“Explain to me again why you weren’t completely off-put by my judgment call,” I asked as we kept our heads down, gently stacking against an alley wall.
The merchant’s district in this part of the city was quiet. Electric lamps dead, bodies and carts, a few beasts of burden scattered across the avenues. Thankfully no Arcanocracy death wagons like the one with the machinegun earlier today. As macabre as the thought was, hopefully they had moved on to different fields to reap.
“The entry was self-explanatory,” Lyissa sniffed, leaning around the corner just enough to let her long ear lend keen hearing. Hand up, eventually she waved our trio to the next piece of cover – this time an upturned wagon. “The younger the Lycan, the harder it is to achieve self-control.”
“And he’s a predator. It’s in his nature to hunt. Letting Perry sit on his laurels with so much blood in the air would cause other problems,” Ana finished, keeping a lookout behind us with a plain Grandeur rifle. “I can empathize.”
+Status update! Fireteam member shared rewards, you have reached Level 6 Support.+
“IS THAT A FUCKING WEREW-?!”
“AHHHH-GLRKH!”
“RUN, RUN, RUU-, AAAAGH!”
+Status update! Fireteam member shared rewards, you have reached Level 7 Support.+
“I wonder what the range limit for sharing is,” I coolly asked. “Level 7?”
“Indeed,” Lyissa sighed. Her ear twitched. “Dart.”
Her reflexes were all the warning I needed to draw my Lamia revolver and Ana her long Grandeur rifle. A door had shifted, entrance to a ruined textiles shopkeep. Glass windows were shattered, wooden frame demolished by debris and Firearm volley. Lots of damage. Lots of bodies, lying still on the pavement in front of it.
“Admin-, Administrata?” a meek voice loudly whispered. “Please? No Terrans?”
“Go, go,” I urged, looking up the street where the screams had come from while the Elf scampered from our wagon to the door. “Overwatch.”
The hyperfocus afforded by the Skill washed over me, relaxing the pent-up stress that had built up in the short jaunt from the Administratum. I wasn’t sure if there was an upper effective range for my weapon, but right now this urban environment favored short barrels and lightning reaction speed. My ammunition reserve was less than ideal, but there was of course the possibility Perez would be finished before I needed to squeeze the trigger again tonight.
“I am Observer Lyissa, stay where you are for now,” I overheard her reassure the civilians, getting further away as she investigated. “How many are you?”
My eyes watched for darkened silhouettes, praying the shadows stayed still. Unfortunately Maekita’s example had been put into practice, all magical forms of piercing the darkness were above the Uncommon Tier threshold of things affected by the electromagical flux. Maybe that was indeed working as intended, disabling things remotely valuable in an offensive role. My Rucksack of Holding, the Triage Kit rode that line, the Durable quality was a Rune inscription on my Lamia and the Winterfield, while some MagiTek things escaped mostly unscathed like the SysTablet. I could have tried Hotfixing them, but the risk wasn’t worth it at my low Level compared to ranking up and properly repairing things.
The only reason I was out here was because of my Danger Sense, Counterfire, Overwatch abilities to at least draw fire from the darkvision-gifted women that were also most suited to trying to usher people to safety. Maekita’s Oni heritage didn’t inherit that aspect, so Cordo stayed behind to assist her.
This worked out wonderfully. She was the only one equipped to properly interrogate Tanya Jikaren. From Mars. Wherever that was.
“Are you alright, Jericho?”
“What do you mean?” While the Skill was active, I couldn’t face away from the wide angle I was watching over.
“We reached the ground floor before the Captain did,” Ana whispered. I could feel her kneel and watch our rear, Grandeur no doubt pointed at the alley we exited. “You felt strongly about that sentiment.”
I kept quiet. My muscles were rigid. Was there a trigger word to exit the stance, see a cooldown? I found myself wanting an even more intrusive Status window System some Otherworlders described. The workspace was cluttered but the amount of information was fascinating.
“Jericho veni-vici Amontillado,” Ana stated firmly, poking me in the thigh with the butt of her stock. “You have enjoyed too many periods of brooding silence for me, your trusted companion of confidence, to find comfortable.”
“We should be having drinks right now. Might be on the fourth bar if I slipped the Poison resistance stim without you noticing.”
I heard her gun rest downward as she twisted to regard me. Not much of my face to look at, neither could I look at hers. Hopefully nothing hostile tripped its way into my field of view. Actually, maybe I did, it would save me the embarrassment of revealing my master plan for getting through tonight.
