There was a time when the Adventurers Guild not only handled monsters but also acted as mercenaries in wars, bodyguards, and caravan escorts. However, as wars grew more complex and varied in nature, a need arose for fighters specialized in fighting and killing other sapients. It was out of this need that the first mercenaries were born, and some time after the first mercenaries came into being, the System created the Mercenaries Guild sub-system and the mercenary variant Classes.
At first the System directly handled the running of the Guild, but as the centuries passed, it gradually passed over more and more responsibility for running the Guild off onto the sapients of the world. Of course, this led to inevitable corruption and empire-building, but the Guild as a whole never rotted completely. As a result, the Mercenaries Guild still retains the trust of clients and its mercenaries, despite numerous minor incidents over the thousands of years since it was founded.
Mercenary Classes grant a number of benefits and also create difficulties. The foremost of both is the inherent resistance to magical commands and Leadership-related skills and Arts granted by the Class. Normally in war, officers use their Arts to command their troops into battle, forcibly raising their morale and directing them against the enemy. However, mercenaries can outright ignore these commands… but this comes with a cost. This cost is that they also do not benefit much from Leadership skills and Arts.
In fact, it is a proven hypothesis that mercenary Classes have reduced growth to Leadership skills and other skills meant to manipulate or direct people, with the notable exception of the Barter and Haggle skills (which are vital to mercenary commanders). In exchange, mercenary Classes gain a bonus to combat and basic-ranking lifestyle skill growth that lasts until level 8 in the skill in question. Since a similar bonus is seen in adventurer and soldier Classes, the current dominant theory is that all Classes contain such hidden bonuses to the growth of certain types of skills.
It is common amongst those who study the System to wonder if the Class system has more depth to it than we currently know…
~From an anonymous paper on the peculiarities of Guilds
The Black Guild of Sakarka is one of many tacitly-sanctioned criminal guilds that exist across the civilizations of Cytheria. Like all criminal guilds, it is not sanctioned by the System and gains no benefits to the organization or its members.
The Black Guild was formed near the founding of the Sakarkan Empire and even now remains throughout the Territories once held by the Empire. There are a number of reasons it continues to thrive, despite the inherently chaotic nature of the criminal underworld.
Primary amongst these is the fact that the ‘missions’ the Black Guild provides are the bread and butter for most professional criminals. It is simply too difficult to earn decent credits on independent criminal jobs for most, and it is through the guild that truly skilled professionals can find jobs worthy of their skills that allow them to proceed along their path.
Secondary amongst these is that the Guild provides mediation for conflicts that keep the authorities from coming down too hard on its member organizations. Guild-sanctioned conflicts are resolved through the Guild, without the need for enemies to directly negotiate with one another. This keeps organizational wars from getting out of hand, and it keeps the criminal underworld from undermining the authorities to a degree that those authorities can’t be convinced to ignore.
Last amongst these is that the Guild is simply that powerful. The Black Guild’s military strength is roughly equivalent to that of a medium-sized kingdom, and that is without calling upon the various subordinate criminal organizations that exist under its umbrella.
Because of this, most major organizations have some kind of agreement with the Black Guild that involves compensation for certain infringements or payment of protection money to exclude their properties from guild members’ activities.
~From an anonymous paper on the Peculiarities of Guilds
The Slave Class is a peculiarity amongst all the Classes that can be obtained across the course of one’s life. To gain the Slave Class, one must have committed a crime or failed to pay a debt, thus allowing the authorities to sentence one to slavery. Once the collar is placed around the slave’s neck or the curse embedded in their heart, they will be forcibly given the Slave Class, overwriting their previous one.
While it might seem odd to those who haven’t studied the system, the Slave Class is not entirely harmful to those who are forced to take it on. While obeying orders, a slave gains bonuses to their physical and magical strength, as well as to their three stats. However, in exchange, defiance results in reductions in stats, usable skill levels, and even the sealing of Gifts if it goes too far. Slaves, like soldiers, benefit greatly from the use of Leadership and charisma Arts upon them, while having little to no resistance to them.
While enslaved, a Slave Class holder will have increased resistance to disease and exhaustion, thus making them a more effective worker. However, in exchange all damage incurred from their master will be doubled, allowing low-leveled individuals to keep higher-level individuals as slaves safely.
~From a Treatise on Slavery Commissioned by the League of Merchants of Forcible Employment
Dark Elves are an oddity amongst the elf variants. While Shadow Elves, High Elves, and their degraded descendants tend to share similar social, cultural, and other traits, drow display extreme variance from other elves.
Dark elven society is extremely chaotic, with clan-like Families ruling over strongholds in massive cities that thrive on the slavery of other races. Dark elves frequently betray and murder their own, and the sadism of their matriarchs (as their society is ruled by females) is well-known.
Wars between Families are common, and while they are rarely taken to their final ends, when they are the results are brutally vicious. All surviving males are castrated and the females rendered incapable of having descendants, before they are freed naked into the undercity, where they are usually used as toys by their former slaves.
Little value is placed on loyalty even within the Families, and younglings are raised to desire more power over those around them, fear of those stronger than themselves imprinted into their souls from birth. The rare individual who would be considered ‘normal’ by surface standards usually don’t survive until adulthood unless their talent is truly exceptional. Even then, they are usually manipulated into a position where they can’t help but self-destruct, often so that the matriarchs can witness their suffering and use it as an example for those who would defy her rule.
Drow who come to the surface on their own are rare, but it is precisely those who don’t fit into their society who do so. The kind, the gentle, those who lack ambition, and those who wish to find another way of life. These are the ones who escape the underground in favor of the bright surface. However, one must remember that they are still drow, individuals who survived horrors that those of us who live on the surface would have difficulty imagining, much less enduring.
The scars are always there, even though they are rarely made visible to us…
~From a Study of the Aspects of the Drow
Domain Gifts are relatively rare. Far more common are Domain Arts, which are obtained when a Gift or skill evolves for the first time. However, unlike Domain Arts, which are a part of the path walked by the individual, Domain Gifts display a part of the existing nature of the individual at birth.
A Domain is basically an extension of the use of an aura, which allows one to dominate or suppress those weaker than themselves. The difference is in scale and power, primarily. When a Domain is expressed, natural laws – save for those of the System – are suppressed in favor of an internal law that exists solely for the user. For this reason, using a Domain can give one an incredible advantage in combat or disable another’s ability to fight with ease.
