GRIFFIN TUCKER VASILIAS, GREAT HOUSE SCION, REBORN LVL 5
PROVINCE OF ARAGONIA WILDERNESS
Suddenly freed from the nightmarish burning chains of Brutus Bardoul, Griffin did his best to compartmentalize the pain and terror he’d just suffered and not flake out. Jessaline had said something. Something important.
She repeated herself, “Come on, Scion! Move your ass!” Then she started moving again. Griffin shoved his questions aside for the moment and followed Jessaline as quickly and quietly as he could.
Kismet was feeding him a constant stream of information to him through his HUD as they hurried through the forest. “The one who captured you was an Undying Wolf Demon,” she said, her tiny chibi-style avatar looking quite serious for as she spoke. “That’s a transformation-style Barbarian Class with a bit of demonic influence—and a powerful one: Ivory level 12! It’s a rare Class because the upgrade requirements are so brutal—Overcharge your DEEP Suit again please, I need to keep up repairs—and when I say brutal, I mean it in every sense of the word. Those grafts of his have some truly gruesome requirements for their upgrades,” she sounded disgusted. “It’s hard to believe anyone would willingly subject themselves to that kind of…well, I must intuit that anyone who would choose the Undying Wolf Demon Class is going to have suspect morals.”
“Good to know the asshole who tied me up in burning hot chains has suspect morals!” Griffin said sarcastically, then shut his mouth and concentrated on moving.
Griffin and Jessaline dashed through the forest, ducking and dodging around low-hanging branches or leaping over little folds in the mountainside. He used his Overcharge racial ability to dump most of the tensa he’d managed to collect in their wild dash into his DEEP Suit again and Kismet started directing the repairs once more.
Jessaline never let his hand go, keeping her Web of Shadows stealth graft active at all times. Once, Griffin heard a loud snuffling from just a few meters away in a shadowed tangle of brambles, and Jessaline and he had held their breath to be silent until whatever it was left. The snuffling repeated, with an accompanying deep growl that had Griffin wanting to let go of Jessaline’s hand and dash off into the woods as far as he could get away from it. She must’ve sensed his fear, because her hand clamped down on his with vicelike force and her eyes bored into his, pinning him to the ground.
“The Undying Wolf Demon is part of a minor House of the Empire,” Kismet continued, her voice doing just as much as Jessaline to ground him, “though I don’t know why there’s enmity between House Vasilias and his House. The politics between Imperial nobility is complex to put it lightly. Untangling the feuds, alliances, and blood enemies is the work of several lifetimes.”
The snuffling and growling noises from the woods grew fainter. Twigs snapped and branches cracked as a large presence moved nearby. They were still, enveloped by Jessaline’s Web of Shadows. Griffin hoped it would be enough because that thing could walk away from a point-blank particle cannon blast.
Maybe that’s why they call it an “Undying” Wolf Demon, Griffin thought, mind wandering despite his intense terror. How do you get to be an Undying anything? Whatever it is, that’s what I want. This mortality bullshit is for suckers. After several minutes, Jessaline finally allowed them to move again, still under the Web of Shadows and they resumed their quiet run through the woods.
Griffin didn’t dare ask where they were going or how long it would take, but he wondered all the same. At this rate, they’d be getting to the outlying areas of Heldon within…he brought up the maps in his DEEP Suit’s HUD and saw that they’d likely break out of the woods and into civilization any minute now. It made him want to pick up the pace, crowding up by Jessaline and even trying to take the lead, but she clamped down on his hand again and he decided against it.
“We’re about to head into that town, Griffin,” Kismet said, her voice quieter, concern tinging her tone. “You’re not ready for Imperial society yet, but it’s too late now. I know you saw Sarah’s status change you see her location. Now all you want to do is go and find her, and I truly understand your urge, but you’ve become the object of a powerful House’s machinations. Your best course of action may be to trust Sarah to make it on her own. Your political value means there’s no way House Vasilias would willingly allow you to leave their custody.”
Jessaline slowed their pace to a cautious walk as they approached the edge of the forest only a few meters away. Griffin could make out lights from the town glittering through the branches ahead. Those lights caught his imagination and he nearly broke cover just to go see them a little more clearly. He almost missed the child-sized drone flying silently through the woods, just at head height.
At first, Griffin couldn’t tell if the thing was an animal or a machine. It was made of a strange, silvery metal that shimmered as it flew by. Its sleek, biological hull was designed to mimic a cephalopod with pale blue lights along a raised lateral line. It stayed carefully behind the tree line, gliding slowly and silently like a metallic squid swimming through the air. Griffin couldn’t see any weapons on it, but Jessaline pulled out her enormous sniper rifle and sighted down the scope.
