Persepera
The 20th of Elaphebolion
The Year 4631 in the Era of Mortals
The next several days were quiet. Lyssa had taken to scouting ahead, using her superior talents of stealth and hunting to scout out monsters. Arche and Helwan kept travel conversation to a minimum, not wanting to draw undue attention to themselves. The near run-in with the kýklōps the last time they had ventured into the Sylv was still heavy on Arche’s mind, especially after Lyssa’s story, and he didn’t want to imagine what kind of devastation such a creature could deal when provoked.
On their fifth day of travel, they emerged from the Sylv and into a valley. A river wound through the land, bisecting the valley as it flowed down from an enormous mountain to the north. The valley itself was a rolling field of meadow and grassland, with trees dotting the area sporadically. Hills and minor cliffs broke the land, hiding much, but dark shapes near the river outlined the fledgling village.
Village, as it turned out, was a generous title. As they approached, there was only one permanent structure made from hewn wood. The rest were tents and there were dozens of them. The village was nestled between two steep hills, giving it some concealment from the north and south, but leaving the entire village vulnerable if an adversary force took the high ground. If he were to plan an attack on the village, their placement would make them an easy target for bows to shoot from the hills with impunity.
Lyssa cursed, breaking Arche out of his violent thoughts. Arche tried to follow her gaze past the village to the eastern side of the valley, but his Perception wasn’t high enough to give him an idea of what she was looking at.
“Those fools,” Lyssa murmured. “Oh, no.”
She broke into a run. A moment later, Arche and Helwan gave chase. They were still a considerable distance away from the village but the difference in ability made itself clear quickly. Lyssa outstripped them both, pulling away with every step. Arche strained himself, looking at the far edge of the valley and could finally see the cause of her concern. Vaguely humanoid creatures of mottled gray skin galloped over the grass straight for the village, which had yet to notice the approaching threat.
“Fuck,” he groaned. “Be careful, Helwan, we’re running into a fight!”
Arche put on an extra burst of speed, trying to catch up to Lyssa, but only ended up separating himself from Helwan, who was already panting from exertion. Lyssa reached the river in impressive time and didn’t slow down. To Arche’s eyes, it looked like she ran up a tree by the bank and disappeared into the boughs. A moment later, Lyssa sailed through the air, over the wide expanse of river, and landed with a roll on the far bank. Arche skidded to a stop at the water’s edge half a minute later. He couldn’t replicate Lyssa’s actions, so he didn’t even try. Instead, he hefted the Tridory and threw it as far as he could. It sailed over the slow-moving water, wobbling in its flight, and landed on the far bank, thirty strides away, sticking out of the ground. A prompt flashed in the corner of Arche’s vision, but he ignored it. Instead, he quickly inventoried the majority of his clothing and dove into the river.
The water enveloped him. His heart seized with panic and he started thrashing. It occurred to him, as he moved in limbo between the surface and the riverbed, that he didn’t actually know how to swim. A deep pressure settled onto his chest as the water grew colder around him. A repressed memory fought its way to the forefront of his mind and he kicked hard with his feet, bringing him horizontal. He reached out with his arms and started dragging them to the side awkwardly. His lungs burned and his Stamina bar was close to bottoming out, already drained from his headlong sprint. His movements became more desperate as the pressure in his chest started to build. The riverbed brushed against his chest and face and he realized through the rising panic that he had sunk all the way to the bottom.
His body begged him to breathe but he was surrounded by nothing but murky water that stung his eyes. His stamina bar blinked red as it dropped to single-digits. Pain racked his throat and chest as his health started to fall. He opened his mouth to scream but water rushed in and drowned the noise. A last, desperate thought occurred, and he tried to summon the feeling of determination and anger he had when he’d fought the revenant. Something inside him stirred and responded to the command. Crimson light flashed beneath the water. His Health and Stamina shot upward as his Mana flew down toward zero.
Silently, he asked the universe not to let him die there and jumped.
Arche broke the surface of the river and kept going. As soon as he had jumped, he had let go of the Divine Body skill, but his momentum was enough to carry him out of the water and through the air. He landed on his knees on solid ground and began retching water. Still half-panicked, he checked his vitals.
