Light surrounded her again.
[E Rank Surveyor Alex]
[Ascension Level: 2]
[Role: Page (Role Skills: Running(11), Dodging(13)]
[Role Level: 2]
[Experience: 200/600]
[Attributes: Strength -> 2, Speed -> 4, Life -> 0, Devotion -> 0, Control -> 0]
[Current Skills: Combined Arms–Axe/Shield(20), Inspect(9)]
[Permanent Skills: None]
[Current Titles: War Maiden (Increases Skill grade of Combined Arms and Weapon Mastery by one.)]
Alex considered her Skills with some small measure of pride. The constant running, searching, and sparring had paid off, even if raising her Combined Arms Skill to 20 had felt like it nearly killed her. The other Skills were growing as well, to the point where she was wondering if she should start combining them after all, just to take a few more. Not that she’d have the chance to do so until after the Survey was done.
She sighed a little. Thursday had come quicker than she had expected; even with the rest on Wednesday, she hadn’t felt entirely free of soreness when she had gotten on the bus. Zach’s text about the once-again increased magic levels at the portal hadn’t helped her feel much more relaxed, either.
All the same, she was determined to try to kill as many Camps as she could this time. If she got enough of them, it wouldn’t just help her team escape; it would lower the amount of threat that Joanna and the others faced. Maybe she’d even manage to find out where one of those Anchor Points was. There were plenty of possibilities.
[Quest Issued! Destroy eight Grue Soldiers.]
[Quest Issued! Explore the Shopping Mall.]
[Hidden Quest Issued!]
[Hidden Quest Issued!]
She nodded. The Quests were mostly as expected. The fact the Camp had returned to the Mall was a little odd; hadn’t it only been a handful of weeks since she and Joanna’s team had destroyed it? Zach and her mother had both seemed sure that it would take longer for it to come back. It could be put down to the Group’s meddling, but she didn’t understand how they’d be able to do it at all.
Then there was a wave of light…
The other world seemed as dim and grey as it always was.
Alex nodded and glanced around as her teammates stepped out of the vortex with her. “Okay, where are your Quests?”
Brian answered first. “Shopping Mall.”
Alessa nodded. “Same here.”
Tim grunted. “I’m supposed to go somewhere with a bank? Anyone ever heard of that spot?”
“It’s north of the portal. We could probably hit it after the Mall. I’ve got the same one.” Sam hadn’t looked at Tim at all, though. He was staring at Alex, his expression serious. “So. What are they doing to the portal?”
The question caught Alex off guard. She looked around to see surprise or confusion on the others’ faces and realized that Sam hadn’t mentioned anything to the rest of the team. At least, not yet. “I don’t think this is the time, Sam.”
“It’s a great time, actually.” Sam’s voice was tight with anger. “I was watching yesterday. A convoy of vehicles went into the containment area. Guards were saying no one could get in, but those cars drove right past—and now the portal’s going crazy again. At least, you think so. Am I wrong?”
Alex glared at him. “No. You’re right, but at the moment we are going to be hitting at least two Camps and trying to survive. We don’t have time to talk about whatever else is going on. Not now.”
Tim stepped forward, his face twisted up and uncertain. “I don’t know what you guys are talking about, but Alex is probably right. If it is bad again, the Grue are probably already on their way here, with the Killer leading them. We probably shouldn’t be here when they show up.”
There was a tense moment as Sam continued to stare at Alex. Then he nodded, a jerk of the head. “Fine. We can talk later, maybe if we have to lie low or something—but we are going to talk about this.”
“Once the Camps are down. Fine.” Alex nodded, and they started off towards the Mall. She could still feel him simmering with anger, though, even as they marched along. It was going to be a long Survey.
The first patrol of Grue they ran across had fifteen Grue in it.
It was an incredible number of the monsters, all growling and howling as they lunged at her team. Their claws made a cacophony as they clattered across the empty street, charging for the Surveyors. Unfortunately for the Grue, the results of her sparring sessions made themselves known almost instantly.