An example of a well-known Domain type would be the Right of Rule, a Domain Art possessed by those who have claimed rulership of numerous Territories and gone through trials to prove their worthiness to the System. Users of the Right of Rule can give orders to anyone who resides within the nation or empire they rule and force them to obey, even if they have natural resistance to skills of the type.
Similarly, the Place of Power Domain allows an individual to claim a single construction or small area as their Place of Power, thus making it impossible for those who oppose them to obtain victory within, even if they are higher level.
The common element of Domains is that they allow the enforcement of the user’s will, whether it is an instinctive desire, an aspect of their Path, or a part of their Class…
~From a list and description of Uncommon Gift Types
The Mongrel made his way from the inn to the Governor’s Manse at the center of town, Syana walking quietly behind him. Unlike her previous getup, she wore a wind-enchanted steel rapier and a sharpness-enhanced dagger on her hips. She wore a thick white wool gambeson under a leather jacket laced with steel plates that went over the heart, lungs, and belly. Her legs were encased in black wool trousers, with a steel cap covering both her knees, and a pair of leather boots with iron heels on her feet.
Her white hair was bound in a pony tail with twine, and the bronze slave collar that encased her throat was visible just above the collar of her armored jacket.
Her choice of equipment was not one he would have made, given that he’d given her free reign to buy from the Mercenaries Guild up to C-rank. He’d expected her to at least get some chain mail to give her better protection across her back and hips, and he would have preferred that she at least had hardened leather covering her legs. He couldn’t bring himself to scold her about it, though.
She was as good as one would expect of a drow when it came to hiding her emotions, but his mother had been even better at it. Shadow Elf body language was similar enough to drow that he could read her humiliation and fear of what was to come, and he had no desire to make it worse for her, despite her attempt to kill him.
Nothing he could say at this point would put her at ease, so he felt he had no choice but to simply show her that he didn’t intend to make her life a living hell, Should I have just killed her? It might have been kinder just to do that. If she wasn’t so pretty, I probably would have let her be sold at auction.
He once again regretted his impulsive nature when it came to pretty women.
When they arrived at the Governor’s Manse, twenty men wearing their mercenary tags openly on their necks lounged around the entrance, some sharpening weapons, others smoking greenweed, and others playing cards as they waited for their employer to show. The Mongrel earned some sharp glares from a few of them, who were familiar with his past and rank, but they soon lost interest. He knew from experience they thought he would end up dead along the way in any case, so they saw no point in arguing he was too low rank for the job.
Syana and the Mongrel sat well away from the other mercenaries, where he began conversing with her in low tones, having had no time to tell her what he expected of her along the way, “The main reason I bought you was so that I could have someone to watch my back. Sorry to say that I can’t really trust other mercenaries, and I thought an experienced assassin-turned-slave would make a good bodyguard. I don’t expect you to spend your life taking an arrow for me, but I do want you to warn me of danger and deal with it when possible.”
She nodded slowly, her eyes disbelieving. It was obvious she thought he wanted her for the usual uses a pretty female slave tended to be put to. However, he really did want her as a guard more than anything else.
He gave up on convincing her with a shrug, pulling out his cursed rapier from his ring along with its sheath, “This is a cursed rapier that causes pain and mild burns in exchange for increasing its ability to penetrate defenses, while also inflicting the same on enemies. I suggest you take it and use it when you have the need.”
Technically, the rapier was B-rank equipment, if you ignored the curse. However, with the curse it was reduced to C-rank. Because curses counted as enchantments for the purposes of his Gift’s side-effects, he couldn’t get full use out of it, in any case.
It was a side-effect that had driven him crazy as a child and a teen, but he was more or less resigned to it, especially since he discovered that skills grew faster when you weren’t using powerful equipment. Given the benefits he got from accelerated skill growth, it was more than a worthy trade.
Syana instantly loved the rapier. Drow were instinctively drawn toward curses and other sources of magical corruption. Even those drow who weren’t outright evil shared that quality. Given her past, a little pain and a few burns wouldn’t bother her at all, and more penetrative power was extremely attractive to someone who used thrusting weapons primarily.
The Mongrel settled down to meditate, falling deep within himself, only a part of his consciousness aware of his surroundings.
He examined the inside of his body, looking for remnants of the backlash from a few weeks before. He looked for microfractures and places where the connection between tendon and bone had been weakened, where ligaments had been stretched or torn. He swam through his own arteries, searching for buildups of fat and toxins from food and hormonal imbalances. He drifted through his liver and kidneys, looking for signs of failure. Last of all he went up through his lungs to the brain, looking for disconnected or severed nerves, dead synapses, and scarring of the brain tissue, removing every tiny issue that might potentially become a large one later on.
This was the routine his tutor in the arts of the Flesh Mage had taught him as a child, one that had kept him healthy and alive despite a harsh life as a mercenary. Basic healing and bleed prevention came naturally to him. He didn’t need to focus to do those things anymore, his body doing them on reflex. However, for fixing the minor problems, the best way to do it was to go into meditation.
He was fairly angry at the Guildmaster for only delivering Syana to him that morning, and the terrified look in her eyes when she looked at the daemon told him that the man had taken some kind of liberties with her… which made him want to kill the other man. Unfortunately, the bloodlust that rose when he had that thought made her terror worse, so he was forced to suppress it.
I am going to kill Zerag someday, He thought coldly. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d killed another mercenary outside the battlefield. The only question was when.
He thought he liked the daemon until he saw how traumatized she was. Unfortunately, as had happened all-too-often in his life, he had misjudged the daemon’s character. Most likely, the other man had deliberately allowed the assassination attempt to occur. He couldn’t have expected him to capture Syana, but the Mongrel wouldn’t put it beyond him for the Guildmaster to simply enjoy the results regardless of the outcome.
Why was he taking the side of the woman who tried to kill him? Because something told him she was little more than a child by drow standards. The way she stood, the movements of her hands, the uncontrolled flickers of her long blue-black ears in response to her emotions… they all spoke of immaturity, insecurity, and a lack of the self-control most elves gained by the time they reached adulthood.
Her level had reinforced his opinion. His mother had once told him that elves – regardless of their sub-race – didn’t see one another as adults until they hit level 40 and had at least three skills at level 7 or higher. Syana’s skills weren’t low by human standards or those of the other short-lived races, and 25 was the level where most were considered capable at their chosen jobs. The difference was that elves saw things differently, and – in this one area – drow were little different.
