Sitting comfortably on a plane of pink butterflies, a hundred feet above the bustling camp, Hiral focused on pushing his sensory domain out further, little by little. Now easily reaching several-hundred feet, the slight touches of Rejection on the people moving below him weren’t nearly as overwhelming as they had been when he’d first gotten the ability.
Directly below him, Nivian continued to offer stew to any who wanted it, while Wule sat near his brother, book in hand. Bash wasn’t far from them either, the Troblin creating and playing with small dolls made directly from the earth. They reminded Hiral a lot of the Elder Earth Elementals that old goat had summoned, actually. Not nearly as powerful, but they did seem to be able to move on their own and follow basic commands.
A benefit of his new, advanced class?
Unfortunately, those were his only raid members he could sense. The camp had spread out to the borders of the space Al – their Triclops guide – had brought them too. So, Hiral opened his eyes to check on people the old-fashioned way.
The beginnings of a stone wall bordered the entire area, one that would be nearly thirty-feet tall when completed. Apparently, one of the C-Rank teams had found the schematic while Hiral and his group were out, and the War Table had already gotten started on constructing it. It was… more than a little fascinating to watch – evident by the scurrying groups of Academics studying the process – as whole sections of completed wall just seemed to miraculously appear.
And, within that wall, the camp itself had definitely progressed. The residence building had added another floor – and working showers, finally – while the crafting building had gotten a station for woodworking. While that didn’t sound tremendously exciting at first glance – yay, wood carvings? – it had actually come with several schematics for bows and staves.
C-Rank bows and staves.
People were already madly working on their crafting skill to learn how to make these items, and it only fueled the fire of desire to find more schematics. Contribution points had been offered to for the discovery of recipes – as they were calling them informally – for all crafting professions, but especially smithing. While Hiral could craft crystal weapons and items, and the Growers had relied on a lot of wood or plant-based equipment, the metals they were finding in the Cradle were very, very interesting.
Another C-Rank group had found a small mine, with a very strange ore in it. One that seemed to increase the body’s natural recuperative process if enough of it was around. Somehow, it promoted an advanced form of Cycling. Well, the group had very quickly combined that with one of the Buildings in a Box they’d gotten, and set that up. The strange dungeon reward they’d gotten incorporated special properties of materials – such as they ore – into the building that seemingly grew from the box.
Now, almost thirty hours after it’d been started – and four hours after Hiral’s tattoos had been finished – they had a new hospital. It still wasn’t big enough to hold more than two-dozen people, but the building was young. It’d grow up, big and strong, and just being inside it caused injuries to heal faster. Solar energy to recharge faster.
And, a camp-shaking WHOMP reminded Hiral why they’d chosen that particular location for the hospital – the training ground right next to it. Built from another schematic they’d found, the D-Rank facility didn’t have the power to completely protect the trainees from each other.
In this case, it was Loan and Right going at it in a spirited spar. Shockwaves from the blows rattled the walls of the lower-Rank training ground, and even knocked some of the spectators from their feet.
For D-Rankers, the training ground would be amazing, preventing any injuries no matter how hard they went at each other. A great place to try out new abilities and builds. For C-Rankers, the protection barely reached fifty percent, meaning people had to hold back for fear of hurting each other. Hence the nearby hospital. For B-Rank and above, well, only their natural toughness protected them.
Elezad suspected there were higher-Rank schematics out there, allowing stronger protections for all Ranks. They just had to find them.
Luckily, since it was Loan and Right, Hiral wasn’t really worried about either of them getting hurt. Left was there too, part of the two-on-one melee against the big Shaper. One that – admittedly – wasn’t going as well for Hiral’s doubles as he’d secretly hoped. Then again, when Loan had explained it to him, it’d made sense – and it was the primary reason they were sparring.
Loan had trained Hiral the best he could with what Hiral’s strengths were. Dexterity, a quick mind, and any weapon he could get his hands on. What Loan hadn’t trained Hiral with were the power of Meridian Lines and the use of tattoos in combat – because he couldn’t use either of those things.
And, because Hiral didn’t have that training, neither did Left or Right.
Sure, they’d done pretty well picking it up on their own, but Loan was a master when it came to a Shaper’s fighting style. Now, he was helping pass some of that knowledge on to the doubles. Helping them refine their fighting styles even more. Nearby, Ilrolik sat with Gran – each sipping tea – and offered pointers when she saw something from an outside perspective.
They weren’t the only members of Hiral’s raid party in the training ground, either. Yanily, Seeyela, and Devison likewise sparred in another section of the yard, though with less valley-shaking impacts. They moved more through a high-speed game of tag, with Yan and Seeyela pushing Devison to his limits and beyond. The man couldn’t quite keep up with them, but he had some very interesting abilities to work with. Especially the one that seemed to predict and enemy’s movements, and guide his own. He also felt very close to his advanced class, and an intensive training sessions with two of the more dangerous fighters in the camp could be just what he needed.
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Yully was, of course, nearby in case the man lost another damn foot.
