Chapter 170: The Appropriate Regret
Eilir stiffened. Her hands stopped. The starburst flower in her hand sagged, roots dropping flecks of soil onto her gloved hands.
She didn’t know when. She hadn’t noticed at all. Since when were two people standing in the clearing, staring at them? Staring at them plundering the blessings of the Ice Crystal Forest.
Adventurers.
A sweat colder than Kallid’s most unforgiving winter crawled down her back, more ice than liquid.
They were unmistakable. They had a weight presence to them that people like her didn’t have. Like they were important (they were). They could’ve been drunkenly passed out on Kallid’s cold cobblestone streets dressed in vomit-stained clothing and smelling of days old booze, and they’d still seem more important than the ordinary folk striding with purpose around them.
One carried a tall, heavy staff. His robes were in a cultural design not of Kallid, heavy of cloth and outfitted with metal and leather protections, with eastern designs and colors of clay red and bronze-gold. The other’s robe must have been from the same place—Eilir didn’t know. Kallid had a lot of visitors. She kept away from the mausoleum. That wasn’t a place for a normal person like her.
Her heart sped, and blood roared through her ears. Even then, the beads growing on her skin were ice-cold. Her hands were shaking, and she sucked in a few, beleaguered breaths to try to restore her calm. It worked a bit. She told herself it did. It did.
From the man’s unimpressed expression, she knew that he knew what they were. He was waiting.
She straightened, the damming starburst still in hand, and sucked in another breath. The others with her were watching her, all frozen deer in t heir plundering, illicit herd.
She wasn’t the leader, dammit. None of them were. She was, unfortunately, now the leader by proximity. Great.
“You’re adventurers,” she said dumbly. It seemed a good start.
“And you’re a poacher.” Maybe it was not so great of a start.
“I’m Eilir.” She tried a different avenue of discussion.
“Sen.”
“Nara.”
Okay, amenable to talking (although they’d just introduced themselves, curtly). Not killed on sight. That was great. Not that adventurers killed on sight often—they weren’t bloodthirsty, even if the adrenaline in her veins and her shaky legs told her otherwise.
She was just a poacher. Not a murderer, not a bandit. Just a poacher. She repeated that to herself like a lifeline.
“How can I help you?” she ventured, as if she had some respectable professions others would find her for help with.
“We’d like to escort you out of the forest to the forest wardens.”
“We were wondering if you’d like this to do this the easy way or the hard way,” his companion added. “We’d prefer the easy way, but I think my familiar would enjoy chasing you down for the fun of it. He’s a little antsy. And hungry.
“Don’t eat them,” she hissed at the ground. “He won’t eat you,” she added after she looked back up with a reassuring smile. It wasn’t very reassuring.
Eilir gulped.
“What’s the hard way?”
“You couldn’t guess from context clues?”
Her companion rolled his eyes, as if this was a joking matter.
“Yeah.” She cleared her throat, opting for more propriety. “Yes. I can guess,” Eilir assured slowly, hoping that the hard way wasn’t being chased down and eaten like the prey animal in the forest. Not that it mattered. She wouldn’t choose the hard way. “What is the easy way?”
“I have a few nice familiars.”
Eilir’s breath hitched. Wasn’t that the hard way?
“Ah—woah, relax. They’re just going to accompany you to the forest wardens, through a portal. There’s some crystal-eaters out here, and we can hardly send you off all alone. I mean, we could but depends on how comfortable you are with the idea of a painful, impending, and violent end—not by me. By the crystal-eater.” She felt the need to clarify again. Eilir didn’t like that. “My familiar has already notified one of the forest wardens—afraid you won’t dodge arrest. They’ll meet you a safe distance away from the forest. You’ll face whatever Kallid-mandated consequences, but you’ll stay alive. Sound good?”
Eilir nodded stiffly. “That sounds good.”
“No,” a voice interrupted. “That does not sound good.”
Eilir stared stiffly at Geir, who stepped forward into the clearing now to interrupt when he’d been so content to let her bear the brunt of their attention before. He’d always annoyed her like that, letting others suffer in uncomfortable situations then wresting control when things weren’t going his way.