Her low crossbow and backstab skills are especially telling. Drow love their poisoned crossbow bolts, and fighting from the front is for disposable males. I’ll have to get her one of those mini-crossbows drow love at some point, but there aren’t many places they are sold on the surface… He thought as he then went over Syana’s body with his senses, careful not to touch her.
Hmm.. generally healthy, but something is keeping me from getting a deeper read without touching her. Maybe it is that Gift of hers? He wondered. It was annoying, since maintaining the health of those around him was both training and a hobby for him.
He wasn’t about to touch her, given her overreaction to his every movement. Better to just wait until she calmed down and got used to him.
An hour after their arrival, a pudgy elf in rich robes with long blonde hair and blue eyes emerged from the Manse and approached them, followed by a half-elf child of about twenty years of age. The child was androgynous, as was common for children of thick elven bloodlines, so it was impossible to tell at a glance whether he was male or female. However, since the contract had mentioned a son, he guessed that he was male.
Fat elves were relatively rare, as most elves had superior and adaptive metabolisms that didn’t build up excess fat. However, sometimes an elf would be born without this trait, and apparently the Governor was one such.
“I see everyone is here. You will be protecting my son on his way to the Academy in Philucca on the world of Tarnec. I have been told that it is a two month journey on foot using the shortest route through the Gates. I have paid for your Gate passage in advance, so you need only offer up your Guild tags to be allowed through,” The fat elf explained.
“My son will be using this carriage,” He said, waving a sausage-like hand. A moment later, an armored carriage lined with adamantine pulled by three golem horses appeared in the street, “Please do not attempt to enter the carriage without permission. You will be joining a caravan of merchants heading in the same direction for the first leg of the journey. They await you at the caravan grounds outside the city. Are there any questions?”
“Who are the weaklings? I thought this was a B-rank job?” A middle-aged human warrior with a tag marked with a golden A asked, his voice not quite accusing as he indicated the Mongrel and Syana with a jerk of his thumb.
The Mongrel felt a fluffy tingling on his neck, and he suddenly realized that two soft bodies were pressed to his side. He very carefully did not look at the fox maidens that had at some point appeared out of nowhere to sit beside him.
He decided, typically, to just pretend they didn’t exist.
“They are recommendations from a certain noble and Guildmaster Zerag. You are not required to protect them, but they are part of the escort, so please try to get along. If you cause trouble for my son, he will report it to me… and you do not want me to take notice,” The Governor warned.
The more powerful mercenaries settled down with only a few showing signs of disgruntlement. Annoying the client was never a wise choice for a mercenary if they could avoid it.
After a meaninglessly long explanation of the journey, the boy was escorted to his carriage, a young rabbit therianthrope in a butler’s uniform following him inside. There was no argument over who was in charge. The A-rank who spoke up during the meeting with the client directed the B-ranks to space themselves evenly around the carriage as it advanced, save for the few long-range fighters, who were positioned atop the carriage where they would have the high ground.
As they progressed through Tonarre toward the caravan grounds, the A-rank called the Mongrel over and asked quietly, “What can you do? I can’t have someone so low level on the outer guard, and neither of you looks like an archer or mage.”
The A-rank warrior’s name was Fliman. He wore heavy adamantium plate armor that covered every part of his body, and a giant battle-ax was clipped to his back, ready to be drawn out at a moment’s notice. His hair was chestnut brown and his eyes light green, and he had at one time been handsome. However, decades of hard-living had left him with leathery skin on his face and dozens of faint scars he apparently never bothered to have removed.
“I can use Flesh Magic and survive a lot more than most people of higher levels. She’s a rogue/assassin type with a bit of duelist mixed in,” The Mongrel replied easily. He saw that the A-rank’s manner had softened now that they were away from the client.
“Sorry about what happened back there, but if I didn’t say anything, the others would do something about it later,” The other man said apologetically before continuing, “I’ll want you on healer duty, so reserve your energy. Have your slave watch your back in case someone goes for you. You are apparently the only one of us with a healing ability.”
“None of the others has Life Magic?” The Mongrel asked, surprised. Life Magic was one of the most common types of magic to be born with, right behind water and earth. Roughly one in ten people (across all races) were born with it, though most had only a minor talent for it.
“Risti has it, but she is incapable of using energy outside her body,” He explained, pointing to a scarred cat therianthrope woman carrying a recurve bow encrusted with jewels and glowing runes.
The Mongrel nodded with understanding. Some people were born without the ability to project energy beyond their bodies, but in exchange they were extremely powerful when it came to body enchantment and other types of spellcraft that effected themselves. Most likely, Risti used a bow most of the times, while switching to martial arts up close. Her arms and legs were quite muscular, and her archer gloves had lead backs, which were great for adding weight to punches. Her boots were lined with metal and when she walked, he could see spikes on the bottom. Her lower legs and knees were also armored heavier than one would expect, most likely to add force to her kicks and stabilize her when she punched.
“I’ll take care of it… but I can only heal five or six large wounds a day on someone else. If you need more, I’ll have to have an energy potion or pill,” He warned after agreeing to do as he was told.
“I have a dozen energy potions in my spatial device. If it is needed, I’ll provide,” Fliman said.
Healing others with Flesh Magic was more expensive – energy wise – than healing himself, primarily because other people naturally resisted his magic. Since there was only one pure mage type in the group, signified by the knee-length robes he was wearing over his trousers and shirt, he figured there wouldn’t be anyone beside the mage who would have a higher spirit stat.
“I have a few in my ring, but that would help, yeah,” The Mongrel admitted.
“I’d stay away from Craste and Dun. Those two are System Zealots of the nastier sort… If you turn your back on them, they might just decide to put a spear in it,” He warned before turning and moving on to the fox maiden sisters, talking with them in low tones.
Craste was a B-rank elven spearman in light armor, carrying two short spears, each of them made out of pure mithril sheathed in leather. From what little the Mongrel had heard about him in the past, he was a berserker type that would get dropped by his partner, Dun into the middle of battles using Gravity Magic. He himself was a Blood Magic wielder, specializing primarily in survival by keeping his blood flowing no matter how badly he got cut to pieces. Dun was a dwarven heavy warrior wielding two black steel warhammers (one enchanted with lightning, the other with fire), wearing a set of adamantium-plated water dragon scale armor.
