The other world seemed even more full of combat than when she had first arrived.
Her mother had often said that a second Survey on the same day tended to attract even larger numbers of Grue. It made her think of Forsmith, of the look in his eyes as he’d jumped back into the portal for the second time that day. He had to have known it was a suicidal attempt to keep the portal under control; he’d already been inside it that day, thanks to her.
Now she was facing the same threat, from a far more personal point of view. She shivered slightly, feeling magic twisting in the air. It almost made her feel a little sick, as if she was trying to force-feed herself a gallon of hot dogs.
The others didn’t seem to be any happier, but Laura shook her discomfort off immediately. “All right, let’s go. We have the same mission as before.” She gave Alex a quick glare. “Maybe this time we can work a bit better.”
Alex shrugged, and the Vanguard turned away with a grunt of frustration. Then they were off, jogging through the streets towards their assigned area. This time, they were heading east, towards a neighborhood dominated by rowhouses and corner stores. All around them, they could hear the other teams fighting, and Alex tried to steel herself for the encounters to come. No matter what, she had to survive. She would survive, and Wells would pay for what he was doing.
[Battle Maneuvers advances to 9!]
[Main Quest Progress: 2 of 8 targets destroyed]
[Main Quest Progress: 1 of 8 targets destroyed]
Alex shook her head as the bodies started to burn. She’d felt so slow on that attack. Marathoning had taken her into the bulk of the Grue just as quickly, but her attacks hadn’t been nearly as effective. The Knights had stalled her for far too long; she almost hadn’t taken down the second one before Bob had gotten it, and Ed had broken through the line of Grue and torn the Archers apart before she’d even had the chance.
The Porter gave her a respectful nod, however, and Alex composed herself long enough to nod back. It was easier to let him think that she’d done it on purpose rather than explain that she was still taking risks by resetting her Skills in the middle of the crunch. Seeing the smug expressions on Mary and Bob’s faces, however, made things difficult.
She grimaced and started to gather up the scattered crystals and slabs, trying to ignore the ache still spreading through her limbs. One patrol down, seven to go.
[Battle Maneuvers advances to 15!]
[Recovery advances to 19!]
[Main Quest Progress: 6 of 8 targets destroyed]
[Main Quest Progress: 3 of 8 targets destroyed]
Exhaustion dragged at Alex now, and she nearly sat down on the curb. The bodies of the Grue were scattered around them all, burning in the street where they’d killed them. Mary had gotten the Archers this time, and Bob had grabbed the ones from the time before. They weren’t quite as smug now; neither of them probably had a Recovery Skill, and even Laura was starting to look a little worn. Ed seemed frustratingly untouched by fatigue, even as he gathered the materials they needed to harvest from their kills.
Alex spent a few moments panting before she sighed and shook her head. Then she levered herself up and got to work, picking through the burning wreckage of their enemies. If the Grue stayed true to form, they wouldn’t have long before the next Grue patrol happened across them. Hopefully, they wouldn’t look quite as rough before that happened.
She paused as Ed moved over next to her. He didn’t look directly at her, but he did speak in a low voice that the others would have been hard pressed to hear. “Thanks for holding back, Alex. Feel free to cut loose again. They might actually appreciate it now.”
Tired as she was, Alex still managed not to snap at him. She just nodded, and they continued to collect things until the street was clear. Laura looked blearily around the street for a moment, and then motioned for them to move. The Grue were waiting.
The Archer tried to backpedal, but Alex caught it with a swing of her axe. It went flying, its loose limbs flapping through the air as it cartwheeled across the parking garage. Two arrows snapped in at her from the side, and Alex ducked behind her shield for a moment to let them bounce away. Another Archer rushed in, knives ready, and she shield-checked it into a nearby car. She heard it smash into the abandoned vehicle with a brutal crunch and concluded that it was already dead. Instead of making entirely sure, she charged into the remaining two Archers, catching them with strokes of her axe before they had the chance to drop their bows and ready their weapons.
