Akamori gasped as awareness jolted back into his body. Or what his mind mistook for his body within the context of the Dreamscape’s neural architecture. He tried for a casual glance around. He was in the barracks of the Cadaver Crasher. No one else in sight. Good.
“What the depths damned hell are you doing, Eltee?”
Crap. Correction: He was alone. He sighed. “I guess I was dozing off.”
“Well, it was a long day. Didn’t expect we’d actually take the win on Hidros.” He paused, giving Akamori a perplexed look. Something else colored it, though, the same smoldering frustration and rage he’d seen the Sargeant exhibit during their training. Sirsir took a long breath, trying to calm his nerves. The sergeant studied him with narrow eyes and then blinked incredulously. When he spoke, his voice was low and held a hint of awe and shock.
“Sir… did you not apply any of your experience to your skills, spells or stats?”
Akamori looked at him blankly. “The what with the who?”
“Gods, my momma told me one day I’d find my own personal crucible. Your experience sir. You earn it for doing just about anything. Every time you make a kill, or have an interaction, you’re awarded a point.”
“Oh, yeah. I hid those notifications out of the way. I guess I kinda forgot about them. The whole fate of the world and the sector and all that.”
Sirsir’s eye twitched, and his expression took on one of great strain. Akamori hadn’t seen that kind of look since he last saw the man in the gym area. The noncom pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger drawing in a protracted sigh.
“I guess this one’s on me fer not checking in and making sure you understood it sooner. Your stats and abilities, who you are, essentially, are flexible. Malleable. Adaptable. To reflect your growth. If you want to enhance certain skills or abilities, spend your points to boost their values. All the training and practice you’ve been doing awards you points to spend to reflect the payoff to that training. So you’ve done all the work but haven’t collected the rewards yet.”
“oh.” He felt insanely stupid now. Why had no one explained this sooner? He supposed it couldn’t be helped. They had taken him from anignorant farm boy and shaped him into a spell soldier. A somewhat capable one, he admitted.
Sirsir sat down on the bunk opposite Akamori, “Come on sir, think of this as the last lesson I have to give. First things first. Open up your interface in the spell armor’s hud.” Sirsir gave him a pause so he could catch up. Akamori did as he instructed and saw a list of all the stats he’d nearly forgotten so far.
Some values had changed over the course of his adventure. His magic rating had gone up, and his access to water magic and basic spells had been unlocked. He had more aetherpool points, which meant more to cast spells with, and he’d also gained resistance to offensive water spells now. When what remained of the mind of Hidros infused him with water magic, the magic also touched his armor and weapons. Imbuing them with a cool blue coloring and a longer, more elegant design.
Sirsir sighed when he studied Akamori’s specs. “Sir, you do realize you only made it through that mess on the merits of your gear, right?”
Akamori shrugged, “I guess? Some of this is still pretty new to me.”
The sergeant rested a large hand on his shoulder. “It’s ok. Sometimes all this thinking crap don’t sit well with me either. I like to keep things and simple. That’s why I like my big man shit. Big defense. Big offense. Big man.” He gave Akamori a genuine grin.
For his part, Akamori could only chuckle. “At least you know what you want. Me? I’m not even sure.”
Sirsir nodded with a frown. “You got some strange shit in your specs, eltee. Like you’re cursed or somethin. I ain’t ever seen this kinda stuff. You’ve got infusions and magic, but some of it is grayed out, like you can’t access it. And this Gold Seal business? Only the egg heads on Eryn might begin to understand what it means if they get over being too full of themselves long enough to explain it. But good luck with that.”
He could only shrug. Nothing had made sense for him so far. Why should it start now. He wasn’t sure he should mention the stuff about Bahumet or not. That kind of felt like more crazy talk. Best to keep that close to his chest for now. Being linked to something called a dread wyrm just felt like bad news.
“You ok?” Sirsir’s voice cut through his mental brooding like a fiery blade.
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He forced himself to cut off the flinch before it completely manifest. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just got lost thinking about how easy it would be if I knew what I wanted to be.”
Sirsir pursed his lips. His head tilted and the big guy genuinely looked contemplative. It was a new look on him, and one Akamori wasn’t sure he’d be able to process on him. He didn’t take Sirsir to be the deep thinking type. Everything about him seemed loud and strong. Deep introspection didn’t quite track.
“Well, you got solid moves with a sword, and you’re a decent shot with a rifle. Think it’s safe to say you’re not a weaver. That’d make you a warrior. For now? You’re one helluva spell soldier. And that’s good enough in my book.”
