The Silos turned out to be the buildings they had spied when they first exited the portal. They were a pair of unassuming grain silos, rising high above the fields. Their mildly ruined roofs seemed to be moderately intact.
There was a small parking lot at their feet, likely where farmers would have offloaded their crops to be conveyed all the way up into the structures. Now, however, there were no vehicles, just Grue that patrolled the grounds. Most of them looked like they were Knights or Killers, but she had no doubt that the more elite creatures were hiding further in.
As they crouched in the overgrown grass, staring across the relatively clear ground at the structures, Alex looked over at Joanna. “Hey, Professor, did you get a confirmation on the Quest yet?”
Joanna gave her a look that could only have been described as grumpy, and shrugged. “Not yet. I might need to get closer.”
Alex grimaced, looking back across the open ground. There was no way that they could creep up on the place, not with such clear terrain. A Killer would spot them before they’d traveled more than a hundred meters.
She looked at Sam, who was also studying the place with a grim expression. “Any plans, Sneak?”
“In a city or a town of some kind, sure. Out in this open ground…” He shook his head, a rueful look crossing his face. “Guess I’m a bit too much of a city-slicker for something like this.”
Clara glanced behind them. “Maybe Abbott is already finished with the Shifter? He could be coming to help us right now.”
“Or he could need us to help him.” Alex’s eyes narrowed as she studied the scene. There was another small path that led through the fields. The Grue weren’t exactly guarding it, but it seemed like they checked it every so often. In other circumstances, she’d have thought about trying to come around from that side and ambushing them that way. Now, with Abbott in trouble…
She looked at the others. “We need a diversion.”
Joanna glared at her. “You mean you need someone to act as bait.”
Alex met the Adept’s glare with a level look. “I’m far and away the fastest person here. The one with the best stamina too, unless Sam’s Marathoning has gotten an awful lot better.”
He clenched his jaw for a moment and looked away. “Not quite, no. You’ve still got that edge on me.”
“On them too.” She looked from Sam to Clara to Joanna. “I’ve done something like this before. If they couldn’t catch me back in the city…”
Joanna shook her head. “You knew where you were going in the city. You knew which areas to avoid, and which places you could retreat to. There weren’t Shifters running around looking for vulnerable targets. You’re going to get yourself killed, Alex.”
Alex met her friend’s stare for a moment and then looked away. “There’s no other option on this.”
“Yes, there is.” Joanna’s tone had grown insistent. “I could just not pass the Main Quest this time. You didn’t last time, right? I didn’t see you complaining about it.”
Sam grunted. “Not out loud anyway.”
The Adept glared at him. “Shove it, Sneak.” She turned back to Alex. “You don’t have to run off and risk yourself on something like this. It isn’t like Red Blade or Golden Swallow. This doesn’t have to be life and death.”
Alex looked away for a moment. “Not yet, it isn’t.” She looked back at Joanna, who was already wearing a faintly resigned expression. “You know it as well as I do. The company is fine right now, but the time is probably going to come when we’ll need allies. More than that, we’ll need to be as strong and as tough as we can be. That’s how we’ve gotten through the past two places. I’m not going to get complacent now.”
She looked back at the Silos, trying to remember how long ago they’d stopped hearing the noises from Abbott’s fight. “Once I draw them off, get as close as you need to in order to complete the Quest. Then head back and find Abbott. He might need healing, no matter what Skills he’s got.”
Clara murmured something, but Alex continued on in spite of it. “Once you have him, try and track me down. I’m going to use that road for a bit, and then see if I can cut away to the south, at least until I hit the road we took that first day. After that, I’ll head west to the portal. We’ll wait for each other there; if you beat me to it, head east to come find me. All clear?”
The others nodded, and Alex sucked in a breath. “All right. Time for the fun to start.” She smiled. “Ready?”
She turned back to the building and let herself grow tense. The distance between her and the smaller road seemed so much longer now, but she refused to focus on that. With an effort, she gathered the power of the Storm around her, preparing to split the air as she ran.