“When I say ‘run’,” she whispered and the drone stopped, turning toward them instantaneously, “run out of the woods.”
She took one deep breath and Griffin tensed.
“Run!” She hissed and in the next breath, pulled the trigger.
The drone exploded with a flash of silver light and a thunderous BOOM and Griffin took off sprinting as fast as he could. Another drone came zipping out of the forest from his left arrowing straight toward him. A half second later, the drone exploded in another silver flash, and BOOM, the shockwave from the explosion made him stumble and bounce off a tree trunk. He broke through the tree line and into the open a moment later.
He kept sprinting and he heard three more explosions behind him as Jess sniped more drones as they came for him. Once those were gone, no more drones appeared in the forest and Jessaline broke cover, running out of the forest to catch up with Griffin who was still running. She was in much better shape than he was and her Attributes were much higher than his so she was able to easily overtake him in their run.
At some point, their surroundings subtly changed. Griffin felt an odd tightening around his anima—nothing uncomfortable, but it was noticeable. Jessaline looked over her shoulder and waved at Griffin.
“We’re within the Town Border here,” she said, “we can slow down now!” She grabbed his shoulder and hauled him back, slowing him by physically restraining him.
Griffin stumbled to a stop, only staying upright because Jessaline was holding him up. He gasped for breath, winded after the third wild dash of the night. “I don’t…” he gasped, “think I’ve ever…run this…much…in my entire…life.”
He bent over, hands on his hips as he tried to get his wind back. He had a terrible stitch in his side that was making it hurt to breathe too deeply. Even his Attributes weren’t helping entirely.
Jessaline barked a disbelieving laugh, “Better not let Culvis hear you say that. He’ll have you running laps around town before you finish your first gasp! I can just hear him now, ‘The only cure for poor stamina is stamina-heavy exercise!’”
She laughed at her joke and said, “Come on, we still have a ways to go. Our rendezvous point is in town at a property House Vasilias owns. The others will get there on their own.”
“And that werewolf…monster won’t…hunt us in…town?” Griffin asked, still struggling to get his breath back.
“That werewolf is Brutus Bardoul,” she said grimly, “and even that brutal fuckwit wouldn’t be stupid enough to set foot inside the Town Border after just attacking a House Scion.” She chuckled darkly, “I honestly hope he does; I’d love seeing him get torn apart by the Guardians!”
She broke off abruptly, pulling out a Systablo from her Inventory and checking it with narrowed eyes. After a few seconds, she glanced up at Griffin and said, “Hold on here for a few minutes. I’ll be right back.”
Without waiting for a response, she started running back the way they’d come, disappearing quickly back into the woods on the mountainside. With shocking abruptness, Griffin was alone again. He looked around uneasily, sweat still streaming down his face and a terrible knot in his lower back making him wince.
“Where did she go?” He asked Kismet.
Her face in his HUD looked pensive. “Your Sensor Suite lost track of Jessaline Braedes almost immediately. She has stealth grafts and anima techniques designed to defeat a variety of detection methods.”
Griffin frowned, staring at the spot she’d melted into the forest, but not seeing it. Now that he was somewhat safe—or at least stopped for a while—he had to check. He brought up the System map in his HUD, staring at the little blinking spot that showed Sarah’s location.
She had moved. Not much, but it looked like she’d been walking or jogging, judging by the distance the map had recorded. She’d moved just a little over a kilometer in some of the most broken, harsh terrain he’d ever seen.
The place she was in was called the Cataclysm Mountains. That didn’t sound…great. He wondered just how the hell he was going to get there. It was a long way away. Maybe Xander and the rest would be willing to help him look for her.
His thoughts were interrupted by a loud BANG. It sounded like an explosion…or a gunshot. Griffin recalled the enormous sniper rifle Jessaline carried around with her all the time and shifted uneasily. Did it sound like that? What did it mean if she shot her rifle? He listened intently for another bang, but the forest was silent.
Several minutes later, Jessaline walked back out of the woods. Griffin narrowed his eyes, examining her minutely. She was much like she had been earlier: stressed but confident. There was a tightness around her eyes that hadn’t been there before, but that didn’t seem strange.
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“Did you…” he cleared his throat and tried again. “Did you, um, shoot at something? Earlier?”
She cocked an eyebrow at him and shrugged. “I shot at a lot of things recently,” she said flatly. “Like those drones you barely escaped from. Or was this a different time?”
Griffin shrugged uncomfortably and shook his head, “Never mind. I just thought I heard…a bang. Earlier. Like just a few minutes ago while you were off in the woods.”
“Oh that,” Jessaline said. Her voice still didn’t have any emotional inflection in it. “I was…scaring off a monster.”
