Young slayers fear monsters. At least the good ones do, the ones expected to make it through their first year alive. Old slayers fear that more terrible creature, the aftermath.
“Please sir, there is no need to be sorry.”
Taka stared down at the woman who’s home he’d destroyed, her arms still clutching her two sons tight to her chest
“You saved my boys. I can replace a home but I can’t replace them.” She patted him gratefully on the arm and shuffled her sons over to another woman that bore a familial resemblance, likely her sister. Each woman picked up a child and took them inside a different home.
He’d followed the Ridgeback into that home, snatched the pair of kids from inside, before collapsing it onto the monster with a well-focused Earthquake. It had been enough to crack its scaled armor, and give his companion the opportunity to deal the killing blow.
Taka had made the right call, prioritizing slaying the Ridgeback and saving civilians over preserving property, but when he looked at the crumbling remains of this single mother’s home, it was difficult to remember.
“You heard her Takaplinth, you did the right thing,” Delsin said, an edge of irritation in his voice. Delsin was Taka’s companion on his current mission, assigned by the guild, and his insistence on using Taka’s full first name was the least annoying of his traits.
Taka could understand the rule that slayers weren’t allowed to take missions alone, even agree with it, but that became more and more difficult to remember when he was saddled with someone like Delsin.
In fact, Taka’s habit of taking whichever jobs had been neglected the longest, regardless of payout, glory, or unpleasantness, combined with his single slayer status and the fact that he accepted any companion without complaint had resulted in him becoming a living punishment detail.
Problem cases, low performers, or just plain unpleasant personalities were assigned to him in turn.
The low performers he could handle. Often it was an issue of inexperience or an unusual talent or set of skills incorrectly applied, which an experienced slayer like Taka could assist with. He might not be able to outright fix them, but he could usually get them on the right track if they were willing to learn.
At that point, there were teams more than happy to take them on board, leaving Taka to take on another temporary companion.
It was the slayers who could do the job, even do it well, but no one wanted to work with that really annoyed him.
Delsin was a prime example.
* Name: Delsin Smithson
* Level: 4.4
* Experience: 100%
* Attributes:
* Mana Capacity: 1
* Mana Regeneration: 1
* Magic Power: 1
* Strength: 1
* Speed: 1
* Endurance: 1
* Vitality: 1
* Mind: 1
* Toughness: 1
* Perception: 1
* Talents:
1. You may add a homing effect to any ranged skills.
2. The range of your skills is increased by 50%.
3. You may use touch based skills as projectiles with a short range.
* Talent Skills:
* None
* Skill Slots:
* Bright Bolt (Uncommon)
* Type: Attack, Ranged
* Affinity: Light
* Range: Medium
* Cost: Low Mana
* Effect: Shoots a projectile of concentrated light mana at a target. Deals low physical damage, but has increased effect on intangible targets and targets with opposing mana affinities, such as dark or death.
* Pulse (Common)
* Type: Attack, Ranged, Area of Effect
* Affinity: Force
* Range: Medium
* Cost: Moderate Mana
* Effect: Releases a pulse of kinetic energy from your body in all directions.
* Fireflies (Uncommon)
* Type: Attack, Ranged
* Affinity: Fire
* Range: Medium
* Cost: Moderate Mana
* Effect: Conjures a swarm of small, fire-based projectiles, which can be independently directed at multiple targets. Unused fireflies will remain where they were summoned for several minutes before dispersing.
* Shatter Touch (Uncommon)
* Type: Attack, Affliction
* Affinity: Glass/Force
* Range: Touch Close
* Cost: Moderate Mana
* Effect: Inflicts the target with the Brittle affliction and applies a moderate amount of physical force. The power of this attack is increased in proportion to a target’s level of damage.
* Brittle:
* Type: Affliction, Glass
* Effect: Dramatically reduces the flexibility of the target. May be applied to living or nonliving solid targets.
His talents were good, arguably too good. Being able to make any ranged skill home in on its target was incredibly useful, but it could also make someone incredibly lazy.