Then she burst from cover, running as hard as she could across the open terrain, right in front of nearly a dozen higher level Grue.
Their reaction, at first, was almost humorous. They stared at her, grey eyes floating in a haze of black and white smoke. Even with their indistinct features, she could read shock and disbelief on their faces.
They recovered quicker than she’d hoped, however. Within five strides, the Killers were already nocking arrows. By the time she reached the halfway mark, projectiles were already snapping in at her, slamming into her shield like hammerblows. The Knights were only a little slower; one of them raised a curled horn and blew, sending an alarm across the rolling fields.
None of them managed to put an arrow in her or block her path before she reached the entrance to the small road, however. A pair of Killers sprang up in front of her, their weapons ready to rend and tear. Alex didn’t even bother stopping to engage them. Instead, she lowered her head and barreled straight through both of them. Her shield swatted one of them aside, and the other had to dodge around an axe strike that would have disemboweled it.
Then she was past them, and running hard along the puddle-ridden path she’d been aiming for. The Silos flashed past on her left; half-hidden in the grain, she thought she caught sight of a security camera on a small pole, pointed at the road she was running on. It was such an odd thing that it stuck out to her, even with its obvious state of disrepair. Nobody was going to be watching anything through the shattered lens, especially not with the way the pole had been bent to the side.
All the same, it stuck with her as she made her retreat, running along in the rain while the Grue howled in her wake. A glance backwards told her that a small army of Killers, Knights, and worse were already loping along after her. With any luck, she’d be able to lead them on a merry chase while the others finished their task. Then all she would need to do was outrun them and get home.
Simple enough. At least, she hoped so. Time would tell.
The Grue were nothing if not persistent.
It was a good thing to remember as she continued her run east. The path she was following was a winding track that seemed to have been poorly maintained even before whatever catastrophe had claimed this world. Barely wide enough for a single small car, Alex didn’t think she would have wanted to ride any kind of vehicle along it. She would have said the road was littered with potholes, except it was difficult to tell where each waterlogged hole ended and the next one started.
All the same, it didn’t seem to have been completely ignored. After that first camera, she had caught glimpses of more, even as she dodged and weaved to avoid arrows and bursts of fire. They were normally set a little further back, half-buried in the crops. Most of them had been shattered, or knocked over, but the fact that they existed at all made her wonder why they were there. It wasn’t like anyone would have been driving on this terrible roadway for fun, and she doubted that the value of the grain justified the investment to protect it. If they were that worried about security, why not invest in a real fence instead of the simple wooden logs that bordered the path?
She tried to put those questions out of her mind and focus on running. The Grue had fallen behind, but they definitely hadn’t given up. Not even the rain seemed to discourage them, and every time she thought they had finally abandoned pursuit, she caught sight of shadowed forms down a straightaway, or heard a hint of howling and whining as they ran.
Alex was starting to wonder if she would need to ditch the road and dive through the fields when she suddenly ran out of road to follow. The path ahead took a sudden, sharp turn to the left, flanked by trees. Her breath was starting to come harder now, and her legs were burning despite Motion Trance. Desperate for relief, she swerved from the road and dove into the trees along the left-hand side of the road. She’d run north for a bit, and then double back to head south. Hopefully, it would be enough of a bluff to throw the Grue off her…
Her thoughts slithered to a stop as she crashed through the woods. They were only a small grove, and she very nearly ran straight into a ditch that had been half-hidden in the rain. As it was, she nearly fell in anyway as her feet slipped in the mud and fallen leaves, scrabbling to a stop when she was only partway down.
On the other side of the ditch was a chain-link fence, one that had threatening little signs with lightning bolts on them. Alex didn’t know if she expected the electricity to still be on for the fence, but she knew she didn’t want to find out the hard way that things were working just fine despite the neglect.
Behind her, she heard a pack of Grue hooting and snarling to each other. She sunk a little lower into the ditch. If she stayed low, maybe she could creep around to the south side of the road without them noticing. It was a long shot, especially since she hadn’t exactly been careful about her trail so far, but it was better than nothing.
