The tyranny of rank remained a concept of which almost every adventurer in the world was painfully reminded during multitudes of time in their career. In many ways, the phenomena was one of the foundational aspects of global power hierarchies and the way they in turn shaped every society in the world.
And for Kite and his companions, the impact remained dreadfully present. Kite did not know the name of the fungal monster that they now fought, but the impact of its higher rank remained a presence almost in and of itself. The multitudes of trama tentacles which still ensnared the thrashing Whimmy only shifted and buckled slightly at the cerberus’ efforts, and while both Vista and Phiona could cut and smash their way through the fungal matter, the impact they made were significantly lower than what Kite had otherwise witnessed from the competent pair.
Adding insult to injury, the silver-ranked recovery attribute of the monster along with its health draining tendrils made sure that more tentacles grew quickly from the clusters of mushrooms around them, working frustratingly swiftly to undo the progress the adventurers made. Whimmy again had the worst of it, as the familiar was now pressed up against the main mass of fungi, where multitudes of mycelial growths had started working their way through their skin to enact an even more potent health draining effect.
“Whimmy, I’m coming!” Vista shouted again, where he was furiously trying to hack through the tentacles keeping his companion in their grip while also avoiding suffering the same fate, leaving him barely keeping a balanced stance as the thrashing limbs of the silver rank monster were moving too fast to let him properly find his focus.
“Vista! We need to form up. Take it on together!” Phiona called, almost having worked her way to the young master’s side along with Kite and Rachel, but Vista seemed almost oblivious to her calls at that moment.
“Teacher, go. I will try to intercept what I can and wear down its advantages.” Kite called to her, throwing out a barrier to protect Rachel’s back from a strike while simultaneously drawing his saber to slice through another appendage lashing toward him. The resulting burst of rending force covered him in slivers of fungal matter, but he had little time to reflect upon it further.
“Can you hold it off?” Phiona asked, not looking at him as she used both ends of her staff to simultaneously ward off a pair of tentacles, smashing their ends into pulp only for them to start regrowing again.
“Heavens no. But I should be able to slow it down somewhat. I will have to.” Kite said, apparently conveying his resolute ambitions through his words as his teacher nodded to him.
“Then I will make a push. Cousin, a ride?”
“Missus, you heard her!” Rachel called, the snake familiar manifesting from her and quickly growing to her much larger size. At first, Kite thought that her size would prove to be a disadvantage, but as Phiona leapt up onto Missus’ back as the snake charged off, he was properly shown the resilience of the armored hood of the aegis cobra. Neither flailing limbs or the ephemeral threads seemed to be able to pierce it, only batter at the gleaming natural armor as Missus managed to push and wiggle herself the final stretch to the central cluster of fungi where Vista fought.
Leaping off the giant snake, Phiona spun her staff which left afterimages in its wake, like echoes of the staff which had not yet caught up to the blurring reality. Her feet barely touching the ground, she swung her weapon, the images doing the same and leaving the impression of a flower unfurling its petals. A flower most destructive. Fungal matter splattered like soft shrapnel as tentacles and other trama were destroyed in the potent attack, creating a brief bubble of relative calm around Vista and assisted in chewing through some of Whimmy’s restraints.
“Vista!” Phiona shouted again, her proximity and the sudden, if temporary, ease in pressure allowing him to get through. “We can’t divide our efforts between freeing Whimmy and killing this thing. Either we run or we attempt to take it down. Spending too much time at these regrowing things will just leave us emptying a river with a ladle.”
“But they’re suffering!” Vista retorted, apparently keenly feeling the familiar’s pain.
“Then we’d best take out the thing that is causing it!” Phiona called back while whipping her staff around to smash a freshly regrown tendril.
“What if they-”
“Vista. Rachel will handle it.”
“But-”
“Handle. It.” Phiona half-growled as a tentacle glanced off her before she became a blur, avoiding the rest of the strike. “And Kite will have our backs. But you have to do your part, and soon.”
Vista glanced at his familiar again, before squaring his shoulders and nodding.
“Now do what you do best and shred this thing!” Phiona called, darting off to avoid another couple of tendrils, smashing a chunk out of a bigger growth in the process.
After taking one hesitant step away from his familiar, and then another, something seemed to return to the young noble. A quick leap had him gliding through the air, twin blades whirling to shred intercepting tentacles and whipping growths before he landed a bit further away facing the main cluster of fungal matter. One slash of his blades had a whirlwind of shredding air churn through the huge mushrooms, chipping away at their exteriors. Then his second blade hit, repeating the ripping gales. The storm that was Vista was finally building properly again, working towards a vortex of perfection.