Tonight, well, in a different World.
“That was today?” she murmured with incredulity. “Three years, wasn’t it?”
“Indeed. I know that’s barely a sneeze for the long-lived races, but it’s somewhat important for Humans, short sparks as we are conventionally,” I smiled, tensing my fingers around my handcannon. I think the channeled aspect was wearing off, felt fatigue returning slowly. “Did you really for-?”
“No! No, I didn’t, I swear on my sire’s hoard!” Ana snapped, maybe even a little hurt I suggested such a thing. “I just haven’t… been myself. I knew you were planning something as we were about to leave. Attempting to disintegrate your liver in a contest against me again did not cross my mind.”
“What can I say, I wondered if it might be one of the fabled Feats of Strength to outmatch a Draco.” With a stiffness replacing the wasted potential, Overwatch seemed to expire. Dropping to a knee, I looked around our surroundings before focusing on Ana’s faintly glowing orange eyes. “Hidden within a friendly drinking game of some sort.”
“Jeri, you continue to ward boredom from my life,” she sighed, shaking her head and looking at the shop our Elf had disappeared into.
“I am a man of few talents, have to justify my existence with what I have.”
The door slowly opened, half of Lyissa’s face shrouded by the heavy wooden panels.
“There’s seven in here but two can’t move. No weapons except what’s at hand,” she whispered over to us. “They’re afraid of whatever is causing the screams.”
Sharing a bemused grin with a grimace from Ana, that was good. As long as there was cause to shelter in place, that narrowed down the allegiances of people running around on the streets. After clearing a few blocks near the Administratum, we’d managed to instruct a few groups, the odd sole survivor, to seek safety in the tower.
Maybe I should call Greenharbor’s singular tower the Rook. It had a certain flair to it, not to mention the double-meaning for those in the know. Reclamation’s rallying Strategic Point, the first Control Nexus that began the resistance against the evil Terran Arcanocracy.
Evil. Evil Terrans.
My mood soured, shaking off the quiet joke we shared regarding the identity of tonight’s lunar terror. The decision still didn’t sit well with me. I could only tell myself that these measures were not going to be the last, nor the most drastic, to be considered for the future.
+Status update! Fireteam member shared rewards, you have reached Level 8 Support. Skill unlocked, Resuscitate.+
Ana, Lyissa, and myself froze, trying to find the direction of the sudden cause for a Level-up. That was the first quiet kill since we lost track of Perez. A change in the pattern.
“Tell them to stay here and wait until morning, then carefully get to the Admini-… Rook. The tower that used to be the Administratum,” I urged, peeking over the wagon. The Elf Heavy raised her eyebrow for a moment before nodding. “Ana, do you have the direction of that other group?”
“Up the street, but shouldn’t we wait for her?” the Draco pointed out, shifting the grip on her rifle.
“No, something changed. I don’t have a good feeling.” I replied hurriedly, pleading. “Stars above and below, I didn’t think to see if Infection worked the same! If it does, and someone just-“
A flash of recognition.
“Lyissa!” I hissed to the open doorway, kicking up to my feet as Ana sprang into action. “We need to go!”
Even though the being in front of me was a short woman with iridescent hair that came to my chin, it would be difficult to remember she came into this world as something altogether different. Koliastrazana the Draco was born a Dragon who only gained the Humanoid Form Feature because of the Subrace. It compressed her figure and her Attributes into something much more convenient for day-to-day life in our World, a way spontaneously conjured by the System for these Dragonkin to enjoy life.
She wasn’t trapped in someone else’s body. However, neither was it completely her. Those obsidian scales that accentuated her face, covered her limbs, blood and tears that hissed and roiled, the only reminders of her true self lurking somewhere below the surface. The Dragoness was stifled within this tiny Humanoid body, instead of the powerful creature who could rein in their majesty to walk among mere mortals.
Yet, she managed to cover nearly three times the distance I could in the same amount of time, hardly a whisper of a breath. I wondered how much had really been locked behind Recursion shaking the foundations of the World. Likewise, were there perhaps other Dracos stuck like her? Or stuck in their true forms?
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Trying to calculate whether or not there was a relationship between the age of a Draco, their Level, and the size of their true form apparently slowed me down enough that Lyissa caught up.