Health: 445 / 445
100%
Stamina: 142 / 325
44%
Mana: 28 / 170
16%
Arche expunged the last of the water and took a glorious inhale of breath. He had landed next to the Tridory and was lucky not to have impaled himself on the metal spike at the butt of the spear. Helwan had reached the river and was shouting his name. Arche waved a hand to show he was all right and used the spear to pull himself to his feet. Thanks to the sudden regeneration granted by his Divine Body skill—which was an unexpected and greatly appreciated feature—he felt physically all right, but his mind was thick and foggy from the loss of Mana.
Someone screamed.
It sounded far away. Blood thundered in his ears as he forced himself to concentrate. The need to find Lyssa drove him on, centering his clouded mind as he staggered further up the bank toward the settlement. Helwan shouted something behind him but Arche wasn’t paying attention. The satyr’s voice was soon drowned out by screams coming from the village ahead. Arche shook his head, trying to clear himself. Pausing only to equip his clothing and armor, Arche hefted the Tridory and started running.
Pandemonium gripped the village.
More kinds of people than Arche knew how to recognize were screaming and shouting, some running for the river while others equipped armor and weapons. Arche caught a glimpse of Lyssa arguing with someone in gleaming armor next to the wooden building.
A black arrow ripped through the canvas tent next to him. Arche threw himself to the side as three more plugged the ground where he’d been.
“To the river!” he shouted, trying to corral the screaming people toward where Helwan was still standing on the far bank.
Dark figures poured through the gap in the hills toward the village. In the press of bodies, Arche lost sight of Lyssa. He hefted the Tridory and ran toward a gap where villagers were engaging with the attackers. Now that he was closer, he could see them more distinctly. They were generally humanoid, in that they typically had two arms, two legs, and a head, but that simple baseline was by no means the standard. Several were disfigured and misshaped. Some of the creatures had too many legs, others had too many arms. More than a few had upwards of a half dozen heads that sprouted from their torsos at odd angles. A small portion weren’t humanoid at all, but looked instead like monstrous animals, the only indication of them being the same kind of creature was the gray, mottled skin and short fur they all shared.
Arche joined three armed villagers near the forefront and stood with them, interposed between the oncoming horde and the fleeing villagers. He raised his spear toward the incoming threat. He used the few moments before battle to Examine one of the creatures running toward them.
Kyrzzgtk
Level: 12
Race: Beastmar
Age: ?
Height: ?
Weight: ?
Profession: ?
Trade: ?
Traits: ?
Companions: ?
Adventuring Party: ?
Health: 390 / 390
100%
Stamina: 170 / 300
56%
Mana: 100 / 100
100%
“Beastmar?”
There was no time to look into it further. A dozen beastmar approached. Most wielded no weapons, armed instead with a variety of claws and horns. The three fighters—a human woman, an elven man, and a massive lizard-person—readied themselves next to Arche.
“Hold the line!” he shouted. “Fight for all you’re worth. Hold the line!”
If the others had questions about who he was and why he was there, they didn’t voice them. The beastmar Arche had Examined, the one called Kyrzzgtk, charged him. As beastmar went, this one had several legs and had quickly outpaced its allies. It no doubt intended to run Arche over, trampling him with no less than eight legs, some of which ended in clawed feet, others in hooves.
At the last moment, Arche lunged forward and to the side. His spear plunged through the beastmar’s chest. It let out an animalistic howl of pain but didn’t stop, even as the tip of the spear exited the creature’s back. The Tridory was wrenched from Arche’s hand as the beastmar fell to the ground and slid. Reactively, he drew his xiphos and stepped back. The three fighters beside him engaged their own enemies. Arche slashed at a beastmar as it came close, catching it in the side.
The beastmar that had taken his spear lay dead several paces away, its momentum having carried it too far for Arche to retrieve the Tridory without abandoning his position. The beastmar now facing him had incredibly long arms with sharp protrusions in each joint. His sword was barely effective against the odd, carapace-like skin that served as a natural protection on the creature’s extremities. His every strike was rebuffed, the delay in killing the creature only gave the beastmar more time to swarm and overwhelm him.