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The chains of Vista’s hesitation breaking was clearly felt in his aura, and Kite knew that he too had to redouble his efforts from now on. While tendrils were coming in from most directions, it was clear that the monster recognized Vista and Phiona as the greatest threats, their direct and violent approaches triggering the primal response of more violence from the creature. And Kite silently vowed that the thing would come to regret its choice.
But the struggle would be one uphill under constant duress. Kite felt like he barely had the time to do more than react to the flailing appendages, their speed and strength sending chills down his spine. He just managed to deflect a pair of strikes, but was too slow to completely dodge another which clipped his side and sent him staggering just a little bit as most of the force was absorbed or led down into the ground. Using the stored momentum to leap closer to Phiona and Vista, Kite also chanted a quick spell.
“Wall”
Cages of force walls went up around the clusters of mushrooms from where some of the tendrils sprouted. Most were not completely encompassing as he could not have the walls appear in occupied areas, but it was still enough to force the tentacles to start bunching up or finding ways around the hindrances. And it gave Kite time to start finding a new rhythm, sprung from an old one.
Planting his feet in a balanced, steady stance, Kite took a moment to relax his mind and find the crisp, chill focus that mistress Dew had drilled into him through their hours of training together. The clarity that came with her meditations had helped him bring forth the relentless offensive that she practices, but this time it would not be employed for ceaseless advance but vigilant reactions.
A tendril snaked around a force wall to strike at him, but was deflected upon a conjured barrier. Another struck at Rachel’s back, similarly thwarted. A third had just smashed its way through a force wall when it was rent by a slash carried the distance on the wings of Kite’s intent. As the pace of the combat around him started climbing again, so did Kite try to match it. An interfering ward, a projected strike with his staff against fungal growths, a warning called out, an incoming attack snaking through his defenses and him countering through the pain, two more wards in quick succession. The pace was straining from the very start, the silver-ranked monster’s pure attributes giving it such a head start, but Kite still endeavored to use it to grow, to temper himself and to make a difference.
His efforts were by no means perfect. Intercepting wards came up a little bit too late, or a projected strike was mistimed and only rending empty air. But a lot of them did connect and did protect. And through them, the effects of his attacks started to add up. The blocking of healing from his evolved void strike. The stacking afflictions from his mana drain which continually hampered mana recovery and lowered damage resistance. And most of all, his evolved racial gift ever so slowly but definitely noticeably wearing away the effects of the monster’s superior rank.
Kite felt like he was touching upon something, a vision of what he might grow to be. He was everywhere, not in body but in action, his every move having a clearer vision and intent than the one before.
And beside him, Vista, Phiona and Rachel all fought as hard. Phiona’s staff was a constant blur, often flashing briefly with power before delivering decisive, precise strikes. It was as if she aspired to become the epitome of control, her weapon a mere part of the will she wanted to impose on the world.
Rachel instead fought with a primal ferocity, being but one of many heads of the hydra that was her being. Adicid smoke and bile flew everywhere as well as globs of healing ichor. The strikes she could not dodge, she took as best as she was able, showing off the indomitable regeneration of the hydra.
And Vista was closing in on the stormwind Kite had seen him become a few times during their outing, twin blades but a blur as their increased speed and power helped him further shred every piece of fungal matter within range. He ducked, sliced, dodged and whirled around the incoming attacks, like a force of nature in full sprint yet still retaining enough balance.
But through all of this, Whimmy only continued to weaken. The fungal monster's life drain continued ceaselessly, ravishing the caught familiar even as the three heads breathed fire upon it and thrashed about in defiance. Even with the adventurers finding a semblance of control in the chaos, it was obvious that the massive vitality of a silver-ranked being would last a lot longer than the bronze-ranked cerberus.
“They’re flagging! We are not fast enough!” Vista called, fear coloring his voice even as his blades continued their deadly dance.
“Rachel will handle it.” Was Phiona’s terse response, focus on the onslaught around them.
“But-”
Phiona’s next response was just a shove through her aura, enough to make her point without sending the young master off balance.
“Please…” was Vista’s response, barely heard by bronze-rank perception over the din of combat.
“Just a little bit more- Thanks Kite!” Rachel said through gritted teeth as she wrestled with a tentacle only for it to be half-severed and forced to retract by a projected slash. “Now!” she then stated, more to herself than the rest.