“I won’t go through the portal. We won’t go through the portal,” he said, raising their voice and speaking for the other poachers.
“You could die here,” the female adventurer said. “To the crystal-eaters.” She glanced at Eilir, who somehow felt very assured by her attention, and by her subsequent words, reinforcing Eilir’s earlier negotiation. “Those that want to leave, leave through the portal. You’ll face the consequences, but I think it’s better than being dead.”
“We have no idea if these people mean well,” Geir said, suddenly throwing conspiracy upon them. “They claim to be adventurers. What do we really know of what’s behind the portal?” He raised his arms. “I don’t see any danger here!”
The other poachers shifted, glancing nervously at one another. Eilir made eye contact with two others—they weren’t friends, exactly, but these poachers she got along better than with the rest. They’d follow her through the portal.
“Are we to risk it all only to lose it all, at someone else’s say so? I will take my chances and leave the forest myself, if I so choose.”
The female adventurer grimaced, evidently unimpressed. The male adventurer was as stoic as ever, hand holding his staff relaxed but ready to shift into battle at every moment. Eilir didn’t think questioning an adventurer’s authority was smart action. To be escorted out of the forest was much better than being smashed upon that heavy staff.
“I’m going though the portal,” Eilir clarified nervously, with as much confidence and authority as she could gather, although she could not match Geir’s projected command, which seemed too loud in the quiet forest. She glanced over the group once again, and the two she’d made eye contact earlier followed after her, leaving six poachers.
Once she was through the portal, she promptly retched on the ground, although whether it was the culmination of her anxiety, or the effects of the portal were anyone’s guess.
*****
“Now what?” Nara stage whispered to Sen, who was being stared down by a very idiotic poacher (Nara was apparently not worth being stare down). Sen seemed to war within him an internal debate—perhaps he was wondering if it was moral to leave the poachers to die here, now that they’ve literally resisted being saved.
“If we leave the poachers, there is a chance they could continue their illegal activity,” said Sen.
Ah, of course. It wasn’t about the morality of their life and death now, but the damage of their presence. The remainers seem to have forfeited Sen’s personal care for their lives.
“We will have to restrain them and leave the forest with them.”
Nara nodded.
The poachers, sensing the change in atmosphere like attuned prey animals, immediately peeled off into the forest. They were foolish, thinking they could outrun adventurers two ranks higher than them, especially since they were all gathered in one place originally. Thanatos pounced on two and kept them below his feet, Sen picked up another two, and Nara two as well, making a point to carry Geir, because it was probably more insulting to him to be restrained by a woman, and Nara liked to be petty when she had the chance. He yelled and flailed, and attempted to wrestled out of her grip, punching and kicking, but all it felt like was like a clumsy infant waving an arm about senselessly, completely harmless. He protested, raging that this was kidnapping and unjust, and yelled at others to resist with him, who had varying reactions—some who did wriggle and struggle, and others who looked shamefaced as if they’d been caught outside with an embarrassing relative.
Nara glanced at Sen. “He’s going to draw the crystal-eaters to our location.”
“Are they converging now?”
She extended her aura, probing into the forest. She shook her head. “Not yet.”
Eventually, Nara silenced the screamers with gags and restrained their limbs with rope. She missed duct tape. Ah, it would’ve worked for both gags and restraint. What an efficient kidnapping material. With six poachers, two were tied upon each of their quadruped familiars’ backs—Thanatos, Capsian, and Regis. She tugged on the ropes once, double checking that they were secure. She nodded to Sen, and they set out of the forest in a run.
*****
Nara monitored her map from the corner of her eye while she darted through the forest. She didn’t have much distance to catch up.
Crystal-eaters were hardy monsters, intelligent and adaptable. They would not be killed quickly. The other duos of their team were already engaged in battle in different parts of the forest. It was better they kept their crystal eaters on them, than lead them right to their captured poachers.
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Her Guide map was unhelpful. Other than the monsters in active combat or the ones she had detected, her map sparse. She knew there were more monsters but had no real or metaphorical eyes on them. A thrill down her back told her she was part of the hunted.
That was just fine. She was getting tired of sensing everything before they attacked her anyway (She wasn’t. She didn’t like surprises).