No, wait, it was the figurative stitches in my side splitting as if I’d never ran before in my life. Maybe my Attributes were hamstrung as well. Everyone reduced to Level 1 flattening out the playing field to exaggerate who really had the benefits starting out.
“Where did, woofh, she-, root an-, and stone, why is this so hard?” the High Elf panted, doing her best to catch her breath.
“I, ah, over-, Reaper’s kiss, there?” I gasped. Pointing up to the next street, two pinpricks of orange twinkled, their owner’s back against a caravan wagon parked against a row of messy stalls. “Come on, stay low.”
The stench of death, blood, rot, something else, hit me as we moved closer to the walkway.
“Where did you go? I stopped here and you were gone,” Ana questioned, looking between our huffing faces. If I didn’t know her to be sincere in her direct manner, I would have thought she was teasing us.
“Ana, you’re a Draco Assault predisposed to moving very, very quickly,” I said, trying to stifle a cough. Pointing between us, I shook my head. “Heavy. Support.”
“Oh.”
“Help…”
It was a man’s voice. Weak. I checked my Arcanotech Lamia revolver, chambered with steel-tips. Lyissa held her darts after whispering the word, Ana inspecting her Grandeur rifle.
I moved to the corner of the building that marked the informal passage from the merchant district into the next, the residential. Shops on this side were in stark contrast to homes, apartments, the odd cramped hovel, just on the other side of the stylized walkway. Its canopy was tall and wide enough to easily accommodate three caravan wagons, or rather one going in and the other out.
Ana led the way for Lyissa to take the other side. No Counterfire prompts, no other movement. Bracing for another surprise, I peeked into the passage.
Laying across the ground was what I would assume was a Fireteam of the Terran Arcanocracy.
Operative word being, was.
“Heartfire sear my scales,” Ana gasped as she peered around her corner. “Th-this is terrible.”
Two bodies rested on the ground, eviscerated, merely lying in puddles of their own blood. One was impaled on an electric lamppost that had broken in half during the slaughter – thankfully still and not the source of the noise. One was – and I placed a hand over my mouth – torn in half. Fifth was missing their head, a helmet had rolled some distance away, empty.
The sixth had managed to drag himself against another lamppost, braced against it and holding something around his arm. Shaking, in shock, no weapon near him. Sidearm still in its holster on the pavement to his side, but it seemed to be forgotten in favor of using his belt as a tourniquet to stave off the massive… wound… across…
It was a bite.
“Is-, is someone there? Please? Anyone?”
Damn, damn, damn it!
I cocked the hammer, marching toward the Terran. Not too fast, not too slow, neither was I hiding my weapon ready to bring to bear.
“Terran?” I demanded, doing my best to get a look at the other, assumedly, Human.
“Does it matter?! I-, I-, I got bit! You see what happened to the others?!” he panicked. For his credit, it looked like whatever he was doing was stemming the bleeding. Maybe even halting the encroaching Infection from taking root quicker. “It was a Werr-were-Lycan, those are a threat to everyone, aren’t they?!”
“Not this particular one,” I sighed quietly. “Make your peace.”
The silent protest of Ana and Lyissa scraping boots across the pavement were drowned out by the pressure in my ears. There wasn’t a way to cure him, even if I did save him from his wounds. It was safe to assume that perhaps it was the impaled victim expiring earned us the Level, not this person beginning to succumb.
Therianthropy was strange like that. Kills were not necessarily kills, but in this case-
Massive damage to the head. Out of his misery. Don’t look away, don’t-
“Wait! Wait! He said Reclamation!”
I faltered.
“What?”
“The Lycan. He-, he took one look at me. I was the last. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, but I knew, knew that we were going to die,” the man hurriedly explained, looking behind me to see the other pair coming behind. “I don’t know how or why or when, but he didn’t kill me like the others. I just… It sounds stupid, but this was one of my dreams.”
Now I had to hear this out. Unabashed astonishment, as long as his hands were occupied with the tourniquet, this didn’t seem likely to be a trap. Not even a grenade hidden nearby. The sound alone was reason enough to not investigate the death calls, assuming the rest of the Terrans had the same survival instinct as miss Tanya Jikaren from Mars, resolve crumpling immediately in order to do what’s needed to survive.
“Name. Where are you from?” I pressed, only slightly lowering my gun from his center mass.