You had to crack down on anyone whose talents made things too easy before they got too confident, or they became overconfident while their actual skills stagnated. When slayers like that found themselves in a situation their talent couldn’t resolve for them, they died.
Taka had actually noticed a slayer in training with a similarly powerful talent that could lead him down that path, so he had a word with his trainers. Taka might not hold any kind of official position in the guild, but he was one of their highest level members in the city, with years of steady service. When he made a suggestion, it was rarely ignored.
Hopefully a bit of tough love would keep that Daggan kid alive long enough to come into his full strength, instead of ending up a greenhouse flower like Delsin.
In fact, Taka realized he had an opportunity to do something similar for his current companion, which would have the added benefit of keeping the man away from him while he took care of the property damage he’d inflicted.
“Delsin, I’m gonna need some time to fix this. Why don’t you take on the next mission alone.”
“Sir, it’s against guild regulations for me to take on a mission alone.”
“True, but separating to take a two pronged approach is allowed. Once I finish up here, I’ll be along to support you, but I expect you’ll have already cleaned up by the time I get there. It’s only Leaflings after all.”
Delsin tried to hide a derisive smirk, but did a poor job. Leaflings were among the most common and least dangerous monsters that appeared near Root Perch, thanks to the high levels of nature mana.
Given Delsin’s obvious confidence in fighting them, he obviously hadn’t faced them before.
* Leafling:
* Creature Type: Monster, Plant
* Affinities: Plant
* Description: A small monster that uses its leaf-like appearance to conceal itself. Its only significant abilities are enhancing the sharpness of its edges to make attacks and switch-teleporting with nearby, mundane leaves when threatened.
Leaflings weren’t especially dangerous, even to a low level civilian, since their only means of attack was drifting down from their hiding places on trees and hoping they hit you with their sharp edges, but Taka knew from experience that they were extremely frustrating to locate, let alone fight with their stealth and teleportation abilities.
He’d developed a tried and true strategy with his own skills and talents.
* Name: Takaplinth Flintheart
* Level: 9.5
* Experience: 64%
* Attributes:
* Mana Capacity: 2
* Mana Regeneration: 4
* Magic Power: 4
* Strength: 6
* Speed: 2
* Endurance: 4
* Vitality: 6
* Mind: 3
* Toughness: 7
* Perception: 3
* Talents:
1. Earth-affinity skills have their costs reduced by 25%.
2. You have access to flint affinity mana, a sub-affinity of earth mana.
3. Your earth-type skills have alternate versions when powered by flint affinity mana.
4. Physical attacks made against you inflict retributive damage on the attacker. This damage is proportional to the degree the damage of the attack was reduced by factors such as toughness or armor.
* Talent Skills:
* None
* Skill Slots:
* Weight of the World (Uncommon)
* Type: Enhancement
* Affinity: Earth
* Range: Self
* Cost: Low Stamina
* Effect: Increases your weight and relative density.
* Yank (Common)
* Type: Ranged
* Affinity: Force
* Range: Medium
* Cost: Moderate Mana
* Effect: Pulls all nearby creatures toward you.
* Earth Manipulation (Common)
* Type: Manipulation
* Affinity: Earth
* Range: Medium
* Cost: Moderate Mana
* Effect: Move, alter, and reinforce earth.
* Conjure Stone (Uncommon)
* Type: Conjuration
* Affinity: Earth
* Range: Short
* Cost: Moderate Mana
* Effect: Conjures various types of stone. Conjured stone will dissipate after a short duration unless sustained with mana.
* Stone Armor (Uncommon)
* Type: Manipulation, Defense
* Affinity: Earth
* Range: Self
* Cost: Moderate Mana
* Effect: Reshapes nearby stone into armor that moves with your body. This skill may be used to repair or reinforce existing armor for a reduced mana cost.
* Tremble Foot (Rare)
* Type: Defense, Passive, Combination, Attack
* Affinity: Force
* Range: Self
* Cost: None
* Effect: Absorbs a portion of all kinetic energy exerted against you. Your total capacity for absorbed kinetic energy is based on your Toughness attribute. You may discharge this kinetic energy through your feet, either directly or by adding its power to compatible skills.