By the time she brought them down, the others had mostly finished with the rest of the Grue. They were moving slower, aside from Ed, and it seemed like it had taken them all far more time to finish things. Given that they were only halfway through the Survey, and had another Survey waiting for them after this one, Alex began to wonder how well they were going to hold up. For that matter, how well was she going to hold up?
[Battle Maneuvers advances to 18!]
[Main Quest Completed!]
[Main Quest Progress: 4 of 8 targets destroyed]
[Hidden Quest Completed!]
She sighed in satisfaction. At the very least her Skill was nearly back to maximum, and she should be able to complete the rest of her usual Quests. Given how tired the others looked, she didn’t think any of them would complain about it.
Of course, time would tell how the next Survey would go.
By the time Alex made it back to the portal, her team was not looking nearly as steady.
The remainder of the patrols had gone fairly well, especially once Battle Maneuvers had reached maximum once again. Recovery had reached maximum soon after that as well, leaving her to focus on the business of just decimating the Grue. As Ed had predicted, none of the others had complained at all when she tore through the Archers each time, not that they really needed to kill the things for their Quests now.
All the same, exhaustion was beginning to tell on all of them. Alex’s limbs ached from holding her weapons and running. The weight of her armor and helmet were starting to drag at her movements, making her less capable of dodging and unable to run as fast. If the others were even half as tired as she was, they were going to have a hard time making it through the third Survey.
There wasn’t very much choice, though. She shook her head as they stepped back through the portal, and light once again filled her…
[Mission Report]
[Successful Return! +20 Experience]
[Main Quests Completed! +80 Experience]
[Secondary Culling Quest Completed! +40 Experience]
[Secondary Culling Quest Completed! +40 Experience]
[Secondary Adversary Quest Not Completed]
[Hidden Quest Undiscovered.]
Still exhausted, Alex managed to grin at the report. If she kept up this rate of experience gain, she’d be hitting the next level much sooner than she’d expected.
[Battle Maneuvers increased from 0 to 20!]
[Marathoning increased from 15 to 17!]
[Recovery increased from 18 to 20!]
Maxing out Battle Maneuvers again was a particularly good thing. It would make the next Survey that much easier. The fact that she’d been able to do it with a single Survey only proved how much more effective actual combat was compared to sparring, but how hard it had been to do it made her reluctant to do it again.
[Battle Maneuvers has reached level 20! Skill is at Max Level and can no longer increase.]
[Reset Battle Maneuvers to gain a Title?]
It was still a little tempting, but she refused the option. Refusing the same offer for Combined Arms was also just as easy; her fatigue was already going to make fighting hard enough.
Then she paused on the next offer that appeared.
[Recovery has reached level 20! Skill is at Max Level and can no longer increase.]
[Reset Recovery to gain a Title?]
Once again, it wasn’t a choice without risk. If she didn’t have Recovery leveled up, it was going to be that much more difficult to avoid exhaustion. After a certain point, it might not matter how much combat Skill she had if she couldn’t lift her axe.
At the same time, levelling Recovery was going to be much easier when she was tired. Her fatigue would make the Skill activate more often, and increase that much faster. Getting her Skill to a higher grade would only help her as the crunch continued, and it would serve her well in the long term as well.
Reluctantly, she accepted the option and grimaced as the reward appeared.
[Title Endurance upgraded to Title Tenacious (Increases Skill grade of Recovery by two.)]
Shaking her head over her own choices—she was already feeling the drag on her body now that Recovery was at zero—Alex dismissed the option to Chain Combined Arms and Marathoning again. She’d had enough bad decisions already today.
She stepped out of the light…
Once again, she was in the portal room. Other Surveyors were slumped against the walls, apparently too tired to make it back to the ready room. Alex gave them all a dull stare, feeling her body ache and shiver with fatigue. Laura was walking over to Wells at a much more sedate pace; Mary and Bob were staggering into the ready room without looking back.
Ed simply glanced at her with a look of concern on his face. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” She smiled at him. “I’m not a Porter, but I can keep up. You’ll see.”
