“Okay, a couple of you are new to this, so here’s the deal.” Tom grinned confidently. “We’re not going to select Patrol this time, since the goal is to get the portal’s energy levels under control. This time, we’re choosing War, and we’ll be hitting some of the Camps around the city. Stick with me and we’ll all be fine.”
Patricia and Ed both nodded seriously. Alex just felt a burst of relief; finally she’d get to try something else besides attacking patrols. Hopefully that would make a difference.
Ted led them up to the portal and stepped through. Alex glanced back and saw Alessa and Raul waiting alongside a different D ranker. The Porter gave her a thumbs up, and Raul smiled encouragingly. Clara, standing a little off to the side, gave her a shooing motion.
Alex turned back to the portal with a sigh, and stepped through…
[D Rank Surveyor Alex, Gatekeeper]
[Ascension Level: 5]
[Role: Porter (Role Skills: None]
[Role Level: 0]
[Experience: 1100/2100]
[Attributes: Strength -> 5, Speed -> 10, Life -> 0, Devotion -> 0, Control -> 0]
[Current Skills: Meditation(20), Deflect(19), Melee–Axe(25), Melee–Shield(21)]
[Permanent Skills: Battle Maneuvers(16)]
[Current Titles: Queen of War (Increases Skill grade of Melee, Combined Arms, Weapon Mastery, and Battle Maneuvers by four.),
Barbarity (Increases Skill grade of Melee, Weapon Mastery, and Combined Arms Skills by four.),
Destined Champion (Increases Skill grade of Dodging, Anticipate, Battle Maneuvers, and Inspect by four),
Relentless (Increases Skill grade of Recovery, Running, and Marathoning by three.)
Tireless (Increases Skill grade of Recovery Skills by three.)
Natural Defender (Increases Skill grade of Deflect, Dodging, Blocking, Resist, and Zeal by one.)
Inner Thought (Increases Skill grade of Meditation, Focus, Recovery, Arcane, and Sense by one.)]
She studied her Skills carefully. It was reasonable to expect that she’d have both the Melee Skills and Deflect all the way to maximum by the end of the Survey. Meditation would be harder; she’d been practicing the technique of meditating while walking, but she doubted it would be that easy for her to do in the other world. Battle Maneuvers was probably a long way from hitting its maximum, but time would tell.
[Please select your intent]
[Exploration]
[Vengeance]
[Patrol]
[War]
[Salvage]
It was an unspeakable relief to choose War instead of Patrol. Anything would have been better than doing the same mission again and again at this point.
[Your intent is War!]
[Quest Issued! Clear at least four Grue Camps.]
[Hidden Quest Issued!]
[Hidden Quest Issued!]
She felt herself tense. It was going to be her first semi-normal Survey in a while. Alex would have her first chance to impress other D ranks. The chance would be too valuable to waste.
Light filled her…
She stepped out into the other world, already tense and looking for threats.
There was nothing waiting for them. Even the ever-present feeling of the Shade watching her was gone. Alex blinked, straightening up out of a crouch and looking around. Ed was watching her, but Tom was just unfurling a crudely marked map of the other world’s cityscape.
“Okay, the first Camp is a couple blocks from here. We’ll probably run into a patrol or two on the way there. The Grue are up for grabs, so go ahead and do your best.” He smirked; he’d been one of the tougher sparring partners for Alex to fight, which meant he had to be stronger than most. The others all nodded, and Alex followed them out into the street. It was going to be an interesting day.
The contrast between D rankers and E rankers was severe.
They ran into the first patrol about a block away from their target. The Grue howled as usual, and they rushed forwards as usual. Alex ran with the others to meet them, relishing the way the aches and pains in her body had faded over the past few days. She dismissed the usual text that appeared in her vision.