* Obsidian Spire (Very Rare)
* Type: Conjuration, Defense
* Affinity: Earth
* Range: Medium
* Cost: High Mana
* Duration:
* Effect: Conjures a spire of obsidian that attracts ranged attacks from nearby enemies, absorbing the damage. All damage the obelisk takes reduces its duration. Optionally, when the obelisk is conjured, you may choose a specific mana affinity. The obelisk will only absorb attacks with that mana affinity, but will take reduced damage from all attacks with that affinity.
* Stoneform (Rare)
* Type: Defensive
* Affinity: Earth
* Range: Self
* Cost: High Stamina (Full conversion) / Low Stamina (Surface conversion)
* Effect: Transmute your body into living stone. You may transmute your entire body, or focus the effect on your skin for a significantly decreased cost. Decreases all incoming physical damage by a flat amount, based on your Toughness attribute. Low level damage sources may be completely negated.
* Earthquake (Uncommon)
* Type: Attack, Area of Effect, Manipulation
* Affinity: Earth
* Range: Medium
* Cost: High Mana
* Effect: Causes a localized earthquake.
Taka’s strategy was simple. He used Conjure Stone to create flint and Stone Armor to assemble it into a set of flint armor. Then, he used his Yank skill to pull any nearby Leaflings toward him, relying on his armor and high toughness to protect him, and on his fourth talent to inflict retributive damage on the Leaflings for their ‘attack’.
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Rinse and repeat enough times and the Leafling’s mana would be exhausted, leaving them unable to teleport away, and the mission would be complete.
He couldn’t think of a similarly effective way for his companion to kill the Leaflings, especially since his homing talent required him to identify and designate a target.
Delsin’s Pulse skill might be helpful for ripping the monsters off trees. It was a useful skill, even if it was common, useful enough that Taka had purchased one for his own son. Unfortunately, it didn’t distinguish between inanimate and animate targets like his Yank skill did.
Hopefully the experience would humble him.
Still, Taka felt a little guilty sending the man on such a hopeless mission, so he threw him a chance to save himself the frustration and failure.
“Have you fought Leaflings before? Do you remember their abilities?”
Delsin scoffed and waved away Taka’s concern, sealing his fate.
“They’re level 1, level 2 at most. I’ll take care of them and be back before you know it. But there really is no need for you to take care of this mess.” He gestured to the destroyed home. “Just submit a request to the guild’s reclamation teams to have it repaired.”
“Have you even followed up on a reclamation request?” Taka asked with raised eyebrows.
“Why would I?”
Taka sighed.
“We have a dozen slayers for every reclamation team member, all killing monsters and doing more than a little property damage. Not to mention, any reclamation team needs a slayer to escort them for their safety, which is a job few slayers are happy to volunteer for.”
Taka was one of the few that had regularly volunteered for escort duty when his level was lower. Nowadays, his ability to kill actual monsters was too valuable to be spared for what amounted to babysitting duty.
“It will be months before they even look at the request, and weeks after that before they get to it. They’ll probably wait for more damage in the nearby villages, so they can take care of it all at once.” Taka didn’t blame the guild for their timetable, the reclamation teams were overworked and underpaid as it was, but that didn’t change the fact that a family would be without a home for half a year if he left it to them. He had to blink tears from his eyes at the thought.
That reality wasn’t acceptable, not when he had the skills to fix it.
“Go ahead Delsin, I’ll be behind you when I’m done. Send an interface message if you have any trouble.”
“There won’t be,” Delsin said, giving Taka a lazy salute by making a circle that symbolized the moon with his thumb and forefinger and placing it on his forehead.
Taka couldn’t help smiling as he watched the slayer leave. He didn’t expect the man to call for help, regardless of what happened.
If things went as Taka hoped, he would finish up here and find the young slayer desperate and frustrated enough to start breaking down his foolish pride, something Taka could reinforce by killing the Leaflings without issue. It was doubtful the experience would be enough on its own to humble him, but with a few more examples of how he wasn’t some prophesied god of slaying, hopefully he could get back on the right path.
Taka dismissed the man from his mind to focus on the task of rebuilding.