“One head severed, twice regrown!”
Her chant rang out clear over the small battlefield in the mountain valley, followed by a howl as green vapors flowed from the mouth and nostrils of all three heads of the cerberus. From the brink of death, the familiar’s aura was now brimming with life and potential, and they redoubled their struggle to break free as Rachel’s spell all but restored it to its original condition.
“The power of a counter-execute.” Kite thought, his further reflections interrupted by what Rachel said next.
“But you all have to pick up the pace. I’m running lower than I’d like here.” Rachel called, dodging another strike.
“Sage, please help the fair lady!” Kite called, continuing his work. He too was flagging in stamina and mana, the constant stream of attacks and spells beyond any that he had endured before. But he, at least, had a solution to that. Sage, floating just behind Kite’s back as usual, reconfigured to a pattern that Kite seldom had seen it use, its depths flashing once and then again as it emptied its stored charges. Two blue streams of mana found the red-haired Geller, who whooped in surprise and elation.
“Scratch what I just said. I can still join in the fun!” she called. “Sage, you are the best-” Her call was interrupted as one of Kite’s attempts at intercepting a tendril failed, one of the limbs slamming into her back and sending her tumbling.
“Rachel!” Kite called, his focus from earlier crumbling. One charged jump, courtesy of all the intercepted strikes and the glancing blows that had hit him so far, took him to her side as several more tentacles were slamming down on her and wrapping around her.
Even as he leapt for one, sword already being drawn, Kite saw that two more of the limbs were aiming for him. One he would easily catch on his barrier, but he resolutely decided to accept the other while instead focusing on helping the struggling Geller to get free. His slash cut into one of the offending limbs, rending force blowing away an impressive chunk of the fungal material before the unblocked strike impacted him. As he had not yet finished his leap, there was no ground which could absorb the force of the blow.
Kite saw stars as he tumbled across the ground, trying to regain his footing while coughing as a consequence of the air being driven from his lungs, and he didn’t even have time to further assess Rachel’s condition as more tendrils swept in towards him. Immediately pushed to the defensive while fighting through the pain and daze from the impact, Kite ignored the tentacles attempting to grab him, trusting in his special ability to keep the monster’s restraining attempts at bay, instead focusing on the sweeping strikes and lashes. Unfortunately, the fungal being was not entirely mindless, and a few failed attempts later the grappling tendrils started attacking more conventionally as well.
It was all Kite could do to hold on, barrier and staff working frantically even as glancing blows rained down on him, with a few solid hits threatening to send him reeling. While the monster’s rank advantage was all but gone and its strength was barely above bronze rank, the hits were numerous and vicious. Kite felt a rib crack and another solid hit sent a jolting pain up his left wrist as his bones cracked slightly. The world was getting a bit blurry at the edges as Kite frantically fought to regain his focus from before, but his beleaguered position left him unable to find the state of mind.
Finally, a tendril snaked around the barrier he conjured just a bit too late, impacting his head and sending him tumbling to the ground. Blinking through the blood running down his face, Kite saw several tendrils raise high around him before beginning their descent. A descent suddenly stopped.
“Hatch, cluster of constriction!”
A whole brood of snakes suddenly appeared around Kite, bursting from the ground to wrap around the tentacles or bite into them with venomous fangs. Tendrils wrapped around tendrils caused the threatening limbs to instead just writhe in place as the battle of constrictive power took place. A moment later, Rachel ran by and reached down to grab Kite by his collar and rather roughly drag him out from the clustered tentacles, a feat easily manageable by her high bronze-ranked strength.
“Let’s not forget who is the experienced one here, young man.” she admonished him with a wink before shoving a healing pill into his mouth. “Those sure are easier to give to someone else. Force-feeding someone a potion as a lot more messy.” she quipped as she turned around once more to intercept an incoming strike with a hand turned into the head of a vicious fanged serpent.
As the healing pill took effect, Kite managed to clear his head and resume his defensive measures, fighting a lot closer to Rachel. However, he did not have the time to completely regain his focus or stride as Phiona called to them.
“Be vigilant! Something is changing!” she called. Through his expanded vision Kite saw another worrying development that he had missed during his more misadventurous part of the fight so far. In the center of the main cluster of fungi, one of the purple caps of the mushrooms had started to grow, distorting into almost ballooning proportions as a faint glow could be seen inside. And through his magical perception, Kite noted that this glow spelled trouble. A lot of it.