As expected, both gave the Mongrel disgusted looks when they saw him, but they were smart enough to stay at their posts. Some Zealots actually went out of their way to kill and harass mongrels, in his experience.
The girls joined a wolf therianthrope male in light armor with two hand-axes on the outside after talking to Fliman, conversing with him in low tones. The Mongrel felt a surge of amusement when he saw the man’s tail begin wagging just from their approach, and a smile kept trying to make its way across the wolf-man’s face, giving him a somewhat goofy look that was absolutely hilarious to the mercenary.
Given the girls’ interests, they were probably just buttering him up so they could use him as a shield when they fought together. He got the feeling they did this a lot, given how easily they flirted with the wolf without meaning it. He could only tell they didn’t mean it from his Flesh Magic senses, which gave no sense that they were interested in the wolf.
I really, really wish they meant it, He thought glumly.
Syana looked at him curiously, obviously wondering why his lips had turned down in a frown. His emotions didn’t show much on his face, but that was because his mother’s race generally didn’t show emotion at all.
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Syana wasn’t sure what to think of her master.
After a week on the road, he still showed no signs of assaulting her, which was downright unnatural for a male owning a pretty female slave. Since he didn’t go into the bushes with the two fox maidens that were obviously after him, she was beginning to wonder if he preferred men.
Not that she would mind if he did. In all honesty, as a drow it was fairly humiliating to be enslaved by a male. If the mongrel was female, she wouldn’t have been as bothered, though being slave to a member of a lesser race would still prick her pride.
The other mercenaries were closer to what she had grown to expect of males on the surface. Their eyes ran over her form and her face rather more often than she would prefer, and she often caught them considering taking her from her master, given their expressions.
This was troubling, as her master had so far proved himself to be quite considerate for a male from an inferior race. Things were not nearly as bad as when the daemon Zerag had had her in his clutches. There was no taunting, no torture using needles under her finger and toenails, no insinuations that she was not even a proper drow.
He was downright gentlemanly… However, that didn’t fit with her overall impression of him. His expression never moved, and he casually handed over a cursed weapon as if it were nothing, both of which were mannerisms she would have expected from a Matriarch. Being granted a cursed weapon was the ultimate form of safety for a drow warrior or rogue, because it meant the Matriarch valued them enough to give up part of her hoard. The lack of expression on his face only reinforced this to her.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
However, there was just one problem… he was male. While she was accustomed to being commanded by males since she came to the surface, those commands were always given with the tacit authority of her Matriarch. This was the first time she had ever been under the sole command of a male, and she didn’t like that she was already associating it with the authority of a Matriarch. It made her drow instincts itch and strain as they tried to make the mixed impressions make sense.
She was better at dealing with those instincts than most drow. The average drow would have already bitten her tongue off and drowned in her own blood. However, due to her Domain of Self Gift, she was able to keep her instincts under control, minimalizing the effect of them on her emotional and rational sides.
It was the sole reason she was still alive. Normally, a young female with few prospects would have been deliberately inflicted with the Matriarch’s ‘Flames of Ambition’ Art to help accelerate the raising of the more promising daughters. Syana’s invulnerability to that Art was the only reason she survived to adulthood instead of becoming fuel for another daughter’s rise to power.
Domain of Self could also do the same for others, if she was willing to expend the energy to expand it, but, despite being less effected by the inherent corruption of the drow, she was still a drow. She knew her sisters wouldn’t have appreciated it, in any case.
So far on the journey, they were attacked twice, the first time by goblins, the second by a large pack of feral dogs. Both times, the enemy were slaughtered before they could come within range of the caravan. This was no surprise. A single B-rank adventurer or mercenary would have been enough to destroy both groups even if they came together. With almost twenty mercenaries of B-rank or above, there was no chance whatsoever for them to do any damage.
The fox girls were problematic, frequently attempting to flirt with her master while the wolf-man wasn’t looking, then going back to him when they were back on shift. She knew from personal experience that fox maidens were clever and ruthless, if not as much as a drow female, and she was beginning to feel sorry for the poor fool of a therianthrope they were playing with, despite her lingering racial sensibilities.
She wondered how her master would handle the inevitable disaster those girls would bring him, then decided not to bother worrying over it. Her curse was already telling her she was paying too much attention to things that had nothing to do with her job, in any case.
She went back to searching for threats, already forgetting her musings from before…
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As the Mongrel parried the blow of a high ogre’s club and allowed himself to be knocked backward, he wondered why things had gotten this bad.
Earlier that morning, things had seemed normal. The young master had remained within his carriage, reading a book while his butler served as a liaison with the mercenaries. Fliman made his rounds of the mercenaries, conversing in low tones with each in turn. He spent almost a half-hour scolding the fox girls after taking them aside, making angry gestures at the Mongrel and the poor wolf-man.
A brief stop was made to take lunch, where the butler unloaded three small bars wrapped in wax paper - made of oats and nuts soaked in honey, then baked until they hardened – and handed them out. The young master ate a steaming meal from his spatial ring, unconcerned with those outside.
This was quite normal so far, as aristocrats rarely paid any attention to the hired help beyond giving them orders and cutting off the heads of those that were rude or disobedient. None of the mercenaries took offense, as anyone who got to B-rank had spent at least some time working with nobles in the past.
The Mongrel wasn’t about to complain, either. He’d worked for nobles in the past, and in his experience, nothing good came of protesting their poor behavior outside of contractual obligations. The contract provided food, but it didn’t say it would be the same food as the client’s son. He didn’t expect it to be, either.
The fox maidens looked like they wanted to protest the first few days, but when they realized none of the others had a problem with it, they’d resigned themselves to the trail rations. The bars were better than hard tack, which was the cheaper, more common type of trail food.
He didn’t concern himself with Syana. He was already growing tired of being around her, despite his logical (and less logical) reasons for purchasing her. The puzzled looks she often gave him when he treated her kindly, as well as the contempt she showed for his concern over her safety (mostly when one of the other mercenaries tried to get her alone, which was becoming more common of late) only made it that much more frustrating.
As they were about to depart, the wolf-man and Fliman looked up from their preparations with alarm and called out, “Ambush!!!”
