Khiat didn’t give Daniel her decision immediately, even as the day turned to night and it became time to rest. She was back on her normal schedule and had woken only to meet him, and she had to leave for a posting on the walls after the sun set. The Hunter’s Guild was still being co-opted by the city for its defense, only now it wasn’t voluntary. Khare was spared, though it was unclear whether they were skipping out on duty or no one had found another gestalt to tell them what to do. Air and earth gestalt couldn’t cross-communicate, so they might be beyond the Tyrant’s ability to command.
Daniel lay on a slightly better bed than the makeshift one back in the Spire, reflecting on the day’s events. He’d punched Thomas, stood up to the ghost that had haunted the Thormundz, intimidated men with swords and had become a lot more loose with his secrets.
He was changing. Hunter’s echo was an easy explanation, but that wasn’t everything. The ringcat’s mannerisms hadn’t taken him over when there was an active source. Leaning into it helped, but that still wouldn’t change who he was.
Something must have happened during the missing week that had shaken him. Enough that though the memories were suppressed, his personality had still been affected. He wasn’t sure about that. This world was far more dangerous than his, and a strong personality could afford more protection. Up until now, he’d relied on his friends, but also the umbrella of Lograve and Gadriel’s higher levels. The only thing he had truly accomplished by himself was making it down from the air islands he’d first appeared on.
As he slipped into the middle space between waking and dreaming, he saw a version of himself charging out into the desert alone tomorrow morning. He didn’t like it. Despite everything he still valued his friends. All of his goals focused on them. Neither did he think he could do a better job than Evalyn if the Wings of Craft suddenly reformed. He’d gained confidence, but there were other traits the Bard had him beat in that made her the better choice. I hope she’s ok.
In the end, he was a monster hunter and an Artificer. He hadn’t made large strides in either area. Most of his enchanting went towards utility, and he hadn’t delved as deep as he could have. The enchanted marbles in his pouch were an example of how far he had to go. As for his powers, had he ever used Cleave? It was a level 2 melee attack that should be on par with what Tak could do, combine that with an enchanted sword or ax and it might be as good as an exploding Scatter Shot. Only, he’d been too content to sit back and use his various crossbows.
As Daniel drifted off, he promised himself he’d get so strong that when Hunter did return, the ringcat would have to push himself to catch up.
…
Daniel had been sleeping past dawn as of late, waking only to silence the alarm that was Empathic Bond resetting to moderate intensity. A similar feeling treacherously made him believe this had happened again, only for his discouragement to be met with an innate sense of danger. Daniel immediately pulled his phone out of his bag as Khare watched from where they’d been posted by the door.
----------------------------------------
System Alert: The System Collapse rule set has been implemented following the most recent System Reset. The following Effects are now active.
• Crest Suppression of active Spokes will decrease dramatically. This effect is significantly lessened based on the number of adjacent spokes, and spokes completely surrounded by others will not have their suppression decay while they are surrounded.
• The intensity of Godpowers: Spoke will decay at a rate equivalent to the decline in crest suppression
• Godseed development is blocked while system collapse is active. Currently germinating godseeds will fail in one month.
• Locational limits of Monster Spawning removed.
• Advancement Potential awardance adjusted.
• Advancement Wall thresholds relaxed. This effect inversely scales with the degree of Crest Suppression still active.
-
System Alert: Unable to locate a quorum of Entity: Gods bound to Domains of ??? during the most recent System Reset. ??? will revert to its backup version. The following changes have been made.
• Domain: Astral has been reintegrated. This will affect Class and Power Awakening, as well as Monster Spawning.
• Classes, Monsters, and Powers affected by Restricted Access may be unlocked, depending on whether the restriction was incorporated into the backup version of ???
• Bond Suppression of Creatures affected by ??? has been lowered to its baseline state.
• Domains that are unattended by their Gods will behave as determined by the default version of ???.
-
System Alert: System Hub is currently exposed due to failure to locate a quorum of Gods. Direct manipulation of ??? by external Entities is possible until a quorum is reached.
----------------------------------------
I shouldn’t be seeing this, Daniel immediately thought, and his breath caught as his mind shot ahead and reached a conclusion. Is Torch dead? He knew that Earth-Daniel had been screening his notifications, and it seemed with the loss of Bridge Space that had changed. Either he’d unlocked a new set of alerts, or Earth-Daniel had been painstakingly removing the ‘system’ part of each alert. He guessed that was the case as otherwise, he might have figured out something else about this world earlier on.