As the edge of his blade glanced off the beastmar’s skin again, Arche wished he had the Tridory in hand. The sharp spear would have made short work of this monster. A spasm of pain ran through his mind as his already low Mana dropped five points and the Tridory rushed toward him. Arche was so surprised that instead of catching the Tridory, he fell onto his back trying to get out of the way, losing any focus he’d had. The spear’s inertia carried it forward the last few paces, slamming point-first into the beastmar’s hip. Arche quickly scrambled to his feet and struck the beastmar’s neck while it tried to pull the Tridory free. It took two strikes, but he was able to deal it a killing blow. Quickly sheathing his xiphos, Arche wrenched the Tridory out and turned to face the next enemy.
The spear vibrated in his hand, almost like a living thing, but he didn’t have time to worry about that as a new beastmar captured his attention. One of its claws pressed against a wound on its side, trying to keep its insides from becoming outsides. It snarled its challenge at him, a challenge that seemed to say that even though it was wounded, it didn’t regard Arche as a threat. Seeing that the others were being overrun by sheer numbers, Arche wasted no time. He took a large step forward, thrusting several times in a maneuver he had practiced with Lyssa. The beastmar dodged the first two strikes, but the third caught it in the throat and the creature died with a bloody gurgle.
“No!”
Arche turned to see that one of the beastmar had broken past their line and was currently running toward the crowd of unarmed villagers that were in the process of fording the river. Arche took a deep breath and whispered a prayer for luck.
“No whammies, no whammies, no whammies.”
He hefted the spear into an overhand grip and threw it.
The metallic shaft of the Tridory caught the light as it sailed through the air, wobbling heavily. Arche’s heart rested firmly in his throat, but the spear sailed true. It struck the back of the sprinting beastmar and pinned it to the ground. Arche pulled his xiphos back out of his scabbard and turned to face the rest of the beastmar threatening them. The three fighters had retreated a few steps and reformed their line, protecting each other’s flanks while rebuffing the beastmar, each having no less than two trying to slay them.
Arche swept in like a tornado to equalize the field. He came in low behind one of the beastmar, sliding on his elven greaves to slash at the creature’s heels. He came back to his feet as the next beastmar swiped at him with a multitude of its claws. Arche jumped, body twisting in a somersault as his xiphos separated the beastmar’s head from its shoulders. A large tail hit him as he landed, knocking him to the side and taking off ten percent of his Health. Arche gritted his teeth through the sudden pain in his side, reckoning the strike had bruised a rib, and rolled away as the beastmar slammed its tail into the ground where he’d landed. He was about to engage it when a green-fletched arrow took it through the throat.
“Lyssa,” he breathed, but he didn’t have time to look for the huntress as the next beastmar bore down on him.
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This one was multiheaded, with over a dozen faces protruding from its torso like some sort of botched experiment. He had failed to notice this one during his initial assessment as it wielded a large, double-bladed axe and a shield that had strange curves, almost like an hourglass. It roared at him through its plethora of mouths and Arche roared back, partially out of pain and shock, partially because he didn’t know how else to respond. Any witty response he might have given had been driven well out of his mind by the pain in his side and the pulsing headache of low Mana.
Arche spun to the side to avoid a vertical chop and responded with a diagonal slash that met the creature’s shield. The shield punched out and caught Arche in the face. He tasted wet copper as his nose cracked and blood poured. His Health dropped another five percent.
Arche stepped back as the beastmar advanced and swung its massive axe once again. Arche ducked low and rolled to the side to avoid another shield bash. He grabbed a handful of dirt and threw it at the creature’s litany of heads. The shield moved to intercept the dirt and Arche used the distraction to drive his sword into the beastmar’s leg. The creature howled in pain through a dozen mouths. Arche ripped the sword free and spun, dancing around the creature. He stabbed it through the back, then slipped past to its other side and severed the beastmar’s weapon hand for good measure. As if to cement his victory, golden light washed over him, healing his nose and cleaning the blood off his clothes.
