“The architecture was just incredible. Kyle, you wouldn’t believe how rare it is to visit a world in the frontier with such an emphasis on aesthetics.”
Benjamin was going on about their time walking through the ruins of Kyoto, and how he wished Kyle had seen it. Kyle, for his part, wished that they had just showed up to help deal with the damn spider, and he might have actually had time to enjoy it. Still, despite the tinge of annoyance, Kyle had to admit that Benjamin had a certain charm to him. He spoke with animation and passion, excitedly gesturing as he regaled the high points of the travels so far. The conversation stirred a question in Kyle.
“You were eager to talk about what’s next for me, though I have to say I’m much more curious about your next adventure. What do you plan on doing when you get back?”
Benjamin shrugged; an easy smile plastered across his face.
“Who knows? It’ll all depend on whatever type of contracts Corthian has lined up. If there’s something interesting we’ll go, otherwise we’ll probably head back to the family estates until an interesting opportunity pops up.”
“When you say family estates…?”
“We own a small moon – it’s where our headquarters and family housing is. Offices in a couple notable Collective cities, of course.”
“You mean to tell me you own a whole moon?”
“It’s a small one. Maybe a quarter the size of your planet. It sounds more impressive than it is.”
“But your family still owns it.”
“Well, yeah. We’re far from the biggest faction out there, but my great-grandmother is a monster, near the top of C Grade. I’ve got two uncles at C Grade as well, and a handful of cousins in the D Grade. For a group of humans running a mining operation, we’re doing pretty well.”
Kyle was quiet for a minute as he let that sink in. Themestra mentioned that Marcus Kulhavey had a whole manufacturing operation, and hearing about the extent of the wealth and influence of the Corthian Mining group had his gears turning. Just how powerful are C Grades? It was a question that had been fairly meaningless for most of his life, as even D Grades were incredibly rare. If having just a few was enough to carve out a niche like that, his whole sense of scale would have to change.
“I wouldn’t expect that just a handful of C Grades would be that big of a difference maker.”
Benjamin chuckled, a glint in his eye.
“You don’t know much about C Grades, do you? It’s a challenge to get a group of them aligned on anything.”
“Not that long after Earth awakened, we had seven of them. It just doesn’t seem like three C Grades should be powerful enough to claim a whole moon for themselves.”
This time, it was Duroc that spoke.
“It’s not rare to have a surge of powerful individuals come up after a planet awakens. The issue you run into with C Grades is how hard it is for them to progress. If D Grade is putting together a foundation, C Grade is building the entire structure. If everything doesn’t align, they stop moving forward.”
That made sense, at least to an extent. Earth didn’t have a lot of information about C Grade, and everything he could learn would be valuable.
“So if the issue is alignment, I’d imagine there are a lot of C Grades floating around, just very few working together?”
Duroc shrugged.
“I wouldn’t say there’s a lot – if only a small fraction of awakened have the potential to achieve D Grade, an even smaller fraction can make it to C. Otherwise, the alignment point is fair. Where I come from, C Grades get pushed out of their tribe to start their own for that exact reason. Warchiefs have to be able to make their own way.”
The orc had a faraway look in his beady eyes, and Kyle decided not to press the issue further. This was new information, and it built a framework for more questions another day. The conversation moved on, talking about Benjamin’s family estates and highlights from his other trips. Before Kyle knew it, he felt the gentle rattling as the shuttle began to descend. Benjamin stretched and stood as it landed, as Duroc and Skippy hurried to finish the last pancakes on the table.
“Where are we landing?” Kyle asked, realizing they hadn’t discussed it before.
“I wanted to see what your old capital looked like. You can tell a lot about a people by the way their leadership lived.”
As the group exited the shuttle, Kyle looked out at the ruins of what had been the sprawling city of Corwyn. From the sheer amount of crumbled concrete and broken glass, Kyle expected that they were near what had once been a series of high-rises or office buildings, all of which had been destroyed. It reminded him of the day his grandfather died, rubble as far as the eye could see. He stopped, taking it all in as he relived the memory. Even after all the time that had passed, it stung.
Stolen story; please report.
C.H.A.D.D.’s quiet voice broke him from his contemplation
[WE SHOULD CATCH UP, DR. MAYHEW.]
Skippy, Benjamin, and Duroc had already taken off, appearing to follow the coordinates on Benjamin’s nav bracelet. Kyle moved to follow them, when he got an idea. Mana flowed through his eyes as IDENTIFY sprang to life, and Kyle got his first real look at the D Grade awakened.
Similar to when he looked at the tree, Kyle could see flowing mana superimposed on the figures of Skippy and Duroc. The two of them were lit up like beacons, with the mana flowing through the skrell seeming to burn like a wildfire, while the orc’s was a smooth flowing stream, timeless as a river. What’s more, Kyle also got an impression of power from each. It wasn’t as clear as when Kyle looked at his own center in meditation, but he still got a feeling for their general attributes.