“Teacher! It will detonate in some fashion!”
“That much felt rather obvious! How long?” Phiona called back, dodging beneath another series of attacks.
“Unsure. Maybe thirty seconds. You all need to gather on me!” Kite shouted back, nudging Rachel to join him in making his way towards the others.
“We can’t just leave Whimmy!” Vista called, fighting furiously, but even his accumulated great speed and power could not simply free the familiar.
“Vista, we-” Kite began, but was interrupted.
“We cannot.” The young master stated. Kite met his gaze for but a brief moment, but it was unneeded. Vista’s aura made his stance on the matter very clear.
Gritting his teeth, seeing the relatively short distance to the main cluster but also the myriad tentacles which would force them to fight for every meter of that distance. Squaring his shoulders resolutely, he instead looked to Rachel. “We will jump on three.”
She gave him a searching look, then nodded. “One.” Kite swung to slice the tip of a tentacle with his blade as his war fan appeared in his other one. “Two.” Rachel’s hydra heads spewed a gout of acid at another pair of incoming swipes. “Three!”
Finishing his count, Kite felt a lot of his remaining mana leave him as he activated the fan’s most potent power, a whirling vortex appearing around him. He felt the wind surging through his body, giving speed beyond what he had known. But as he needed to close the distance to Whimmy faster than the tendrils could intercept, he activated the speed enchantment of his boots as well. One running step took him to Rachel, locking one arm around her waist as he took another step along with her before pushing off, using the gathered momentum of several strikes and the compounded speed enchantments in the hopes that it would allow them to arrive in time.
The accumulated force and speed meant that the pair cleared the ground with a roar churning air, winds whipping at everything in their vicinity. While he was weighed down by the additional passenger, the enchantments of the war fan were sturdy enough to hold, carrying them in a glide at breakneck speeds that Kite would not have dared attempting at iron rank. And probably should not attempt at bronze either.
Tentacles whipped at them as they sailed over the small forest of grasping limbs, but Fortune had acknowledged Kite’s endeavor this time as well. The pair landed next to Vista and Phiona in a stumbling and rather ungraceful impact, jolting their bones but leaving them relatively unharmed.
By this time, the purple growth had started distending to a worrying degree. While Whimmy was not trapped right next to the growth, it was still looming over them just a few meters away.
“Get behind me and ready your defenses!” Kite called frantically, Phiona responding right away. But Vista still hesitated.
“Will you-”
“Yes. Now go!” Kite bellowed. His reserves were not in the greatest of shapes, the intense fighting having drained quite a lot from him with him constantly throwing out barriers and intercepting strikes. What Kite had planned would be risky, but it had to be done in just the right order to leave him with a chance to further contribute to this battle.
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Vista had barely passed him when started his spell chant.
“Dissolve the patterns of power!”
The wave of dispelling force washed over the cluster and the growing calamity that was the purple pod. Kite’s heart sang as he saw the dispelling force causing the glow to weaken, unable to completely dispel the higher-ranked growing magic but having an effect. Not pausing to revel in the development, he followed it up with a dispelling strike with his staff, carried the distance through his intent. The echoed dispelling effect further caused the glow to weaken slightly, but the impact also seemed to be the spark the creature needed to choose to detonate what it had accumulated.
As he saw the flash of igniting mana, Kite’s eyes widened as he frantically chanted the last parts of his plan.
“Void! Wall!”
The vision of an unfurling explosion of roiling purple spores was abruptly cut off by a disc of pure darkness appearing in front of them, followed by a cage of force around the four adventurers and the restrained Whimmy. Unfortunately, the familiar’s close proximity of the fungal growths meant that a few tendrils was included in the force cage as well, but Kite was only able to give them a cursory smidgeon of attention as the strain on his void gate suddenly increased manifold by the silver-ranked detonation.
His immortality power activated, a fierce glow emanating from within Kite as his reserves was rapidly filled anew only to start draining quickly as he channeled mana into keeping his most potent defensive measure intact. The bronze-rank upgrade meant that the gate even drew in a lot of the detonation, leaving very little to flow around the intervening disc of darkness.
The handful of seconds felt like a marathon to Kite, him finally having to let go of his void gate when down to about a third of his mana again, not daring to risk collapse from mana-exhaustion. A wave of purple spores washed over the force cage, detonating in bursts of energies which would attempt to drain the life of anything living it came into contact with. The panes of force cracked and started becoming more opaque, the pressure mounting until it suddenly stopped completely.