“Scaring off a monster?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.” Griffin paused for a while. Jessaline stared at him for a long moment, then brushed past him.
“Come on. Let’s get going,” she called back over her shoulder.
Griffin paused for a moment, looking back anxiously at the woods, and then he shuddered and jogged after Jessaline. What he’d seen had given him plenty of reason to be nervous.
A section of the mountainside was glowing with orange light with a plume of smoke rising like a banner and Griffin realized that’s where he’d just run from. A final hideous howl echoed down the mountainside, but it was a long way away now. They both paused, tense with waiting, but it never repeated. Jessaline briefly looked back over her shoulder—he couldn’t tell if she was looking back at him or back at the woods—and started walking again.
A minute later, they crested a small hill, and below them, Griffin saw a paved road. It was such a startling and mundane thing to see: a blacktop road, complete with street lamps. The sight gave him a weird sense of déjà-vu for a world that he’d never see again; an out-of-body, in-body experience.
The feeling faded quickly as he got a closer look. It wasn’t the same: the road material was hard and stone-like, but it seemed oddly manufactured or created. There were no seams, it just stretched on and on, one solid piece raised slightly above the level of the ground. The street lamps weren’t lamps as he recognized them: they were hovering, decorative brass sculptures of fantastical beasts, each clutching or biting or holding an orb that emitted bright yellow-orange light.
Griffin and Jessaline set off down the road toward town, setting a quick walking pace. They were both tired and emotionally drained, so they kept quiet as they walked. Kismet was hovering several meters above keeping a watch out for anything suspicious or hostile. Griffin brought up the System messages he had ignored during the wild run down the mountainside.
Achievement Gained!
More Than a Scratch
Description: Cause significant damage to a monster or Reborn 2 or more ranks above you.
Reward: Attribute increase! Dominion [Ocean] +3
Achievement Gained!
A Timely Escape
Description: Escape from a binding graft or power from an enemy 2 or more ranks above you.
Reward: [Perfect Heat Sink] graft synergy for graft DEEP Suit
AbsolutZer0 Heat Sink (DEEP Suit synergy with Adaptive Conjuration)
Description: Your DEEP Suit has recently been subjected to extreme heat from a heat source at least 2 ranks above yours, taking extreme damage in the process. In response, the DEEP Suit’s Dynamic Environment Processor has synergized with your Adaptive Conjuration graft and created an infused heat sink called the AbsolutZer0. The heat is stored in the AbsolutZer0, giving the feeling of comfortable air conditioning in even the most extreme heat environments.
Spend 10 kilosparks to conjure the AbsolutZer0 heat sink. The AbsolutZer0 can function in environments up to 5000° C.
Griffin carefully read over the synergy a few times, marveling at the incredible adaptability of his DEEP Suit graft. He remembered reading somewhere that the surface of the Sun was about 5000° C and wondered nervously why the hell the System felt the need to specify a limit that was so insanely high. It seemed to imply that there would be situations where he might be somewhere that was hotter than the surface of the Sun and that was more than a little disturbing. He decided he’d be grateful for the synergy for now—the A/C was a nice touch—and brood about the implications later.
Griffin thought about it for a few moments, then decided it was better to have the heat sink than not, especially because he could just refill his tensa pool once he’d spent it. He also went ahead and spent the 10 kilosparks to conjure the AbsolutZer0 heat sink, after which he immediately reconfigured his anima into his gathering configuration to refill his spent tensa. He was never going to feel the stomach-churning agony of tensa deprivation again if he could do anything about it.
As he spent the tensa—a whopping near-third of his total tensa pool—he noticed the DEEP Suit changed its appearance. Where it had been grey before, it now turned a cool blue with silver and white accents. He had to laugh. It was like getting a new Mega Man suit of armor, complete with elemental-style powers. All he had to do was endure torturous heat and pain for a time. Then again, he supposed that his only reward for enduring such things could have just been death or maiming. On the whole, he decided getting a magical air conditioner plus a complete glow-up was a major improvement.
Curious about what his Attributes and tensa pool looked like now, he pulled up his System profile.
Griffin Tucker Vasilias
Race
Human
Rank/Level
Reborn - level 5
House
House Vasilias
Racial Gifts
Great House Seal, Enhanced System Access, Unlimited Inventory, Monster Rendering, DEMI Port, Overcharge
Attributes
Dominion
15 [Ocean] / 20
Speed
14 [Data] /20
Precision
9 [Void] / 20
Growth
14 [Void] /20
Arcana
17 [Mind] /20
Tensa Pool
35.7 ks
Gear
[Inventory collapsed due to space constraints]
Grafts
Adaptive Conjuration [Mind], Sensor Suite [Speed], Dread Consumption [Void], Reality Twine [Void], DEEP Suit [Ocean]
He noted that he was getting nearly to 20—the max—in a couple of his Attributes, particularly Dominion and Arcana. The last System message he looked at was one in his message history. The one that had caused his mad dash down the mountainside.
