I found out later that each of the warriors was expert in a field of the elements. They were training me in the use of the weapon, but not how I had thought they would. The All-Weapon was attuned to each of the elements I found out. By extension, I was able to manipulate elemental skills.
For instance, I could call out a fireball through the bow form in a fire aspect or an arrow made of wind that could cut through shielding in an air aspect, but I had to learn to call out the skills themselves.
I couldn't throw a fireball with my hands, not unless I was to go and buy the out of Class skill from the store, but I could shoot a fireball with the All-Weapon. It didn't cost me mana to do so, but the All-Weapon had its own individual mana pool, so I couldn't just shoot a non-stop barrage of fireballs all day.
I also found out that each form of the weapon had its own set of skills within its own element. I could cause a small earth shock wave if I smashed the club into the ground. A water staff could form a small globe of water that I could place on someone's head and drown them. A dagger of flame could be used to torture someone by cauterizing their wounds as I sliced them etc, etc.
I was going to learn one skill of each element on dagger, bow, club, spear, staff, and sword. 24 skills. The rest I would be able to figure out in time.
The war party was going to take me on a killing tour of the park with three members at a time until I reached level 20 and then they would escort me home.
Otter still hadn't reported back, but Kodiak told me that he could level entire cities by himself if need be, so I remained hopeful. As we headed out for the first time, Bison stayed back with Yepa and Onida. I was given a one-piece form-fitting armor that would protect me from cold and some damage and told to prepare for battle. My training was about to begin...
The training didn't go the way I thought it would. I figured that my teachers would mostly damage a monster and let me finish it off, power leveling me in effect. The exact opposite happened.
One warrior would stand next to me yelling commands and calling out various weapon forms and occasionally lock a monster down, while another stood guard to look out for anything coming in behind us. The third warrior kept groups of monsters locked down and I would have to fight them one after another after another learning combos with different forms.
My weapon rotations depending on the type of monster went something like this: Earth Staff (Grasping Earth), Fire Bow (Fireball), Air Bow (Breeze Bolt), melee ranged: Air Sword (Avoid Armor), Water Club (Overflow), Earth Dagger (Blight Blade), etc, etc.
It was mentally tiring, trying to keep up, and it took me forever to kill the damn things. The only good thing was that my inventory was filling up and I was racking up XP. When the weapon ran low on juice and we had a monster still alive, they would shout out various animal forms at me and heal me if I got below 50% health. The fights were long and painful and seemed never-ending.
The warriors must have had a ship somewhere nearby, because a case of Mother's Milk and a feeding bottle showed up in the cave for the cub. I was never allowed to see the spaceship though. I could have slept in a nice warm ship at night but was kept in the cave instead. The warriors preferred to be outdoors.
After two weeks of brutal training, we started to head out of the park. Kodiak pointed out 3 dungeons in the park and marked them on a map. He told me that we would need to set up an outpost near here and clean out the dungeons constantly or we would have a monster horde develop there.
I never did figure out what level the warriors were, but they had to have been well over 110 because they never tried to be quiet. Quite the opposite, they were loud, trying to draw monsters in for me to fight. I never saw a one of them take a single point of damage, they were way too quick.
I fought ice worms, and cats and yeti and ogres. The list of horrors was never ending and more were seeming to be ported into the park all the time. I was the only one who pulled the sled, the warriors didn't want to be anywhere near the Truinnar in case she woke up. When we weren't fighting a monster, the warriors gave me nonstop lessons about the system, what kind of tech I should buy and use, and most importantly what was expected of me and why.
The Sky People, (I never did find out the real name of their race, they just called themselves The People.) came from a star cluster known as the Pleiades. In galactic terms, they were very near to us and thus why they were the race to seed this planet.
They were once a huge force in our part of the galaxy, but their politics leaned on the side of non-violence and their power was slowly ground down. They now held onto ten star systems, (which surprisingly small for major powers in this galaxy) with an iron fist, but system politics were always a tricky thing with races constantly chipping away at each other.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
The People didn't want to risk war and lose anything that they had left, but they needed a force quietly tied to them in case of emergencies. That's where Earth came into the picture. The Sky People had hoped to fill this planet with Indigenous cousins that they could call upon in time of need, but the way it played out here was a major failure for them.
As natives were driven to near extinction, The Sky People could only watch. In rare cases such as the Mayas, (who had become too bloodthirsty and were upsetting the balance of a newly populated planet), the council had them removed and replaced from Earth to receive “retraining.” Planets were needed for the system, and no one race could be allowed to threaten it's progress.
The Galactic Council had a strict hands-off policy except for itself in rare cases.
The Sky People were forced to sit and watch as their progeny slowly died off.