Akamori smiled at that. The man had a point. There was a simplicity in the observation, and that felt liberating in contrast to all the looming unresolved elements that seemed to hover around him. Being a spell soldier gave him some kind of identity he could latch onto. A pillar to stand on and draw strength from. He finally gave Sirsir an approving nod.
“I like it. Works for me too.”
Sirsir grinned. The gesture was so alien on the usually scowling big man’s face that it almost unsettled Akamori. “For someone who went from a know-nothing fuzzy to a spell soldier officer in a few weeks, you done pretty good sir. But don’t let that shit go to your head. Now, we’ve got a bucket load of experience to put to use. Let’s fill in some of these holes you’ve got.”
The two men sat for some time reviewing his stats. After a while, they decided it was best to boost his basic attributes and skills. He also bought the piloting skill, which would help him be more maneuverable while flying his armor and even help with piloting ships. He’d need to train with the skill, but he had the basic training for now. Once he applied the points, his usable xp number plummeted from 35 to 7 left. He opted to bank that for now instead of spending all of it. When he finished, a system missive slapped him in the face.
System Info: Quest Update: Late Bloomer. You finally applied skill points…. several weeks later. Your character is finally reflecting the sum of the experience you’ve accumulated. You’re taking shape from a blank slate. But what will you become? The choice is yours.
Akamori sighed at the prompt and swiped it aside, toggling off the notices again. He turned to Sirsir who gave him an appraising glance and nodded approvingly.
“So.” He said. “What now?”
“Now? We go home.” Sirsir almost shuddered at the thought.
“That bad, eh?”
Sirsir frowned and glanced away. “I wouldn’t say that completely. It’s just… different. Some of us ain’t quite wired for downtime.”
Akamori smiled ruefully, leaning back on the bunk. His gaze went distant. His mind falling backward into memory. “There was a time,” he started. “I used to hate home. I hated what was expected of me because it meant having to be something I didn’t even pick. Something I didn’t even want. But that all changed when the Sauridius attacked our village.”
“How so?”
“Well, I think it opened my eyes, really. Showed me that my own wants and needs were trivial compared to the entire sector. It showed me what was at stake. You’re right. Hidros was just the start. Those bastards will keep hammering, and it feels like we’re the only shield the Federation has to blunt the blows.”
“Won’t be no peace in the sector till we put that bastard down.”
“He’s destroyed my world, and almost destroyed Hidros. When you guys conscripted me, I wasn’t a fan at all. And I’m still not a fan of some aspects of this Federation. But I recognize we’re the best hope the Federation has. I’m committed to stopping them. I’ll make that bastard pay for what he did to my world. To my family. To me.”
The sergeant held a big fist out, and Akamori bumped it with his own. “The Sauridius are a stain on the sector, and we’re gonna do some housecleaning.”
“Truth.”
Morwen sat in the command chair of the Cadaver Crasher as she plotted a course home through the Umbral plane. A reckoning awaited them when they got home. She had much to answer for and more. The loss of so many Brotherhood marines in the battle on Hidros. Disobeying direct order to return to base and surrender command over to Lt. Rayshe. Up to and including executing him for threatening the lives of her other troops.
She believed in what the Federation could be if it truly tried. But she had to respect that in its current incarnation, it just wasn’t working. Too few soldiers to deal with the genuine threat no one wanted to face. It was going to take something serious for her people to respect the threat Sauridius posed. She just dreaded that event with every fiber of her being.
So she hurled herself from fight to fight to stop it. Vainly most times. She simply lacked the power and resources to make a difference. That was how she’d earned her nickname: the Valkyrie of Tohrun. Leading a bunch of men to their deaths. But now she had a strong squad that actually stopped the tide of dragons washing over the sector.
She knew it would count for very little in the long run. But for the sector to survive, she had to keep her soldiers in the fight for as long as possible. Morwen fed the spell drive a large dose of void magic. The ship took the magic and translated it into a portal spell that cracked open reality before the vessel in Hidros’ shadow. The Crasher plunged into the black abyss.
It was time to return home, and face up to the mess she’d made while saving a world. It was going to be hard, but if the squad stuck together, she felt confident they could handle anything thrown their way. The only question was, could they stick together? And how would that look going forward?
Lt. Fennex strode onto the bridge and took a seat in one of the control chairs circling her. A fresh layer of stubble lined his jaw in blonde hair. He sighed, and offered her a cup of coffee silently. No words passed between them. The weight of what they’d just done still pressed down on them. The pair watched the dark void of the Umbral plane on the main screen as the ship’s Umbral wards activated and non vital systems powered down to lower the Crasher’s magical signature. As they made their way home, the two tired veterans sat quietly. Uncertain of what they would face on their return. But certain they’d have done everything the same all over again if given the chance.