As usual I woke up in a cold sweat, some things you simply cannot forget or get over. The alarm on the iris had long activated but did not wake me from my nightmare, this was a rare occurrence as usually the smallest noise would wake me nightmare or not. In the end I figured that yesterdays loss of control was the reason for it, yes yesterday as a whopping thirteen hours of sleep had passed and it was currently one a.m. in the morning. I noticed two notifications in the Iris's side menu, opening one I found it was from the Captain to the whole squad.
Mission notification:
Contract type: Misc.
Employer: Buck Leg, ThunderBird Keeper.
Region of interest: Destora outskirts.
Description: ThunderBirds acting strangely and aggressively, requiring assistance in finding the problem and possibly controlling a pack outburst.
Debrief time: 7:00 am 5/9/2061
Payment after tax reduction: 14,999 Kel
The mission was a decent start for new comers due to the payment and type, you never know what can happen on a Misc. mission. This might be dull or interesting depending on the outcome, we still had a week until the survey mission so it was probably normal to take on short contracts while waiting. The second notification was what brought me back to reality.
System Notification: Outfit Delta leadership and permission changes.
Outfit Leader: Reas Castell
Deputy Leader: Kale Lious
Platoon command authorisation: Matthew Anderson
Desc: Due to the demotion and resignation of Ex-Outfit Leader Raij Tonitrui leadership changes have taken effect, squads effected by this change such as Houghes Squad will be given a member from the spare recruits.
With Raij's resignation came multiple changes, the largest one was Kale's removal from our squad to be made Deputy and the arrival of a new squad member from the spare recruits. The spare recruits are members of the E.A still under training and not fully authorised for squad joining or unable due to there being no openings. Also my "acquisition" of the platoon leader title, a title given to multiple members in an outfit that the leaders see fit for the position but what I really did not want to deal with was the outcome from yesterdays outburst. The others were shaken by what I said although CEO Zaexar and Leader Reas were unfazed, I don't know how they will continue to react or if they will even address me at all today. This was just another thing I wasn't used to doing correctly, socialising...All I can hope for is for a plan to form in my mind on how to repair my relations with my squad members. After gathering my thoughts I got off my bed and took a shower, putting on another of the same uniform I exited my dorm room then the dorm itself after a short walk and a couple turns. Checking the time it was still two a.m. so I had four hours, you would think that there would be a schedule of when members are allowed to move around the facility but this being a mercenary group schedules were impossible to form for everyone and were left to the person to make for themselves depending on their missions and contracts. The security as it is, is enough to keep every living thing within under control.
At first I thought of heading to the 52nd training room and continue practising with Ember and Wayne to see if I was still able of fully using them but in the end decided against it. Instead I explored something I meant to check the day before, in my head I thought ("There is no way they actually take all those stairs with a teleportation system installed.") and after some messing around with the Iris and the panel controls found on each floor I discovered something interesting and enraging. The panel controls held a ranking system just like the iris which gave different options to different ranking members, each rank increased your permissions and as of now recruits were a rank under members and as I was a platoon leader I had the same permissions a squad leader would have. So as any sane person would have I activated my permissions for teleporter use and did the same for Ell and Anabel, I figured it would help in sewing what ever scars I left the day before. Of course I figured Zeaxar would get a prompt of my actions but I decided to deal with that when it faced me, repairing relations with comrades was more important than some freshman rites. Doing that took around an hour of messing with the menus and possible console reading...so I still had three hours before the debriefing for the mission, where I would have to finally face everyone again. Thinking it over for a bit I decided to do research for the mission, mainly on these "thunderbirds" and what could possibly make them react aggressively towards their keeper.
After looking through the base's map on my Iris I found the library and figured that one could directly use the teleportation system from the map, selecting the floor I then selected the teleportation option which required me to step close to a control panel and in doing so the teleportation activated sending me around forty floors up. The room looked simple enough, corridors of book shelves lined in front of me just as any other library would and eight large tables with chairs stood to my right while a reception area stood to my left but when I moved close to the reception which was a smaller room with a window and a door into the library I noticed that the librarians weren't currently there. It was three in the morning after all so this wasn't strange at all, what was strange was when I walked over to the book shelves and looked down the rows I couldn't see the end and that wasn't an understatement. For a sight as the one that presented itself to me to be possible it required a lot more space than a normal floor would give, the floors were massive but not this massive. I stepped back and read what each corridor was divided into, there were seven sections being; Beasts, Magics, Geography, History, Inventions, Reports and Biography. When I began walking into the beasts section a window prompt appeared out of my Iris.
Welcome to the Edge Alpha archive and library, please utilise this window for book searching and you shall be teleported to said book within the library. When said book is gained you may select the teleport back option you will be prompted with to return to your previous spot or select the lobby option to teleport back to the lobby.
Warning: You will not be able to leave or teleport out of the library while holding a book/report that is unsealed by the librarian. Teleportations will be blocked and a barrier will stop you from leaving the floor.
"Someone is incredibly paranoid about some books..." I thought out loud to myself.