Still frowning, he nodded. She could feel his eyes on her as she started for the ready room. He wasn’t the only one watching, though. Wells was looking at her out of the corner of his eye; she could sense his attention until she stepped out of the room. It was a relief to pause for a moment and let herself relax a little.
Then she went to try to find the others. If she was hurting, then the rest were going to be even worse off.
“We’re already starting to get some resignations. Only a couple so far, but they won’t be the last ones.” Brian shook his head. He looked like a car had dragged him down a rough stretch of road. “This is insane. Why are we doing this?”
Alex exchanged a look with Sam. The Adept was looking surprisingly refreshed, but he’d also seen better days. “He probably has his reasons.”
Something about the way she’d said the words had Brian suddenly looking at her with narrowed eyes. She sighed as she realized that she’d be having another conversation about Wells soon, unless she persuaded Sam to take care of it. It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate the help, but the more people that knew, the riskier it was all going to be. If even one person let it slip that Alex was onto Wells’ operation…
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Audrey lifted her head from the table where she’d been resting it. “At least we are gaining plenty of experience. Maybe we’ll even reach D rank by the end of this.”
“If we aren’t dead or crippled first.” Alessa seemed like she was a fount of simmering rage, something Alex was more used to seeing in Joanna. The Porter was a lot less exhausted compared to most of the others, but there was a glint of anger that burned in her eyes. “At least one of my teammates took an arrow today. We had a healing potion, but a bit better shot…”
Alex shook her head. “We’ve got one more to do today. Just stay strong, and be careful. Don’t take stupid risks, and then we’ll get a night’s rest between us and the next Survey.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re practically invincible.” Joanna sighed. She’d never seen the Adept so discouraged. “The rest of us are just struggling to survive here.”
She wanted to argue the point, but looking around at the half-shattered Surveyors, many of whom were nearly collapsing from exhaustion, and couldn’t quite find the words. So instead, she simply shook her head. “We’re all going to get through this. I promise I’m not going to let any of you get killed out there.”
They nodded, and looked a little reassured, but as Alex felt the aches working their way through her body, she wondered if she’d finally pushed things just a little too far.
[E Rank Surveyor Alex, Gatekeeper]
[Ascension Level: 4]
[Role: Page (Role Skills: None]
[Role Level: 4]
[Experience: 760/1500]
[Attributes: Strength -> 4, Speed -> 8, Life -> 0, Devotion -> 0, Control -> 0]
[Current Skills: Battle Maneuvers(20), Marathoning(17), Combined Arms – Axe/Shield(20), Recovery(0)]
[Permanent Skills: None]
[Current Titles: Peer of War (Increases Skill grade of Melee, Combined Arms, Weapon Mastery, and Battle Maneuvers by two.),
Brutality (Increases Skill grade of Melee, Weapon Mastery, and Combined Arms Skills by three.),
Inborn Warrior (Increases Skill grade of Dodging, Anticipate, Battle Maneuvers, and Inspect by three),
Dogged (Increases Skill grade of Recovery, Running, and Marathoning by two.)
Tenacious (Increases Skill grade of Recovery Skills by two.)]
Alex stared at her Screen for a long moment. Regret for the state of her Recovery Skill ran through her, but she forced herself to dismiss it and move forward.
[Please select your intent]
[Exploration]
[Vengeance]
[Patrol]
[War]
[Salvage]
At least there would be some comfort in familiarity.
[Your intent is to Patrol]
[Quest Issued! Destroy eight Grue Knights.]
[Quest Issued! Clear at least eight Grue patrols.]
[Hidden Quest Issued!]
[Hidden Quest Issued!]
[Hidden Quest Issued!]
[Hidden Quest Issued!]
One more Survey, and she could sleep. That promise alone gave her energy, even as she stepped forward for yet one more time into another world…
The portal was raging behind her. She glanced backward and her eyes widened as she saw lightning crawl over the face of it. Were the repeated Surveys making it unstable? The question nearly made her step back through it immediately, Wells or no Wells. She’d already seen what being caught in the other world for an extended amount of time would cost her; being forced to stay there somehow seemed like a nightmare she had no intention of allowing to happen.