She ran parallel to the poacher-carriers, at a considerably slower pace than her max speed with abilities. Thanatos couldn’t slink off to the shadows with others, Regis wasn’t the fastest runner (although his webbed paws and aquatic tail didn’t impede him), and Caspian would be unable to fly with his burden upon his back.
The barest glint of refracted light was all the warning.
Her blade lifted, and her body shifted. All instinct, all honed reflexes. Something pinged across Nirvana, and retreated just as quickly, shaking off the tracking of her map and blending back in with the crystal forest.
She strained her senses. She got flashes, here and there, of presence and aura, but she couldn’t push her aura sense while also remaining ready for any surprise attacks.
“No wonder everyone hates stealth builds,” she muttered. Always on edge, always waiting.
She risked pushing her concentration a bit, and her aura flexed like a well-exercised muscle, easy to access and high in sensitivity from dedicated practice and strain.
She had detected flashes of presences. She wasn’t wrong. The auras were large, less of a point and more of a dot. They spanned an area, scuttling like an amoeba, latching onto crystalline trees and vegetation, moving as they moved. There was no defined center, sometimes stretching into shapes of bowties, teardrops, fans, and everything and anything else, even splitting into multiple areas of concentration.
The crystal-eaters were putting their aura into their environment, she realized. From the crystal they consumed, they inherited an affinity for the material. To date, this was the most skilled manipulation of aura from any monster she had faced, and even this was rare for bronze rank monsters. Stealth capabilities were far more common in silver rank monsters, who had the existence-span to properly benefit from it.
It made it hard to pinpoint where the body of the crystal-eaters were, and even where their attacks were.
She paid for her inspection with a lacing strike to her thigh, shallower than the monster had intended. For all their stealth capabilities, they suffered against her own space and light manipulations. The hunters had hoarded their sovereignty of light and had not expected any challengers. Challenged they felt.
It was a waiting game, and one Nara hoped would continue. She deflected occasional attacks to the poachers on Thanatos back, while Chrome handled the other side of the line with his swords, Sen following up the train as the rearguard. she understood the mechanics of their stealth, she couldn’t pursue the crystal-eaters without risking the lives under her care.
But she could not be everywhere. Small as they bunched up, pill bugs drawn into themselves, Nara could not deflect or destroy all of the attacks that came the way of the poachers. She prioritized the attacks that would be lethal and lethal-in-time. Still, patches of blood colored clothing, and crystals changed into red stained glass.
She just hoped they would not bleed out.
*****
She had been naïve. Bleeding out would be a luxury.
Once the crystal-eaters had figured their probing stealth attacks were ineffective, they intensified their attacks.
From what she could figure, she had 5 or 6 crystal-eaters on her; even that was indeterminate. At least 2 crystal eaters were late-bronze rank, and her two greatest pains. They were the stealthiest and trickiest of the lot, and the ones who had managed to kill one poacher thus far. She felt bad for the poacher—is wasn’t Geir, the annoying one of the lot, just some poor sod that cried and whimpered as he died.
One of crystal-eaters had disregarded stealth entirely, barreling towards Thanatos with its hard crystalline body built for speed, something Nara couldn’t deflect. He avoided it, mostly, but it clipped his back legs, forcing a momentary stumble. The poachers on his back screamed and would clutch tighter if they didn’t already have his fur in a white-knuckle grip.
It wasn’t done. The crystal-eater rebounded from its charge, equipped with powerful rabbit-like hind legs built to change direction at a moment’s notice. Leg muscles bunched and snapped forward. Nara intercepted; Nirvana transformed into a shield of black. She swung, timing her deflection, and smashed the monster’s face into splintering cracks of crystal. Her enhanced Power attribute from Waking Moment prevailed and drove the monster back for a moment.
It was during her deflection that her next problem struck. Of course, the bonds and familiars with their burden of two was a better target than Nara. Crystalline vine tentacles whipped forward, attempting to wrap themselves around a poacher on Caspian’s back. His wings flared up, intercepting, protecting his burden, and the thorned vines savaged his wing instead. It drew a heart-rending whimper of pain from Caspian, who was still so young but doing so well, and Nara cut away those vines as quickly as possible, freeing his now bloodied wing. He tucked it against his side, the blood blending into the red rust color of his feather-fur.