"Well they aren't just some books, some are precious biographies and others are important reports and documents." A raspy voice said from behind me, which in turn made me jump and spin like prey being found out. The owner of the voice was a tall and old Elf, a High Elf to be more precise as they held a very noticeable height difference from their shorter cousins. He had long brown hair with strands of white showing his age and red fierce eyes observing my every move, he wore a uniform similar to mine but with some differences. He had two badges I did not recognise, one was an open book with runic inscriptions flowing out of it and the other was completely different from the title badges the company gave out. It was made of pure crystals with the design of a black dragon facing the left while a grey wolf faced the right, giving each other their backs while sitting. "Ah..Please excuse my manners, I am the librarian here. You must be one of the new recruits?" the elf forwarded his hand for me to shake.
I did and then introduced myself "Yes I am, Matthew."
"Loke , Pleased to make your acquaintance. Forgive my inquisition but might you be the new platoon leader candidate?" With that question it occurred to me that everyone must have gotten the notification.
I sighed "..Yes I am..." I wasn't looking forward to leading but I was given no other choice.
He stared down at me for a bit, a glint in his eyes caught my attention but this was different than the one I saw in Zaexar. "That old demon back to his usual antics...Ah forget my ranting...Were you looking for a book on beasts I presume?" He looks down the unending corridor with a deep-in-thought expression.
"Indeed I was, I require information of ThunderBird behaviour. My next mission might req..." Before I could finish my sentence I felt a wind flow from behind me and glanced back, down the corridor of bookshelves I saw nothing but what stood there before and so I turned back only to find the librarian was gone. "What the..." I released my aura further than normal in search of his presence but found nothing, he was completely gone like he was never even there. Thinking back the memory of me shaking his hand became fuzzy until it changed to my hand just passing through his as we shook, that Elf wasn't on a different level than me but a completely different scale.At least I could detect Zeaxar's use and traces of magic but this librarian left none at all, none that I could sense anyway. Off the corner of my eye I noticed something different, over at one of the tables a book with a bookmark inside it sat over it while a smaller book sat next to it.
I walked over to the table and sat down, the larger book was titled; Feathered Beasts and their behaviour. I opened the book to where the bookmark was to find the Thunder Bird chapter, it listed their elements; Wind and Fire and their physiology along with recorded behaviours. The large birds were an evolved type of gryphon with a larger wingspan but weaker bone structure making them fragile to physical attacks, although having a sizeable list of attack patterns involving aerial bombardment or evasive dog fighting. What mainly caught my attention was the list of beasts they preyed on and those that preyed on them, it was a short list consisting of vegetation for their choice of food and three beasts that could prey on them; Direbeasts that attacked their nests, Mountain Wyverns that fought them for territory and food or River Wyverns that camped their nests to ambush them. Both these monster types had multiple variations of each other but only two types of Wyverns were listed pointing out that ThunderBirds have specific environmental needs, Direbeasts on the other hand could range from the tame and controllable Diresquirrels to feral and destructive Direbears or worse. The behaviour a Thunder Bird shows when faced with predators is very basic to most birdlike beasts, scattered away from anything not of their kind until the danger is located but it also said that they can be calmed down by trained keepers and some even trained to react more calmly.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
When I was done with that book I turned to the smaller book sitting to my right, it was a small black diary of sorts. Written on the front of it was; A Hero's Journal, Found and published by R.R The RuneLord. When I opened the book I found a page that was magically bound to the rest, it read as so;
The contents of this Journal may prove to be heart wrenching and unsafe for immature audiences, the contents have been presented as proof for approval by the Magi alliance. Within lay the actions and events as seen from the eyes of one of the Heroes of DarkGlade, the content is highly edited for privacy reasons by R.R but presents all events of importance to the "Human Assistance" movement.
Turning the page I could feel the magic set upon each page, magic to hide certain paragraphs or even whole pages of the journal. I went back to the original first page of the journal;
Author; W.S
Date; ?/9/2016
I found this very peculiar as the journal was using Earth's calendar but the date was before Humans even knew about Etyrians, this journal started forty five years ago meaning it was started thirty years before the third wave when the Etyrians first came to Earth. The Etyrians had agreed to use our calendar as they originated from our system and preferred it over their multitudes that ranged between each alliance. The alliances were three...well alliances of different races that aided each other and lived on the same continent together, the Magi alliance stated on the bound page is one of the three and was mainly led by the Elven races. The Heroes of DarkGlade on the other hand refers to the multiple warriors that fought on the front lines in the second wave thirty years ago, most of them died fighting the swarm of void monsters and one was even the reason why the Etyrians could even come to Earth in the first place. This one was the human the Atlantian race practically kidnapped and placed within Etyria, we still to this day not know what he did exactly but what we do know is that he disrupted multiple realms including ours and the Etyrian's allowing for tunnels to be opened more easily between them. He was literally the reason the human race survived, the Etyrians had many portals to the void and using those they waited thirty years for the void to target Earth and then struck from behind and assisted our survival. The name of this person was William Yesventis, Yesventis being the last name he took on after marrying the High Elf Queen. At first I thought he was the author of this journal but the initials were different and the writing was in Etyrian, specifically Elven with a High Elf "Dialect".