Her team didn’t just stand firm and wait for the Grue to crash against them. Instead, they charged along with her, throwing themselves into the fray. The Grue showed signs of shock as the Surveyors met them head on; even Sam was charging with his spear out and his face still locked in anger.
She snapped one spear and cut down the wielder of a second. Another cut killed the first one, and a third tried to lunge at her. Alex sidestepped the pounce and put it down with a third stroke of the axe. Then she straightened up, looking for more targets, and found herself shockingly unable to find any. Her teammates had been nearly as quick dispatching the Grue; the last handful were already going down as she watched.
As they finished falling, she exchanged nods with the others, and then they set off again for the Mall. Maybe the problems wouldn’t be as bad as she was worried about today.
“That’s… a lot of Grue.”
Alessa whispered it in an incredulous voice, clearly horrified, and Alex couldn’t blame her. There had to be nearly fifty Grue milling around on the bottom level of the Mall. The entire Camp seemed to be spilling over with them.
Her team was crouched on the second floor, staring down into the Camp from above. When Alex had mentioned her previous team’s experience in the Mall, they had decided to try to replicate it. Of course, that had been before they knew exactly how many Grue they would be facing.
“Are there going to be that many at the next Camp too?” Brian’s whisper carried the same kind of horror that Alessa’s had, but it also had the undertone of anger again. He had been whispering with Sam for a while, out of earshot, while they crept up to the second floor. Alex was eerily certain that he was going to have almost as many questions for her as Sam, once they had the chance to ask them. “That’s going to make getting home pretty rough.”
“They’ll all die when the Camp goes down, no matter where they are.” Alex tried to sound reassuring, but it was hard. There were a lot of enemies down there. “We can wait until they start heading for the portal and then hit the ones who are left. If we do it quickly enough, maybe they won’t realize that the ones that were supposed to get to the portal didn’t make it.”
The others glanced at her and then nodded. They settled in to wait, with Sam’s eyes still burning a hole in her back. She could sense him holding back his questions; it wasn’t exactly a good place for an in-depth conversation about the Group’s plans.
Fortunately, it wasn’t a long wait. Moments later, the horns began sounding, and one of the Grue straightened up. It loped out the front doors with a group gathering behind it. An answering horn sounded out, and Alex headed for the second level escalators. There were Grue patrolling there, but there were only ten or so of them. A part of her was chuckling at the idea of there being ‘only’ ten enemies to deal with, but she tried to put that part aside. She needed to focus.
A second round of horns sounded just as her team got into position. It wouldn’t be as tight of an ambush as before, but then again, it didn’t need to be. If some of the Grue got up the stairs, they’d be able to handle them just as quickly. Alex glanced around, seeing her teammates crouched and ready. She started to count off on her fingers for them, from five.
Four. Three. Two. One.
With a wordless yell, her team shot forward. They caught the first handful of Grue guards completely by surprise. Alessa knocked one of them into next week with one solid swing; Tim dove on another one, with Sam sliding past him to kill another. Brian shield-checked another to the floor and fell on it with stab after stab.
Alex sprinted past all of them, aiming for the furthest escalator. There were three Grue between her and it. One of them spun to face her, only to be shield-checked over the side of the railing. She charged past a second, hacking it in the head as she went. It dropped without a sound, leaving the last Grue to try to back up, yipping frantically as it extended its spear.
She used her shield to knock the point to the right, shoved it off balance, and then followed it up with a solid cut to the torso. It gurgled a little, the grey eyes going wide. Alex took another step forward and hit it again across the face. When it dropped, she spun, looking for more targets.
Once again, she only saw her teammates still standing. Sam and Alessa were both running over to join her, while Tim and Brian took up positions at the other escalator. She nodded to them, and then charged down the stairs, still yelling even as the Grue below gathered for their attack.
It was unreal how much easier they went down now. Their attacks almost seemed to be in slow motion at times, and she smashed them aside with a kind of casual strength that almost frightened her if she thought too much about it. With Alessa battering away at some of them, and Sam spearing others, she never had to worry about being overwhelmed, and the height advantage meant the monsters had no hope of stopping her. On the other escalator, Brian and Tim had formed a miniature shield wall and were barreling down the stairs like a battering ram.