The beastmar suitably dispatched, Arche checked on the other fighters. The strange elven man was supporting the human woman, who had sustained a head wound, and the lizard-person was guarding them. Over a dozen dead beastmar littered the ground around them. The last of the villagers had crossed the river to the west bank. Helwan was helping them move up the slope and out of harm’s way. Arche searched the battlefield for Lyssa as he retrieved his spear, trying to catch some sign of the elf. He finally spotted her atop one of the adjacent hills, silhouetted in the light of the sun and shooting arrows into the beastmar as they charged the hill. Whenever one that wielded a shield would make its approach, she would fire a carefully aimed arrow into its exposed foot and another into its heart or throat when it tripped. She was like an avatar of death but she stood alone and the beastmar horde showed no signs of stopping. It was only a matter of time before they overwhelmed her.
Arche ran for the hill, not bothering to pace himself. Thanks to the level up, his Stamina had been fully replenished. He used his spear to strike at three different beastmar as he ran, allowing the villagers that still fought the opportunity to finish them off. Arche reached the hill and pounded his way up the slope, scrabbling at the ground with his hands when it grew too steep to run.
“You took your time,” Lyssa said when he had reached the top, felling another beastmar with an arrow to the forehead.
“You didn’t,” he replied between gasping breaths. “Hard to watch each other’s backs when you go dashing off like a mad woman.”
Lyssa sent an arrow through the heart of an approaching beastmar and wounded a second one behind it. Perhaps there was a better time and place to chide someone so proficient in dealing death. Golden light encompassed Arche a second time, washing away fresh blood splatter and replenishing his spent vitals once more.
Arche used the Tridory to fend off the approaching beastmar, stabbing at them and forcing them back down the hill. Three beastmar fell beneath his spear before a horn blared. The tempo of the battle changed immediately as the beastmar turned and made their retreat. Several were carrying villagers away. Most dead, but some struggled against their captors, screaming for help. Their cries echoed in Arche’s ears. A small pocket of fighting villagers gave chase, but the beastmar quickly outpaced them. Lyssa didn’t stop her rain of death even as the beastmar ran away, felling several at incredible distances. Golden light surged through Arche again. When it faded, he felt a terrible emptiness in his chest as he and Lyssa stared into the distance at the fleeing beastmar. Perhaps two dozen villagers had been taken.
“Are you hurt?”
“Superficial wounds only. Nothing that can’t be healed. You?”
“Nothing that three levels couldn’t get me through,” he replied, the empty feeling in his chest was growing stronger with each passing moment. “Don’t suppose a shield to the face made me prettier, eh?”
Lyssa did not deign his attempt at a joke with a response, so Arche took the moment to sift through some of the vast list of notifications waiting on him. Anything for a distraction.
You have slain 7 Beastmar.
You gain 1,620 experience.
Slayer of the Mighty activated!
You gain 1,000 bonus experience.
Lyssanderyli has slain 19 Beastmar.
You gain 1,640 experience.
You have helped slay 8 Beastmar.
You have gained 320 experience.
You have reached Level 14.
As a Human, you receive 5 attribute points to distribute per level.
You currently have 15 undistributed attribute points.
Now that his injuries were healed and his vitals restored to full, there were other concerns, like tending to the wounded and introducing themselves to the villagers. Lyssa apparently intended to start with the latter as she stomped down the hill toward the man in armor Arche had seen her talking to earlier.
He followed, not certain if he was heading toward another fight. Many of the wounded villagers were being washed with golden light as the fighters went through and killed the wounded beastmar that had been left behind. Arche watched in surprise at the amount of people leveling up. To come to what he assumed was a remote region to start a village, he had also assumed the villagers would all be high-leveled, perhaps close to Lyssa, but as he looked at their faces, he could see the fear and shock settling in.
These people had no idea what they were doing, they were just trying to survive.
Lyssa walked up to the armored man, Arche on her left loosely gripping the gore-covered Tridory. The cleanliness aspect of leveling did not, apparently, apply to magic spears.