[Hidden Quest Discovered! Destroy four Grue Brutes]
[Hidden Quest Discovered! Destroy six Grue Archers and six Grue Knights]
Then the Grue simply seemed to evaporate in front of the Surveyors. Alex tore through the Soldiers and Knights in front of her, feeling a smug sense of accomplishment, only to glance to her left and find that Patricia and Ed had ripped through them just as quickly. Tom was already chopping the Brute to pieces as well, which meant that she had to run and run hard to reach the Archers ahead of the others. She still only managed to kill two of them as the things scattered. Ed and Patricia got the others with frustrating ease.
[Melee–Shield advances to 22!]
[Battle Maneuvers advances to 17!]
[Deflect advances to 20!]
[Hidden Quest Progress: 4 of 12 targets destroyed]
As the bodies burned, Tom simply grinned and gestured. “All right, let’s gather it up and keep moving. We’ve got plenty of work to do, after all.”
They hit a second patrol with similar results, just outside of a building that looked like some kind of massive fitness center. The only relief for her was the fact that Meditation was keeping her muscles far fresher than they would have been before; the others were already grousing a little about soreness, and she still felt like the day had just begun.
Ted guided them through the shattered doors of the fitness center, moving confidently past silent counters and exercise rooms filled with shattered mirrors and discarded weights. He seemed to think that there would be no Grue lurking among the side rooms, and she grimaced as she pictured the ambushes that could have been sprung on them.
His confidence appeared to be justified, however, as he led them back through the darkened hallways towards what seemed to be some kind of indoor pool. Tom paused beside the large double doors. “Okay, there’s going to be a lot of them in there, and they are definitely not going to be nice. I want you to fight hard, but don’t get yourselves killed, okay? We still have three more of these.”
He waited until they had all nodded at him, and then grinned. “All right, let’s go. For the Crimson Blade!”
Alex twitched a little at the appeal to her mother, but the Surveyors were already kicking open the doors and advancing. She sprinted after them, resentment boiling inside her.
That feeling quickly vanished as she realized the kind of chaos she’d just stepped into.
The entire pool had been drained of water, leaking out through half a hundred cracks that ran through the bottom. Grue tents were spread through the sloping surface, and across the tiles above it, a small tent city that was watched over by the hovering purple crystal in the middle.
There were so many Grue that it seemed like they were overflowing the place. Dozens of Soldiers were milling about, some of them lounging on the sides of the broken pool. Knights were there too, their massive swords on their shoulders and their shields set to one side. Archers mingled with the others, their bows held negligently in their hands.
Most of all, however, her attention was caught by the larger figures at the center. There were three Brutes, all with their hammers in their hands. They turned to face their incoming enemies, their grey eyes growing brighter at the prospect of battle. Half-hidden among them, their much less massive frames lurking among the shadows, were a pair of Killers, arrows already nocked and ready to fire. Their bandoliers were empty, but they had the same grey patches of smoke that the one had at her last portal, and their expressions seemed to become maliciously gleeful as they saw their prey come to them.
The sight of those enemies had her accelerating even harder than before, her breath searing her throat. She sped past the others, including Tom, who glanced at her in surprise, and Ed, who shouted after her in warning. Alex ignored them all and threw herself into the enemy with a scream of pure rage that tore through the air and froze the Grue in their tracks.
Her axe hewed through the first handful of Soldiers she reached, cutting them to the ground without even making her pause. More came howling at her from the sides, and she wove her way through them without slowing, smashing with her shield and hacking with her axe. Spears reached for her, and she slid past them as if they were moving through water rather than air.
Arrows snapped at her, shot by frantic Archers and calculating Killers, but she cut them from the air with her axe, or let them bounce from the face of her shield. One lucky shot rang from the side of her helmet, but she pushed past the glancing strike to cut her way deeper into the horde. Her eyes were locked on the Killers, and her mind was flashing back to the pain and terror of seeing Surveyors go down, one after another, in the killing ground before a different portal.