His theory about Torch was from the times they had proven to be able to affect what he knew, both by revealing a notification they’d previously blocked, and by directly transmitting knowledge about the lake monster to him. It seemed that the doomsday kicked off by the Thormundz falling was now fully in action. I can’t believe it. Did the Spiritualists manage to kill a god? Wait, no, not just one.
The alert mentioned that the system hadn’t been able to find a quorum of gods. At least four were dead. Letting the Tyrant know about this was out of the question. They couldn’t read his phone, and if he shared his suspicions they’d call him a blasphemer and have Rorshawd roast him alive. No, the Tyrant was already preparing for a last stand in Aughal, telling them this information wouldn’t change much.
“Trouble?” Khare asked, no doubt noticing how his hands had tightened on his phone.
“Yeah. We need to get out of here, but I have to wait for the Tyrant to bring everyone they promised to.”
Daniel spent some time trying and failing to make replicas of the marbles he had in his bag, too awake from the slightly terrifying notification to get more rest. Seeing that the small metal balls were stable was a relief, at least.
He’d balked at combining the lightning affix with spineshard ammunition as a base item as he wasn’t sure if the affix would make the item count as charged and be more liable to explode, or detonate outright. Hunter’s maiming in the Thormundz had made him too afraid to try before. The main reason, though, was that he struggled to enchant even the marble-sized ammunition with the affix already on it without using higher level material.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
With the rest of his heliorite gone, Daniel was down to using bone fragments of level 2 creatures. That required the bonecut affix to use since the material wasn’t magical in and of itself. Crafting level 1 ammunition with the second level material was within his capabilities, having put some effort into training his enchantment. Not enough, though, as adding the lightning affix would require second level enchanting to gain an extra affix slot. Without the level disparity working for him, the image of the simple ammunition slipped out of his head around a minute after he started every time.
The obstacle didn’t feel insurmountable, but Daniel would be limited to the amount of destructive balls he’d already crafted in case things got complicated. His newfound conviction wasn’t enough to solve his shortcomings alone. That left him without any real weapons since his arm bows had been destroyed in the fight at the Eye. “Khare, can I get a sword?”
“Blade?” Khare reached inside themself and pulled a shortsword out.
“You can put it on my tab,” Daniel replied, a grin on his face. He still would have liked a crossbow, though Khare didn’t use them, and he had no intention of taking one of Khare’s best ranged weapons considering he could barely aim a normal bow. His shotgun feathers could suffice, although they couldn’t be affected by Scatter Shot since Grow Feathers was also a spell.
With the sword at his side and the blast marbles, as he quickly christened them, within reach, Daniel felt ready for a war. “Come on, Khare. Let’s go.”
“Depart?”
“No, but I’m not sitting around waiting for the next person to tell me where to go.” Daniel opened the door and saw the head of someone standing further down the hallway snap up. “Come on, I’ve got this.”
“Trepidation,” Khare replied, though they followed.
“Hey! You need to stay here for now,” a level 2 shouted over as Daniel walked away from them. “You, hey! Stop!”
“Do you know what’s going on?” Daniel asked, still moving in a random direction like he knew where he was going.
“The Tyr- the Saint wants you kept here for now.” The man backed up a step as Daniel stopped and turned around. “That’s all I know.”
“How long am I supposed to wait?”
“I don’t know, man. Take it from me, you don’t get on their bad side and make it out the other end. I don’t think having one of them with you would make a difference.” His eyes flicked to Khare and any sympathy Daniel might have had for the hunter crushed by the machine that was the new government faded.
“I’m going to the courtyard,” Daniel replied as if that had been his plan all along. “I heard a few people died here and I want to make sure the people I know are still ok.” His hands didn’t tremble once as he blatantly lied. “Look, follow me if you want, Gavon, but you’re not stopping me.”
The Martialist was left behind for a few seconds as they stumbled over their words. “Wait, how did you-“
…
Daniel walked out to the interior courtyard of the guild and froze as every eye turned on him. He wondered if this was the best idea but committed, even as he saw one person in particular with smoky eyes. Famar, as the overlapped auras indicated. It wasn’t like anything he’d ever seen as two names, the man’s and Ashier’s, projected from the same stark gray aura.