They reached the bottom of the escalator, and Alex led the charge deeper into the Camp. She caught a Grue racing to join its friends in a hasty spear wall and hacked it down. Two more came at her from the other side, and she fended off their spearpoints for a few heartbeats. One of them went down to Sam, and the other fell as it was trying to back up. Tim and Brian smashed into the spear wall, their shields shattering spears and knocking others skyward.
Further on, the Grue with the horn started to raise it, only to go down as Alessa brought her quarterstaff down on its head. A second wide swing downed another Grue, which she finished off with a third blow.
The rest of the Camp didn’t last much longer after that. Alex took down another handful of them, and the others all brought down the rest. Start to finish, the attack had only lasted a handful of minutes. They stood there, breathing hard, as the crystal in the center shivered and broke to pieces. Alex watched the fragments tumble into the fading purple flames. Only then did she acknowledge the yellow text in her peripheral vision.
[Main Quest Completed!]
[Main Quest Completed! The Mall has been explored]
[Hidden Quest Completed! Grue Camp cleared]
[Dodging has advanced to level 14!]
She nodded to herself. One Camp down, at least one more to go.
Sam looked at her from where he stood over the burning body of a Grue. “Do you think we got them quickly enough? I don’t hear any horns.”
Alex paused and listened. He was right; there were no sounds from the area around the portal. The Killer hadn’t been at this Camp either; maybe that meant the vanishing Grue had gone unnoticed. “I think you’re right. We’re still in the clear.”
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“Let’s spend some time here, then.” He gave her a half-hearted grin. “Might allow us to level up our Inspect Skill, and give us the chance to recover some more loot. Last time we were a bit…rushed.”
She gave him a steady look. It was pretty clear he was after a bit more than just a little loot and some Skill training. At the same time, she had no real reason to say no, at least, not until the Grue realized what was happening. “Okay, sounds good. Gather everything you can, but stay close. We’ll need to move as soon as we can.”
They all nodded, and she settled in to search through the Camp. Sam and Brian were both immediately following her, both equally intent. She sighed. It was going to be a harder Survey than she had expected.
“So you really don’t know what’s going on?”
Alex shook her head, feeling a little bedraggled. Both he and Brian had been relentless for the past few minutes. Sam especially seemed to have a problem with the lack of solid information; if she didn’t miss her guess, he was probably planning on trying a more…direct method to figure out what she hadn’t. “No. In fact, I’m not actually sure that it is Golden Swallow making the changes happen. It might be that the portal has simply grown unstable.”
Brian snorted. “Yeah. I’m sure those convoys are just a coincidence. Completely innocent.” He shook his head. “Our supposed team captain trying to kill us is something I hadn’t expected, but that makes sense, too.”
Sam looked at him sideways. “It does?”
“Well sure. If you know that at least one team is going to be hit hard after your secret project pumps up the portal, who do you choose? Your golden boys on Paul’s team? The team full of all-stars with Joanna? Or the one that was cobbled together with survivors from other teams and includes someone you personally dislike?” He looked at Alex, and his face softened a little. “Sorry, Alex. Didn’t mean anything by it.”
Alex shrugged. “I get it. You’re probably right.” She sighed and looked around again, feeling dismal. The wreckage of the Grue Camp seemed to echo her own appraisal of the situation. “Still, I don’t know what we can do to fix it, aside from killing these Camps and trying to keep surviving. Any ideas?”
Brian shook his head, and after a long moment, so did Sam. They turned back to their search, only for them all to freeze as a howling horn echoed over the dead town. Alex cursed inwardly; they’d gotten too comfortable and waited too long. The Killer would be hunting them soon—
As the howls rose from the other Grue, she jumped as one of the horns sounded behind her. She spun around, weapons already coming up, and stopped when she saw Alessa. The Porter was holding the abandoned horn and blowing into it. They all stared at her as the sounds of the howls faded away.