A Knight came at her from the side; she caught its blade and knocked it aside with her axe, not even bothering to kill it as she raced past. Another one tried to meet her, shield to shield. Alex shoved it out over the edge of the pool, knocking it into a horde of surprised Soldiers below. There were a handful of Archers that were trying to back up or scatter as she closed in on them. She paused just long enough to deal with them and make sure that an arrow wouldn’t find her back.
Then she turned to where the Killers were lurking, at the back of the camp and the very bottom of the pool, and launched herself over the edge.
She flew through the air like a missile, descending on the enemy from above. Grue howled up at her, but she paid them less attention than she had the other Surveyors. Arrows shattered against her shield, and Alex gave the fragments a grim smile as the closest Brute swung its hammers at her.
She met one hammer strike with a swing of her own axe; the clash was a stalemate, and it threw the Brute off just long enough for her to slam into it. As the Grue staggered back, she tore into its face, slashing and cutting with her axe until a pair of swipes found its throat. It started to collapse, just as another pair of arrows shot in at her, each with clear, lethal precision.
Alex got her shield up in time to block one; the other she barely avoided by jerking to the side. Then she leapt off the falling Brute and was sprinting for them, her true enemies, even as they both dropped their bows and reached for their knives.
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It was another hard fight, but not nearly as bad as she remembered. Even with two of them, their knives couldn’t quite reach her. She dodged and weaved with an ease that shocked even her, and her counterattacks came closer and closer to reaching them. Unlike the last time, she hadn’t been wounded, and hadn’t been chasing the things across half the portal area. She wasn’t desperate and she wasn’t on her last legs.
She was just pissed, and she wanted both of the abominations dead.
The end came quickly. One of the Killers missed a block, and her axe buried itself in its arm. It stumbled, and she spun to yank her axe free and knock its companion aside. As the wounded Killer staggered, she ducked low beneath its counterattack and took off its left leg just below the knee. A quick shift brought her shield up in time to block another attack from the other Killer; as its knives rang off her defenses, Alex struck the downed Killer in the throat and finished it.
The last Killer shrieked and lashed out at her, trying to slip its weapons past her shield and into her armor. Alex ducked and weaved, watching for an opening. She waited a couple of heartbeats, and when it stabbed out with both weapons at once, she struck. Her shield swept out and deflected the blades aside, knocking the Killer off balance. Before it could recover, Alex slammed into it and knocked it over onto its back.
Then she was striking at it, hacking and hacking and hacking…
[Melee–Shield advances to 24!]
[Battle Maneuvers advances to 19!]
[Deflect advances to 22!]
[Main Quest Progress: 1 of 4 targets destroyed]
[Hidden Quest Progress: 8 of 12 targets destroyed]
[Hidden Quest Progress: 1 of 4 targets destroyed]
Alex leaned back against the wall of the pool and watched as the bodies burned and the crystal shook itself to pieces overhead. The others had swept in behind her and wiped out the Grue that had been left in her wake. Their reactions to her had varied; Patricia had simply stared at her in incredulity, while Ed had just checked to see if she was wounded.
Tom, on the other hand, had gone ballistic.
“What were you thinking? Do you even have a Quest to take out Killers? You could have gotten yourself killed! That’s why they’re called that you total, absolute—”
She slipped back into meditation again, letting the magic ease her muscle pains. It had taken her a while to come down from the adrenaline rush, but she felt calm again. At least, calm enough to go back to work.
Tom finally ran down, completing his lecture with a few more choice curses and a threat about what he would do if she repeated her berserk charge into the ranks of the Grue, and then stomped off to start gathering material from the pool floor. Alex watched him go, and then turned to start picking up crystal fragments herself.
Ed crouched down next to her, starting to pick up his own scraps as well. “So. You don’t like Killers?”
Alex glanced at him. He didn’t seem to be mocking her. More, he seemed worried, serious, and a little curious. She sighed. “Yeah. The last one I fought… it wasn’t a good situation.”