There were still somewhere around 370 million Indigenous people worldwide, but estimates were that roughly 90% of the races on dungeon planets would die off in the first year. Indigenous people usually fared worse if they were not the dominating race on the planet.
Indigenous on Earth would die because of a lack of infrastructure. There were roughly 13 million Native American Indians in the U.S.A. Less than 1 million were expected to survive. I was to try and get as many of those people to my city as I could. The first 50 thousand were to be brought to me slowly by quests and portals. I needed to find a safe place to keep them hidden away from the rest of the world. Space would not be a problem I was told. “What better area than Juneau.” I thought.
Juneau was the second largest city by area in the U.S. With 2700 square miles, only smaller than the city of Sitka, which was on one of the islands just outside of Juneau in the Alexander Archipelago. Space wouldn't be a problem.
Better yet, Juneau had no roads leading into it. You had to gain entry by ship or seaplane. Perfect for hiding people away from the galactic politics that were about to descend upon Earth.
Alaska already had a high native population, so the native Juneauians had no problems with us. If there were any of us left that is.
The sea provided plenty of fish, and most monsters were edible. That only left produce, which Kodiak assured me would not be a problem. The only thing expected of our people was to level up, even the children. Martial art and weaponry were now to be taught at our schools. Our children would come into this new world prepared.
As we finally made our way out to the front the park I looked at my levels and was shocked to see I was level 22. I guess I did get power leveled.
We came around a bend to the little frontier town of Scagway and my heart nearly broke. It was total destruction. Nothing was left. The entire town was about a mile long with a maybe a hundred buildings and I could tell from the way things were flattened that something huge had come out of the sea. Not a single structure was left standing and the only movement I could see were the birds picking through the ruins.
“Must have been a Kraken or Hydra.” Said Kodiak.
I received a notification late in the night before that I was now joint bonded with Yepa and Onida and I looked down at the sled thinking about how much it was going to slow me down. The woman was stirring a little bit now and Eagle, who was a healer of sorts, told me that she would fully recover from her head injury.
I had already ironed out that I was going to treat her like a sister and Sammy would accept her on those terms. We would just have to find a willing boyfriend for her to seal the deal.
I started to freak out thinking that the total destruction might have happened to my hometown as it did in Scagway. “It's about a hundred miles by foot!” I told Kodiak, “With God knows what monsters are on the way it will take us two weeks to get there!”
He shook his head. “We will make it in two days...” That being said, Kodiak went into his inventory and pulled out a high tech looking snowmobile and a sled. The rails on it were faintly glowing blue.
“Hover tech” Was all he said when I asked.
He pulled out two glowing disks and attached one to each end of Onida's sled and hooked it to the end of the snowmobile.
He looked at me and simply said “Yours” and then pulled out a keyfob and pressed the button. A mechanical Appaloosa horse formed next to him. It was stunningly beautiful and my eyes nearly came out of my head when I saw it.
It was brown with white spots from the neck down. It was wearing armor that had gun attachments on the front flanks. I was drooling looking at it and the others all laughed at me.
“What...what is that, and how do I get one?” I stammered out.
Kodiak chuckled and said, “It takes much training and a neural link to ride this, but maybe one day...”
The snowmobile was amazing. If it wasn't for the fact that we were riding over rough hilly land, we might have made it back in a day. The horses ran as normal horses did, but their feet never actually touched the ground. They stayed just a few inches above it at all times. They made no noise which was unnerving. I stared at them enviously. I had been a huge fan of horses my entire life and the Appaloosa was my favorite breed.
We were attacked constantly, from land and sea, but the warriors were so strong that I barely got a hit in with my bow before everything was dead. It still slowed us down quite a bit.
When we got to water, we simply floated over it as if it were no different than land. Whenever I looked back at the sled, as I constantly found myself doing, I could see Yepa standing in her bed next to Onida. Fur ruffling furiously and her nose going a mile a second. I chuckled every time I looked at her, she reminded me of a dog on a car trip with it's nose out a side window.
We pushed it that night and made it almost 50 miles. Kodiak wasn't lying to me, we would be in Juneau the next day.
When we pulled over for the night Bison reached into his inventory and pulled out what looked like a small circus tent. The other circled it placing all kinds of tech around. Shields, generators, sensors, and turrets.
When I asked about the tent, Kodiak told me, “Tomorrow is a big day for you, I need you to get a full nights sleep.”
The inside of the tent was like futuristic glamping. It had sectioned off rooms with beds and even a kitchen and a bathroom.
“Nothing will be able to see us, let alone harm us,” Kodiak said to me. “You have done well and deserve a night without worry.”
I took my first shower in what felt like years. It was glorious. I asked Bison if I could buy the tent from him and he just laughed at me.
“You will have no need for a tent after tomorrow.” He told me. The men cooked up a feast for us and after eating I sank into a bed and passed out at once.