System Message History
6E-5GA-IR20192*11-3 20:08:19.083: Custom Alert! Scion Sarah Avery Vasilias has re-entered reality and has emerged at the last point she entered. Would you like to mark the place on your map?
Yes Selected
He switched over to his System maps, looking at the little dot on the map with the label “Sarah Avery Vasilias UR5”. Kismet had provided a helpful little tooltip under “UR5” which looked like a little cartoonish version of her—a kind of chibi Kismet—and held up a little sign that read, “UR5 means Sarah is an UnRanked Reborn of Level 5!”
The dot was nestled in some rough-looking terrain, though there were only patchy details and most of the map in that area had big, black, “Unknown” region markers splashed all over it. It was a mountain range that was almost entirely unexplored. For fun, he plotted a path from his current location to Sarah. Another chibi Kismet popped up and drew a dotted line from Sarah to Griffin with a big purple crayon. She tapped her chin in thought, then wrote out 1744 km in purple below the dotted line.
Two thousand kilometers…holy shit. That’s a long way away. I somehow doubt I can buy an airplane ticket to the unknown mountains, he thought.
With a surge of tensa, he used his Adaptive Conjuration graft to create his phone from back home. Well. It didn’t turn on. It was the right size and weight, though it was pretty much a solid block of black glass. He snorted with a dry laugh, shaking his head at the useless thing. He saw his helmeted face reflected in the ‘screen’. He’d been getting better, but not quite making a smartphone good.
I look both badass and ridiculous. Like a Power Ranger or the Guyver, he thought. How has my life become…whatever it’s become? It’s hard to imagine that anyone here needs help with single sign-on issues for their cloud computing solution, so I hope this Great House Scion gig pays well. And that I never have to fight a horrifying monster again. Somehow, he doubted that he’d get his wish.
Within a few minutes of walking on the strange road, Kismet warned them of a vehicle approaching. Jessaline decided to flag it down since they were now firmly within the Town Border and deep in House Vasilias' territory. The vehicle proved to be a huge semi-truck-like vehicle.
The trailer had two floors like a double-decker bus from London with windows through which they could see fat black birds that looked not dissimilar from chickens roosting in large cages. The cab was sleek and colored a bright, fire-engine red with a distinctive stylized bird logo stenciled on the door.
Sitting in the driver’s seat (or at least what looked to Griffin like the driver’s seat) with his elbow hanging out and long blue tongue flicking out from time to time was a sunset-colored, reptilian humanoid with bright yellow eyes; its head looked like a monitor lizard’s head with more animated lips and facial muscles. Perched atop its head was—and Griffin did a double take when he saw it—a dirty green and white trucker’s hat, complete with the same bird logo from the outside of his truck printed on it.
When they approached the cab, the reptilian creature waved with one hand and nodded to them, then scratched at the back of his head with long talons and said, “Hey there, wow! What are you doing out in the middle of nowhere? Don’t you know it’s dangerous out here? By the Clutch, you two look terrible!”
His voice reedy and nasally as words tripped over themselves coming out of his mouth, “And believe me, I know what terrible is! Name’s Kip, and you’re bug-lucky to meet me here on a night like this! Did you two come from the Wilds? Shouldn’t go into the Wilds—I had a cousin who went into the Wilds—Yens was always a little cold in the brain if you know what I mean—but he went out there and lost his tail twice. Twice!”
He chuckled and shook his head disbelievingly, “Now if that’s not an object lesson on common sense, I don’t know what is!” He flicked his tongue out, barely pausing in the torrent of words, “But I guess you two can handle yourselves, judging by the hardware you’re totin’. Still, you look a long way from home and a hot bath short of a rosy smell, if you know what I mean. But who’m I to judge? I imagine I smell like oppa shit and feathers most of the time but I went tongue-blind ages ago.
“Oh hey, that reminds me, if you need a ride into Heldon you’re more than welcome to hop in the back with the hens; ‘fraid there’s not enough room here in the cab. Ms. Frisby here sits up front, on account of her delicate constitution.”
Kip leaned over to the passenger seat and picked up a wooden cage with a fat black bird that had a shockingly blue head and a dark orange beak. It flapped its wings desultorily, making an irritated squawk.
He never stopped talking, “I’m heading into town here, just hauling some oppa hens, so really the only thing you’ll need to watch out for is flying feathers.” He took a brief breath in the middle of the torrent of words and a few tiny dark feathers drifted out of the window.