While the boys had left to scout, it seemed like Nicola had rallied everyone into building a substantial protective barrier. This success was bittersweet however, as those same walls now prevented them from escaping.

They’d somehow lodged large, thick branches between the trunks of the trees ringing the clearing, creating a strong, low-tech impediment that spanned the circumference of the open space. The hyenas, a clan of about three dozen, were attacking the far side of the wall, ramming their heads in through gaps and using their bulk to try and topple the defences.

Most of the Classless were huddled in the centre, shrieking every time one of the barriers bowed inward. Mandla could see several spots where the hyenas had broken through before, areas of disarray, with blood soaking the ground.

They got in? How is everyone still alive?

His unspoken question received a gut-wrenching answer, as the hyenas broke through again.

Barrelling shoulder-first into a particular weak point, one of the massive beasts burst into the clearing with a mass of splinters.

Karl reacted immediately, confronting the laughing animal and, with a mighty overhand swing, lopping off its head with a huge two-handed axe in a spectacular shower of blood. It was too late however, as a dozen more hyenas ran giggling into the opening.

The crowd was like a school of fish, all turning around and running in unison from the hairy assailants, screaming and trampling one another in their haste. To Mandla’s horror, the beasts didn’t go on a murderous rampage like he’d expected. Instead, they grabbed individual people from the edge of the throng and dragged them, shrieking and begging, outside into the shadow of the forest.

Jesus Christ. They’re shopping.

Arrows flew towards the gap, preventing other hyenas from taking advantage of the hole. Nicola appeared, firing a massive bow even taller than her. Blood streamed down one side of her face and she had a quill stuck in her thigh but still, she was gritting her teeth in defiance, activating weapon skills as fast as they manifested. She fired two types of arrows, one that exploded from the bow straight and true, like a bullet, and one that moved slower, but hunted its target down, swerving around trees and dodging humans to slice into hyena flesh. Unfortunately, the bulky beasts were tough enough to tank at least three of her arrows before going down, unless she got one in the head with a bullet shot.

It seemed they’d worked out some protocol for wall breaches, as Karl and the three [Heavy Spearmen] sallied out in lockstep, the spearmen holding up their shields with spears out, and Karl activating two weapon skills that allowed him to do the same.

You can manifest two skills at the same time?

While they kept the rest of the hyenas at bay, Support Legends, [Sappers] most likely, rushed to the gap, using some sort of skill to meld the wood back together. Manning the rest of the wall, [Defenders], armed with a simple spear, cuirass and helmet, poked at the surrounding beasts, while other weak points were manned by the other Support Legends, who had no martial skills but had all received a basic dagger and breastplate upon accepting their Class.

When the breach was sealed enough to pass muster, Nicola leapt atop the wall and called out to Karl and the spearmen. The squad slowly backed up towards the wall, and with [Defenders] pulling them up while Nicola provided covering fire, they all made it back into the enclosure.

Finally drawing close enough, Mandla manifested his [Assegai] and launched it at the wall, impaling a hyena and getting another notification. He kept this up until they were at near enough range for Kaveh’s [Sahm] to start hitting. Hyenas burst out in boils and weeping abscesses opened up all over their bodies when the arrow hit them, killing them painfully as they wasted away in real-time.

The pack slavering at the walls, much diminished as hyenas broke away to follow those that had grabbed prey, noticed the javelins and poisonous arrows, and seemingly content with their haul, decided it was too much trouble to keep attacking. Whooping and yipping, the beasts shrank away into the trees, leaving behind only the echo of their laughter and the sobs of traumatised teens.

Nicola, seeing the pair coming back, ran out to join them. She had a slight limp which she seemingly only noticed right then. Glaring down at the quill in her thigh, she snapped off the protruding point with a small flinch and resumed her approach.

Someone’s adapted quickly.

Mandla had seen her use multiple weapon skills, showing she was on the first Rung like them. The level up had somehow, annoyingly, made her more attractive, even covered in dirt and blood like she was.

The [Defenders] and other Support Legends on the wall gave the two boys a small cheer as they realised where their respite had come from.

Nicola, reaching the pair, wasted no time.

“We need to leave. Now.”

Mandla and Kaveh responded at the same time.

“No shit.”

“Are you okay?”

She smiled despite herself.

“I’ll be fine, Kavvy, thanks. I’ll go to a [Doctor], they can heal minor wounds.”

She turned a cold glare at Mandla.

“I’m guessing you already met our laughing friends since you’re not starvation-skinny any more. Did the swordsmen get taken?”

“We left them behind since we were rushing to save your ass. No need to thank me, saving damsels in distress is my specialty. They should be coming along in the next few minutes.”

Nicola started going red, before taking a breath and calming down.

