After calling Reurig over and gathering everyone in the office, we told them about what we had learned from Hayla and the king, as well as our plan. The mood was somber, and our Fighters in particular were shaken by the revelation that Alarna was by no means a safe zone, as they had assumed all their life.
“Damn it...” Reurig said. “We never had it better than the rest of the world... We just didn’t know...”
“Miles, Tomar,” Berla said. “You can’t fight it. You hear me? You must not fight it.”
“What if we don’t have a choice?” I asked with trepidation.
“Then you run! Or convince it to agree to a deal! But if you fight it, you will die! I told you, anything past cat seven is... it’s beyond human imagination! And nobody has ever killed an eight or above!”
Fighting wasn’t my first choice either, but of course we had to consider the possibility that it would be necessary. Tomar on the other hand still thought that our chances couldn’t possibly be that bad.
“Do you really think it’s impossible to beat it?” he asked. “Nothing has been able to stop our attacks so far. I’ve been thinking about it. Even if it has other beasts with it, we can kill multiple ones in one go, and they don’t know what we can do. They’re at a serious disadvantage!”
“Maybe, but the moment we attack, we’ll have made our choice...” I said. “And if we can’t finish it off with a surprise attack, that might be it.”
“Yeah, I know... I’m just saying, our chances might not actually be that bad. We were worried about the moderators as well. And fighting twenty of them wasn’t exactly easy... but individually we were much stronger.”
“Uhm, can I ask something?” Hati said.
“Of course,” I responded.
“What are these ‘categories?’” he asked, looking around the room.
As a beast, he naturally didn’t know anything about the power classifications used by the humans, and he simply went by instinct and “helling,” when it came to determining a beast’s strength.
“Humans put beasts into certain categories based on their strength,” Berla started to explain. “That’s what we’re using to describe them and how strong they are, instead of saying that they’re a wolf, or a bear. And a category ten is not something to take lightly...” she said, glancing at Tomar admonishingly.
“Oh! What category am I in?” Hati asked with curiosity.
“Well... you look like a category three, but you’re a little stronger. You’re more like a cat four, but nobody would say that, because you don’t look the part... This category system didn’t really account for different beasts of the same race being much stronger or weaker than their brethren.”
“Actually, what does a category four even look like? We haven’t seen one yet,” Tomar said.
“They’re a little smaller than threes, but more muscular. And they have funny looking ears.”
“Funny ears? How so?” I asked
“A bit of fur sticks out from the top.”
Muscular... smaller than a wolf... fur sticking out from...!?
“That sounds like a lynx!” I said happily. “There are cats in this world! Haha, hell yea! ... Wait, if that’s a category four... it’s stronger than a wolf?”
“Yes,” Berla said, nodding. “They’re stronger, and their claws are much sharper. And even if they’re smaller than a wolf, they’re still as large as a person, so...”
“Right, that makes sense,” I said.
“Don’t you guys try to change the subject though,” she said.
Tomar looked away innocently, so that might actually have been his intention, but I was just honestly just curious. She had told us about the category seven she fought once, but I didn’t recognize her description of it, and I didn’t even think to ask about the lower categories back then.
Unfortunately the Fighters of Alarna knew little to nothing about category tens, because they mostly relied on descriptions from people they had met in Cerus. These beasts weren’t even technically part of the category system, as their looks and their strengths varied. It was kind of a collective term for the “boss monsters,” so to speak. The ones who ruled over territories and other beasts with their overwhelming power.
“I promise you, we won’t fight it unless we’re absolutely sure that we can beat it, or we have absolutely no other choice,” I said. “But... we might have to. You know we’re not necessarily in control of that.”
“I know...” she said, “but I expect you to do your best to come back alive. Even if that means running.”
“Who do you take me for? I value my life,” I said with a chuckle.
“So you say, but you fought the cat six without knowing what you’re up against as well,” she said with displeasure on her face.
“Right... Point taken. I promise you. No unnecessary risks.”
“Okay. Tomar?”
“Yes, I promise,” he said.
Berla nodded contently. She was easily the most worried between us, with Reurig coming in as a close second. He didn’t actually say much, but it was clear to see on his face. Hati listened to the conversation curiously, but he had already known that there was a strong beast nearby, so it apparently didn’t faze him quite as much as us. After all, as a beast himself, he had a different relationship to other beasts. The one who was clearly the least worried though, was Riala.
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“Maybe it can become our friend too!” she said.
“Heh... Yea, that would be nice...” I said with a wry smile.
I mean... you never know... but that seems rather unlikely...