Kite staggered but couldn’t help but grin through his exhausted state and worn meridians. It had worked. A moment later he was splattered by fungal matter as Phiona smashed a tendril close to him, giving him an intense look with not a small amount of approval.
“Well done, student! The rest of us shall have to make a push too!” she called, turning to the others. “Its rank-advantage is all but gone. It is time to unleash what you have.”
“Teacher, me first! I still have something to contribute!” Kite called, unsteadily ducking beneath a wide swing of a fungal tendril and coming up swinging his staff. The ornate head with the two chiming rings glowed fiercely with the mana-stealing power that was the most used arrow in his metaphorical quiver. Then the glow intensified again as he poured his own stored empowering charges into the attack. Letting his walls of force dissipate, the following swing carried the strike into a cluster of fungi, blue cracks exploding from the point of impact to envelop the all nearby mushrooms and even spreading out along the tentacles as a significantly larger chunk of mana was drained, leaving behind even more of the twin afflictions than usual. Then the echo struck, with less damage but the rest of the effect mirrored to take effect once more.
Having done what he could for the moment to lower the monster’s resistances as far as possible, Kite fell back into his defensive stance once more, the after-effects of the bronze-ranked immortality power working to further restore his flagging mana and stamina as he called: “After you, fair lady!”
“Yes!” Rachel cheered, taking a wide stance. “I did promise you a waterfall earlier after all!”
“Wellspring of primal life and acidic decay, unleash your flood upon these lands!”
All five of the hydra heads which grew from Rachel’s back suddenly started emitting a bright green glow before taking aim at a particularly large cluster of mushrooms well away from their position. Then, as one, they all opened their jaws, and what came flowing did indeed live up to Kite’s expectations. A torrent of sizzling green acid at least a meter in width was projected, arcing only slightly before splashing out over the fungi, the mere impact of the launched fluids breaking some of the fungal matter before the potent acid started to take effect. Strama and mycelium blackened and folded in upon itself where the acid devoured it, purple mushroom caps collapsing down into the small pond which quickly formed at the target location.
The monster seemed to recognize the sudden threat and had just started redirecting more of its effort towards the acid-spewing Geller when her cousin reminded it why it had deemed her the bigger threat in the first place. Kite could see a lot of mana being channeled through Phiona’s body and staff, before she became but a line in the air, zigzagging several meters in all directions and leaving a frozen afterimage in the air on each point where her trajectory changed. As she emerged from the special attack into a diving, spinning strike, all of her afterimages unleashed a similar attack from their location, resulting in an unfurling wave of precise, controlled violence as a lot of the main cluster of fungi was utterly destroyed.
As Kite’s evolved racial gift had worked through the increased resistances of the silver-ranker, both of the Geller’s unleashed power had devastating effect, further added to by the reduction of damage resistance which Kite had steadily been building up on their foe. This left Vista to be the last one to capitalize, none of the others stopping their assault even after wreaking such spectacular havoc. The young master instead chose a different approach, but from the effects Kite could gleam with his magical perception, it was no less potent.
“No matter the cause, victory belongs to the last one standing. Begin the warrior’s marathon.”
Vista exploded with power as his mercurial swords transformed from the twin falchions to one of the biggest blades Kite had ever laid eyes on. It was as long as Vista himself and almost as wide, curving slightly and glowing with the same power that the young master himself wielded. And Vista made wielding it look easy, as his strength, speed and endurance seemed to have reached even further heights than before, the young noble becoming a whirling storm of violence.
Where his strikes had earlier only shredded the surface layers of the monster, he could now cleave through them wholesale, employing a stance with spinning and whirling strikes to make constant use of his greatsword’s weight and momentum while easily managing its mass with his improved attributes. And with all of these factors combined, Vista could finally get to freeing Whimmy.
The young master sent his sword flying out in a wide spinning arc, cleaving through a fungal stalk before severing half of the life-draining tendrils keeping his familiar in check. A fierce bronze glow had started to emanate from Vista’s body even as he ran in the sword’s wake, a series of gestures had the blade swing back around and sever most of the the final restraints, Whimmy themselves biting through the last and finally freeing themselves. The cerberus looked exhausted, but still fell into its usual place at its master’s back, breathing flames and warding off the tentacles still remaining after the onslaught unleashed by the group.