He steadily identified everyone visible, taking three times as long as Hunter would have. Everyone he’d mentioned to the Tyrant yesterday was there, even Willow. She looked rougher than when he’d last seen her at the Sun Spire landing, but considering what she’d been through, there was a way she held herself that told him it hadn’t broken her. It also meant that Ashier either didn’t know she was part of the group that tried to destroy the region’s Spoke, or the air gestalt had some mercy in them. Silora was conscious as well and sat at the restaurant that opened into the courtyard, steadily drinking from a variety of containers around her.
He’d interrupted some kind of conversation between Ashier, Gtoll, Gordon and Qess of Farthest Run, as well as a handful of Clerics from different churches. Khiat was standing under the shade provided by awnings that had been stretched over the gap between the roofs, and Thomas was at a distance from Silora but the closest of his friends to her. He shot Daniel a wild gaze that was difficult to interrupt, though the Fate factored into it as his eyes flashed to her.
Rorshawd was nowhere in sight, and the aura Daniel had had on him had disappeared after he’d gone to sleep. Even without the dragon’s presence, Daniel found his confidence slipping slightly against the larger crowd. He was outnumbered and outgunned without any experience to back up his bravado. Daniel called upon Hunter’s echo again and puffed out his chest.
“Daniel, what’s going on?” Thomas asked as he went to him first.
“I’m getting us out of here.”
“What if I don’t want to go!?” Thomas whispered fiercely and then gestured to someone at the bar a few seats from Silora. “What did you do?”
“I told them I was leaving and who I wanted to go with me.”
“You told them to get me and her? Daniel, gods, do you know what you’re doing?”
“If I just rolled over, we’d all be stuck here and you’d get yourself killed.” He didn’t elaborate on that as both knew what he was talking about. “What about Quala? Do you want her coming here to find you after she hears what happened?”
“So we leave everyone here to them?” Thomas gritted his teeth but otherwise kept his body language outwardly calm. “They’re evil!”
“We might need them. Something changed this morning,” Daniel quickly added. “Another Collapse has started. That might be what they’re talking about, but I have no idea how-“ He stopped talking as Thomas turned around and walked towards the bar. “What are you doing?”
“I don’t even know if you’re really Daniel,” Thomas shot back, hostility entering his voice. “You show back up after a god takes you, people say you were throwing around real lightning, and after everything you’ve told me and everything you’ve done?” Thomas shook his head. “Why are you talking to me? It’s not like you’ve listened to anything I’ve said.”
“Approach, Daniel Brant,” the Proxy called over to him, stopping Daniel from following his friend. The use of his last name caught him by surprise until he realized Rorshawd could have just told Ashier what it was. Whether he’d told them anything else about him, and whether they’d believed it, wasn’t obvious. “It seems you have saved us some time, coming here unprompted.”
Daniel dragged himself through the sand of the courtyard, feeling every eye on him once more. “Are you going to let me go?”
The Tyrant carefully appraised him and seemed to gleam something. “You were warned as well. A time of great peril is upon us.”
“Yeah,” Daniel said simply. “You seem like you have this region covered.”
“Perhaps, but what you propose is reckless. You will be exposed for a week at least getting to the border, and you will be taking valuable people with you. The city as it is, I can’t afford to send anyone to guard you as they would be exposed on the way back.”
Or they’d just go to Threst too, Daniel thought. “So what are you saying?”
“You lost the majority of your team during the siege, and by all accounts, you supported them, not the other way around. The Hunting Guild logbook notes ‘Evalyn Lasial’ as leader of Wings of Craft.” Ashier used Famar’s hand to close their journal dramatically. “I lack confidence in your ability to survive the desert.”
“Ask Rorshawd who shot out his eye. I can take care of myself.”
“I have indeed asked for those details. There were more shielding you in that struggle.” Ashier nodded to those around them, and the Clerics and Farthest Run stepped towards the sides of the building. Gordon gave him an uneasy look but didn’t say anything. Ashier gestured towards Gtoll when they stood alone in the center of the courtyard. “I have also heard two of your fallen team members fought against my new Commander. It seems he is adept at assessing combat strength, at least amongst the duskers. If you want your freedom, you’ll find him standing in your way.”
Gtoll towered over Daniel. The Berserker was like Kob in that their natural size had outstripped the average of their race. It was probably a power from the class, and if so it made Gtoll as imposing as Kob too. The giant looked down on Daniel without any aggression. “You would be safe here. You can train here.”
“How do you expect my team to beat a level 5?” Daniel asked, the unfairness of the request evident in the strain of his voice.