“Never actually seen one before, actually.” She glanced at him, and he shrugged. “We didn’t get any at the E rank portal where I trained, and they tend to avoid D ranks here. They’re that bad?”
She nodded, keeping her thoughts to herself. He probably wouldn’t entirely believe her about what she’d seen; she might have had trouble with it if she hadn’t seen it herself. They worked in silence for a moment, gathering up what they could.
Then they stepped out again, heading to their next target.
The rest of the Survey proceeded with a lot fewer dramatic events. They hit another patrol before they reached the next Camp, which the Grue had built within a small skatepark. Alex had tensed when she saw the Killers again, but this time she held herself back. She’d carved her way through the mass of Grue, making sure to wipe them out. Her charge still attracted the Killers’ attention, but she satisfied herself with just swatting aside their arrows and destroying their comrades.
She reached the Brutes at roughly the same time as Tom and Ed. They each engaged and destroyed one of the hulking creatures, and then Tom chased after the Killers themselves, wiping them out with a satisfied smile. The rest of the Grue didn’t last much longer, and then they had gathered the remains up to bring home.
They repeated the same act twice more, at a Camp located in a vacant superstore and again at one inside a supply warehouse. Another handful of Grue patrols had made the mistake of impeding them as well, barely lasting more than a handful of moments against them. At that point, the others were exhausted, and though the occasional brief bout of meditation had kept Alex mostly fresh, she was finding herself moving a bit slower by the time the last crystal shattered. She didn’t protest at all as they made their way back home. The patrol they ran into just a block short of the portal was a simple annoyance, especially since the others had started to drag.
When they reached the portal, the fog over her mind slowly started to lift. She followed the others through the vortex, smiling to herself as she thought of home…
[Mission Report]
[Successful Return! +20 Experience]
[Main Quest Completed! +100 Experience]
[Secondary Culling Quest Completed! +80 Experience]
[Secondary Culling Quest Completed! +80 Experience]
[All Quests Completed! Glorious Victory! +80 Experience]
A full clear again! No wonder Ed had seemed so happy. He must have gotten it too, which would probably have been hard with his last assignments.
[Battle Maneuvers increased from 15 to 25!]
[Meditation increased from 20 to 21!]
[Deflect increased from 19 to 25!]
[Melee–Shield increased from 21 to 25!]
She felt a flicker of disappointment at the lack of progress with Meditation. As useful as it had been, she’d really hoped that she could have Chained it by now. Now it would have to wait until the next Survey, whenever that would be.
[Deflect has reached level 25! Skill is at Max Level and can no longer increase.]
[Reset Deflect to gain a Title?]
She grimaced. The Skill advanced quickly, so it made sense… but sparring and Surveying without it at full was going to be painful. All the same, without risk, there could be no reward. Alex accepted it.
[Title Natural Defender upgraded to Title Innate Guard (Increases Skill grade of Deflect, Dodging, Blocking, Resist, and Zeal by two.)]
Not a bad result. She refused the options to reset her Melee Skills and continued.
[Skill Chain available. Do you wish to combine Melee–Axe and Melee–Shield?]
[Warning: Chained Skills lose all previous levels]
With an amused sense of déjà vu, Alex accepted.
[Skill Chain unlocked! Skills Melee–Axe and Melee—Shield removed. Skill Combined Arms–Axe/Shield gained! Skill Chain bonus gained! Title Barbarity upgraded to Title Lethality (Increases Skill grade of Melee, Weapon Mastery, and Combined Arms Skills by five.)]
[Skill Choice available. Please select an additional Skill.]
Thinking over the battles of the past few Surveys, her lips quirked. What Skill could have helped her the most?
A piece of her was tempted to take yet another Melee Skill, but she stopped herself. Between Combined Arms, Battle Maneuvers, and Deflect, she already had plenty of Skills related to both offense and defense. True, she couldn’t match a C rank like Wells, but she doubted another simple Melee Skill was going to make a difference there. In fact, whatever she chose was probably going to end up left behind again as she continued to Chain her other Skills and get herself ready for the distant day when she’d make C rank.