She made her way along the ditch, trying to keep low and avoid having her head above the edge of the embankment. Every so often as she walked, her feet would slip in the dirt, and she would slide a little closer to the fence than she liked. A glance behind her nearly made her give up the effort entirely. Even a half-blind Grue would be able to follow the trail she was leaving, and a Killer was anything but blind. A straight-up fight was more her style, anyway.
Shaking her head, she tried moving faster, creeping along through the woods. She could already see the road again. There was a gate, too, with some kind of guardhouse built on either side. They looked a lot more solid and well-built than any of the farmhouses that she’d seen so far in this place. If anything, they wouldn’t have looked out of place set up on any of the containment areas that the various Survey corps had created.
Curious despite her situation, she crept closer. The guardhouses were just as neglected as everything else, of course. Grue script cluttered the walls, and the windows had been smashed. Between them, the gate itself was closed, and some kind of spikes had been deployed behind it in case an approaching vehicle had ignored the warning.
She heard a few quiet yips behind her and realized the Killers were in the forest now. Alex risked a peek over the edge of the ditch and caught sight of one of them slowly advancing through the undergrowth. It seemed like they were trying to be careful, in case she had laid some kind of ambush. Their attention was mostly on the trail she had left, but they’d reach the ditch soon enough, and then she’d be in plain sight.
Moving faster, Alex neared the closest guardhouse. She looked both ways along the path to make sure it was clear and paused. On the other side of the gate was some kind of small concrete bunker. It had been built into the side of a hill, with the kind of door that made it look like it could have withstood a nearby nuclear strike. What was something like that doing all the way out in farm country?
Alex shoved that question into the back of her mind and darted across the road. She reached the other side without any howls to tell her she’d been noticed, fortunately. Once she reached the other forest, she pushed through the undergrowth on that side as she made a long, fast loop around to the south.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
She exited back out onto the road, which was still blessedly clear of Grue. They still yipped and growled to the north, but she broke cover anyway and sprinted along the road to the west. If they took their time following her, she might be able to put enough distance behind her for them to lose her trail entirely. Then she’d break for the south. Mystery bunkers and strange security cameras could wait for another time.
Preferably a time when it hadn’t rained on her for well over an hour.
By the time she reached the main road, Alex was fairly confident that she would never be dry again.
[Motion Trance advances to 21!]
She irritably waved away the orange text and started west along the road, hoping against all reason that the others would already be there waiting for her. There hadn’t been any sounds of battle behind her at the Silos, so hopefully they had finished things off before they left. Otherwise, it was going to seem like such a gigantic waste of time that it almost made her hurt to think about it.
Her pace along the road was anything but inspiring. Between the rain, the rough terrain she’d been slogging through, and her general fatigue, Alex had seen better times. Still, she hadn’t seen many patrols scouring the fields for her, and the last sign she’d seen of the pack of Killers had been a long while ago.
Alex was just starting to hope that she’d reach the portal without any further trouble when she heard the howl.
There had been plenty of Shifters calling to each other over the past hour. Most of them had been fairly distant; from what Abbott and Forsmith had told her, they weren’t usually interested in anyone below C rank. Apparently, they were monsters with a very discerning appetite when it came to hunting down Surveyors.
Now, however, she wondered if it was just that anyone below that rank had never survived being hunted. It didn’t seem like it was going to be a good idea to find out.
Panic drove her pace a little faster. Her feet hammered down on the rain-slick pavement, sending jolts of pain through her sore muscles. Thunder grumbled up above, and the rain seemed to intensify just that much more, as if the world itself was unhappy at her attempts to flee.
She heard another howl, this time lower and closer. It was almost more like a grumbling moan of anticipation, and it sent a spike of fear straight through her. Alex ran harder, trying to listen for the beat of wings above her, or for the sound of something crashing through the fields behind her.