Suddenly, a small army of orcish tribals, their blue-green skin covered in tattoos that glowed with their shamans’ enchantments, emerged from the woods and burst out of the tall grasses on the other side of the road. Several ogres were being lead by massive chains pulled by several orc workers, and five high ogres with crimson skin and twin horns were being prodded towards them with blunt spears.
The ogres roared as soon as they saw the smaller humans, tattoos on their necks suddenly glowing as they were commanded by shamans near the rear of the orc forces to charge forward. Each of the ogres and high ogres were handed a weapon, mostly tree-trunk clubs, with a few of the more intelligent-looking ones being handed stone axes the size of two men.
The orcs were mostly armed with oversized, thick-bladed falchions made out of iron, and none of them wore armor. The orcish tribes, regardless of where they were, were a plague on civilization. Technically, they were a sapient race, but they worshiped nature spirits that granted them power in exchange for live sacrifices. Those live sacrifices were generally captured sentients from other races, as the spirits gained power based on the energies of those slain on their altars.
Orcs were very similar to giant two-legged boars with blue-green skin and thick tusks emerging from both their upper and lower lips. Their bodies were banded with muscle, and most of them had huge bonuses to the body stat from birth. However, only a very small minority of their race was capable of using magic effectively, and those few mostly focused on tattoo enchantments that let them control monster races or enhance their tribe members.
The shortest adult orc the Mongrel had ever encountered was two meters tall, and the tallest close to three-meters in height. On occasion rogue orcs would take up trade with more civilized races, but few settlements would welcome an orc, given the constant raids on newly established settlements. Not to mention the occasional hordes that destroyed noble fiefs and forced the border of the frontiers back every few decades.
Soon the ogres were amongst the B-rankers, their immensely powerful physiques allowing them to force the higher-leveled mercenaries back, though they quickly began to loose copious amounts of blood from the wounds they received in the process. Fliman easily beheaded two ogres with a single strike of his ax each, but just the ogres equaled their numbers, and the high ogres behind them were many times more powerful than their brethren.
The Mongrel reluctantly pulled his short bow out of his ring and joined the B-rank archers atop the carriage in pelting the ogres with arrows. His short bow was made of black iron-bound trent wood, with a mithril string. It was expensive, but it also let him put more force behind each of his arrows. The arrows themselves were plain steel, though each had a one-off penetration enchantment inscribed on the side of the head.
It took several minutes, but the last of the normal ogres went down, but two of the guards were also down, unable to hold off the high ogres as they tried to get to the carriage. Fliman was fighting two high ogres, and he had the advantage, but that was only because the archer atop the carriage had shifted to pelting the enemy archers at the back of the small army of orcs with arrows to keep them from hitting him.
The Mongrel didn’t have that kind of range, and neither did Syana, who was creating slicks of ice and sending out sharpened needles of ice at the orcish lines to keep them from charging in. The ogres simply trampled ice slicks, but the orcs were light enough and the ice tough enough that they slipped and fell, taking down their fellows and buying the guards time to fight the high ogres.
The Mongrel’s expression became grim when he saw the fox girls flying through the air from a single blow from a high ogre’s club, the wolf-man flattened to the ground (though still alive) at its feet. Its eyes focused on the carriage, and it roared, raising its club as it ran forward, ignoring the fallen therianthrope.
Ah well… I guess here goes nothing, He thought as he ran forward, switching from his bow to a heavy long sword made out of steel. It was just short of a great sword, and it was thicker than his normal choice of weapon. It was also encrusted with runes of reinforcement for dealing with just this kind of opponent. He normally didn’t use this kind of weapon, because his aura weakened enchantments and eventually broke them the longer they were in his presence. The more he had to use his few enchanted and cursed weapons, the more often he had to have them repaired and their energies reconstructed.
In other words, every second he was holding an enchanted weapon, he was burning credits.
He brought the sword down in a slash that left a shallow cut on the high ogre’s elbow. The pain caused the great beast to roar in rage and turn its attention to him, its collar glowing as the shamans tried to direct it back at the carriage.
Syana came up behind it and thrust the cursed rapier into its achilles tendon three times in quick succession, earning a backstab bonus that let her actually penetrate the skin in a spray of blue blood. Before she could thrust again, the creature attempted to kick her away, and she was forced to roll under its kick, lest it splatter her across the road.
An arrow lodged itself in the creature’s face, but it only penetrated a few centimeters, and the Mongrel slammed his sword into the side of its knee, trying to crack the bone. Unfortunately, the creature was just too high-level and too tough for him to do much damage beyond opening up another shallow break in the skin.
He was also unwilling to utilize his Gift or the related magic skill while there were still other guards fighting.
He altered his body slightly, thickening and increasing the density of his bones briefly as he parried the high ogre’s club, allowing himself to be thrown backwards. Normally, this would have left small fractures throughout his skeletal structure, but his actions immediately beforehand had paid off.
He allowed his bones to lose the density he’d forced on them through magic, then slashed out again at the creature’s knee, deepening the break in its skin and causing it to roar in pain, sweeping its club downwards so that it could smash him out of the way. Unlike the more gradual Flesh Magic he used to heal, this kind of momentary strengthening only lasted a few seconds and was a bit hard on the body afterward. He would have to eat three or four times as much at dinner to make up for the wasted nutrients.
He closed his eyes and firmed up his resolve, speaking the redacted name of his Art. The multi-colored aura surrounded the large sword, and the runes dissolved, eliminating the enchantments on it as he swept it around in a wide slash that cut through the creature’s right leg at the knee.
It collapsed to the side, and Syana took the chance to thrust four times in quick succession into the base of its neck, finally penetrating the spine with the cursed rapier… before it snapped off at the hilt, leaving the pulsating blade buried in the high ogre’s spine.
The Mongrel fell to one knee and vomited a stream of black fluid and blood as he rapidly forced the damaged flesh, bone, and blood out of his body before it could spread. The stench made Syana’s nose wrinkle, but she helped him up as the ogre struggled, the cursed blade slowly inching its way inside its spine as the curse ate away at the bone.
I used it too soon after the last time… the only upside is I didn’t activate my Gift or use that magic, He thought through the pain as he gobbled down three nutrient pills from his ring, enhancing his digestive system to get the minerals and vitamins into his system as he also gulped down a liter bottle of the meat mush with a sour look on his face.