He was surprised to see how close he’d gotten to Skippy’s level, with the skrell’s overall power feeling fairly similar to his own. At the same time, Kyle also had a clear understanding that Skippy’s attributes and skills were all heavily combat-focused, while his own were more diverse. Duroc, by contrast, felt significantly stronger than Kyle expected. Thinking back to their sparring session, it was now clear to him that his porcine acquaintance had been holding back, and not by a little. Kyle couldn’t help but wonder if Skippy and Benjamin knew how wide the gap was.
Most interesting to him, however, was actually Benjamin himself. While the man didn’t give off any major impressions of power, Kyle could see the mana around him moving in interesting ways. His clothes themselves seemed to filter and push the ambient energy away, and there were locations in both of his side pockets that gave off a faint aura. Kyle wasn’t entirely sure what they were, but it only made sense that he’d have something up his sleeve in case things got bad – even with his security detail.
He felt the strain begin to build behind his eyes, and deactivated the skill. Already ADAPTIVE REGENERATION was at work repairing the minor damage, and Kyle felt pleased at the synergy developing between his skills. HASTE was at a point where it really didn’t strain his body anymore, and he was confident with time that IDENTIFY would get to the same place.
Catching up to the group, he saw them gathered around a site of crumbled marble. Though he’d never been to the capital building before, Kyle had seen enough photos to know that this was the seat of the Central Authority Council, the heart of his world’s political power. At least, it used to be. Benjamin took out a tablet and began typing away with his free hand.
“What are you writing?”
“A cautionary tale about powerless politicians trying to play at being gods. I’ve learned a lot about your culture, Kyle. Whatever the original intention, it’s clear to me that your leadership fancied themselves a cut above the rest.”
Even though Kyle understood on some level that Benjamin was right, he still bristled at the statement.
“Life here was good, Benjamin. This attack wasn’t their fault, and it certainly wasn’t the fault of all the other people who died.”
Benjamin raised his hands placatingly, meeting Kyle’s eyes.
“I’m not assigning fault, just stating my observations. Earth was fairly low-grade after it awakened, and your leaders chose comfort over progress. That’s on them. If there had been more people like you around, the impact would have been far less severe.”
Kyle wanted to snap back, though let out a sigh instead. There wasn’t a point arguing with somebody as privileged as Benjamin. The group walked around the rubble, Benjamin looking odds and ends. Kyle found himself assisting in the search, until he felt a faint tingle against his skin as he sifted through some rubble. Frowning, he whispered to C.H.A.D.D.
“Do you pick anything up on your sensors.”
A moment later, he heard a soft click, followed by a response from the drone.
[DR. MAYHEW, THERE IS A DEVICE NEARBY DRAWING IN TRACE AMOUNTS OF MANA. IT WOULDN’T HAVE BEEN WORTH NOTING HAD YOU NOT MENTIONED IT.]
Looking to make sure that Benjamin, Skippy, and Duroc were occupied, Kyle activated IDENTIFY. Coupled with Auric Perception, he easily spotted the inflow of mana, and moved to what looked like the remnants of an office. Moving the heavy stone, Kyle found a splintered and broken desk, inside of which was a small box. The atmospheric mana appeared to be flowing into it in a gentle trickle.
He considered how to open the box – as his Strength was still a way off from being able to rip apart steel with his bare hands – and he had an idea. Quietly placing several bamboo seeds into the seam by the hinges, he connected to them with PARASITIC RESONANCE. The plants grew quickly, shattering as they tried to expand past the confined space. The hinges held a moment longer, then broke free, releasing the heavy lid. Kyle looked inside to see a small, familiar device. A Transportation Array.
His breath caught for a moment, and he quickly put it in his pocket. The device still drew in faint amounts of mana from the surrounding area, but without IDENTIFY active the only way he could tell was through Auric Perception. He wasn’t entirely sure how the mechanics of the device worked, though he knew that it was something he wanted to hold on to.
Rejoining the others, the rest of the day was spent wandering through the ruins. Benjamin would toss the occasional question Kyle’s way, to which Kyle would offer what insight he had. It was almost funny to him that the trio viewed him as the de-facto expert on all things Earth politics. Kyle reminded them – multiple times – that he was a frontier doctor with limited interest in politics. That didn’t stop them from asking questions anyway. Fortunately, C.H.A.D.D. was able to provide more insight through the various policies and procedures that it retained. As they boarded the shuttle, Benjamin turned to Kyle with a serious expression.
“Your next stop is the big one. We’ll be dropping you off, orders from both the family and from Chester are that we’re not going to be on-site this time.”
Kyle nodded, expecting as much. The deaths against the D Grade monsters so far had been a real black eye for Chester. Despite the mountains of wealth they’d extracted from Earth, the sheer loss of life had been well beyond their expectations. It made sense that there would be pressure on all fronts to limit the risk of collateral damage as much as possible.
“I’ll do my best to be careful.”
“See that you do. Something feels off with this, and I’d hate to see my future bodyguard get killed prematurely.”
“We both know it’s too late to hire me.”
“Hey, you never know what the future holds.”
With that, the shuttle took off, bound for the territory of the final D Grade beast.