The demoness living inside Brivaria’s head was unhappy. The Ogramite encounter was the perfect time to test out the angel’s new battle form. It wasn’t finished but it was getting closer. Akashic’s ire washed over Brivaria and the angel took it in stride. While they would have been admittedly fantastic targets to test out her new abilities against, it was important to not create more tension or conflict. Shapeshifting in combat would certainly do that. Plus, discounting what the Seasoned Steel would have thought about it, Brivaria wasn’t certain how she felt about it.
She was working with a demoness to create a demonic battle form for herself, an angel. There was actual insanity in that and she wasn’t beyond recognizing it as such. She was making the best of a bad situation and taking the steps necessary to survive if worse came to worst. She wasn’t diving off the deep end or embracing the situation with enthusiasm… well, too much enthusiasm.
She couldn’t deny the Lesser Shapeshifting skill had been fun and Flesh Sculpting gave her even more freedom to rearrange her material form. Intervention-focused angels had Form Change which let them convert from an energy form to a material form. When they let the skill work on its own, the result was often an amalgamation of wings, eyes, and sometimes mouths. They weren’t too far off from being Eldritch Horrors by their own standards. This was why angels were given targeted manifestation forms for interventions. An Arslan or winged Celian was more likely to be viewed favorably by the local populace in many universes.
At the end of the day, angels already had means to create material forms as needed though it wasn’t the same as shapeshifting. Angels always manifested in the exact same way with the exact same form. For Brivaria’s newfound sensibilities, it was equivalent to eating the same thing for years and only now being able to change the recipe. The entire process of shapeshifting felt like a skill that was long overdue.
There were a thousand angels who manifested in forms identical to Brivaria’s original body. The form was crafted for her people, not for her. The idea of building something, of becoming something that better embodied who she was had truly taken hold of her heart. So it was that she worked with Akashic each night, learned, and improved. The battle form Akashic was helping her with wasn’t the end goal but it was a step forward along the path Brivaria wanted to walk.
Morning came and the two adventuring groups reunited at the guild. Isolde and Tobias were going to the mages guild to communicate with Count Dancarlo about adding a second team to the job. The mages at the guild could send messages across the continent and most personages of note employed their own mages specialized in communication for situations such as this. Count Dancarlo and others at his station or above likely had such mages traveling with them at all times.
Kseniya and Nyx were given Terrance Grand’s notebook and assigned the task of interviewing other individuals or businesses the man had done work for. The angel still had a funny feeling about Cordelia Westlake and especially the butler they’d spoken with. They’d either known more than they let on or been hiding something. She couldn’t act on feelings though. Lucian Ashford had done that and Brivaria had only to see how that turned out to know better.
Finally, Alden, Trixie, and Brivaria would go after Edison Kor. The angel had been worried about finding a lone man in a city the size of Barton but, to her surprise, the guild had his address. He was local to Barton and the guild had the addresses of all local adventurers. He was also likely to be home as the guild had no record of him taking any requests since the Hunt for the Golden Hind started drawing caravans to the city.
As they walked the streets in the early morning sun, Brivaria glanced at Alden. He had a full set of silver armor completed with greaves and gauntlets. The man’s armor wasn’t broken or damaged but it was well-used. He wore his sword on a leather sling across his back. It was designed to let him draw the sword quickly but stowing it was a much more fiddly affair. Based on the previous night, he was a pure warrior and those were rare.
Most warriors dabbled in magic. Spellswords were always common because magic solved a lot of problems a sword could not. A sword tended to have a lot of issues against creatures without bodies, beings who were proof against metal, or even creatures that simply flew out of reach. While Zlithia did have its share of flying monsters, the others were far less common. In a world where most foes could be hacked to pieces by a decently durable blade and a high physique, a pure warrior was fearsome.
The class also paired well with humans as they were just below or above average in most areas. Their arcane, spirit, and presence were below average but functional. Their physique and awareness were just barely above board. Endurance was their highest attribute. That wasn’t a terrible attribute though Brivaria’s heavenly training made it clear that it was better to mitigate damage with skills or avoid it altogether. Angels had low endurance and Brivaria’s was lower still. If she could use skills or magic to mitigate health loss then she had to. That said, as she was now living on Zlithia she wouldn’t have minded an extra 100 points of health between her and death.
“You look deep in thought,” the man said, breaking Brivaria from her internal pondering. “You know, I expected you to be a bit more imposing after Isolde told me she mistook you for Zenith and that you dueled Lucian into outright running away. Maybe a little taller too and, you know, wings and such.”
“He’s a rogue and I have a shield. He’s not high enough level to branch out into open combat nor have the skills to deal with a shield directly,” Brivaria said with a casual shrug. Alden was carrying his helm so she could see the tanned man smile.
Stolen story; please report.
“Do you know that or are you guessing?” he laughed as he asked.
“I’m pretty confident. He’s what? Level 50 or so? Humans get three combat classes up to that point, maybe four. That first attack that knocked me down had at least two major class features behind it and maybe a third given that no one saw him coming. That means he’s relying on level, attributes, and personal training. There’s not a whole lot of personal training that’s going to let a knife do much against someone with a shield,” the angel said with an air of conviction.