Instead, there was another strange sound. It wasn’t loud, but it caught her attention for a moment. The crackling hiss combined with some kind of gurgle to truly disquiet her. Then there was a terrific squelching sound—and then silence.
Alex ran on, hearing nothing but the rain behind her. The wind picked up for a moment, forcing her to spend a little of her remaining strength of magic to shunt it aside so that it wouldn’t slow her down. Where was it? Abbott had always said that Shifters never gave up and never lost the scent. If it wasn’t already swooping down at her, where could it—
Her thoughts chopped off as she felt a slight tremor below her feet, and a new, horrible answer to her question took shape in her mind. Desperate, she took three long, ranging strides and jumped, trying to gain as much altitude and distance as she could find.
Below and behind her, the pavement abruptly exploded. Two giant, scooped paws tore through the asphalt to rip open a hole, and a large, canid maw emerged to snap at her heels. Dark, smokey fangs nearly closed on her ankle; only the fact that she jerked her legs up close to her stomach kept her out of the Shifter’s bite. Frustration flashed in its too-large grey eyes, and it thrashed its way free of the tunnel as she hit the ground and rolled to a stop.
Alex came up with her shield between her and the Shifter, for all the good it did. The creature had already finished worming its way free of the dirt, and its too-wide paws seemed to not slow it at all as it lunged after her. One massive clawed limb swept out, and the impact lifted her from her feet and sent her tumbling into the grain.
She came to a stop and forced herself back upright just in time to be knocked backwards again. This time she didn’t land nearly as well; her head struck something a bit more solid than muddy ground as she tumbled, and the world seemed to swirl and lurch as she tried to bring herself back upright.
Despite the ringing in her ears, Alex could still hear the Shifter start to cough and gurgle. She looked up to see it rearing back, ready to unleash the same kind of stream of poison and acid that had nearly hit Abbott. Somehow, she doubted she would fare as well against it.
She took one staggering step to the side, trying to will herself to dodge the incoming stream of death. Alex knew she had to avoid it, but her body wasn’t listening. Her legs would not obey, and her shield wouldn’t rise. The Shifter’s head started to come down, and she closed her eyes, trying to prepare herself for what was about to happen.
Then something hissed past her, and her eyes snapped open in time to see a crossbow bolt hit the Shifter right in the lips.
Vines exploded from it, wrapping around its jaws in a heartbeat. The Shifter’s eyes went wide with fury as it struggled against the entangling plants. Smoke crept from its lips as its own venom began to boil within it, but the vines held on. Just as they began to blacken and give way, the creature abruptly froze in place, ice forming at its feet. A second bolt hit it a moment later, and more vines crawled around it.
Alex looked back and found Clara leading the others along the road. Sam ran out ahead of them; the Acolyte was busy reloading her crossbow, while Joanna had one hand out, clearly using her own magic to chain the creature in place.
The Adept’s magic failed just as Alex looked back. Fury filled its expression as more smoke leaked from its imprisoned jaws, and it clawed at its own face in desperation. It had nearly freed itself when Sam darted in close and leapt up. The thing had barely any warning at all before he put his spear directly in the thing’s eye.
It snapped its head back, and Sam jumped away as venom spilled out from its howling throat. The grey fluid sizzled and popped on the asphalt, and Sam barely managed to dart aside. He retreated to cover Alex as another crossbow bolt shot in.
She gave him a bleary look. “You made it.”
“Just in time, by the looks of things.” Sam’s eyes narrowed, and the Shifter jerked as if it had been struck. “Looks like it’s a bit tougher mentally than I’d hoped. Can you stand?”
“Trying.” Alex staggered a bit more upright, struggling to lift her weapons. “Where’s…”
Her question was answered a moment later, as Abbott’s axe hurtled in like an executioner’s blade. It slammed into the Shifter’s shoulder with enough force to nearly sever the limb; the Grue’s vicious howl became an agonized groan. The C rank himself came soaring in a moment later and smashed into the thing’s side. His axe returned to his hand as it fell, and then he went after it in a flurry of brutal strikes.