All the spectacular skills unleashed had given Kite enough charges to pull off yet another empowered attack, yet another reason for him to go first in their final push. This time it was a void-trailing strike from his sword which became a wide arc of nothingness as he projected it against some remaining fungal bodies.
Having weathered the accumulated detonation and with Vista utilizing what Kite assumed was some spectacular kind of berserking power to the fullest while the rest of those gathered continued to keep up the pressure, it proved to be only a matter of time before one of the top most intense fights in Kite’s adventuring career came to a close. A final series of acid projectiles from Rachel sent a shudder through the valley, the monster’s aura deflating like a water skin which had sprung a leak. Just a few moments and a few of the fungi’s twitching last attempt at strikes later, it was over.
As he had many times before, Kite stood fascinated with the eerie silence just after a battle had reached its conclusion. Where there had been the din of combat was now only the rustling of the breeze in the surrounding foliage of the small valley along with the sizzling sound of acid eating through whatever materials it could before expiring. Then came a loud whine as three throats emitted the pitiful sound, Whimmy throwing itself down to get between Vista and the ground as the young noble collapsed. Kite could feel his shuddering aura, the instability not because of injury but by being utterly and thoroughly spent.
“There, there, I am fine. It was you three who had me worried, you troublemakers.” Vista said tiredly as he weakly petted the closest heads, the rest looking too ashamed to remember to be jealous of the attention.
Kite himself felt the paradoxical state of being exhausted yet surprisingly energized at the same time, which was usually the case when restoring his reserves with magic. While it would help him greatly, it was not a true substitute for proper rest. His companions looked the same, but Rachel still had a fierce grin on her face.
“Nona! We did it! We did it!” she cheered, even jumping and pumping her fists up into the air.
“We did indeed, cousin.” Phiona agreed, a tired smile gracing the rest with its presence before she turned to their semi-incapacitated companion. “Vista, what is your condition?”
“I…” he began, pausing to clear his head with a shake. “I will be fine, but am severely weakened for the next three days. I would not want to face even iron-ranked monsters at the moment.”
“That was indeed quite the berserking power. It is no surprise that it carried such a prize. But it also saw us through in time to pull your familiar through this ordeal alive.” Phiona noted.
“It did indeed.” Vista said, looking down at Whimmy. “Th- thank you. All of you. The karmic balance between all of us is now out of balance, moving into the reaches where I am unsure of how I would even begin to go about severing it.”
“That… that means that he feels that he owes us a lot, right?” Rachel asked Kite.
“Yes. We often speak of karma in these lands, but it is often of the greatest import to the greatest people with the grandest fates.” Kite explained, having learned more of it from Will during their time together. “It is not just Vista himself who carries such a debt, but his whole family.”
“Although in this case, it will mostly be me.” Vista interjected. “Father would… disapprove, to say the least, of my actions here today. He would simply have me bond with another familiar. But to me, that remains unacceptable.”
Kite understood his sentiment, the thought of Glint perishing even having caused him to rarely employ her in dangerous situations while still at iron rank.
“We will have to speak more of this once we have made camp in a more secure location.” Phiona noted. “Search the area, then we move out. From this little experience, I would say that our outing has been cut short as Vista needs rest and recovery.”
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“I still almost can’t believe that your familiar can just manifest things like that.” Rachel said, looking a bit jealously at the cube in Kite’s hand. It looked like a piece cut out from the side of the very fungus monster they had just faced, its sides slightly textured like the thready trama which made up the main mass of most fungoid specimens. There was no doubt about which type of essence it was.
“You did not sound too disappointed when picking up the awakening stone.” Kite retorted. “I thought that fair ladies were supposed to be tactful and gracious.”
“But we also like our treasures quite a lot.” Rachel said, turning her nose up at him.
“You know that Sage mostly manifests more monsters.” Kite pointed out. “A good thing we were ready to retreat if the need had arisen.”
“Besides, cousin, with the reward from this contract, you shouldn’t begrudge Kite another piece for his little project.” Phiona added as she came to sit down with the other two after double-checking the concealing formations around their camp.
“Is Vista asleep?” Kite asked her, pouring a cup of tea for his teacher.
“I believe so, and Whimmy seems rather out of it as well. We should consider spending a day here to let them properly recuperate. That berserking power combined with what I assumed to be a racial gift evolution will have taken their toll on him.” Phiona said, taking the offered cup.