Besides the monster corpse and whatever personal effects were inside the home, there wasn’t much of value to the structure. The roof and half a wall had collapsed, and there were cracks running through the rest of the walls.
While it had a basic foundation of bricks, many had shattered under the feet of the massive Ridgeback. The upright lizard was taller than a man with rusted-copper scales and was even heavier than it looked. Add to that the tremors from Taka’s Earthquake skill and the weight of the roof, and there wasn’t much point using it.
“We can do better anyway,” Taka said, pushing out his senses to see what resources he had available. His mana was largely earth, flint, and force affinity because of his heavy use of those types. When it touched on all the stones within a quarter mile, it gave him a decent picture of their size and location.
Once he found the largest clusters, he focused his attention to get a feel of their composition.
This wasn’t a skill, just the combination of refined mana senses and mana control. Finding what he needed, he walked to the nearest villager.
“Excuse me sir, do you know anything about the collections of stones to the northeast? Is anybody using them?”
“Pardon me?” Obviously confused, the man scratched his head. Taka tried again.
“The closest one is a few hundred feet outside the village, just south of one of your fields.”
The villager’s face lit up in recognition.
“Oh, you mean the rocks that got pulled from the fields? Don’t think they’re used for much, ‘sides sometimes stacking for walls to keep the goats in.” The idea of making a wall by stacking up some stones would be laughable to most from Root Perch.
The city might not specialize in stone construction, but they still had more than enough competent builders with earth or stone shaping skills to make something better. But Taka had grown familiar with the lives of those who chose to live outside the city. They made do with what they had. And while their average level was actually higher than those who lived in Root Perch, they had significantly less access to skill cores.
Most of those were attained by Slayers, who sold them through the Slayer’s Guild’s market and auction house. Those cores were the primary source of the guild’s funding, and half the reason for its existence.
Keeping the surrounding area clear of monsters was a noble goal that common folk accepted without question, but politicians and institutions were motivated by money and power, not good deeds.
Because of all that, and the relatively low income of the average villager, their only chance at gaining skills were their talent, killing any weak monsters that weren’t worth a slayer’s time, or saving up for years.
None of those methods were likely to give a villager a skill for reshaping stone. Those might be common, but they tended to come from more dangerous monsters, and were extremely useful and popular, and thus expensive.
“Would anyone mind if I used those stones?” Taka asked.
“Wouldn’t think so. Might thank you for getting them out of the way. We’ve only got a couple folks with the strength to move them, and there’s alway more where they came from.”
“Thank you sir.” Taka passed the man a coin for his trouble, smirking as the man bit down on it to taste its mana. The man nodded in thanks and left Taka to his work.
Taka pushed his hands against his lower back and stretched, wincing as his back popped.
“Time to get to work.” He walked through the village towards their fields, returning waves and grateful smiles. He could’ve moved some of the closer deposits to the build site without moving, but it would be expensive in terms of mana, not to mention it would be frightening for everyone else for massive stones to roll their way down the main street.
When he reached a pile of stones, he focused his senses and used his Earth Manipulation skill to separate the useful materials, like granite, gneiss, and quartzite, from the less durable, sedimentary stones.
He even pulled a few stones from deeper in the earth, careful to avoid tearing up any of the fields, filled with waving green stalks of some kind of grain. The surface of the earth parted around his prizes, like the peel of a fruit, revealing a smattering of large stones and a couple outright boulders.
Rather than transport the unwieldy collection out in the open, he pulled out one of a slayer’s staple tools, his dimensional bag. Few could afford such expensive devices, but any slayer with a teaspoon of sense bought, or at least rented, one as soon as they were able.
The money that could be earned from the ability to easily transport monster corpses would easily pay for it after a year or two.
Taka opened the bag, even releasing the clasps that allowed it to open to its full size of a circle about five feet across. Even opened to its largest size, there was no way the boulders would fit inside.
Taka fixed that problem by increasing his weight and density with his skill, Weight of the World, and smashing them with his fist. The boulders shattered into dozens of pieces, which he prevented from scattering and tearing up the ground with Earth Manipulation.