They kept moving forward. It was all they could do. The other poachers shivered and sobbed, and even Geir had enough presence of mind to try to keep quiet, instead of screaming about the unjustness of his fate. No one wanted to draw attention to themselves.
Chrome was uncharacteristically quiet, not complaining. He had his own share of injuries, his luminescent blood coating those that lay still and silently horrified in his arms. Nara’s defense prioritized Thanatos, who had the greater burden and fewer capabilities of defending himself. His umbral flame was not effective against these creatures of crystalline flesh. It still burned, but it did not have the physical stopping power Nara and Chrome had. His flames were burning almost all of the crystal-eaters, which would have prevented their stealth if they had bothered to hide themselves.
Nara didn’t know the dead poacher’s name. It was better not to know it. None of the poachers spoke, so she would not know it. She would not dwell that this was the first time people had come under her protection, and she had failed one. It was different than the Crystal Quarry 6, for which she had the advantage of defense and a plan. She would not dwell on it now, and dwell on it later. The self-justifications would come later, that they were poachers, and that they’d given them the opportunity to escape. They knew this was the worse option and had chosen otherwise.
Sen was making his way toward her, fighting a running battle. Thanks to Momentous Sprint, he could maintain high damage in hit-and-run situations, building power at juggernaut speeds.
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Ability: [Momentous Sprint]
Special Ability (movement)
Cost: High stamina-per-second and low mana-per-second
Cooldown: None
Effect (Iron): Sprint with greatly increased movement speed. Rapidly gain instances of [Momentum] during the sprint.
* [Momentum] (boon, magic, stacking): When making an attack, all instances are consumed to inflict resonating-force damage. Multiple instances can be accumulated, and instances are lost quickly while not moving.
Effect (Bronze): Deal resonating-force damage to physical obstructions and disruptive-force damage to magical obstructions during the sprint if your momentum is not arrested.
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He had already destroyed four, praise him, mighty and sure. Never had Nara been so envious of his instantaneous power; For all she lacked he had in spades, and he had repeatedly, in ways Encio did not. He was determinedly smashing a fifth, his own battle close enough for Nara to hear as the wind and crystal-eaters in tandem did their best to drown him out.
The edge of the forest was within sight; open plains of slushy mush and tender, trembling green grass had never been so inviting, and she longed to throw herself into the mud and dirt and roll in them, then to dumbly look up at her team in the innocent enjoyment of a puppy in springtime.
A crystal-eater flashed forward, sensing its rapidly narrowing window of red-blood lunch. Nara sprung forwards, power thrumming through her thighs. Nirvana as a war hammer swept upwards in the most magnificent swing, momentum transferred so beautifully a physicist would be brought to tears. The swing did not disappoint, and crystal skin already weakened from Entropy obligingly shattered and caved. Thanatos darted around the carnage, breaking through the tree line. He continued forward, untrusting that said tree line provided any sort of significant boundary that would deter the crystal-eaters.
It did, surprisingly, deter them, and the tree line smarted that it was so doubted. The crystal-eaters hesitated; they had so abused the covering bosom of the crystalline forest that they were unsure how to proceed without its obscuring embrace. They hesitated, and it was long enough for two important things to happen, in no particular order of importance.
1. Thanatos, Caspian, and Regis pulled far enough ahead that any further attacks against their baggage were no longer a threat.
2. Sen had caught up after cleaning up the crystal-eaters from his rearguard position, and he was now a threat to the crystal-eaters.
Upon reaching bronze rank, something integral changed for Sen Arlang: He was no longer in particular danger of dying in one attack.
The difficulty of Battle Equilibrium was that to progress the ability he had to maintain his health, stamina, and mana below half of maximum, and intentionally suffer afflictions. One could argue that, since at iron rank, one was liable to die in one blow anyway, it didn’t particularly matter if he was always at half of peak condition, or not.