“Still Nona, can you believe that we took down a silver-ranked one? It’s no wonder that one of Vista’s gifts would evolve.” Rachel said, almost spilling her tea as she leaned forwards excitedly.
“I still can’t believe that we actually stayed and fought it, although it triggering a gift evolution does not surprise me as much.” Phiona said. “Had it not been in the lower reaches of silver, I would have had us out of there with or without our young master”
“But adventuring means taking a chance every now and then. And from the glow during your meditations earlier, I do believe that you too made some progress, cousin.” Rachel said, looking at her cousin with wagging eyebrows.
Phiona sighed, but gave a wan smile. “In that, you are right. It felt good to take such a step forward again. Feeling my powers advance almost felt nostalgic.”
“I believe that the battle taught us all much, teacher.” Kite agreed. “But I have something that I’d like to get your input on.” At Phiona’s questioning nod, he told her about the feeling he had experienced during the fight. Of glimpsing something partially uncovered within himself, something not yet entirely within reach yet something he knew awaited him at the horizon of his path.
After listening attentively, Phiona nodded. “It sounds like you are coming closer to grasping what your powers, or as you call it; your path, is building towards. It is good that you have already started touching upon it.
Back home, and in most high-magic zones in the world, they usually say that silver rank is when you have become a true adventurer. That everything before is just time spent growing into that adventurer. Why do you think that is?”
Kite thought on her question for a while, still having trouble imagining societies where silver-rankers were the norm instead of lauded persons of interest and power.
“Is it because most manifestations are so dangerous that it is only at silver and beyond that you can be trusted to handle yourself?” he eventually asked, still feeling that the truth was an incomplete one.
“Partially, yes, but there is more. At least according to my aunt. It is at silver rank that most regard their set of powers as ‘finished’, in the sense that it is at that rank that your magic starts compensating for its own shortcomings to form a more solid whole. When you have used them for years and become one with them. That is when they say that you can find your role as an adventurer, and that the path onward to gold and even diamond ranks are when you make that foundation grow into something more.” Phiona said, speaking animatedly.
“So my path now isn’t as complete as I would think it to be?” Kite asked, processing her words.
“Yes and no. In a way, it has been since you absorbed your final awakening stone. But it is like being done planting your seeds and already celebrating your fully-grown garden. You have an inkling about the potential end-result, but a lot more work is needed to get it there.” his teacher finished, Kite nodding in understanding.
“And your aunt taught you about these things?” Kite asked, once more reminded of his rather lacking education.
“That and much more even though it was still much that she held from me. Not out of spite, but out of necessity. I do believe her that there are things we should not know too much about when we have just begun growing a garden of our own. They will be revealed in time.”
“Even though all the smug mysteriousness of our older relatives becomes absolutely insufferable after a time.” Rachel added, making a sour face.
“So, what I felt was a hint of what my path might become?” Kite asked.
“It is possible, yes, although things can change. But from what you described, it makes sense. If you ponder your set of powers, you possess a lot more defensive and attrition-related options with a few special attacks and finishers to keep up the pressure or control the tempo. With your perception power and those projected attacks, I would assume you to be the defensive lynchpin of any group you find yourself in, being able to effectively be where you need to, when you need to.” Phiona lectured, a tone Kite had become quite familiar with during their time together.
“But still, you are an odd kind of defender, Kite.” Rachel added. “Most wouldn’t do too well in duels and might be circumvented by smart opponents such as essence users. But if anything, that is where you prove even more effective.
Are you absolutely sure that you won’t come with us and join our team when we leave?”
It was a sentiment she had repeated often. At first, Kite had thought it a mere joke, but Rachel had remained persistent. And to his surprise, Phiona nodded along this time.
“Should you wish to, I would second Rachel’s invitation.” she said.
“Teacher, I-” Kite said, humbled by what such an invitation meant. Still, it was no easy thing to consider, even though he enjoyed the company of the two Gellers.
“Just think on it.” Phiona interrupted him, seeing his pained expression. “We still have many months together. But before we too find our rest, there is one more topic I’d like to broach.”
Her somber tone had Kite guessing at his teacher’s intended subject. “This contract?” he asked.
“Indeed. As you said, cousin, how did someone from the nearby village even get to this remote location to witness the monster? While it did bear some resemblance to the spore gazer, every road there looked untouched, and the lone essence-user of the village did not seem to possess neither plant nor flying powers.”
“You think that it was foul play?” Rachel asked. “That someone misled us?”