Alessa lowered the horn and turned to look at the rest of them. She shrugged. “Seemed like a decent idea. Might confuse them for a bit at least.”
Sam started laughing, and the others chuckled a little too, even if it was out of nervousness bleeding away. Alex was the first to recover enough to speak. “You’re right, but we should probably try to head out before they call our bluff. Maybe we can reach the Bank before they catch on. Are we done here?”
She asked the question to all of them, but she mostly looked at Sam and Brian. They both nodded, and she relaxed a little. The fights might be more dangerous, but at least they didn’t feel as personal as the interrogation. “All right, then. Let’s head out.”
They hit two more patrols on the way to the Bank.
Both of them had at least fifteen Grue each. Each time, her team tore through them so quickly that it left Alex shocked. Had just a little Skill training really done so much? If it had, why hadn’t the Group been doing that on their own? What was the point of making them try to only raise their Skills inside of a Survey? Was it some kind of attempt to pretend that everything was normal, or just bureaucratic stupidity?
The horns didn’t sound again until they were nearly on top of the Bank. It was a tall, ornate building standing in the middle of the town, complete with fake marble columns decorating the entrance. Alex could see the flicker of purple flame in the windows, and she shared nods with the others. Alessa crouched low and peaked out at it from the corner of the wall where they were hiding. She pulled back with a frown. “I just got another Camp clearing Hidden Quest.”
Alex blinked. She looked at the others; she’d just assumed that the second Hidden Quest would have been for the Killer again. Curious, she pushed forward alongside Alessa and peered out at the Bank, trying to catch sight of the crystal inside. When she had, yellow text sprang to life next to her, and she let out a short breath.
[Hidden Quest Discovered! Clear the Grue Camp]
She looked at the others. “Maybe the Hidden Quests aren’t preassigned? Like whatever you stumble across first gets locked in.”
Tim shook his head. “We haven’t been getting the extra kills, Quest, though.”
“Not since we raised our level enough.” Sam sounded thoughtful. He crept forward and peeked as well. “Maybe that one is restricted to the lower levels. Anyway, I just got it too. That means if we kill this one…”
“We’ll get the chance for a full clear on this Survey.” Alex nodded slowly. The resulting experience would bridge more than half the gap to reaching level three. “Anyone else really want that to happen?”
Grins broke out among the others on her team, and Alex nodded to them. Then she looked at Sam. “Do you think there’s a side door we can break into?”
“I doubt it. It’s a bank, after all.” He shook his head, looking around the street. “I say we back away a bit and then come at it from the same side of the street. That way, they shouldn’t see us until the very last moment.”
As they started out for the other side of the road, a second series of horns blew out over the town, answered by more from all sides. A Grue stuck their head out of the Bank and answered the call. Alex and her team froze until it disappeared back inside. Then they rushed across the street and started to creep in towards the Camp.
Just as they reached it, the horn near the portal blew in three short bursts. Alex gestured for the others to pause, waiting to see what would happen. Clearly, the Killer had figured out they had destroyed the Camp at the Mall. Would it know they were here already?
She waited until the answering calls had gone out, including the one from the Grue at the Bank, and looked at her team. They were tense, but fairly well rested. None were wounded yet, a minor miracle considering the combat they’d already faced.
Then Grue with the horn turned to go back in, and she nodded. They charged as one, with Alex leading the way. The horn-blower turned to face her, but it didn’t have time to do anything before her axe came down on it, knocking it to the ground. It didn’t get up again, at least, not before Sam speared it through the head.
The rest of the Grue inside the bank were just beginning to move, many of them sprinting for their spears in the back. Alex and the other Surveyors leapt on them, tearing through them even as they tried to arm themselves. Some of them howled and abandoned their weapons, hurling themselves at the team with claws and teeth. None of them lasted long, though Alessa took a swipe across the face that left her bleeding, and a Grue managed to sneak a spear past Tim’s guard long enough to mark him on the ribs.
In the end, the remaining Grue collapsed back into the center as Alex and her team cut into them, and by the time all of them had spears, there weren’t enough of them left. Her team closed in around them, weapons flashing, and when the final Grue had gone down, they were left panting and heaving as the crystal in the center collapsed.