At that time, he received a message from Delsin through his interface. He glanced at it, but it was simply confirmation that he’d reached the forest with the leafling problem. Pushing it aside, he intended to get back to work, when another message came through with the slayer’s plan of attack and a request for Taka to approve.
Seeing the writing on the wall, he sent a quick message to, ‘Do the job as you see fit. I trust you,’ and instructed his interface to mute incoming messages from Delsin so he could work in peace without needing to hear about every step.
With the needy slayer taken care of, he returned to the much more interesting task of smashing stones. Once all the stones could fit through the opening in his dimensional bag, he gestured, levitating them inside.
Taka repeated this process at two more fields before the dark void that was the opening of his dimensional bag shimmered with rainbow colors like oil floating on water and stopped accepting items.
He sighed, closing the bag. He returned to his worksite with one of the larger stones the bag had refused under his arm. He’d hoped the bag would be able to hold more, since the main limiting factor with dimensional storage items was the total mana within the items they contained. But even with common materials without anything more than trace mana, there still was a volume limit.
A half dozen villagers stopped and gawked as he upended the bag, dumping out his stones into a small hill. Even more villagers were waiting when he returned the second time. By the third, only a few bored children without anything better to do were waiting to watch.
With three trips worth of stones, Taka was ready to get started.
First, he removed the fallen roof, revealing a smashed lizard with what seemed like a lizard and a half of blood and viscera.
Most of the watching kids shouted ‘eww’ or mimed vomiting, but they were clearly fascinated and none left. Taka just chuckled at their reactions. He’d seen more dead monsters than these kids could imagine. This was business as usual.
Taka dragged the corpse out of the building by the tail, depositing it opposite his pile of stones.
He grabbed a couple chunks of flesh that had broken off the body and added them to the rest, leaving only the blood and the smallest bits of viscera.
“What is it?” said a brave little girl who was approaching the corpse with a long stick, ready for poking. Taka looked around for potential parents who would protest their daughter being exposed to something like this, but there were only a few adults in sight, and none seemed concerned about her innocence.
He approved. Living out here was difficult, and this village had surely seen its share of monster attacks. Sheltering her from the truth would do more harm than good. Some of these people had probably killed monsters, though he doubted any had killed anything this high of a level.
* Copper Scale Ridgeback:
* Level: 8
* Creature Type: Monster, Reptile
* Affinities: Metal, Rust
* Description: The most common form of Ridgebacks, lizards that averages five feet in height when fully grown. Ridgebacks have high strength and toughness, and low intelligence and speed. Juvenile ridgebacks walk on four feet, while adults walk on two, and use their front feet to deliver powerful slashing attacks. Their scales, claws, and teeth have a high metal content, and rapidly rust. Attacks that pierce the body deliver the Tetanus affliction. While other species of Ridgeback have additional abilities based on the metal incorporated into their body, Copper Scale Ridgebacks do not.
* Tetanus:
* Type: Affliction, Disease, Rust
* Effect: A magically enhanced form of natural Tetanus. Causes muscle spasms, paralysis, fever, and sweating.
“It’s a Ridgeback. It's big, strong, and heavy, with metal in its body. Feel free to poke it with the stick, but don’t touch it with your bare hands. Those scales are sharp, and can get you sick if they cut you.”
The girl’s face screwed up and she dropped the stick.
“Good call,” Taka said with a laugh. With the creature dead, any affliction its body produced would be weaker, but it could still do some damage, especially to a kid that hadn’t even awakened. “Could you do me a favor and tell the other kids? Don’t want anyone touching it while I’ve got my back turned.”
“Why don’t you just put it in your magic bag?”
Taka opened his mouth to answer, but stopped. He’d intended on harvesting the valuable materials from the monster, the scales, claws, teeth, and bones, but that would still leave a toxic corpse for the village to deal with. Normally, he just used Earth Manipulation to bury monster corpses, but he didn’t know if the toxic rust in its body would kill nearby plants or get into the village’s water supply. Whatever he did, he would have to dispose of anything he didn’t want far away from here.