A few minutes later, he was back on his feet, and Fliman was looking at him with concern from where he’d beheaded the disabled high ogre. The Mongrel gave him his version of a wry smile, which was little more than a crook of his lips upward, “There is a price for using redacted Arts,” he went ahead and explained.
Fliman nodded in understanding, “Ah, backlash… when I was young, I used to have one of my Arts redacted, but it almost got me killed on several occasions. I’d suggest you get the redaction removed, or you won’t be able to progress.”
The Mongrel’s expression barely moved, but the complexity of his emotions was visible in his surprisingly beautiful eyes, “I’ll take the advice, though I’m not sure I can follow it.”
He was aware he wasn’t progressing as fast as he could. Normally, given his battle experience, the number of high-level enemies he’d killed, and his high skill levels, he should have been level 40 or even higher by now. However, one of the many costs of redacting part of one’s status is that one couldn’t gain the benefits of the redacted skills, Arts, and Gift’s growth. If he removed the redaction, he would probably go up two or three levels at once. However, there were reasons they had to remain redacted, at least for the moment.
“Anyway… those orcs aren’t retreating, even though the ogres weren’t that effective,” Fliman continued, looking worried.
Four of the guards were down, three of them dead. For destroying a force of ogres, it wasn’t that much of a loss from a practical standpoint. If the Mongrel and Syana hadn’t intercepted the last high ogre, their job would have failed… and that seemed to be the point of the current mess.
“Licus managed to kill their few caster shamans, as well as most of their archers, so if they want to get to the carriage, they’ll have to put their warriors into play. The orcs are brave, not stupid… from what I can sense, most of them are the equivalent of low C-rank, with one or two high C-ranks at the front. We could probably wipe them out, but most of us would be dead at the end,” Fliman mused aloud.
While the cliff between C and B-rank was both deep and wide, that didn’t mean that a B-rank couldn’t be buried under sheer numbers of C-ranking monsters or fighters. It just meant that they would take most of them down with them. Fliman could probably wipe out most of them on his own, but he hadn’t displayed any facility with area attacks so far beyond a few sweeping techniques with his weapon. If even one A-rank mage specialist or sorcerer was present, they would have been able to wipe out the entirety of the attacking force in an instant.
“Do you think they’ll withdraw?” Syana asked, causing the Mongrel to shake his head slightly. The orcs obviously had business with the Governor’s son, and there was a desperate light in their eyes that made him think they had nothing to lose.
“Surrender the child and we will leave in peace,” An elder warrior said, emerging from the orcish lines. His skin was covered in scars from head to toe, his tattoos designed to turn them into a living story on the canvas that was his flesh. A massive adamantium tulwar was in one hand, while a large wooden shield with some kind of gray scaly hide stretched over it was in his other.
Fliman’s expression hardened as they both felt a sudden wave of aura blast out from the elder warrior, “Ah hell, an A-rank…”
“Can you take him?” The Mongrel asked quietly.
“Maybe… we’re both around the same level, though I think his spirit is higher than mine from the feel of that aura. Depending on his Gift, it could go either way,” The other man said, his expression stiff.
Even if he used everything in his arsenal, the Mongrel didn’t have anything to counter an A-rank. At best, he could hold off a high B-rank for a few seconds or a middle one for several minutes. If he went all-out, he could kill a low B-rank, at the cost of being disabled for days after.
Without using his Gift, he could fight anyone within his own rank and possibly eke out a win due to his higher skill levels… but that wasn’t something he wanted to depend on in a situation where they were badly outnumbered. If their best fighter was going to be occupied with someone his own equal, that just made things worse.
“No point in holding back, I suppose,” Fliman said resignedly, drawing a black pill out of his spatial device and popping it into his mouth.
He swaggered over to stand in front of the orc warrior, his gaze sharp, “You know very well we can’t do that. I suggest you withdraw your people before you lose so many braves that you can’t maintain the tribe.”
The old warrior’s eyes narrowed and his lips tightened, becoming pale white around his tusks before he opened his mouth again, “We require the child. Hand him over.”
“No can do,” Fliman said.
“Then we fight,” The warrior said simply, swinging his tulwar at Fliman’s neck.
However, a black aura burst out of Fliman a moment later, throwing the other A-rank off his feet and onto his back as the mercenary suddenly roared with primal rage.
A berserker pill? Is he crazy? The Mongrel thought incredulously even as he rushed forward, his bastard sword in his right hand, a round shield in his left. He slammed into the first warrior in front of him, deflecting a half-assed slash with the edge of the shield as he thrust the sword into the orc’s chest just below the neck.
The other mercenaries also surged forward, attacking as fiercely as possible, as the long-rangers fired off spells or shot arrows from the back. Over a dozen orc warriors went down in the first second of battle, unable to respond to the sudden shift. That was the upside of working with experienced mercenaries. Any decent merc would have a good sense of the right timing to strike in a case like this, and they would be ruthless enough to take any advantage they could get, even without being told to.
On the other hand, command Arts and the like were almost worthless to them, but everything had a price…
Fliman was fighting his own battle against the orcish champion, his great ax moving in wide arcs that showed no intention to defend himself. The black aura surging from him deflected the quick slashes the unusually dexterous orc warrior attempted with ease, despite them surging with flames from an enchantment and occasionally flashing with green light that was probably an Art in use.
Other orcs were ripped in half or lost limbs when they got caught within range of the arcing strikes, and the few that tried to approach Fliman from the back were blasted away by surges of the black aura, often smoking and shrieking from the contact. The fox sisters, apparently having recovered, were gleefully dealing coup de graces to the stunned orcs with cheerful smiles on their faces.
The Mongrel sliced off the left hand of the next orc in line and bashed it in the face with his shield before kicking him in the knee with a crack. The suddenly-crippled orc fell to his knees, and the mongrel slammed the pommel of his sword into the back of his skull, collapsing it inward with a crunch.
The orc to his left slashed with a heavy falchion, but the slash was wild, making it easy to deflect by slamming the flat of the blade with the back of his hand. With the orc knocked off balance by his own swing, Syana was able to thrust her remaining rapier into its throat without having to worry about being chopped in half.
The Mongrel moved onto the next warrior, kicking the wooden shield it was using with a crack and smashing his own shield into it a second later, before the larger orc could recover. However, before he could bring his sword to bear, the orc on his right forced him back with a shield rush, and the mercenary jumped further back to put some distance between them, opening enough space for Syana to cast her ice needle spell.