Her teammates seemed just as uncertain, except for Laura. She just looked at the portal and grimaced. “All right. Come on. Eight more.”
They exchanged weary looks and then started out into the city. There was no real choice but to follow.
Something was wrong.
The feeling had been growing as Alex followed the others deeper into the city. She hadn’t noticed it on the previous Surveys; maybe she had been too driven and focused to pick up on it. Now that she was tired, however, her mind wandered, and she was starting to sense something was watching her again.
It wasn’t a Grue. At least, she thought it wasn’t. After all, Grue didn’t just watch. Even if she’d attracted a Killer’s attention, the thing would have taken a shot at her long before now. Yet every time she turned to try to catch sight of it, there was never anything there. The closest it came was a hint of movement in a window, or a half-seen shadow on a wall. Every time, it vanished before she could do more than glance at it, and by the time she looked again, it was always nothing.
Alex shook her head, trying to clear it. She needed to focus. Her team was already in rough shape; exhaustion was making Bob trip over cracks in the pavement, and Mary was swaying a little as she walked. They needed her to be on top of the situation—for both their sake and hers.
When they stumbled across the first Grue patrol, it was almost a relief. Alex started for them immediately, her tired legs limiting her to a half-hearted sprint in their direction. The others came after her, their breath harsh in the dry air.
[Hidden Quest Discovered! Destroy six Grue Archers]
[Hidden Quest Discovered! Destroy one Grue Brute]
Fatigue might have weakened her a little, but the impact of her Skills more than made up the difference. At the last minute, Alex sidestepped a cluster of spearpoints, and then stepped in to scythe down the Soldiers with a single, brutal swing. A Knight stepped over to slash at her, and she pivoted to let the weapon glance past her. Her shield brushed the Knight’s shield aside, and then she punched it forward, smashing the giant Grue in its chest. It backed up, only for her to follow, her axe already chopping it apart.
A second Knight leaped at her, and Alex ducked low to let its weapon bounce off her shield. The impact jarred her arm, but she ignored it and swept her axe around and beneath its shield. It tried to react, but it wasn’t fast enough, and she cut its ankles out from under it. For a moment, it howled in rage as it went down, but Alex was on it, and her axe silenced it.
For a heartbeat, she desperately wanted to pause there, while the aches and soreness spread through her body. Yet a glance told her that more Soldiers were coming; beyond them, the Archers were trying to line up shots on her teammates. Growling, she smashed aside one Soldier, ended another with a cut to the head, and started another charge.
The Archers didn’t even see her coming until she was on them. A handful of axe strikes later, they were down. She turned, expecting her companions to be finished with the rest.
To her shock, they were still struggling with the remaining Grue. Most of the Soldiers were down, but the Knights and the Brute were still fighting hard. Alex paused in shock, and then forced her weary legs to move. The Grue howled as she hit them from behind, but as the remaining Soldiers tried to fend her off, her relieved companions took down the monsters they were fighting.
In the end, the bodies burned, and yellow text once again sprang up in the corner of her eyesight.
[Recovery advances to 2!]
[Main Quest Progress: 2 of 8 targets destroyed]
[Main Quest Progress: 1 of 8 targets destroyed]
[Hidden Quest Completed!]
They all panted and tried to recover; even Ed looked winded. Laura seemed a bit unsteady on her feet, but she still pushed herself to her feet. She gave Alex a tired grin. “That’s one.”
Alex nodded carefully. Were they going to make it through another seven patrols? She started forward to pick up some of the crystals and paused. There had been a shadow…
She shook her head. One thing at a time. That’s all she could deal with right now. Once she was through the crunch, she could worry about whatever else was out there.
By the time the fourth patrol fell, Alex was getting worried.
Ed was still staying consistent, but he hadn’t been able to get past the Knights once so far. Bob and Mary were both barely able to hold up their end of the fight, and Laura was less and less able to deal with the Brute while the Soldiers harried her. None of them had taken the chance to hit the Archers, and it wasn’t looking like they were going to.