“Oh. Good.” Alex slumped back to the dirt as the Shifter thrashed and scrabbled in a futile attempt to escape. The fight didn’t last long after that, and something told her she was very ready to go home.
A short burst of Restoration from Clara and a grumbling walk to the portal later, Alex found herself standing in front of the portal with the rest of her friends.
Abbott spoke to each of them in a low voice. He saved Alex for last, coming up next to her as she stared at the swirling vortex. “You know, I don’t remember if I said it out loud, but you should stick together in this place. Going it alone is suicidal. Not that I expected to need to tell you that by now.”
Alex gave him a level stare. “Oh really? Maybe I was just following your example, team leader.”
He grunted. “That’s different.”
She shook her head, trying to ignore as the world spun around her a little. “No, it isn’t. And you know it.”
Abbott muttered something under his breath and then continued in a weary voice. “At the very least, you won’t do it again, right? I don’t want to have to carve your name on the monument.”
There was pain in his voice, and Alex winced. For a moment, she rebelled against the guilt. Then she sighed. “I’ll try harder to avoid it now.” She looked at him sideways. “Are you still resetting your Skills? So you can help train me?”
He nodded slowly. “Yeah. Sure.” Then he tilted his head back and looked up at the purple-streaked clouds overhead. “You know, the others don’t cause me nearly as much grief. Can I expect more of this from you, Valkyrie?”
Alex opened her mouth to deny it. Then she stopped.
Beyond Abbott, standing in the rain-soaked road, there was a flicker of smoke. A figure, standing a little shorter than the usual Grue and wielding a staff, with purple eyes narrowed in hatred. She thought she saw a twisted, satisfied smile.
Then it was gone, and Alex shivered. Liliana had found her again.
She looked back at Abbott, who was frowning at her. With a sigh, Alex nodded. “Yeah, I think so. Sorry.”
[Mission Report]
[Successful Return! +20 Experience]
[Main Quest Incomplete]
[Secondary Culling Quest Completed! +80 Experience]
[Secondary Culling Quest Completed! +80 Experience]
Alex sighed over the continued lack of success in the Main Quest and shook her head. At the very least, she’d survived; given how close things had gotten, it was a definite victory. She could already tell that another long visit to the infirmary was going to be necessary, but at least she wouldn’t be coming out of the portal completely empty-handed. If Abbott reset his abilities, he’d be even stronger for their next run. Besides, her friends were still growing stronger, too. Perhaps it wasn’t such a bad thing to have them close the gap between her and them a little more.
Still trying to convince herself, Alex dismissed the initial screen and faced the next part of the report.
[Battle Maneuvers increased from 12 to 25!]
[Combat Balance increased from 16 to 25!]
[Motion Trance increased from 14 to 21!]
[Combined Arms–Axe/Shield increased from 17 to 25!]
[Holy—Storm increased from 18 to 30!]
Once again, the fact that Surveys were far more effective than any training at raising Skills proved true. She wondered briefly if there would ever be a chance to train herself back up to full without risking her life on a Survey, and then moved to the choices that she needed to make.
[Combat Balance has reached level 25! Skill is at Max Level and can no longer increase.]
[Reset Combat Balance to gain a Title?]
She agreed. Better to continue to gain Titles than to stay as she was.
[Title Battle Momentum upgraded to Title War Momentum (Increases Skill grade of Combat Balance, Riposte, and Battle Dance by five.)]
[Combined Arms–Axe/Shield has reached level 25! Skill is at Max Level and can no longer increase.]
[Combined Arms–Axe/Shield has reached capacity for Titles. No more are available.]
[Reset Combined Arms–Axe/Shield to add maximum levels?]
Alex blinked. She hadn’t realized that her higher-level Skills would have the same kind of limits as the lower ones. When she thought about it, though, Combined Arms had about twice the number of Titles that Holy—Storm had. Unfortunately, that meant it could only grow so much stronger, and getting it to the maximum after each Survey was only going to get harder.
