Lucas didn’t know how things had gone so bad.
“Blessed asses shitting on us.” The fact that Jacoby, the guildmaster of One For All, had lost his famously cool temperament was a bad sign. However, he couldn’t blame the man. They were perched on the same rooftop, watching the same incredulous sights, and Lucas was far from composed. The only reason he was able to fight the primal fear screaming at him to flee as fast as his legs could carry him was the logical voice of self-preservation that had learned to scream over his instincts through several dangerous hunts.
The truth was, despite the rampant destruction he bore witness to, he and everyone else perched on the rooftop were safe, or as safe as they could be given the situation.
The purple monstrosity was moving away from them, which was all they could hope for. The guilds had thrown everything they had at the monster that appeared out of nowhere. A saying that was usually used in jest but was depressingly literal in the current case. Every element, every weapon, every potion, anything the hunters could think of to possibly hurt the thing had been hurled at it with extreme prejudice. All of it amounted to nothing. From what he and the other overseers of the operation could tell, their efforts hadn’t even scratched it.
“Just got a message from the Steelskins,” a hunter Lucas didn’t recognize said, eyes dimming as his spell finished. “Bearskin says that unless we got a plan, he’s pulling his people back.”
“Well, I haven’t got a plan. Any of you fuckers feel free to speak—" His words were interrupted by a heavy coughing fit. Lucas started to reach out to him, but Jacoby waved him off. “Fuck! Bad enough we got this Abyss-spawned abomination. We really didn’t need a damn bug on top of it.”
The sickness had come from seemingly nowhere and swept across the city overnight. The symptoms weren’t fatal, thank the saints for that, but it didn’t take much to put a hunter off their game. It was a bad idea to go into a fight with a headache, let alone puking up their guts. He doubted it would have made much of a difference in this fight but having half their numbers weakened and the other half unable to fight at all was an enormous disadvantage.
It was a testament to the strength of whatever was going around that it’d managed to infect Jacoby. The man was getting on in the years, his stooped posture and thinning gray hair reflecting every decade, but he was a legend. He was one of the figures that inspired new generations of hunters. A native of Quest and possessing a basic wind affinity, he wasn’t born with many opportunities. He’d changed his circumstances through hard work and persistence.
Most people only remembered Dunwayne when they thought of the dragon, or more accurately the draconid as anyone who cared enough to research it would know it wasn’t a true dragon that attacked Harvest back then, but several notable warriors and casters had also participated in its subjugation.
Communication magic had always been a staple of the army, but Jacoby had popularized it throughout the kingdom when he used it to coordinate the assault on the creature. From there, he’d gone on to lead several more raids before retiring from the front lines and providing more worth to the guilds as one of its leaders.
One of the reasons Lucas accepted becoming interim guildmaster for the Torchbearers, despite the obvious complications and political fights he saw in his future, was to have access to the man. His ornery personality aside, it wasn’t easy to get an audience with such a man. Lucas had hoped to wrangle an apprenticeship. While he was well on his way to becoming a master coefficient wise, he lacked a signature spell, that unique bit of magic that all the legends had. It took a special kind of caster to create new, innovative spells. Easier to carry on an already established legacy.
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“What are we getting from the lorekeepers? Does anyone know what this thing is?” Jacoby snapped.
All the communication specialists that were coordinating the guilds’ efforts shook their heads, but Lucas elaborated. “There’s been no update. I suggest we try the summoners of the Hall.” Lucas was confident that the guilds had the most extensive collection of knowledge regarding manabeasts in the kingdom, better even than the Hall’s. If their experts couldn’t identify it, the obvious conclusion was that it was a product of summoning.
“Old Dunn made it clear that he doesn’t want to touch this war with a pinky let alone dip his hand in. What about that boy? Didn’t we recruit our own summoner?”
“There’s been no sign of him since the attack on the meeting.”
“Cheh. Spineless little shitstain. Ah, forget it. Forget it! We’re bashing our heads against a boulder here. Send a message out for everyone to retreat. Out of the city, dammit it all.”
“Shouldn’t we use the hostages?” Lucas asked as his fellows went about the task, eyes glowing with mana as they spread Jacoby’s order.
The old man laughed. “Look around you, boy! The whole point of taking hostages was to stop her from fighting. In case you can’t tell, we cocked that up. Somebody got that little girlie all wrong. The only thing those hostages are good for is stopping this rampage. Then, maybe if we all paint our lips and lovingly kiss her ass, she won’t send that thing to track us down. Saints, what a cock up. What a gloriously shitty shitstorm.”
Lucas wasn’t enthused that someone he considered an idol was suggesting surrender, especially given how much the guilds, and the city, had already suffered, but he couldn’t fault the man. Master casters were powerful but not all powerful. Jacoby couldn’t wave away unfortunate circumstances.
As he watched another building topple, Lucas was forced to admit the guildmaster had a point, so he went about his work. His eyes glowed as he spoke, his spell sending the message to relay points throughout the city. From up high, he could see the retreat, the assault lagging in intensity as small pockets of hunters backed off. But a complication arose quickly. While the monstrosity didn’t seem to care about the hunters that must look like insects before it, another refused to let them leave easily. As they ran, many of them dropped, seemingly for no reason. “Sir—"
“I see it,” Jacoby grumbled. The old man’s eyes glowed. “They’re screaming their heads off about arrows. Must be the elf. How are the teams on retrieving those hostages?”
“Sir! Umphrieltalia can’t be found.”
“Same here, sir. Yulia James can’t be found.”
“Then we’re properly fucked.” Jacoby sighed. “Time to pack it in boys. Let’s get out of here.”
“We aren’t going to do anything about the elf?” Lucas asked.
He had to fight not to flinch at the glare the old man shot him. “What exactly do you think we’re going to do? If you want to dive into the middle of that chaos to hunt down a woman who is capable of dancing around that rampaging abomination and still shooting with enough accuracy to pierce a man’s heart, be my guest.”
Lucas winced.
“Besides, hurting the elf isn’t the answer. The last thing we want to do is give that girly any more reasons to be pissed at us. No. We’re going to do what we should have done in the first place. Get the hell out of the way and give the lady what she wants.” His shoulders sagged, making him look even older. “Damn stupid kids. A fucking lifetime of work, lost in a couple of days.”
Lucas frowned as indignation surged within him. It sounded like the old guildmaster was shifting the blame, but he could have interceded at any time. Major decisions that affected the city at large were decided by majority vote, but old heroes like Jacoby had more sway than most. He could have led them down a different path…but he hadn’t. Because their plan was reasonable. Who could have foreseen things ending up like this? It was cowardly to shuck responsibility now that things had gone awry.
Though, the longer Lucas thought about it, the more his frustration waned. Losing the city was hard for him but for someone like Jacoby, who had shed blood, sweat, and tears to build it, he couldn’t imagine what the man was feeling.