“It would be almost impossible for us to say, but it might be something worth considering.” Kite said, thinking it over. “And definitely something we should inform Braid and the other investigators about. We knew that there might be people after Vista. Having him lose or even die due to contract-related misinformation would be a tragic but all too common tale.”
His words left Phiona nodding and Rachel looking thoughtful. “So that means that we might stumble into more situations like this?” the red-haired Geller asked, a bit too cheerfully.
“Cousin, that is not what you should take away from this.” Phiona sighed, turning to Kite. “But I too believe that your words hold merit. We should make preparations for more nasty surprises in the future.”
It did not take long for them to agree upon a course of action, after which they all decided to find their rest. Kite was the only one remaining, the group deciding to have someone on watch through the night just in case.
Settling in against a low stone to give himself as wide a field of view as possible, Kite’s thought went to Phiona’s words of his path, and the offer that the two Gellers had extended. It was a lot to digest, although his more introspective side was left rather satiated by the mental processing. But a while later, he decided to put the matter aside for now. Such significant thought deserved their due consideration after all, not just some post-battle reflections.
And there was one more thing craving his attention; his looting power had become fully charged after the ordeal, the silver-ranked monster apparently providing plenty of energy for the ability. Kite gave his mental assent, and the usual swirl of rainbow energy started manifesting.
When it was finally done, Kite’s only murmured response was a simple “Huh…”
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“Young master, you called for me?” the woman asked, bowing deep to Stoic Boar.
“Indeed I did.” young master Stoic confirmed, acknowledging her with a smile. It was always satisfying to use the same retainers for as long as possible, and this bronze-ranked woman had so far delivered when he set a task before her. “It is regarding my little project in regards to the ladies Geller.”
“Has there been any progress?” his retainer asked, looking up.
“Unfortunately not, and therefore I find myself calling on you again. One of my other retainers have been managing the process so far, picking out the right gifts and offers for them. Even though his tastes are exquisite, the two outlanders have proved quite unshakable even as other matters are increasing the pressure upon us.” he sighed, thinking of the expenses that were slowly but surely piling up. While it was nothing significant yet, it might soon start entering the territory where his elders might actually notice and start asking questions.
“Therefore, I have called on you for a change of pace.” young master Stoic continued. “One of the Gellers has a student, the young man I had you following earlier. While I originally thought him to be the instigator and responsible party to the deal with Daybreak Peony, I am glad that we dug deeper and uncovered the Gellers’ interests in this business.
As both of the ladies have been rather resistant to our offers, I thought that going through him might be a better avenue of approach, to gain us a better position in the long term.”
“Then what would you have me do, young master?” his retainer asked.
“Find out more about him and find a fulcrum. Something that matters to him and something we can use to further our cause.” Stoic Boar said pleasantly. “As he is a commoner, he should not have the training to realize the games we play, and a lot more chinks in his armor.”
The woman nodded knowingly. “Then I will do so, young master, and send word when I have something concrete to provide you.”
“Excellent!” Stoic Boar said, clapping his hands together once. “Now I must move on to other arrangements. You can leave.”
As the woman bowed again and left, Boar turned to look out the window of his study. The sun was shining, and while true spring was yet a while away it was a hint that warmer and more plentiful times were on the horizon. He felt good about taking his time to approach the student of Phiona Geller, as the young man should be a weaker link who might be leveraged to influence his teacher. And commoners always had so many more things they needed, be it money, resources or connections. Either for themselves or others. Boar aimed to find out what might make him more amenable to the beneficial offer his family wanted to extend to the Gellers, using that as a fulcrum for his further dealings with the two ladies.
Sighing contentedly, he turned to other matters, but not before saying a short prayer to Merchant, hoping for the diety’s blessings during the upcoming days.
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Gentle Hint of Rain hummed to herself as she walked the streets of Bastion, a bit of excitement in her step. Working for the Stoics had always paid her well, and this one should be no different. She thought that she had understood the hint in the young master’s eyes as he had emphasized the word fulcrum; a term often used in less than savory circles in regards to leverage for blackmail.
“He wants a show of force then? To put some respect in this young outcast before the real negotiations can begin.” she thought to herself. “I better start finding his weakest links then, and see just how much such leverage can force him to bend.”
It was nothing personal and she even sympathized a bit with him, one outcast to another. But business was business, so she would do the best she could.
“Maybe I’ll even earn a bonus this time too?” she thought happily, dreaming of maybe finally getting just enough to afford the first essence for her little brother.