set up in the Redwing area, mainly to get away from Victoria. She was still forcing him to eat those stupid pills. It wasn’t as bad as before, but being awake two or three days at a time wasn’t a schedule he could maintain.
And he was just about to retire for the night when Victoria magically appeared. It was as though she knew that he was about to sleep and had to stop him.
Victoria stepped into his tent. “How did things go?”
Dante looked up, Victoria’s regular expression was back. It was like she was always in a state of wry amusement, which was the complete opposite of how she had acted when they entered the camp. When she entered the camp earlier, she had acted like she had when they had first met, flat and expressionless. That was likely her default expression when in public. “It went okay, I think. I had a bit of an issue with one of the combatants. He was a complete moron.”
One of her eyebrows quirked. “How did you handle it?”
Dante shrugged. “I pulled out my guild ring and he shut up. I’m still somewhat surprised by how much the guild is respected in the Wastelands.”
Victoria walked up to Shade, who was sitting on his bed. “Respected? Your slightly mistaken. The guild is the most solid force in the Wastelands, and the most powerful. Guild members are treated well because they are feared, not respected.”
Dante watched Shade voluntarily get closer to Victoria and he frowned. “Fear and respect are basically the same thing. By the way, how did the contract change?”
“We were supposed to fight in a siege. This is going to be far more dangerous. I did have your unit moved though. You’ll be fighting somewhat far away from the camp initially, taking part in skirmishes until you get a feel for what a large scale battle can be like.”
Knowing that they were supposed to take part in a siege left him feeling a bit disgruntled. It meant that he should be inside of a nice stone building instead of some flimsy tent. “That’s fine, I suppose. I take it negotiations went well? Why was Warlord Vidal so afraid of you?”
Victoria seemed to find his words amusing. “He isn’t afraid of me, or at least not that afraid of me. I flew directly into the camp and revealed that we were in the guild to put pressure on him. Having an open contract with the guild would drastically increase the moral of his troops, losing that contract however… Let’s just say his desertion problem would get far worse.”
He could see how that might be an issue for the warlord. “I thought that desertion wasn’t a big deal in the Wastelands. Even when the fighting gets intense Melisandre said it was only frowned upon. Doesn’t the punishment seem a bit much?”
Victoria shrugged. “Usually it’s not much of an issue. It’s different in this case. Over 40% of Warlord Vidal’s army is conscripted. He’s already running the risk of rebellion, which is why our presence is so important.”
That answered quite a few questions. Still, cutting off hands seemed a bit overkill. That was the equivalent of permanently wraith collaring someone and physically disabling them at the same time.
Victoria stood. “I just came to check up on you. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Just as she reached the tent flap, she turned around. “By the way, the essence crystals are being shipped in. We performed well over Warlord Vidal’s expectations and his current stock was too low. It should be here in a few days.”
Dante watched Victoria leave, shocked. He had been almost certain that they were going to start some sort of late-night training session.
For the first time in months, he would have enough free time to do some testing. Dante pulled a jar out of his storage. It was one of the enchanted alchemy jars that Victoria had given him, quite large too. Large enough for him to fit his entire fist in, which was important.
Dante opened the jar, it was filled with blood. His blood.
He had been collecting it over the past two months. Almost every time Victoria went scouting he would hunt down a creature that would activate his passive. Once found, he would slice open the veins in his wrist and drain blood from his body until he was seconds away from passing out. Thankfully, now that his passive regenerated instead of healed it no longer left scars.
Dante’s gloved hand hovered over the jar as he mentally prepared himself. He would have used the blood earlier, but was worried that there would be negative effects. Despite having drops of his own blood absorbed by the glove accidentally in the past, he had never submerged it before, so he wasn’t sure what to expect. In all likelihood, nothing out of the ordinary would happen.
So far, he and Victoria had a silent agreement not to talk about the glove. He knew that she saw him absorb blood. And the changing color of his world essence was far too noticeable, it was now almost purple.
Dante submerged his hand into the jar. Some of it spilled out over the top as his hand displaced the liquid, but in only a few seconds he could see the blood in the jar begin to recede. The glove was absorbing it, and he could feel a familiar sensation building in his hand. Heat.
Like when the glove had attached itself to him, it began to feel like it was shoved into hot coals.
Dante pulled a pair of leather pants out of his storage and bit down them, hard. It stopped the screams that threatened to escape his mouth. In only a few seconds, the blood was gone. Dante pulled his hand out of the jar and examined it. All four of his Classification symbols appeared on it, which was good, but the burning didn’t stop.
It was strange though. The last time it happened, his entire hand burned. This time it was different, only the Classification symbols were burning, it almost felt as though he was being branded.
He didn’t know whether that was a good thing or a bad thing, but that also held true for the glove in general.
There was another potential problem though. As he examined the glove, he realized that he was beginning to run out of space. Despite being incredibly small, the spacing between the symbols was constant. It looked as though he could have five or six more Classification symbols before issues would arise.
Dante laid back on his bed as Shade curled up to his side, as if to comfort him. He sat back in comfort as he tried to endure the sensations that were coming from his hand.