“Satisfied now?” she spat.
The man was tall, almost as tall as Arche, and quite handsome. He was human, with curly dark hair over full brows. His breastplate gleamed and shone like silver and he wore a dark blue cape that reached almost to the ground. A kopis with a golden handle rested in a beautiful dark leather sheath. Arche noted that there wasn’t a speck of blood on the man’s outfit, nor did the man sport a single scratch. It was possible that the man had simply leveled, but for all his looks he didn’t strike Arche as a warrior. Something in the pompous angle in which he jutted his chin didn’t seem like the type to get his hands dirty. The man’s well-proportioned face twisted into a sneer as he turned the attention of his bright blue eyes onto Lyssa.
“Congratulations, you are not a liar. You do not, however, get to walk into my village and start making demands of me. You are an issue that I will deal with later. For now, there are matters to which I must attend. When my people are no longer bleeding into the ground, you will be questioned. Wait until then.”
Without waiting for a response, the man turned and left, his attendees whispering to him. Arche narrowed his eyes and used Examine as the man left.
Callias Buteo
Level: 19
Race: Human
Age: ?
Height: ?
Weight: ?
Profession: ?
Trade: ?
Traits: ?
Companions: ?
Adventuring Party: ?
Health: 240 / 240
100%
Stamina: 180 / 180
100%
Mana: 100 / 100
100%
“Well, he seems nice,” Arche said.
“He ignored my warnings and tried to have me apprehended just for approaching him.”
“What a dick.”
They turned their attention to the rest of the village. Several wounded laid on the ground, raising their lamentations as their blood trickled into the grass. An incredibly diminutive woman was ordering several of the uninjured villagers about between the wounded, clearly setting up a triage. Lyssa approached a man that had a black-fletched arrow sticking out of his leg and began bandaging him.
Arche wanted to help but he didn’t know where to start. His only experience with wound care had been when Lyssa had treated his shoulder and that wasn’t something he knew how to replicate.
“I’m going to go find Helwan, make sure he’s all right.”
Lyssa nodded.
“I’ll be here,” she said. “Helping where I can.”
Arche set off, jogging through the crowd. He spotted Helwan across the river without much difficulty. It might have been a mixed village but there were no other satyrs. A group of small children were dancing around him and he was dancing in the middle, hopping from leg to leg as he played his pan pipes. It was an odd sight, joy and laughter so close to so much pain and death.
Arche caught the satyr’s attention from across the river and waved him over, deciding against fording the river after his last experience. Helwan trilled a final note and said something to the children, who ran and jumped into the river, squealing and laughing. It set Arche’s teeth on edge.
With a wave of his hand, Helwan inventoried the pipes and also ran into the river, jumping far out over it and landing in a cannonball. Arche was genuinely impressed, as the satyr had managed to clear half the river with a single bound. He supposed it had something to do with the goat legs. Helwan surfaced and swam effortlessly over to the far banks.
“Good to see you in one piece, friend,” the satyr said, smiling. “Though you should probably clean your spear.”
Arche looked down at the Tridory, still covered in gore.
“You should see the other guys.”
“I’m sure I will. Is Lyssa all right?”
“She’s fine, she’s helping the wounded. I was just getting in the way, so I thought I’d come see how you were. Did any of the beastmar get through?”
“No, thanks in no small part to your efforts. I saw you hurl that spear. Incredible. Once the villagers had crossed the river, we got them organized away from the fighting. Wasn’t long after that until the fighting was over. I may have mentioned your names, embellished a story or two to explain why we were here and why we were helping.”
Helwan’s genuine optimism was infectious. Already, Arche could feel some of the emptiness in his chest abate, if only a little bit.
“I hope nothing too tall. If we’re going to join these people, I’d rather not lie to them.”
“Lies of omission, only. Well, maybe some exaggerations of deeds, but it’s not like you two haven’t done incredible things in the short time that I’ve known you.”
“Stop it, I’m blushing.” Arche affixed the straightest face he could manage, then cracked a small smile. “Anyway, just wanted to give you a heads up, the leader here’s a jerk, so we should try to help out where we can and get to know the people.”