The ice needles flashed forward, puncturing their skin but unable to dig much farther due to the sheer resilience of their musculature compared to the force behind the needles. She was just too low-level to be able to kill them in one attack.
However, as they reeled from the sudden pain, the Mongrel rushed them again, this time slashing with the edge of his shield across the arm of the second orc, ripping through skin and tearing through muscle in a spray of blood. The orc dropped its sword, and the mercenary thrust deep into its belly, twisting the blade and ripping it out the side under the ribs, eviscerating the young orc.
The orc’s entrails entangled its legs, and when it tried to respond, it tripped and fell on its face in its own guts. The first orc, still standing behind it, had a shell-shocked look on his face, and he was barely able to get up his broken shield to block the first slash of the Mongrel’s sword in time.
Unfortunately, he had forgotten Syana, and a moment later he slipped on a patch of ice and fell over on his side, leaving him open for a thrust that tore open his throat in a spray of crimson.
The other mercenaries were working their way through the crowd, most of them working in groups of two or three, with five (including the mages and archer) covering the carriage. Unfortunately, with the fighting having gotten so close to the carriage, the long-range fighters had no choice but to concentrate on those in front of them, and there was no one to reduce the number of enchanter shamans at the rear of the enemy lines.
Fliman roared with berserk rage as his ax opened a massive gash in his opponent’s chest, the shield having given way to a direct hit from the massive weapon. The old orc grimaced in pain, but he slashed his tulwar, aiming to sever tendons in Fliman’s arm between the joints of his armor. However, Fliman wasn’t so lost to his rage that he failed to notice this, and the blade slid off the adamantium of the plate armor as the human shifted his stance so that the slash hit higher than the orc intended.
The ax returned, pulverizing two orcs who got in the way of the arcing attack, and the orc champion, slowed by his wounds, only barely managed to withdraw outside the strike’s range before attempting another crippling strike. Fliman was struggling with the rage and bloodlust induced by the berserker pill, trying to continue channeling it into his blows while retaining a semblance of sanity. However, it was a losing battle.
If he lost control before he killed the champion, the orc still had a chance at victory. It wasn’t a large chance, but it was possible. To be blunt, to an opponent with both the finesse of a swordmaster and the strength of an orc (albeit weakened by age and his wounds), a fighter – however powerful – lost to the rage of the berserker was little more than a target to be disassembled.
The orc’s sword flashed with the green light once again, and Fliman narrowed his eyes before slamming his ax into the ground, causing a wall of dust to rise between them. The tulwar had lost its glow by the time it made its way through the dust, and Fliman grinned fiercely through the rage as he confirmed his guess as to the nature of the orc’s Gift.
Elemental Coating… a common Gift but one any warrior would be grateful to possess, He thought.
Elemental Coating was one of fifty or so gifts that were called ‘common’ ones. Usually, there was one or two people in any large town that possessed it, and it was quite useful in battle, especially when fighting monsters. For a single strike, one could use the Gift to coat their weapon with elemental energy of any type, thus allowing one to strike at the weaknesses of the enemy at will. It was inexpensive and easy to use, but in exchange it was easily dispelled by physical contact. The wall of dust had been just thick enough to disable the coating.
Most likely, the orc was using the Corrosion element, as it was the best for dealing with armored opponents. Fliman’s armor had several slightly discolored points where the weapon had struck after the Gift was activated. If he was struck there repeatedly, eventually even the adamantium would give way.
However, now that he was certain of the orc’s Gift, he had no reason to hold back. He spoke the name of his Gift, “Wave of Stone.”
With a roar he smashed his ax into the ground once again, and the soil in front of him turned to stone before rising in a massive ‘wave’ five meters tall, acting like water instead of solid matter. It was an energy-intensive Gift, one that went well with his Earth Magic, as he shaped the wave to contain razor-sharp blades and spikes along its length.
The orc and those around him roared in defiance, before the wave smashed into them and buried them beneath a slab of rock that looked much like the surface of the ocean just before a storm. Blood seeped out from under the stone, staining the dirt around them, and the champion’s shattered tulwar lay just outside the range of the attack, a severed hand still gripping the hilt.
Fliman, in his moment of triumph, lost control of the rage, and soon he was rampaging through the orcs as the other mercenaries withdrew, fighting conservatively and defensively. None of them wanted to get caught in the wave of annihilation Fliman was unleashing in his blind berserk.
One of the mages murmured a thirty-second chant, and a moment later, it was as if the carriage and the mercenaries defended it didn’t exist to the eyes of those outside. The mage’s Illusion Magic would keep Fliman from seeing and attacking the defenders while he rampaged through the orcs.
Now being able to concentrate on their original jobs, the Mongrel and the other long-range attackers began pelting the remaining shamans with arrows and spells, taking them down one by one. The warrior orcs were too distracted by Fliman’s rampage to defend them, and soon the remaining warriors’ tattoos went dark, no longer enhancing their bodies.
Fliman’s progress through the tribal warband quickened, and warriors began to flee from the rear of the lines, along with the few surviving shamans. Sadly, this left the bravest of the warriors to die under Fliman’s ax, and within a few minutes, there was nothing left on the battlefield but dismembered and pulverized corpses. An exhausted, leaning on the haft of his ax with his eyes closed under his helmet’s closed visor, fell asleep, the burden of the berserker pill’s side-effects hitting him all at once now that there were no enemies left within sight.
The Mongrel was the first out of the illusion, heading for Fliman. When he reached the other man, he vanished his glove into his ring and raised the visor on the man’s helmet before touching his face.
He made a face of concern, Three major blood vessels ruptured, dozens of partially detached ligaments and tendons, and more muscle tears than I want to think about… that isn’t even mentioning the toxins from the pill that are poisoning his kidneys and liver.
“Get me as many energy potions as you can find. If I’m going to heal everyone, I’ll need as many as possible,” He yelled back at the others before dealing with the most immediate issues with Fliman’s body.
In particular, he enhanced the natural properties of the liver and kidneys, forcing a nutrient pill down Fliman’s throat to supplement what he was using up in the process. He forced them to purify and expel the toxins into the other man’s lower digestive system, hopefully getting them out within the next day. He then moved to the muscles and tendons, realigning them just enough so that they would heal naturally without scarring or permanent damage. The internal bleeding was cleaned up quickly, as it was the easiest for him to take care of.