“Jake. Seattle. I drowned on a beach trip. Well, I almost did, then something pulled me even further,” he smiled, wincing at the memory. “I’ve never died since coming here. But, but I started in the Abyssal Steppes, real irony, and got picked up by Terrans who regularly patrolled there. Y-you guys aren’t… aren’t Narcs, are you?”
“The Steppes?” I asked, loud enough so Lyissa could clue into the conversation. “As a regular Human?”
“I spawned in on a really small sandbar with a tiny freshwater spring. I played a couple half-finished survival games and got by without dying,” he admitted, grimacing. Even if he tried restricting blood flow, the Infection was already crawling through his veins. “Popular spot. I found a glass bottle with a note saying someone would be there every few days.”
“That confirms some of what the other was saying,” the Elf whispered. “We never questioned why nothing was found out in the Steppes, everyone who began there was amphibious as soon as the System… logged… them.”
“Jericho, why have you not disabled this Terran yet?” Ana questioned. There was no malice behind her words. We both understood the precarious situation before us.
“Why would he leave you alive?” I pressed, crouching to a knee and well out of lunging distance. “How are you special?”
“I don’t fucking know, man!” Jake recoiled from us, closing his eyes. “I just wanted out of this world. It wasn’t fun. My actual life was going okay, I had a decent job finally, the world just got finished being crazy!”
“And this is? Helping the Arcanocracy kill all these innoc-?”
“I DIDN’T KNOW!”
No distortion of the voice, no fleshy cracks and pops of joints and muscles shifting. So far so good, but this pushed the covert aspect of our sortie following the errant Apex Lycan.
“I have no idea who ran this circus. Some whackjob who went on about the purity of Human invention, he helped lead, but I figured he was just some LARPer really into an event,” the wounded man continued, shaking his head. Pulled the belt tighter. Was it knowledge or a Skill, maybe Support? “I thought it was just some event. The girl who I joined with said it was like a secret Warzone event the Admins put together, surprise everyone with some friendly PvP.”
“That is all well and perfect for your regret, Terran, but that does not explain why five of your ilk are dead and you merely stave off a bite across your arm,” Ana growled, racking the bolt on her rifle.
“Jericho,” Lyissa whispered, almost imperceptible as she pulled me away. “Faction Status, Members, Pending.”
Blinking, I nearly opened my mouth in protest before her eyes impressed a certain gravity.
+Accessing Faction Status: Reclamation.+
Casting my thoughts through my mind and into the System, the suggested windows popped across my eyes. I could somewhat notice Lyissa watching them as well. Maybe her Farsight as an Elf was helping her follow along. Lots of handy things to get around this half-baked excuse for a Recursion System.
+Members, 6. Pending invitations, 0. Pending recruits, 1.+
+Recruit pending: Jake Nevenberg, Level 1 Human Support. Secret Status: Majorly Injured by Perez Karish.+
“Wait, do you think this has something to do with Pro-?”
“Yes. Remember what you said at the beginning of this? See each other as friendly, make a Fireteam?” Lyissa quickly theorized. “This might be some form of compelled allegiance, but we don’t have a choice. We need to know how.”
Ana glanced over at me. There was a twinge at the corner of her eye. Worry. Three years together today and I’d learned at least a couple of things that escaped her aloof Draco demeanor.
I pushed Lyissa to the side.
“Did you kill anyone?” I asked quietly.
“No!” Jake responded with vitriol. “God, no, and no one is getting rezzed! How could I try taking someone out if they don’t come back?!”
“What did you say to P-, the Lycan?”
“I, uh, ‘Is that a fucking werewolf?’ is what I said. But, I don’t know, I was excited for a second. Then, then, then-,” the Terran managed before his gaze rested on the headless corpse. “Then I just kept saying ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’ I wanted to make things right, but if I was going to die…”
“Then he said Reclamation. And bit you.”
Silence. Grunt of pain. The bite wound had long since stopped bleeding, some of the holes sealed up. Edges had begun to scar over with faint white coloration.
“Yes.”
“I can’t do anything to stop you from turning. The Infection’s too far gone and the System has turned up on its head.” I affixed him with a dispassionate stare, his belt tightening like a noose despite the futility. “However, if you truly want to make things right, you will need to embrace the Lycanthropy and its leader, the one responsible.”
Jake frowned, looking at me with the strangest expression. Intense. As if I was the fool for pointing out something obvious. The look passed, reverting back to the scared boy-man.
