Ichiro was there in a flash, grasping his Father’s hand and heaving him out of the ground. The elder Samurai turned Guardian exploded up in a shower of dirt, stumbling forward into the arms of his son. Ichiro held him there for a long second, before Hiro pulled away gently, and looked around at the small audience. As he met their eyes, the dirt shivered off from him all at once, revealing a Hiro the same figure they had just seen buried with one main difference.
Guardian Daimyo of the Three-Fold Alliance.
Hiro’s armor and sword remained untouched as did his characteristic hard-eyed stare. Except now it was more than just a facial expression. That flat look was now augmented by eyes formed from the same green gemlike substance that made up the Sovereign Crystal’s structure. They were intense, glowing with an internal light that was visible even under the noonday sun. Because of them, it took Tilly a moment to notice the other, more subtle change. The parts of his lightly furred skin that weren’t covered in armor now displayed an intricate network of markings that depicted dancing flames.
Hiro looked down at his hands, before making a gesture and taking on that distant middle look of someone checking their screens. They all watched him, wanting to give him time to adjust to his new reality. The silence however stretched slightly too long, and Tilly couldn’t help but try and break the tension,
“Looks good on you Hiro!” He tried cheerily, gesturing up and down at the lapin’s body and interrupting his reading.
The Samurai stared back at him implacably for a long uncomfortable moment, but Tilly might have caught a glint in those crystalline eyes at his gratingly awkward joke.
“Father, how are you feeling?” Ichiro followed up in the wake of Tilly's interruption.
The newly christened Guardian Daimyo flicked his eyes down in a dismissal of his screens and turned formally to the Priestess. His voice at last emerging in all its baritone glory,
“I owe you a debt. I spent my life willingly to buy time for my people and you have given it back to us along with a great gift.” He said, emphasizing his words of appreciation with a deep bow.
She surprised Tilly by bowing even deeper in return,
“The Land has chosen you, warrior. May the ground beneath your feet grow rich with the blood of our enemies, Guardian.” She replied with equal gravity, her response ringing with some small portion of the power that had echoed through her voice when she had cast the ritual earlier.
Hiro nodded finding the words a fitting response, and turned back to Ichiro and Tilly, his crystalline stare contrasting oddly with Ichiro’s all-white gaze.
“Thank you both.” He said, gesturing down at the ground where he had recently laid.
“I was not taken against my will. The… Land offered me a choice. My bond for some of its power. I accepted eagerly. This is another chance to see my duty to my people fulfilled, and refused to let it pass me by.”
“Are you still… yourself?” Ichiro asked in a low, concerned voice.
“The bond I have taken is rooted in my desire to protect this place at all costs. I can never again leave the boundary of our people. In exchange, I will persist as long as they do, growing in power along with the Alliance.”
Then taking special care to look Ichiro in his equally off-putting eyes he continued,
“I am Hiro Matsumoto, Fourth Lord in Exile, and now Guardian Daimyo of the Three-Fold Alliance. She has laid no additional bond on me, I do not think the power she now channels would have allowed it even if she wanted.”
“He is correct.” Erash broke in, pulling their eyes over to her.
“I lost access to several of my more suggestive abilities when I took this office. In their place, much of my remaining build has been empowered and geared toward Purification and Renewal. While in this role, my power keeps me from laying any Geas.”
At her words, Ichiro nodded to himself, and Threstus laid a friendly hand on Linus’ shoulder quipping,
“Thank the Gods you are still fit for duty Hiro, I don’t think our Consul here can take any more paperwork.”
Linus’ thoughtful frown turned into a stormy scowl as he struck out like lightning swinging a closed fist at the offending arm like he meant it. Threstus snatched his arm back a mite too slowly, rolling with the blow but not avoiding it altogether.