[Hidden Quest Completed! Grue Camp cleared]
Alex looked around at the others and grinned. “Anyone still have any Grue left to kill?”
The others burst out laughing; she guessed that they’d already completed that first Quest a while ago. She chuckled along with them, and set about scooping up as much as she could in the meantime. There probably wasn’t much time before—
Even as she thought about it, three quick bursts of howls rose over the town. Alessa raised the horn to her lips, but Alex shook her head. “They probably just saw the Grue attached here evaporate. They’ll be coming after us, even if we try the horn.”
Brian nodded. “Yeah. So, do we head for the portal?”
Sam poked his head out of a Grue’s tent. “Depends. Do we think it will make a beeline for us here, or will it try to cut us off? Last time it came straight for us, but it might have learned its lesson.”
“Better question; do we even want to avoid it?” Tim looked around at them and raised an eyebrow. “How many friends do we think it has left now? It has to have left some guarding the portal, and if it lost a bunch there, and a bunch here…”
Alex thought about it. The possibility of hitting the Killer was tempting. She couldn’t deny the fact that she still owed the thing for the Surveyors it had already killed. Besides, if she did kill it, the magic around the portal would grow that much weaker, and her friends would have that much better a chance to survive the next Survey.
At the same time, it was wishful thinking. There had been dozens of Grue at the first Camp, and probably just as many here. Who knew how many more Camps there were? Unless she knew for sure, sending her team straight into the hunting party with the Killer might be asking for trouble. “Better to get out now and collect our experience. I want that thing dead, but it might not be the time, especially since we don’t know what’s waiting for us at the portal.”
“True. Maybe next time we can collect more information about where these Camps are. If we can eliminate them this easily now…” Sam’s voice was still thoughtful.
Tim laughed. He stumped around on his leg, as if to demonstrate his limp. “I don’t know about easy, but I guess the captain’s right. Let’s try and head back to the portal. If we can get there and get out without running into the Killer, then so much the better.”
Alex gave him a look. “I’m not the captain.”
“So you say. Let’s get going before the thing shows up here on its own.” Tim was giving her an insufferable grin as he stomped his way out of the Bank. Alessa shrugged and followed him, along with a grinning Sam. Brian gave her an impatient wave to join them, though she thought she saw a smile tugging at the corners of his scowl.
Finally, Alex gave up. She rolled her eyes, sighed, and went after them. As long as Liliana didn’t catch wind of it, maybe it wouldn’t make anything worse. At least she could convince herself of that much.
“Everyone already has what they need for their Skill Chains, right?”
The whispered question nearly pulled another sigh from Alex, but she nodded along with the rest of them. They had spent the past half hour dodging the Killer as it tried to track them down until finally they had slipped away as it ran north. It had probably thought it had guessed wrong, and was running to the Bank to check their trail. There would only be a few more minutes before it discovered where they had actually gone and would come back after them.
Which meant that unless they managed to get through the portal ahead of them, Skill Chains would be the last thing they needed to worry about.
Luckily, it looked like there were only about twenty Grue waiting for them this time. There had obviously been a lot more of them, but the loss of the Camps looked like it had hurt them badly. They seemed like they knew it, too; many of them were sniffing and snarling to themselves in apparent anxiety. Remembering the Surveyors who had died on that stretch of pavement, Alex found it impossible to feel sorry for them.
So instead, she waited as her team got ready for the final charge. Brian was speaking quietly. “Remember, hit them hard enough that they don’t get a howl off. If you see any with a horn, hit them first. Alessa, you’ve still got yours, right?” The Porter nodded, and Brian went on. “We’ll get to the portal together this time. We don’t have hunters on our trail, and we don’t need to be too hasty. Make sure everyone sticks together, and we can do this.”
They all nodded again, and Brian exchanged a respectful nod with Alex. She stepped forward, crouching at the front of the formation.
Then they were charging across the street, and the sounds of battle washed through the air.