“No, I won’t give you the pleasure. Thank you guys for rushing here, though I don’t know how much you really helped. You didn’t see the first few breaches. Our only saving grace, however morbid, was that each hyena was satisfied with taking one person, and when they got them they left the battle. There were over sixty of the brutes when they first attacked.”

Walking back to the now mostly silent fortification, the boys entered onto a sombre scene.

Dozens of people were groaning on the ground with quills stuck in various places, being fussed over or dragged to a corner where a free [Doctor] could hopefully see them. The adult Quillbacks had barbs on their spines that made them impossible to pull out safely without a [Doctor]’s help. Splinters, streaks of blood and the odd clump of hyena fur littered the floor, adding a chaotic vibe to the dour situation. It looked like the aftermath of a war.

In a way, I guess it is.

Nicola led them to what once was the hotbox tent, now repurposed into a sort of command centre. In it was a low table, once used to roll joints, now the map that Kaveh always kept in his glove box was spread open upon it.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

She turned to them.

“So where are we going? I don’t know this area. And how do we avoid every damned animal until we get there?”

Mandla squatted in front of the table, perusing the map.

“We’re here, just east of Malelane. We could go to Hectorspruit, up north here.”

Kaveh shook his head.

“That’d be a mistake I think. Both Hectorspruit and Malelane are built next to the Crocodile River. I wouldn’t have wanted to cross it on foot even before all this craziness but now? Fuck no.”

“We wouldn’t be crossing it but I see your point. If we’re getting monster hyenas here, who knows how bad it is closer to the game parks. That leaves us with the south and the east. The south is filled with small lakes and watering holes, who knows what’s lurking in them? But the east is almost as bad. It has two redeeming points. One is that we can follow the N4 highway all the way to Maputo. It’s the closest big city and if anyone knows what’s going on, they’re probably going to be in a city.”

Nicola nodded along.

“And what’s the second?”

“It’s the direction opposite to where the hyenas ran.”

The three of them shared nods.

“That’s good enough for me.”

Karl joined in on the impromptu meeting, barging in and sitting down next to Mandla to view the map, to the surprise of everyone else in the tent.

The fuck?

Mandla looked up at Nicola, a question in his eyes.

Is this you?

She shook her head slightly, giving a half-shrug. She was just as confused as he was.

Whatever, we’ll deal with this later.

He rolled up the map with finality.

“It’s decided then. We’ll take only what we can carry and once everyone’s healed up, we move.”

With everyone in agreement, they left the tent and got to work.

----------------------------------------

With everyone healed up and the swordsmen back in the group, they set out. They couldn’t carry much, as few of them had bags, so they prioritised food. A few more industrious people managed to take the canvas off the tents, so they could be rolled up and carried easier. Mandla folded up the map and stuck it in Kaveh’s cuirass.

I need pockets. Scratch that, I need clothes that cover me. Man, people really used to go to war nearly naked like this.

Luckily, Mandla’s third weapon skill, [Isihlangu], was a word he recognised. It was one of those oval hardened leather shields, and he hoped the skill would at least mitigate his vulnerability.

As the group travelled up the dirt road, they passed the rangers’ cabin in silence, each of them wanting to bury the poor man, but none of them brave enough to stop and risk the hyenas coming back. They continued on.

As the sun got low in the sky, still walking, the group finally hit a main road. Just seeing asphalt was enough to make a few of them burst into tears, the little reminder that the world had irrevocably changed being too much to handle.

The group continued their trek, occasionally taking out the map to make sure they were on course. Mandla, Kaveh and Nicola served as roaming scouts, checking the trees around the road to make sure they didn’t get ambushed. Karl, as the only Ascendant without a ranged weapon skill, served as the vanguard. He cut an impressive figure in his viking helmet and furs, with his massive axe slung over his shoulder.

As they plodded on, Mandla learned more about how the System worked for those not on the Bloodline Ascent. Apparently they had Quintessence Points that they could use to power their abilities, points that recharged every six hours. Mandla was surprised to learn that most of the Legends were level 2 already, but that only gave them more QP to use. They couldn’t use skills willy-nilly like Ascendants. They didn’t have weapon skills, rather general skills like [Slash] or [Block], that they could activate with the right implement in their hand. It didn’t even have to be theirs, as the skills worked just fine when Legends swapped swords or shields. Obviously, they didn’t have Bloodline skills or a Position ticker, but surprisingly they didn’t have the Symbiosis option either, aside from the Cavalry Legends, who had something called Rider’s Bond.

Ultimately, Mandla was glad he’d chosen this option. Still, watching the Position ticker rise as more people reached the first Rung stressed him out. Were they all having as tough a time of it as him and his group? The first animals they’d met in this forest had essentially had their way with them, treating the unprepared youths like a buffet table. He’d found his own niche for now, with his [Assegai], but not every enemy would be a javelin throw away. If the very first predators they met had been this overwhelming, how would he survive the second Rung? The third?