Then continuing as if nothing had happened, Linus returned to verbally walking them through the plan of attack,
“Lord Hiro, the stone should start arriving tomorrow, and half our workforce is shifting to the wall project starting this afternoon. The Commander here will hold half the bastions back to continue training our forces. I want to send the other half with you to hold the pass until we have fortifications in place. We can send regular updates on other progress, but this seems paramount.”
“That is acceptable, I will leave Nyuk and Kuro here to gather any volunteers for the Rangers and begin their training under Threstus. None of our enemies escaped our first encounter, but they know there has been a Shift as well as we, and when none return from their first investigative party, more will come. With the Boon, we have a chance to be ready, but I expect some sort of response in the coming hours, their time. Once our presence is confirmed, if they mean to come against us in force, then we will undoubtedly be facing a fully mobilized force when the Boon expires.”
“What about me? Does this change what I should be doing?” Tilly asked, ready to post up with Hiro and rain down fire on the new foes.
“Jonathan Tillman, your task remains the same. Increase your survivability and do what you can to find the next Origin Facet.” Hiro remarked curtly, before turning to Ichiro,
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
“We need to be sending patrols along the mountains and forests on the rest of our border. I am sending you to oversee this. We will rotate in others for sparring as duty allows to offer Jonathan Tillman a variety of challenges. I trust you have laid a sufficient foundation.”
At that, Ichiro smiled, “He has done very well and consider it done.”
“Oh, I have the perfect starting partner for him!” Threstus broke in, still rubbing his shoulder where Linus had struck a glancing blow.
“He isn’t much use in the beginning parts of training anyway.” He continued, eyeing Tilly with a shit-eating grin.
Tilly winked at him in response, doing his best to cover over the sudden shiver that ran up his spine at the ominous proclamation.
“Sounds like I should start spending the mornings down here?” Erash asked with a quirk of her manicured eyebrow.
“That would be our preference, your services will be needed soon,” Linus answered respectfully,
“We have some interested in testing themselves at the Crystal to see if they qualify for any priest classes. If any are accepted by the Sovereign Crystal and our new Patron, we would like you to see to their training as well.”
“I look forward to it, Consul.” She said, adding only the slightest emphasis on the class name, before turning and walking away.
“Well, if that's all, I have a mess of unruly candidates here that need to at least know how to hold a weapon before another war gets well and truly started," Threstus stated crisply before turning in the opposite direction of the High Priestess and moving back toward the drilling soldiers.
At that, as if by some unspoken signal, the others nodded, waved, or simply turned, all moving toward their separate duties and Tilly found himself standing alone looking around the parade ground like he had missed something.
“So no training advice, huh?” He asked the empty air.
Then, not wanting to seem lost, he rested his hands on his weapons and wandered over to the water troughs to do some thinking.
Part of him appreciated the freedom that they were entrusting to him. But if he was being honest, another part of him found being wholly in charge of his time daunting. In some ways, he had spent his whole life moving from one emergency to another, now he was being invited to prepare in whatever way he thought was best. He was sure there would be a follow-up threat to the border soon. But until then, he wanted to put in as much time as possible strengthening skills he already had.
He pulled up the Skills list and gave it a hard look, trying to decide what would increase survivability and what was just novel fluff for now.
Skills:
-Forestcraft level 12
-Identify level 17
-Cooking level 12
-Beginner Hatchett level 14
-Animal Processing level 9
-Stealth level 7
-Herb Lore Level 2
-Ax Throwing Level 16
-Dual-Wielding (Hatchets) Level 11
-Spirit Walk Level 14
-Meditation Level 7
-First Aid, Level 35
Well, he could throw out the active combat skills, he was already training those. He could also throw out the quality of life skills. Those were important over time, but they wouldn’t do much against Corrupted vampires.
That left Stealth, Identify, and Forestcraft as his best bets for increasing his chances of survival outside of combat. He needed to be able to spot and avoid trouble when possible not to mention his ability to survive if he was ever caught out on his own.