In what seemed like no time at all, the Grue were all down. None of them had a horn, and all of them had gone down so quickly that it seemed like they would never have been a danger. She shook her head at the strangeness of that feeling and joined the others at the portal. She stepped through into the vortex of light…
[Mission Report]
[Successful Return! +20 Experience]
[Main Quests Completed! +60 Experience]
[Secondary Purge Quest Completed! +40 Experience]
[Secondary Purge Quest Completed! + 40 Experience]
[All Quests Completed! Glorious Victory! + 40 Experience]
Alex let herself cheer at the words floating in front of her. In front of others, she might have been embarrassed, but who was going to see her floating in an infinite void? They’d not only survived, they’d blasted past anything anyone could have expected. Another Survey like that, and she’d hit level three, and her teammates wouldn’t be far behind her.
[Inspect increased from 9 to 12!]
[Dodging increased from 13 to 14!]
[Combined Arms–Axe/Shield has reached level 20! Skill is at Max Level and can no longer increase.]
[Reset Combined Arms–Axe/Shield to gain a Title?]
She paused over the choice. Given the danger level of the Surveys she was going out on, the wise decision would be to hold on to her max level Skill and just try to survive to level three. There wouldn’t be much opportunity to increase her Skills very much, but it would be the safer move, especially with her team depending on her.
At the same time, her team seemed to have been doing just fine, given the way they’d just torn through the Grue. They’d be able to handle a bit more of the load if she reset things—and besides, they’d be able to help her regain her lost levels through Skill training in the containment area before the next Survey. Add to that the fact that if she stayed at the same level and the Surveys somehow got harder, and it was looking more and more attractive to take the chance while she had it.
Decision made, she accepted the option. Combined Arms–Axe/Shield returned to a meager zero, and she got a new notification.
[Title Ferocity gained (Increases Skill grade of Melee, Weapon Mastery, and Combined Arms Skills by one.)]
Satisfaction ran through her. Each level of Combined Arms would matter that much more, now, and even if it took her a bit to catch up to her previous Skill effects, she’d still be relevant again quickly.
[Skill Chain available. Do you wish to combine Running and Dodging?]
[Warning: Chained Skills lose all previous levels.]
Once again, she said no to that option. She just hadn’t spent enough time running and dodging at the same time to justify the change.
[Skill Chain available. Do you wish to combine Running and Inspect?]
[Warning: Chained Skills lose all previous levels.]
Again, not a relevant possibility.
[Skill Chain available. Do you wish to combine Dodging and Inspect?]
[Warning: Chained Skills lose all previous levels.]
This time she paused, thinking over the possibilities. Inspect and Dodging were both high enough that the Chain would gain her another Title, now, and the possibility of using both Skills at once during combat was possible. It was the idea behind other Chained Skills like Battlesight, after all, and if she was already going to be sparring anyway to level up Combined Arms…
Alex accepted the Skill Chain, and blinked in satisfaction as new notifications popped up again.
[Skill Chain unlocked! Skills Dodging and Inspect removed. Skill Anticipate gained! Skill Chain bonus gained! Title Quick Reflexes gained (Increases Skill grade of Dodging, Anticipate, and Evasion by one.)]
[Skill Choice available. Please select an additional Skill.]
This time, she thought a little more about what Skills she might be able to Chain together. Inspect had been a useful choice, but she’d been a bit flippant with what she’d planned for it. If she wanted to get one more Chain in before she leveled up out of Page, she’d need something that would work well with Running.
With that in mind, she chose Recovery. Normally a Porter Skill, it would help her regain her stamina on her long runs and make it that much easier to deal with the stress of repeated fights. If she had to bet on it, she’d wager it would level quickly, with all the running, sparring, and fighting she planned on doing over the next weeks.
Her choices made, Alex closed her eyes. All she had to do now was get through her usual report to Liliana—who no doubt would be especially pleased with her Chaining yet more Skills, along with most of her team—and then get through a few days of Skill training with the others. Once that was done, she could worry about putting a stop to whatever the Group was doing to endanger her friends.
The light washed over her…