Of course, her own performance wasn’t exactly stellar either. One of the Soldiers had actually managed to stab her with a spear during the last fight. Its spearpoint had bounced off an armored plate sewn into her brigandine, but it had still set her on her back foot until she could cut it to pieces. An Archer had bounced an arrow off her helmet too. They were small mistakes, but added with the continual weariness that was dragging at her…
A hint of motion caught her attention for a moment. She spent an exasperated heartbeat staring at an empty office window and then turned to look at her companions. They were picking through the burning wreckages of their latest opponents, gathering the crystals. Bob and Mary looked dead on their feet, and Laura was shrugging her shoulder in a way that made Alex think she’d been injured.
Ed stepped up beside her. “Are you still okay?” His clear concern might have been for her, but the worried look he gave the others told her that his thoughts were mirroring hers.
She sighed. “We need to change tactics. Otherwise we’re never going to get through this Survey.”
He grimaced. “We can always just go back now, if we need to. Wells might lecture us, but he’d understand. Things like this happen during a crunch.”
The reminder of the man who was causing the whole situation made Alex want to grit her teeth. She shook her head. “Not yet. Most of us haven’t even completed their Main Quests yet, right?”
Laura joined them a moment later, the Vanguard’s eyes roving across the area. She seemed close to exhaustion as well, with dark circles under her eyes. “So, what do you suggest?”
Alex looked around and paused as she settled on a nearby shopping center. It had a broad parking lot, but the doorway was a single narrow opening. There was only darkness inside. “Set up inside that building and wait. I’ll bring the next patrol to you.”
Ed caught her arm as she turned to leave. “What are you talking about? Are you seriously going out there on your own?”
“An ambush needs bait—and given how tired we all are, the only options are me or you.” Alex smiled at him, gently pulling free of his grip. “So remind me, which of us beats the other one when it comes to running?”
The Porter flushed at the question, but before he could find the words to argue, Laura spoke up. “You’re sure about this, Alex? I… don’t know if we could come after you if you are ambushed yourself. And if there’s a Killer…”
“Then I’ll just get an extra Hidden Quest.” Alex forced herself to smile, though the possibility of facing off against a Killer alone in her current condition made her blood go cold. “Just be ready to fight when I bring them to you.”
They nodded, and the four of them headed for the cover of the shopping center. Alex watched them go, a small, paranoid part of her wanting to see them go into the building before she left. The memories of Paul’s betrayal ran deep, after all.
Then she turned and began to run, her legs protesting the whole way.
Two blocks away, she ran past an intersection and howls rose from her right. Alex paused long enough to be sure that the patrol was coming after her and started back in the direction she’d come from. The Grue obediently flowed into the street after her.
In an ironic twist, her aches began to ease a little as Marathoning took effect. It took a small effort of will to keep her pace where the Grue would still keep up with her. They needed to be close enough to think they could catch her, but not close enough that a decent bowshot could down her. Alex added a slight weave to her course, just as arrows began to rain down around her.
None of the projectiles reached her, however, before she tore across the parking lot and ran through the open door. The Grue were speeding after her, their howls tearing through the city.
For just a moment, Alex’s heart seized as she came in through the doorway. She found herself in an empty clothing store of some kind, with long-abandoned shelves and discarded fragments of clothing rotting away in silence. In that instant, it was all too easy to believe that she’d just trapped herself in the building alone, while her team had run for the portal the moment she’d left.
Then she caught sight of Ed hiding clumsily behind a cash register, and she felt a burst of relief. Trying to look moderately desperate, she turned and faced the doorway, backing up like a trapped animal.
The Grue apparently believed her act. They charged in through the door in a wave of weapons and smoke, their howls echoing oddly in the store. There was a small traffic jam as they piled up in the doorway, with some of them clawing at their friends as they tried to reach her.