“I should make myself useful, then. I don’t excel in wound care but I know enough. I’ll catch up with you later.”
“Wait, what am I supposed to do?”
Helwan gestured towards the aftermath of the rampage.
“Whatever you can. You’ll find no shortage of need, here.”
Helwan turned and walked off, leaving Arche quite alone. Without the first idea of where to begin, Arche let out a loud sigh and turned back to the rest of the village. The single permanent structure of the village, what appeared to be a wooden house, had taken some damage. Claw marks gouged the wood in several areas and at least one beam would need to be completely replaced. A few beastmar laid dead next to the door. Several of the tents had been trampled and torn, and people were already trying to fix them. He wandered over and began helping the villagers fix the tents. At the least, it was something physical he could do.
Most of them focused only on fixing their own tents. The villagers seemed surprised at his help. Or, perhaps, they were surprised at him. More than one shied away as he approached. At first, he thought it was because he was a stranger, then he realized how he must look to them. A heavily scarred stranger dressed like a wood elf, always wielding a large, black-metal spear. He must have looked a right terror, but they accepted his help, nonetheless. He made a point to introduce himself to each of them, but none seemed willing to talk more than a few words. He couldn’t blame them, considering what they’d all just been through.
After the fifth tent he helped erect, he was approached by three armed villagers, the same three he had fought alongside against the beastmar. The elf was the first to greet him.
“Hail, stranger. We wanted to share our appreciation for what you did back there.”
The elf smiled at him beneath the hood of a gray cloak, flashing blue skin and piercing, black eyes. He had a long, slender blade in a scabbard at his waist and had fancy, leather armor.
“Just glad I could help. The name’s Arche.”
“Vikterandor.” The elf extended an arm. “But my friends call me Vik. After what you did, count yourself among that number.”
“Well met.” Arche clasped Vik’s forearm as Lyssa had done to him.
“This is Elpida.” Vik gestured to the human.
The woman never took her eyes off Arche's face, even as he turned to look at her. She still wore the iron cuirass she’d fought in but had inventoried her weapons. Her straw-colored hair was pulled into a bun and one side of her face was stained red from a head wound, now tightly bandaged. She nodded to him without speaking. Her eyes gave no quarter as she took the measure of him. He could easily have been their next enemy with how hard she was staring at him.
“A pleasure to meet you,” Arche said, acutely aware of the scars lining his face.
Vik shifted his feet and turned to introduce the lizard-person. It was a subtle move that nudged Elpida with his scabbard. She blinked, her face softening a fraction, and looked away. Arche wiped at his forehead with the back of his hand, trying to blame the sudden redness of his cheeks on physical exertion.
“I can introduce myself,” the giant lizard person rumbled in a voice like wet thunder. “I am Gigator the Maeotian.
Gigator was a huge monolith of strength and scale. He stood easily head, shoulders, and head again over Arche. Dark green scutes of a great water lizard made lifted protrusions all along his body. Instead of extending an arm as the elf had done, Gigator inclined his head low, still towering far above Arche. He spoke again from this position.
“You fight with fervor and conviction. It is an honor to know you, warrior.”
Arche smiled in mild bewilderment but returned the gesture.
“The honor is all mine, Gigator. You must forgive me if I seem rude; I haven’t met a Maeotian before.”
“All you need know of him is that he prefers his meat fresh,” Vik said, smiling beneath his hood. “You travel with the wood elf and the satyr, do you not? Interesting company you keep. Some would say unheard of.”
“I do. We were hoping to find a place here, though I have my concerns about your leader.”
“Callias does like to think himself the dashing hero.” Vik scratched his chin. “Though the only dashing he’s done is away from danger.”
“He’s rich. Enough so that he has funded this entire expedition, as well as hired all of us to provide protection,” Gigator added.
“Wow.” Arche raised his eyebrows. “Deep pockets.”
“Indeed. If you are looking for ways to be helpful, come with us. We need to secure the perimeter and take care of the dead.”
Arche looked back at the rest of the village, which was managing fine without him.
“Yeah, all right.”