Sen preferred that if an attack that would have half-killed him, still only half-killed him, instead of fully killing him because he was always at half-health like some sort of lunatic. He wasn’t a lunatic, he would argue; it was only what his ability demanded of him. (Of course, to progress his ability, he needn’t be at half-health, just any resource below half, but all three below half certainly progressed it faster. Sen knew he could handle it anyway.)
It could be argued that all adventurers were lunatics anyway (or if they weren’t lunatics, became lunatics for self-preservation), so his objections were pointless.
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Ability: [Battle Equilibrium]
Special Ability (recovery)
Cost: None
Cooldown: None
Effect (Iron): Maintain an equilibrium state. When afflictions surpass equilibrium, periodically cleanse afflictions from yourself. When health, stamina, or mana drops below the equilibrium, gain a health-, stamina-, or mana-over-time effect.
Effect (Bronze): The condition to reach equilibrium state is reduced. Gain damage reduction below equilibrium.
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At bronze rank, his equilibrium state was blessedly raised to around 60%, and what a joyous 10% it was! More importantly, bronze rank resilience and health pools meant Sen could be a lunatic all he liked at 60% of max, and he wouldn’t be in immediate, life-threatening, danger against monsters of his rank, except in particularly challenging situations. Against monsters specialized in stealth with a smattering of variety, he merrily spent his health to boost his damage the moment it peeked above equilibrium.
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Ability: [Hero’s Sacrifice]
Awakening Stone: Champion
Special Ability
Cost: Variable health
Cooldown: None
Effect (Iron): Sacrifice your health to enhance the power of special attacks.
Effect (Bronze): Special attacks deal additional resonating-force damage when enhanced with a health sacrifice.
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For shits and giggles, he sometimes spent his health to drop it to half or lower.
Sen was of course a lunatic, but it did not show on his face, and never would, nor would he ever be self-aware that he was one; For only lunatics have pushed the line so repeatedly, that they knew how far they could push without breaking and internalized it to such a degree that they did it instinctually, automatically, and instantly stopped doing so when the situation warranted it. (And it was why he needed lunatic teammates that did not share his specific type of lunacy—the failure of his first team.)
The crystal-eaters, in pursuing the poachers, had momentarily forgotten the other reason for which they should be running, because they hadn’t learnt the lesson long enough to have the luxury of forgetting it in the first place.
Sen’s staff was not quiet, it was pridefully loud, happy to be wielded by such a competent warrior, for few of his age were his match.
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Ability: [Staff of Duality]
Conjuration (weapon)
Cost: High mana
Cooldown: None
Effect (Iron): Conjure [Searing Cold, the [Staff of Duality]]. [Searing Cold] can generate either a blade of condensed flame or a shell of cold on the weapon, costing low mana-per-second for either effect. The blade of condensed flame inflicts additional heat damage. The shell of cold inflicts additional cold damage. This is a heavy weapon.
Effect (Bronze): When enhanced with condensed flame, special attacks additionally dispel a stacking boon from the target. When enhanced with the cold shell, special attacks inflict an instance of [Deep Cold].
* [Deep Cold] (affliction, unholy, ice, stacking): Suffer cold damage-over-time. Penalty to the [Speed] and [Recovery] attributes. Additional instances have a cumulative effect.
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A resounding crack pronounced another crystal-eater death and snapped those remaining out of their hesitation with the too-late realization that they had never been the hunters, only prey a tier above on nature’s totem pole.
Now it was not hesitation that kept them from the muddy expanse, but self-preservation. It had indeed been 6 chasing Nara, and 5 decided that they had better chances of survival in the cover of their birth-home, of the creatures they fed on and mimicked. One chose differently, darting towards the mud and grass, towards Nara, who it judged would let it survive longer; Or, perhaps, it had already suffered irreparable brain damage, and had not realized there had been a time of choosing to begin with.
Nara glared resentfully at the creature that made her upset, and exacted her revenge, although it didn’t make her feel any better.
Sen did similarly, although he was more enraged upon seeing Caspian’s wing, and not because a poacher had died. People lived and died, adventurers did his best, and so did he. He would feel the appropriate regret so that he was still humane and would move on. The gods knew he was already a lunatic; he could hardly improve any faster.