A little further from them, Drahn and Igwanda practiced on an archery range with their new classes. The two skillsets had deviated from each other, with the One True Shot focusing on annihilating single targets. Drahn’s Wind of the South, on the other hand, seemed to excel at debilitating larger groups. From what Hiral could see and hear, the different classes had driven a small wedge of competition between the two to prove which was better.
Not that it was a bad thing, with each of them pointing out how the other class could overcome what they saw as a ‘weakness’. All in all, it would help them both grow in strength, and Hiral actually had to turn away as he witnessed how it also progressed their relationship. The normally bow-focused Wight was a bit… aggressive when it came to kissing.
Hiral had to find something else to think about – and quickly – before his mind went to all the questions about how a relationship like that could even work. Undead. Squalian. Grower. There were too many variables!
And Drahn of all people? When Hiral had first met the man, he was almost as racist as Fitch had been. Now he was getting it on with…?
Stop, stop, stop!
Physically shaking his head to make sure the images – Oh, nine hells, the images! – didn’t take hold in his mind, Hiral focused intently on the last members of his group down at the training ground. The two Bonders, Romin and Finotol, along with their companions.
For their part, Wallop and Finotol’s large cat – Rive – were busy mauling a pair of D-Rank training dummies. The poor constructs of wood and straw stood little chance against the B-Rank companions, and the two seemed to have a competition going as to how fast they could murder their dummy. Then, in the long seconds it took for the dummy to reform, Hiral could only imagine they were silently taunting each other by the body language he saw.
As for their Bonders, Romin was explaining his new advanced class – True-Bonded – to see if he could trigger an evolution for this friend. It hadn’t worked yet, but to Hiral’s senses, they were getting closer. They just needed another push or two – maybe some inspiration – before they got the rest of the way there. Since Hiral had already given what help he could, it was up to Finotol and Rive to get the rest of the way.
That just left Sera, who was understandably spending time with Nat and Milly – though the three of them were also in the training grounds. Sera had turned out to be an excellent support member of the team, with incredibly flexible buffs and debuffs, thanks to her ability to edit the tattoos on her Mediums. Even more so because she’d been the one to ink them herself. With every hour that passed – and battle – they were seeing how the Artists’ strengths differed from Shapers.
The big, tattooed titans that everybody had associated with Makers tended to be very good at their roles, with tattoos and builds to achieve those results. They were also physically powerful beyond any of the other classes. However, take them out of their element – or ask them to do something outside their established role – and they floundered a bit.
Artists, on the other hand, were proving to be exceptionally adaptable, with some of the most skilled able to subtly manipulate their abilities on the fly. Sera, for example, had a tattoo that increased the parties’ resistances to a single element. Originally, the tattoo protected against fire, aptly named Burn Resistance. It wasn’t even a high-Rank or costly tattoo because that was all it did. Until Sera got her hands on it inked on her Medium.
Almost unbelievably, she’d modified the Burn part to any element of her choosing. And it only took her a few seconds to make the change. Sure, she couldn’t do more than one element at a time still, but the fact she could alter the tattoo in that way? Revolutionary. And, now, other Artists were learning to do the same thing.
Case in point – her two daughters.
Nat and Milly were both picking it up as easily as breathing. Nat, because of her absurd natural talent for tattoos, and Milly because of the benefits of her Fool tattoo.
Give them a few more Ranks, and those two are going to be making the rest of us look bad.
Not that Hiral minded. The stronger his sisters were, the less he had to worry about them.
With his party accounted for, Hiral turned his attention back to his own work. As comfortable as the breeze was, sitting up there above the bustling camp, he hadn’t been idle in his own practice. Yes, his sensory domain had been part of it, but that had only been a passive thing he worked on while he concentrated on something else – scouting the Cradle.
More specifically, while dozens of his clones scouted out the Cradle.
It had been a bit of effort to manifest clones of different Ranks – the poison-effect on a higher-Rank clone in a lower-Rank area was no less pronounced – but once he’d figured it out…? Well, it was worth it, to say the least.
His clones had been sent out with next-to-no health – since Hiral only got information from them when they died or were killed – and simple instructions. Find trials. Then die.
And they did both those things. Even better, while Hiral got the information on where they’d been in the seconds leading up to their deaths, the War Table got even more. His clones counted as an ability of his, and since he was within the fortress, the Table registered that as him returning with information. Then, just like that, the table would update with the trial’s location, Rank, and the name of the reward.
Hiral had already found four trials that had been missed by scouts going through pacified areas, and he was pushing out even beyond. The orchard they’d found in the A-Rank zone was definitely one of his goals, but his clones hadn’t reached there yet. They didn’t have pseudo-aspects to boost their speed, and they were – frankly – pretty squishy. More than a few had died ‘pointlessly’ when they’d gotten ambushed by a lurking monster.
Even that was useful, though, with Hiral cataloguing the ambush predators, and passing the information along to get recorded in area guides. The more hidden dangers the groups knew about, the less likely they were to get hurt by them.
Which, led to Hiral nodding as another of his clones was killed. This was the second that’d died in the same general area, and the images filling his mind confirmed what he’d started to suspect a few minutes prior.
The next Beast Wave was mounting.