“That’s a good idea…,” He trailed off, asking an unspoken question.
“Nita,” the girl answered. She reached out a hand to shake, which he accepted. “I’ve got lots of good ideas.”
“Do you now?” Taka said with a smile, “Like what?”
“We should put a wall around the village to stop the monsters from getting in.”
“It would have to be a big wall. That Ridgeback could break a wall as easily as this house.”
“We could have a small wall to stop the small monsters, or we could just make a big wall,” Nita said, stretching her arms as wide as they could go, “I saw the city once, and they had a wall taller than five houses.”
While it was a curious method of measurement, Taka had to admit that the walls of Root Perch were impressive, especially to a kid in a village that didn’t even have a two story home.
“A wall would be a good idea. What else?”
“My mom says that in Lintukoto, they train bird monsters to fight with them. I heard that some of the birds are big enough to ride. I’ve never seen any bird monsters, but we could train some other monsters to guard the village.”
“Maybe,” Taka allowed, “But make sure to ask an adult to do it. You shouldn’t be approaching any monsters at your age.”
Nita looked at him like he was an idiot.
“I know monsters are dangerous. You don’t have to tell me.”
Nita was on a roll now, and the other kids were approaching, attracted by her enthusiasm.
A small boy with red hair raised his hand, like he was in class.
“What about you, son?” Taka asked.
The boy beamed, revealing bright white, crooked teeth.
“We could put scary faces on the wall so the monsters get scared away.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Nita said, “Monsters aren’t going to fall for that.”
The boy was disappointed at his suggestion being dismissed so easily, so Taka came to the rescue.
“Actually, there are some tribes around the city of Duat that put monster skulls on poles to scare other monsters away.” Taka was fairly sure there was some kind of death magic involved in that process, but there was no need to tell that to the kids. He belatedly realized that displaying monsters' skulls maybe wasn’t the most child friendly subject.
The village kids had no such reservations.
“Awesome!”
“I want one.”
“Can I have the skull from the monster you killed? My dad says I can.”
Ignoring the last kid's obvious lie that his parents had given him permission to do something he’d just learned about, Taka switched to damage control.
“I’ve got to take the corpse back to the guild.”
The same kid that asked for the skull opened his mouth, but Taka didn’t give him a chance to speak.
“Could you kids do me a favor?”
“What do you need?” Nita asked suspiciously while chewing on a fingernail.
“I need more stones. If you could start gathering small ones, it would be a big help.”
The kids snapped to attention, some snapping crisper salutes than Delsin. All of them except Nita ran off to fulfill his request. The girl stared up at him, a surprisingly sober expression on her face.
“My mom says that you slayers go out killing the monsters everyday.”
“Well, we have days off to spend with our families, but more days than not we’re out here fighting.” Nita nodded sagely.
“My dad was killed fighting a pack of Rooters that snuck into the village.”
Taka winced. Rooters weren’t dangerous to the average adventurer, but they could wreak havoc on the unprepared. Like the leaflings, they blended into their surroundings, appearing as nothing more than common tree stumps, until their roots burst from the ground to snatch, twist, and strangle unsuspecting prey.
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Taka bowed his head.
“Mom says once the slayers kill all the monsters, we’ll be safe.” The girl gave Taka a look that belonged on an older face. “But that’s not true, is it?”
The lump in Taka’s throat grew to a boulder, and he had to choke it down before he could speak.
“I’m sorry.” It was all he could say.
Nita nodded, understanding his answer. He wanted to tell her that her family could move to the city, but he knew better than to bring it up. The people who chose to live out here had their reasons, and he couldn’t offer them a carefree life in the city. It had its own problems.
“Thank you for killing the Ridgeback today. Ero and Tempi are idiots, but they’re our idiots, and Maylin would be sad if they died.”
Taka didn’t know how to respond to that, so he just nodded, awkwardly smiling. He hadn’t caught the names of the kids he’d saved, or their mother, but he wouldn’t forget them now.
Taka stopped Nita as she left.
“Nita, could you tell me what Maylin does for work?”
“She’s a seedspeaker.”
Taka blinked.
“A what?”