In that instant, her teammates jumped out of their hiding places and charged. Alex joined them, her own warcry rising through the Grues’ surprised yelps. They hit the Grue like a storm, cutting them to pieces in heartbeats. Her teammates appeared to be far stronger, perhaps just from the chance to rest for a few minutes. Either way, the Grue fell back in chaos, and Soldiers went down like weeds in front of a lawnmower. Even the Knights died quickly, and Laura caught the Brute alone and isolated, giving the Vanguard the chance to finish it quickly.
In the end, Ed blew past the line of Grue and carved his way through the Archers. They scattered, and Alex pushed past as well to help chase them down. When the last of them fell, the bodies erupted in that same purple fire, and Alex let out a long breath of relief.
[Recovery advances to 8!]
[Main Quest Progress: 5 of 8 targets destroyed]
[Hidden Quest Progress: 2 of 6 targets destroyed]
Alex stretched and groaned for a moment. Then she helped gather up the materials before setting out again. Five down, three more to go.
In the end, Alex only had to lure two more patrols into the ambush. Both went more or less perfectly, with the other Surveyors springing from hiding and cutting the monsters to pieces with far more efficiency. If she could just have ignored the slowly spreading ache in her chest, it would have been a perfect situation.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, Ed insisted on being the one to play bait the last time. He’d been giving her worried looks again, even though she’d been more than keeping her end of the bargain. The Porter did well enough, though it almost looked like the Grue had nearly managed to catch him. She put a little extra effort into demolishing them for their troubles.
Then they finally turned back for home, moving through the streets at an exhausted pace. Alex tried hard not to notice how much quieter the city was now, as if most of the other Surveyors had already called it quits. At the very least, it hadn’t sounded like there would be an ambush waiting, which mattered quite a lot.
They reached the portal without incident. None of them waited before diving through the vortex, clearly anxious to reach home and the safety of their beds. Alex only paused to listen for a moment, hearing nothing but a slight bit of wind. She still felt like she was being watched, this time from the alleyway across the street, but she shook her head and joined her team. Mysteries could wait for another time…
[Mission Report]
[Successful Return! +20 Experience]
[Main Quests Completed! +80 Experience]
[Secondary Culling Quest Completed! +40 Experience]
[Secondary Culling Quest Completed! +40 Experience]
[Secondary Adversary Quest Not Completed]
[Hidden Quest Undiscovered.]
Alex was getting tired of seeing the same report every time. She made herself a promise to look for some way to get a full clear out of the next day of Surveys, no matter what Wells’ reaction would be. The man couldn’t complain if they brought in even more materials, right?
[Recovery increased from 0 to 12!]
It seemed like the Skill should have advanced a whole lot more, especially given the aches and pains she was feeling, but she couldn’t entirely complain. Just a few more levels, and she’d be back to where her Skill had already been; a few more after that, and she’d have enough stamina to make even a Porter jealous.
[Battle Maneuvers has reached level 20! Skill is at Max Level and can no longer increase.]
[Reset Battle Maneuvers to gain a Title?]
Alex nearly dismissed the notice and then paused. She studied the yellow text with slowly growing interest. It seemed to whisper a siren song to her, one that competed with the dull ache of fatigue that threatened to drag her down to sleep even in the timeless void.
On the one hand, she’d be risking a lot if she reset it now. She still would be tired tomorrow, and levelling it up again would take time—but her teammates would be well rested, and she wouldn’t have to cover for them as much. For that matter, she’d probably be better rested than she’d be for the entire rest of the day, which made it her best chance to try for another Title.
Of course, it might result in her getting a spear in the gut, but she’d survived it before. Maybe she’d survive it again. Feeling a rush of determination, she accepted the option.
[Title Peer of War upgraded to Title Heir of War (Increases Skill grade of Melee, Combined Arms, Weapon Mastery, and Battle Maneuvers by three.)]
She gave a wordless shout of victory. The boost to Combined Arms would make her that much more effective the next day, and once she got it leveled back to twenty, Battle Maneuvers would be even better.
Of course, she wasn’t that much of a risk-taker, so she dismissed the rest of the options to reset or Chain her abilities. Now she just needed to rest…