After sparring tomorrow Tilly decided he would find Ichiro and join up with the patrol force, perhaps even join in some Ranger training while he was at it.
That still left him the rest of today…He looked back at the walls, the camps, and the fields beyond. Shit was about to hit the fan all over again, he could feel it. So before he threw himself into preparations he decided to try and find the few people he hadn’t seen since the fall of the empire's capital. Who knew when he would next get the chance to connect?
Tilly wandered back through the city, his progress stopped by a massive group of laborers heading towards the parade grounds, and probably the gap in the mountains beyond. They all carried a variety of dirt-moving and construction tools and their classes varied. Tilly saw everything from Masons to Foremen present in the crowd.
Once through the city, he made his way over to the new bridge and was pleased to find at least one of the objects of his search almost immediately. If he got the chance, he had decided to thank the honu who had done so much to cover his back right before their escape.
Franklin stood on the banks of the river, casting an ice-aspected Ability over the flowing water. Tilly watched as he targeted the bridge’s supports one by one and recast. As soon as the cloud of frost produced by his Mana hit the supports, he would move his hands around in concentration, as if shaping clay. Then the cloud would move on, leaving a slightly reinforced and more ornate structure behind.
He had also exchanged the more typical honu robes for something thicker and fur-lined, most likely because his new class had not come with any innate elemental resistances. One thing that had remained was the same brilliant blue scarf Tilly had noticed on their first encounter. It fluttered in the wind over the collar of his new jacket, much more in line with his new look. With all the changes he had already seen, Tilly was happy, but not surprised to see a new class identifier over his head.
Level 35 Tundra Caller.
“Franklin! How are you doing?”
“Very well! Thank you for asking Mr. Tillman.”
“Please, I don’t think I stand a chance to convince the lapins but call me Tilly. I’m glad I found you!”
“Very well... Tilly.” He said, his speech showing some of the honu propensity for slowness for the first time.
“I had heard you had returned mysteriously and the elders briefed us on a coming change, but I could not imagine something like this.” He said, gesturing happily to the ice structure he had been producing.
It was crude, but sturdy and made an almost constant stream of traffic back and forth from the agricultural lands to the populace centers possible.
“Yeah, I saw you put some of it up yesterday. Amazing! How often do you have to maintain it?”
“Every four hours or so, but along with the ice augment to my water Abilities, I gained a skill called Sculpt Element. At higher levels it will allow me to form complex shapes out of ice. Every time I reinforce the bridge, I am advancing this Skill.” He said excitedly, then a log bumped against his structure from upstream, and a worker grabbed at it with a hooked pole, shouting for another. Franklin finished reinforcing his last support and turned fully toward Tilly.
“They tell me my bridge will be replaced by tomorrow and I'll be moving to the wall project.” He said pointing over to the pile of logs on the bank a little farther upriver.
“I can only assume this means we are already facing outside pressure.” He added, a shadow falling across his features.
“Yeah, we had a pretty close call at our new border earlier today, Hiro barely stopped it. We have the Bastions moving up that way to secure it while some sort of fortification is built. But, even with all that happening, it felt important to me to find and thank you. Without you, I wouldn’t have made it out. You kicked some serious ass back there.” Tilly said, clapping the honu on the jacket covering his shell. He didn’t know him terribly well but Franklin had fought by his side and covered him during the last fight and that meant a lot. The honu people had paid the highest price for everyone to escape, losing Kihei and the other four elders… Tilly sincerely hoped others had acknowledged their sacrifice in some way.
Franklin received the strange physical interaction and the offer of thanks with a polite, if confused, smile. He looked Tilly in the eyes and slowly reached around to his back and gave it a few pats of his own.
“I am glad you made it Tilly. Too many didn’t. We have been offered a chance to rebuild and perhaps, one day, even fulfill the Dream of my ancestors.” He said, the lines of heaviness around his eyes easing slightly as a small smile softened his serious expression.