That was without even considering the Trials, as ominous as they sounded. Were they deadly? Would he breeze past them? He just didn’t know and he hated it. He was used to making decisions with all the facts and relevant data available, or at the very least an educated set of reasonable assumptions, but here he was flying blind and trusting in the word of a damn screen in his eyeballs that this way led to power. Ah well.

Focus on problems you can fix.

Mandla’s most glaring weakness, in his eyes, was that he didn’t know how to fight. Throwing javelins didn’t count and back at the cabin, the [Ixwa] had done all the work.

He needed a way not to suck.

“Yo Kaveh.”

“Aweh? What’s up?”

Mandla manifested his [Ixwa] in his hand, staring worriedly into its reflective blade.

“I don’t know how to use this, and that ignorance is gonna get me killed. Please tell me you can help in some way.”

Kaveh grinned.

“You must be the luckiest bastard alive. My third weapon skill is passive. [Janna]. It’s like an assassin super martial art. I think I can use every weapon in this group.”

“Bruh. How is it that with literal magic powers falling from the sky, you’re still winning more than everyone else?”

The fledgling assassin laughed.

“The universe loves me, obviously. Don’t worry though, we’ll get one of the [Heavy Spearmen] to let me use their weapon. I think I’m strong enough to wield it in one hand. I can teach you so you don’t suck.”

His immediate worries assuaged, Mandla turned his full focus on to scouting.

The sun had almost set and it was rapidly getting dark. The Ascendants had noticed however that their eyes weren’t any less effective in darkness as in sunlight.

Night vision. Nice.

The Ascendants convened once more, apart from the rest of the group, as the last rays of light disappeared. They were still on the road and night was falling. Did they keep walking?

Nicola was of the opinion they should.

“We lost 39 people today! Mostly Classless, thank God, but those are still people we let get eaten!”

She shuddered.

Karl was frowning.

“What do you mean ‘thank god’?”

Kaveh, surprisingly, looked conflicted as well at her statement.

Nicola rolled her eyes.

“Spare me the sanctimony, you know exactly what I mean. I’d never wish what happened to them on anyone, but look me in the eye and tell me it’s just as bad that we lost Classless as opposed to the same number of Legends.”

Karl held her gaze for a second, before looking away.

She’s an asshole, but she’s right.

She continued.

“Who’s gonna get sleep tonight anyway, knowing what’s out there? Not me, that’s for sure, and the other Legends don’t have as many self-defense options as we do. Not to mention the remaining Classless who will stay defenceless until we can get to a city, or figure out how the [Smith] skills work. We simply cannot stop moving.”

I hate to say it but…

“She’s right. We can’t afford the delay. It’s shitty to think about but how long do you think that many people will… sustain a pack that size? Either tomorrow or the day after, they’ll go on the hunt again. And until we get to the highway, we’ll be in their turf, assuming they really did claim the whole forest.”

“They’re people too.”

Everyone turned to look at Kaveh.

“The Classless, I mean. They’re people too. If not for the providence of whatever pissed off god did this to us, that could’ve been any of us. We didn’t earn these blue screens. It’s super disrespectful to just dismiss their deaths like that.”

This isn’t the time for this.

Unfortunately, that’s just how Kaveh was. He had a very rigid morality. It had been endearing when life was normal, he even acted as a sort of moral compass for Mandla, as his mind split things between right and wrong while Mandla held a much more flexible view of matters. But, sharing a glance with Nicola, it seemed they both realised that this could become a problem.

She touched his arm.

“Kavvy, you’re right, I’m sorry. That was wrong of me. I’m just still shaken after the battle, I guess. It helps to push their deaths to the back of my mind, because otherwise…”

At this, her eyes started tearing up and she buried her face in Kaveh’s chest, sniffling. Of course, his resolve fell apart completely when the waterworks flowed.

Wow. And the Oscar goes to…

Mandla took great exception to her brazen manipulation of his best friend right in front of him, but the fact that he agreed with her complicated the situation. They could mourn, but not now. Maybe the Classless played some integral role in this whole state of affairs, but not now.

Another thing I’ll have to deal with, but we don’t have the luxury of time.

Having agreed on continuing through the night, the group trekked up the road in darkness, lit by only by a few level 3 [Sappers] who’d unlocked the skill, [Tunnel-light]. The Ascendants could see almost perfectly and the Legends who reached level 2 and 3 had enhanced night vision as well, though they still needed some source of light.

Eyes constantly scanning the treeline, Mandla was startled when Karl up ahead exclaimed in surprise. Turning to the front of the column, Mandla looked up. And kept looking up.

Craning his neck, he couldn’t even see the top.

Of course, it could never be as simple as just leaving.

In front of them, having materialised out of thin air, was a gargantuan, shimmering blue wall of energy.