“Not your team. Just you.” Ashier held out an arm to the assembled crowd. “Many saw you defeat the one commanding the siege, if not directly then by the storm you summoned. The gods have shown you favor. All I ask is you demonstrate that power again. Alleviate my concerns, and I have no issue with your departure.”
Can I do it? Daniel thought, sizing up Gtoll. The image of Kob superimposed onto the dusker’s, and the thought of four arms picking him up and tearing him apart with the strength to charge up a mountain made him shudder. Even the defiance in Hunter’s echo was guiding him to flee rather than fight this unwinnable battle. He still asked for more information, hoping there was some kind of Gadriel-clause on the duel. “This isn’t to the death, is it? How would this work?”
“You have Regeneration, as does Gtoll.”
Fuck.
“I am confident grievous injury can be healed after enough time. Otherwise, your only restriction would be that you remain here where I could help guide your development.” Ashier wasn’t talking like this was as impossible as it seemed to Daniel. In fact, if he could call down lightning, he’d say the fight was in his favor. The monsters of the Thormundz were a testament to the fact that natural lightning was far more powerful than the magically generated kind. The only problem was that he couldn’t do that anymore, and Ashier wouldn’t know that.
This was the perfect move the Tyrant could have made to find that out. Can I do this? Daniel asked himself again, looking around. Khiat was the only dusker here, he could blow up the tarp above him and- no, Gtoll had been standing in the sun on top of the Eye when he’d arrived. There was no way to get in a cheap kill, not that he wanted to end the Berserker anyway. Maybe I don’t have to win, he considered. I just need to show I’m strong enough and say the lightning powers are extremely costly to use.
“Ok.” Daniel turned and gestured to the side walls to Khare, who’d stuck by him.
“B-brutal.” There was the slightest hesitation in the creaking words that belied the fear.
Gtoll seemed surprised but not completely so. Ashier nodded when he checked, the Berserker then grabbing the ax off his back. The ax taller than Daniel. It could cut him in two no problem. “You are a ranged attacker. We will start at opposite ends.” Gtoll’s footsteps thundered as everything suddenly sped up. Daniel was stuck in place, the reality of what he’d talked himself into catching up to him. What was he doing?
No cages, he thought, though it was almost like how Hunter thought to him while possessing his body. He probed that part of his mind hoping it had grown or shown any sign of changing, but it was still the static, frozen image influenced by the last moments of his friend’s life. Daniel grabbed three of the blast marbles from his pouch and Grew Feathers across his arms, drawing immediate interest from the avianoids in the crowd. The ability was distinct from Grow Wings in that the basic shape of his arm didn’t change, and they all nodded when it became clear he hadn’t appropriated their racial power somehow.
He closed his hand over the marbles and tried using Scatter Shot on all of them, but felt the mana flow to just one. At the far end of the courtyard, Daniel observed everyone else moving into doorways or side areas, clearing out the main space. Khiat was looking between him and Gtoll, the chitin of her face almost drooping at the sight. Thomas sat at the bar and looked on distantly, arms crossed except when he took a drink. Four seats over, Silora wasn’t paying any attention. Finally, Willow looked from out of the crowd, whatever was in her eyes escaping Daniel’s ability to define.
There were about a hundred meters between the giant and Daniel, far longer than he would be able to throw the marble. His feathers wouldn’t be as effective at this range either, especially considering how defensive his opponent was. He just leveled, Daniel thought, mind still working on overdrive to find any chance of victory. Berserkers have an advancement penalty to dexterity, so that’s probably his weakest attribute. He’s smart, and I doubt he has more than one degree of level disparity, but it should be there. If Lograve at the start of level 4 had struggled to advance once per day, it was unlikely this dusker had managed to get all of his attributes to 50 even if they’d been at 49 the night he’d fought Tak and Hunter.
“Begin, or I will,” Gtoll intoned from across the courtyard. “You may surrender at any time.”
As Daniel considered the offer as a creeping sense of helplessness closed over him, preventing his legs from moving. In the next moment, he was bearing his teeth in a fury he couldn’t explain, other than it was an abject refusal at being trapped again. How many times had he been kidnapped in this city? It wasn’t going to happen again. If I have to go through you to get Hunter back, then I will. He looked at his hand which was uncovered by feathers and changed it for just a moment, making his arm appear completely avian. I’m getting you back Hunter. Whatever it takes.
Daniel gave one last look at the Tyrant now floating up in the air in their true form like an emperor over a colosseum. Steeling himself, he Jumped forward and committed himself to the fight.