With that being the case, she was beginning to hate how slowly she traveled. It irked her in all honesty. She especially missed being the first in every charge, the one who could be around the enemy’s flank before they realized it. It might not be the most combat efficient… but she didn’t care.
Alex selected Running, welcoming the Skill back as if it were an old friend, and stepped back through the light. She had to talk with her parents again after all…
There was an extra cheer to the celebration that night, in honor of several more of her friends reaching D rank.
Apparently, Wells’ schemes hadn’t been enough to keep Alessa and Clara from reaching the next level. Raul hadn’t made it, but apparently Mary and Bob had, as had Sam, of all people. They seemed especially cheerful, and although Joanna looked a little sour about the difference in level, she toasted them just as much.
Alex didn’t notice it at first, but the warmth of the celebration didn’t quite seem to extend to her. The Surveyors from the Red Blades seemed to avoid conversation with her, and while the rest of the Golden Swallow refugees welcomed her like usual, some of them seemed concerned.
She was still frowning over it when Sam wandered over, his eyebrow raised. “Well, Alex? Did you have that photo for me?”
With a roll of her eyes, and a flash of gratitude that someone was still acting a little more normal, Alex pulled out her phone. “Fine, fine. Don’t let it be said that I don’t pay my debts.”
A few moments later, his phone chirped as she sent the picture over to him. Her father had been more than happy to send it, a poster of her mother in all her glory. She tried to ignore the way the others all crowded around Sam’s phone as he opened it. The sudden burst of laughter made her want to lay her head down on the table.
Brian was laughing far too hard for her tastes. “I can’t believe it! I thought she was just bluffing, but he even put her license up in the picture.”
“Aw, look at the little Valkyrie. Must have been the captain’s learner permit.” Tim grinned at her, even though she was shooting him a death glare. Maybe she had needed to get some magic after all. Something that could zap someone.
Curiously, Sam was one of the only ones not laughing. Instead, he was frowning down at the picture, his eyes narrow. Clara nudged him, her face glowing from laughter. “What, you didn’t believe it either?”
“No, I knew she had one. It’s just…” Sam shook her head. “That poster is a limited edition run. One of the Crimson Blade’s first. They did a series of them for recruitment, and the one with her smiling like that didn’t last very long. See?”
Joanna turned away from the phone, her eyebrows raised. “Wow. You were more of a fan than I thought, Morrison. Limited edition and everything?”
Audrey slid into the seat next to Alex and nudged her. “How’d you score that, anyway? Were you in some kind of internet bidding war?”
Alex grimaced. She should have suspected something like this, but it hadn’t occurred to her that perhaps her mother had come home with something a bit more than the usual fan would have access to. “I… don’t know, actually. My father must have just gotten lucky.”
“I’ll say! That thing is actually worth quite a lot!” Ed’s appearance was as unexpected as it was horrifying. He leaned over Sam’s shoulder to look at the poster, and Alex suddenly wanted to die. “Pretty sure you put a down payment for a car by auctioning that off online.”
“Really?” Tim gave her a too-bright look. “Captain, look, I have this great idea…”
“Save it.” Alex gave him a glare that was half-real. “I’m keeping it.”
The Porter looked downcast. “Brian, she’s being mean again!”
His friend laughed. “What did you expect? Just give her a salute and move on.”
The conversation moved on to a new subject, though Sam kept frowning down at his phone occasionally. Ed took the spot on Alex’s other side, cradling a cup of water. She gave him a nudge, and he laughed.
Then he grew a bit more serious. “You’ve noticed it, right?”
Alex glanced at him. He’d spoken far too softly for Audrey to overhear, and he kept his eyes forward. “What’s going on? Why are they acting differently?”