“Like some conscript fighting for the other side because I got tagged?” Jake weakly chuckled.
“Sure.”
“I vaguely remember a chemist store in this zone,” Ana cut in, flipping her rifle’s strap around while looking back out into the street we came from.
“Can’t rely on staying out of moonlight, good thinking,” Lyissa responded. Her back was to the potential seventh member of my wonderful band of miscreants. The Elf’s pained expression reflected what I had to keep stifled, fingers squeezing my shoulder. “Morning isn’t too far off.”
“Hey, Liastra, catch!” I quietly called to the Draco. Shuffling the Rucksack of Holding off my person, situating the Triage Kit, I threw the former over to her. “Try to get food, Rune crafting reagents too.”
“What’s going on?” the former Narc asked with rising concern.
“Can-,” I started, clearing my throat. It was so dry. “Cancel Triage on your person.”
Ancestors, stars, Heartfire, even the Reaper, forgive me.
+Recruit added to Faction: Reclamation – Jake Nevenberg, Level 1 ?Human? Support. Special Status condition: Lycan. Status: Majorly Injured.+
The Terran groaned heavily, letting go of the belt around his arm. Feet dragged up and down over the cobblestone, pushing his back against the lamppost while the Lycan Infection ravaged his body. Properly.
A sharp series of reports sounded from the direction Ana had just ran off.
Ping!
+Status update! Fireteam member shared rewards, you have reached Level 9 Support.+
“CONTACT FRONT!” an unfamiliar man called out.
Lyissa and I flattened against the same wall our new Lycan friend was nearest. Bullets began tearing through canvas, splintered wood, embedded in stone and stucco brickwork.
On one hand, we were causing a commotion that would hopefully rein in our dubiously intelligent decision to let an Apex Lycan Progenitor run wild. On the other, one of the casualties of that decision was now on the ground next to us.
“I MAY REQUIRE SOME ASSISTANCE!” Koliastrazana, an overgrown lizard stuck in a tiny woman’s body, called clearly over the din.
Oh, good, she announced the presence of her allies in the area.
Uncocking the hammer so my Lamia didn’t decide to go off while holstered, I tried putting Jake out of mind for the moment. Dawn would not be for at least an hour. Maybe two. This day was never going to pass into the next, was it?
That must be how catastrophe dilated time. The terrible conditions felt like eternity, the handful of good times lasted about as long as the twinkling of an eye.
I blinked, hearing Jake make a decidedly canine whine and growl. A keening noise. High-pitched, a pattern to it.
“High, low, low, long, hold high-“
“Jericho!” Lyissa exclaimed, shaking me gently. “Have you gone mad?”
“Low whine, low, low, hold high and high and high,” I held up my hand, continuing to listen. “Three low, three long high notes.”
Why did I recognize this?
“Three high, three low?” Lyissa furrowed her brow, joining in my lunacy. “Why is that-, oh. Oh! Jericho, howl with me.”
“Did I reflect your statement back to you?” I scoffed in disbelief, turnabout being fair play. “You realize that, yes?”
“KEEP UP THE HEAT RED TEAM!” the assumed leader called out orders from the direction that the bullets were originating. Good, just one. “BLUE TEAM FLANK RIGHT, GREEN FLANK LEFT!”
“Reaper’s shroud over the stars below, I just had to say it,” I said, hitting the back of my head against the wall.
Jake let out the same couple of notes. Three shorts, three held long, three short keens. Major Injury must be granting some kind of Incapacitation to the newly turned Lycan, his wounds didn’t seem to be recovering quickly. Then again, he had the faculty to keep repeating those noises in response to the gunfire.
“Oh you slow, thick-headed fool, what does she see in y-, just repeat after me!” Lyissa shook me before putting both hands to her mouth.
And joined Jake.
“Awoo-awoo-woo, awoooo-awoooo-awoooooo, awoo-awo-awoo!”
I didn’t have any better ideas. My voice added to the chorus.
“Awoo-awoo-woo, awo-awoooo-awoooooo, awoo-awo-awoo!”
Ana must be saying prayers to whatever deity, maybe the Heartfire she referenced so often, to cure us of our collective insanity.
Then she joined in, a sibilant and throaty accent to our now-quartet.
“Awa-awaoo-waooo, woooo-awoooo-awoooooo, awoo-awo-awoo!”
“ARRRRWWWRROOOOOHHH!”