I was interested in reading the journal but when I checked the time I found out it was 6:50 a.m., I would run late if I did. I sighed and stood up but when I did I was prompted with another two windows from my Iris;
Feathered Beasts and their behaviour;
Return Book?
Unseal and rent?; Requires Librarian permission.
I selected return which made the book disappear from the table, I then moved on to the second notification.
W.S's Journal;
Return Book?
Unseal and rent? Librarian permission detected.
I stared at the second option for a couple seconds..."So that's how it is..." I selected Unseal and rent which changed the notification;
W.S's Journal rented; Please return within (Indefinite) time.
("Giving it to me? Now I'm really curious...") the thought of reading it on the way passed my mind but I pushed it away and headed to the control panel in the room, after opening the map on my Iris and selecting the floor I found myself with my back to the corridor taking to the 52nd training room.
"WHA...AHH!" only to be knocked down with a round house kick. "Oh my! I'm so sorry!" I slowly stood up while she helped me by pushing my back, when I was standing again I looked around to see Captain Carlos laughing his ass off while holding onto Jerrald "Carlos..." Jerrald just sighed. Looking behind me I see my aggressor being a dark blue haired Wood Elf with light blue eyes, she looked young but the power and agility of that kick caught even me off guard. She was also holding the journal I dropped "Here..Sorry about that..."she handed the book over."I'm alright..." ("I think she broke a rib") I straightened myself and saw that Lia, Ell and Anabel stood by the door to the training room. Turning around again I saw the Captain finally containing his amusement and walking over to me "Let's go inside..Hah..Have a lot to explain.." he wipes a tear off his face and walks towards the others with Jerrald and the Elf behind him, I follow them to the room. Lia was currently doing her best trying not to laugh but that didn't stop her from teasing "Good of you to drop by...Get a good kick out of that teleportation system?...". I sighed and glanced at Anabel face palming while Ell snickered behind them "Thanks for the teleportation permissions matt" they must have gotten a notification. The Captain, Jerrald , the Elf and Lia entered the training room followed by Ell and Anabel soon after she also thanked me "Yeah..Thanks...". After putting the journal away with the storage magic my gloves held I also entered the room.
"Everybody sit down, we've got some things to discuss." The Captain seemed to have calmed down and was standing next to the Elf, me and the others sat down. "Due to reasons you all know, our outfit required a new deputy and so Kale was selected for the position. Because of that we lost our first ranger, so Reas selected one of the older squads and gave us their second ranger and gave them a recruit." He turns to the Elf "Please introduce yourself." he steps forwards and sits down. Taking a closer look I see that she indeed has a bow strapped on her back but something less noticeable is the sets of daggers all over her uniform, a belt lined with throwing knives, hidden daggers in her sleeves and coat. I noticed all this from mostly experience and how she moved to keep them hidden, soldiers always kept weapons hidden in case of emergencies although they took them out almost too much. She began to introduce herself "My name is Leya Stesfal now first ranger of your squad, I was trained under Chief ranger Stesfal of the Wood Elf rangers and served in the second and third void waves. My proficiency is with thrown and ranged weaponry while I make use of knowledge as a beast tamer to deal with wild beasts and monsters." when she was done speaking I opened the search on my Iris and looked her up, she was B - [II] rank which is quiet high. To put it into better perspective Anabel is C [II] - [III], Ell is D [III] - C , Jerrald is C [III] - B , Lia is C [III] - B while the Captain is also C [III] - B and I am B [II] - [III] a tier higher than her. This means she was ranked as the second strongest on the squad and close to my strength, she was also probably older and was trained directly by the best ranger to live and one of the Heroes of DarkGlade.
In every regard this Wood Elf was a bad ass and someone I would appreciate having on my side of a fight, my mist form did not work on Wood Elves due to their better sight and hearing. After she was done introducing herself she moved to sit down while the captain got up "Alright now for the debriefing, as the notification I sent you all said this is a Miscellaneous contract and therefore we do not know what we might end up facing. The danger of facing Wyverns or even Direbeasts is very real, if we do the mission changes to extermination or pest control. With the addition of a beast tamer to our squad pest control becomes more of an option but that solely depends on what we may meet, the contract lasts for five days which I personally rather not meet the dead line..." He shivers slightly when remembering something, Lia, Jerrald and Leya seem to have the same reaction "We will be leaving in three hours with a caravan and gear, you have that much to prepare your equipment and get something to eat. Now there is also something else I wish to add." He looks at me "This is above all else a mercenary group." he looks at Anabel "We told each other our past to ensure loyalty to each other and trust, some of those stories may be more than some can handle but remember this; You aren't the one holding that on your back, they are. So respect them and continue on.". Multiple different expressions flowed through the group but everyone seemed to agree, including me and apparently Leya as well who I figured was debriefed on everyone's or even watched a recording for all I knew. Ell then suddenly got up and with a decisive expression and spoke "Alright! Let's all go eat together then!"
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Author: Can't keep down a glutton...and them easter eggs...hint...hint..remember to rate ;D!
Edited by; Birse, Author forgot to feed me please send help ;<