Ed raised an eyebrow at her. “Well, your friends might have gotten used to what you did today, but the others…” He shook his head. “Some of them are a little bit worried that the Valkyrie is crazy. A couple are saying you have some Skill that lets you feed off of battle, and that’s why you aren’t getting tired anymore. Others are just saying you have some kind of death wish, from whatever happened at Golden Swallow. Either way, they are seeing you as dangerous. Not someone to pal around with.”
She looked at him. “And you? What do you think?”
“I think you’re the same as you’ve always been, since the first day you showed up. Driven. Brave.” Ed smiled at her for a second, and her stomach seemed to flip. “Beautiful.”
Then he looked back to his drink. “But I also think you’re taking risks you shouldn’t. The way you threw yourself at the Grue today made me worried about what you would do in a tough situation. If you’d stand with us, or run howling into danger on your own.” He looked at her again, his green eyes level. “Is that fair?”
Alex looked away. Her heart was still beating a bit too hard about what he’d said before. “Fair enough.” Then she looked back at him. “But you don’t need to worry about what I’ll do. When I go out, I mean for everyone to make it back home. I’ll protect anyone who’s in there with me. When they ask you, tell them that.”
Ed watched her for a moment, as if weighing her with his eyes. Then he grinned again and touched two fingers to his eyebrow. “As ordered, captain.”
She blushed. “Not you too.”
He nudged her, still smiling. “Lighten up, Valkyrie. It’s a party.”
Then he was gone, sauntering back to the other Red Blades as if he’d gutted some particularly tough Grue. She glared after him, still feeling the heat in her cheeks. When she turned away, she saw Clara raising an eyebrow at her, and groaned. It was going to be a long night.
When training began again the next day, Alex was already a little tired.
She’d started the day early, intending to make a good beginning with her newly regained Skill. While the others had been quiet and still on their beds, she’d gone out to the perimeter wall and started running. The experience had been incredibly frustrating. Just because she’d regained Running didn’t mean she had the stamina provided by Marathoning. It was training in more than one way, though. As she’d sped along, she tried to fall into the mental pathway for Meditation. If she could master using it while she ran, it would be that much easier to recover herself, even while they jogged along in the other world.
Unfortunately, Alex hadn’t managed to get it figured out by the time it was time to start the sparring sessions. As a result, the other Surveyors seemed to be hesitant to challenge her, a fact that was not helping her mood.
Then Sam strolled over, a practice spear on his shoulder. “Hey. Want to show me how it’s done?”
She hesitated and then gave him a grin. “Sure. What’s your new Role, anyway?”
He grinned. “Took Page this time. Thought it might help me catch up with you. Want to help me see if it did?”
She beat him easily—after almost all his Skills had just been reset—but he just laughed it off and thanked her for the practice. After him had been Alessa, who had definitely needed the chance to recover some Skills. By the time Clara asked her to be her target practice, and Ed demanded yet another rematch, things were starting to feel a bit more normal. Even some of the other Red Blades were loosening up enough to step into the ring, though both Patricia and Tom seemed to want to keep their distance. The breaks between spars helped as well, as she used Meditation to soothe her aches and pains.
By the time she found herself facing Wells for yet another bout of ‘personal instruction’, Alex was actually feeling somewhat more normal. It helped that Combined Arms and Deflect were both starting to recover their power nicely, so she endured his mocking welcome speech patiently.
Alex was a bit less happy about the way he picked each of the new D ranks and knocked them around. When he turned to her, she was already prepared to do her best to smash him into next week. Instead, he broke through her guard and battered her enough that it took until after another terminally boring tactical seminar for the aches to fade.
She spent that time afterward, as her focused mind healed her pain, going over his attacks. It all seemed so strangely familiar, as if she’d already seen what he was doing before he did it. The problem was that he moved so quickly, and with such brutal strength, that she simply didn’t have the chance to stand up to it. Her only real hope would be to evade, and there was a limit to how long she could do that.
Then she smiled to herself. At least, there was a limit now. Maybe, in time…