When that was done, he immediately downed two energy potions, restoring his bottomed-out internal energy reserves. Using ambient energy for Flesh Magic on others just wasn’t doable with his mind stat.
Since Fliman was stable, he moved on to the next patient, the wolf-man the Kaede and Fururu were flirting with. In his case, there were numerous broken bones, a ruptured large intestine, and a completely destroyed right kidney. He carefully restored the kidney first, before cleaning the infection from the ruptured intestine while repairing the fleshy tube. The bones he merely realigned into their proper places and sealed just well enough that everyday activities wouldn’t break them again.
In the end, he had to heal almost all of the close-range mercenaries to some degree. Most had numerous wounds, and he went through eight energy potions before he was done.
Once he was done, he went to the side of the road and vomited out the toxins from potion poisoning. He had taken too many potions in too short a time, and the resulting toxins had been wreaking havoc on his body while he worked.
It was there that he was approached by the butler from the carriage, who was carrying a wooden box with two sandwiches inside, “Milord has given me permission to reward you with food from his own stores.”
“Please express my thanks to your lord,” The Mongrel said politely before claiming one sandwich, whereupon the butler moved on to one of the other mercenaries.
The sandwich was on expensive white bread, with a thick slab of cheese, fresh chicken, mustard, tomato, and lettuce. He took a bite, chewed… then wolfed the rest down, his body craving the nutrients within. He barely remembered anything about the flavor, only knowing it was good.
Considering the flavor, the meat probably wasn’t chicken. Chicken wasn’t that rich and full of energy.
His ears twitched happily (both sets) and if he still had a tail, it would probably be wagging. The fox maidens looked on in amusement as they ate their sandwiches more slowly, and Syana’s face was indifferent as she chewed on trail rations, having refused the offer.
The next morning, Fliman was able to rise from his bedroll and the Mongrel completed the healing, restoring him to full health. It was at that point that he gathered the surviving mercenaries – seventeen including the fox maidens and Syana – and began to talke in low tones.
“There is no way that this was a coincidence. Their insistence on taking the boy and the way they prepared the ambush make that an impossibility. We’ll need to expect similar events while we are still on this world,” He said wearily. While his wounds were healed, there was little that could be done for the spiritual and mental fatigue that came with overusing his Gift, which was on its second evolution, thus making it have more of a burden on him with each use.
“I agree. That was an entire orcish warband. Whoever arranged this probably had something over the champion to force them to attack us. This was prepared well in advance. The chains they were using on the ogres weren’t enchanted by orcs. Those were Imperial-level ones, done by someone taught in the Academies. There is no way they could afford those through their normal trade goods,” One of the mages, an owl therianthrope with clipped gray wings and feathered ears said, his expression grim. He was the one who cast the illusion during the battle, and his other magic was Poison Magic, which he’d used effectively on the archers and shamans throughout the battle.
“Also, we lost five men today, and almost all of us had severe injuries by the end. If the enemy had placed another force behind the orcs, they could have easily wiped us out… I doubt if they’ll make the same mistake twice,” The archer, Licus added.
“If it weren’t for the Mongrel, we’d be spending several weeks here while we used pills, potions, and bandages to take care of our healing,” The owl remarked.
“I didn’t know that Flesh Mages could purge pill toxins,” Another mercenary remarked.
“Most can’t,” The owl said, “His skill level is over 7, or he wouldn’t be able to do that.”
The praise caused the Mongrel to flush slightly and his ears to twitch happily, though his expression remained unchanged.
“Damn, so why isn’t he working as a flesh-sculptor? There are always rich Sakarkans and nobles who want to look perfect for high society,” The wolf-man asked sullenly. After the battle, the fox maidens had begun to ignore him, dismissing him as a potential backup option (apparently). Now that their attention was elsewhere, he was humiliated and more than a little bitter toward the Mongrel.
“Everyone knows the Mongrel has bad luck with clients. It probably wouldn’t change even if he were working in a salon in Sakarka,” One of the other mercenaries, a human warrior with two shortswords sheathed on his hips, said with a smirk.
“Losing Marrakka is a bit painful though. He wasn’t much of an attacker, but when it came to holding the line with that shield of his, he was pretty effective,” One of them said. Marrakka was one of the mercenaries lost to the ogres. In his case, he ended up facing two high ogres at once, and the second one managed to get past his shield and flatten his head with its club.
“Those of us that survived aren’t the type that can take hits like he could…” Licus said thoughtfully.
It was troublesome. Of course, as long as enemies were of lower rank, most of the mercenaries present could handle great numbers of them when fighting defensively. However, amongst them there were only three surviving members who could handle being on the defense consistently when dealing with those of equal or greater rank. All three were evasion types who managed it by avoiding attacks and disrupting those of the enemy, as opposed to taking the hits and delivering their own. Fliman was an exception with his adamantine armor, but he was more suited for aggressive fighting than defense.
“I guess we’ll have to convince the client to hire a few new guards in the next major town we hit,” Fliman said resignedly.
“Which town was next?” Licus asked.
“Ven’itza. They don’t have a Mercenaries Guild though. We’ll have to wait until we get to Hrakar,” The owl replied.
“Hrakar is faerie territory. Are you sure you want to hire from a city full of faerie dust addicts?” Licus asked skeptically.
Faeries were one of many races known as ‘invaders’ from attempts of beings from other universes to encroach upon Cytheria. Similar to the daemons, they had sided with Cytheria at a key point in the wars, and as a result, the System acknowledged their acts, allowing them to remain. However, the dust that was shed from their wings while they flew was a mild narcotic that couldn’t be negated by the body or spirit stat. As such, high-level individuals often used their lands as places of recreation, turning them into cities full of casinos and brothels, like Hrakar.
“We could probably hire a few A-ranks from there…” Fliman acknowledged, his expression sour.
“… but the question is whether they would be willing to leave,” Technically, faerie dust wasn’t addictive, but the pleasure it gave was. For men whose constitutions rejected poison and narcotic both, making it difficult to impossible to get drunk, faerie dust was their only source of guilty pleasure.
“The last thing we need is one of them snorting up right before an ambush,” The owl said, his feathered ears ruffling with disgust.
“There is no choice. We will hire on replacements in Hrakar,” Fliman said conclusively. The others nodded reluctantly, and they separated to begin preparations to depart the site of the battle.