Still, there was no reason to put off helping it grow. She agreed, and felt the Skill’s power drain, even as she felt more potential fill it.
[Holy–Storm has reached level 30! Skill is at Max Level and can no longer increase.]
[Holy–Storm has reached capacity for Titles. No more are available.]
[Reset Holy–Storm to add maximum levels?]
Again, she saw no reason to hold on to the Skill if it was ready to advance. Every bit of power she reached would help her and her friends survive.
As the text disappeared, she frowned a little. Battle Maneuvers hadn’t quite reached its maximum, nor had Motion Trance. It was to be expected, but she found herself wondering if she’d been a bit more honest with Abbott than she’d intended. With her Skills like this, the others were going to have a rough time challenging her, even if she was felt a little constrained by her options.
Shaking her head, Alex stepped forward and let the light carry her home…
“A bunker, huh? That’s… interesting.”
Alex nodded as she ran. Sam had joined her once again for the morning run, and they were making their way around the Royal Purple campus at a decent clip. He was getting much faster, and even if his stamina wasn’t nearly as strong as hers, he was still doing far better than she had expected him to. She only had to hold back a little at this point.
She restrained the urge to speed up just to challenge him a little more and thought back to what she’d seen. “It was really strange. Why would they have something like that in the middle of a field?”
“It’s probably some kind of… secret facility.” Sam dodged around a bench as they ran, returning to her side a heartbeat later. “We have those here, right? The government… probably has a bunch of fields… of its own.”
“Well, that’s… interesting.” She tried to picture what kind of secrets it could hold. There had to be something inside. “I wonder how we could…”
“No. Don’t even think it.” Sam gave her a remarkably stern look for someone halfway out of breath. “We’re already taking enough risks. You don’t need to… add some on top.”
Alex raised an eyebrow at him. “An electric fence isn’t that dangerous, Sam.”
“An electric fence that still has… power might have a generator, Alex.” Sam shook his head. “Which means it probably has an active Anchor Point… somewhere inside. You want to find out what… one of those is like? At full power?”
She grimaced. “Good point. I forgot about that.” Then she shook her head. “Of course, things are already going to be ugly with Liliana showing up.”
Sam grunted. “Yeah. That was only a matter of time, though. We are… going into a C rank portal. She was bound to show up… eventually.”
Alex nodded. Shades were actually expected to show up in portals of C rank or higher; Liliana’s presence at their last portal could probably have been explained by the number of Surveys that Alex and the others had gone on. Either that, or there was something else strange about their former team sergeant, beyond the fact that she had once been human. “Do you think we should warn Abbott?”
He didn’t answer immediately. “Hard to tell him everything… without breaking the nondisclosure. He’s got to know… something’s up. We don’t want him to keep us out… to protect us.”
Then he growled a little and put on a little more speed. “But I don’t want him in the dark. Let’s tell him.”
Feeling a burst of relief, Alex nodded. She’d wanted to, but with the risks involved… “All right. I’ll tell him today.”
“When you are dueling him?” She nodded, and Sam took the opportunity to give her a raised eyebrow. “You sure that’s a good idea, by the way?”
Alex shrugged a little as they took the next corner. “I know the risks.”
“Yeah, sure.” Sam’s voice grew elaborately casual for someone running as fast as they were. “So, are you on a first name basis with the medical staff yet?”
Alex gave Sam a glare as they passed a couple of people that were walking towards one of the further dorms. He seemed completely invulnerable to her skepticism; in fact, he seemed to be laughing a little. She went back to scowling at the path ahead of them. “I think we need to work a bit harder here. Let’s pick up the pace.”
She accelerated, ignoring his faint grunt of protest. He didn’t give up, though. Instead, he ran a little faster, just enough to get ahead of her a bit.
He then wasted his lead in order to look back at her and stick his tongue out. Alex laughed despite herself—and then poured on a little more speed. She didn’t want him to get cocky, after all.