“Indeed there isn’t. Shields are the bane of all civilized folk,” Alden said with a friendly grin. “So what about you? Some kind of self-revival skill, maybe… racial? Shadow or death magic class based on those rays and that glowing black stone skill. Some kind of telekinesis, force, or wind class. Maybe a combat class, healing class, or combination since your guild card says paladin. Maybe some kind of illusion or transformation-based class too? That puts you around level 60 to 80. Am I close?”
“Who knows?” the angel asked. He was close but the angel wouldn’t confirm it. Alden was making the mistake of assuming she was Zlithian so her first 20 to 30 class levels would be taken up by child, survival, or professional classes. Some people like Nyx grabbed a combat class at level 20. Likely that wasn’t too uncommon among adventurers but, for the people of the planet as a whole, it was not the norm.
Brivaria having a combat class as her first class put her many levels ahead of the average Zlithian adventurer. This was a temporary advantage as classes and skills became noticeably more potent every 100 levels. Two people of level 150 pursuing similar paths could be reasonably equivalent skill-wise as those early levels meant less and less over time. Attributes were the opposite. The gulf between good and bad attributes only grew with levels. At level 1, the difference between Brivaria and Nyx’s spirit attribute was probably a single point. By level 200, the difference would be in the hundreds. The main reason most races went down different paths was because they were capitalizing on different strengths and mitigating different weaknesses even if they were pursuing similar goals.
“I think we’re here,” Alden said when the pair came to a stop in front of a rather ordinary home. The wood home was in a residential area a good walk from the city center. It was far enough that the owner probably wouldn’t work in the city without a wagon sharing arrangement yet not so far as to put the owner among the folks working ranches and fields outside the city. In short, it was perfect for an adventurer.
“Let’s meet Mr. Kor.” The angel spoke as the man, woman, and dog walked the short path from the road to the front door and knocked. It was a nice day and many of the houses they passed had the shutters open to enjoy the cool air. Kor’s home had everything shut and locked. The front door also looked to be damaged and in very bad shape—if they knocked any harder the door was liable to collapse. They stood there waiting for a minute until both Alden and Trixie suddenly looked up.
“That sounded like a door closing,” the warrior said. Brivaria hadn’t heard anything but she trusted the two of them. Well, she trusted her dog. Alden was a work in progress.
“Go Trixie!” Brivaria replied while activating Current Control to give them all a speed boost. The dog shot off toward the side of the house and around to the back. Alden followed immediately after and Brivaria had the realization that there was no way she was keeping up with the warrior let alone her nimble dog on foot.
Brivaria swapped outfits via her inventory to one of her original white ensembles and then activated Alternative Form to take her angelic form. Her hair lightened from black to blonde and the muscles in her back rearranged themselves to support the beautiful, white wings she would soon have. The transformation was far from instant but it was a littler faster thanks to her high presence attribute. Once the transformation was complete, she shot into the air thanks to a beat of her wings and a bit of stamina.
The sight Brivaria was treated to once in the air was a repeat of her first night in Barton. A man, presumably Edison Kor, was on the run from Trixie and Alden. To Alden’s credit, he was faster than Nyx by a good margin and would have caught the guy on his own. The warrior was in better shape than the mage and likely much higher level. Attributes were a multiplier on what a person could do so the higher the baseline, the more valuable each point was. Alden being tall and athletic meant his physique attribute was putting in work.
Of course, neither man could outrun Trixie. She was a golden blur. The man they were pursuing didn’t even make it a full block before Trixie jumped and gave him a push. He overbalanced and sprawled on the ground. As Brivaria descended, she couldn’t help but feel the whole scene was like deja vu from that first night. The only difference was that they were far enough from the heart of the city that the angel didn’t think there was anywhere underneath the street to get away to.
“Ah, enough, I give,” the man shouted while taking a seated position on the ground and raising his hands to show they were empty. Getting a better look at him, Brivaria saw the man was young and lean. He possessed that scrawny physique that teenagers frequently had and most eventually grew out of. He had brown facial hair but it was scraggly, the kind of thing that came from a lack of shaving rather than a purposeful decision to have a full beard. Alongside a baggy shirt and long pants, he had a dingy appearance all told.
“Are you Edison Kor?” Alden asked. The armored warrior made no effort to assist the prone man to his feet and, instead, stood a respectful distance away. Trixie was closer, on all four feet, and her tail was wagging. The golden looked like she was hoping for more chasing though that didn’t seem to be happening just yet.
“Yes, I am. What are you… oh gods!” he shouted as soon as his eyes spotted Brivaria coming in for a landing. “Please don’t kill me. Take me to the watch. Anything. Don’t let her have me!” Kor was full-on begging as the angel’s boots touched the ground and Alden threw Brivaria a complicated look. She shrugged.
“Do you know who this is?” the silver rank warrior asked.
“Of course I do, it’s…” Edison Kor went silent as he looked at Brivaria, really looked at her. Yeah, blonde hair and white wings were pretty distinguishing features but the angel suspected she and Zenith weren’t identical twins.
“Brivaria. My name is Brivaria, leader of the Divine Blessing adventuring team,” the angel finished for him. He blinked in surprise and Brivaria could pinpoint the exact moment comprehension made its way into his expression.