This category of beasts appeared to essentially view humans as cattle, and even if this particular one decided to operate from the shadows for some reason, that didn’t change what was happening. And even if the beast somehow wasn’t actually evil, it had presumably eaten and killed thousands of humans over however long this had been going on. That would be tough to justify. Though Riala presumably wasn’t able to quite fathom that yet, especially after she just befriended a beast.
“Well, that’s what we have to deal with next week...” I said. “But until then, we have other things to worry about.”
“Not that I’m looking forward to this happening, but is there no way to contact Arax before the delivery?” Berla asked.
“Apparently not,” I said. “They will collect sacrifices that are left in between deliveries, but they supposedly don’t show themselves as long as someone is waiting there. Hati knows where its cave is I guess, but I don’t know whether it’s a good idea to go there...”
“Hm, alright.”
“Next point, the guards... Did you learn anything new, Reurig?”
“More or less,” he said. “We have questioned Grym and the other guards who were there, and we’re also monitoring them. They wouldn’t say anything but that they couldn’t accept you bringing a beast into town, but in private they talked about someone organizing that stand of defiance.”
“No information on whom though?”
“Not yet, no.”
“Okay... Well, at least Grym as captain is working out for the most part so far.”
He had taken part in whatever that was, but his actions were as predicated. Grym hadn’t secretly plotted to undermine us, nor tried to kill us in our sleep. He had criticized us openly, and he also yielded to us easily enough.
“They also seem to be fairly intimidated by you guys, with this new aura. Knowing that you beat Grym, Eissen, and the ‘talking beasts’ was one thing, but seeing you like this made them even more wary of taking direct action. They believe they would lose any confrontation, unless they get more people on their side. But they’re hoping their unknown leader will come up with a plan. Grym didn’t take part in these discussions though.”
“Hmhm. We’ll have to wait and see, I guess. Though it would be great if you could find that leader, of course,” I said, and Reurig nodded. “Okay, next up on our list of problems: Cerus. I was thinking about going there this week, but with this new threat on the horizon, I guess we’ll postpone that... We do need to check what’s going on there though, and whether someone already took over the town.”
I assumed that anyone with the necessary resources would jump at the chance to occupy Cerus, because it was a much safer and richer town than the surrounding ones, not including Alarna. However, since the next market wouldn’t have been for another two weeks, someone would first have to travel there randomly, then go back to inform someone, and then, assuming they dared to go back to a town littered with corpses, they might move in. This sequence of events would presumably take about ten days, which were now almost over.
The thought of claiming Cerus for ourselves had crossed our minds, but since we still had our hands full with Alarna at the moment, rebuilding an entire town three days away from here would be a bit much. We knew that we might have to do something if nobody else did, however, because our stone supply wouldn’t last forever.
“If someone takes over, they might get themselves into big trouble... We don’t know what Arax will do...” Berla said.
“Yea... I actually forgot to ask Hayla and Hertar about how all of this works in Cerus. If they even know the current process. But we can’t do much either way. We shouldn’t split up, seeing how Arax could technically show up here unannounced. And with the threat the moderators pose, I wouldn’t want to send any non-Sourcerers there alone either. It’s unfortunate, but I think we should wait until next week, when we know what we’re dealing with.”
None of us were truly happy with this approach, seeing how any potential new people in Cerus could potentially get massacred again in that time, but the others understood my reasoning. It would be best for Alarna if Tomar and I/Lilana stayed here, in case Arax made a surprise visit before the delivery date. We could technically have someone else go to the neighboring town, maybe accompanied by Riala, but if they met moderators on the way, and there were too many of them, it would become very dangerous.
“It would be easier if we had more Sourcerers,” Reurig mused.
More Sourcerers, I thought. The idea wasn’t new. We had talked about it on and off for a while, and especially after Lilana and I met up with the others outside of Alarna. At that point, I knew that we didn’t have to blow up a water source to give someone mana, because Oryn executing the script had worked just fine as well, and he was seemingly fine afterwards.
We still knew so little about the process that I wouldn’t want to risk that, however. What if the next one executing that script wouldn’t get away unscathed? Or what if it wasn’t actually safe for the receivers? After all, we had a total sample size of five, and even Tomar and Riala had only had mana for a little over two months. Trying to create a small army of mana users now could have bad consequences. Not to mention that we would also actively create people who would be able to stand against us, during a time when there was still an active opposition.
Additionally, we didn’t know exactly what the moderator’s deal was yet. The gods apparently used them to get rid of things and beings that shouldn’t exist, including awakened humans. More of them existing might not be a good thing. And if the moderators weren’t able to beat them... At which point would we draw the attention of the gods themselves on us? Even with this new threat, it seemed safer to stick it out for now.
“I wish we could find actual Callings that produced mana users. That would be a game changer,” I said.
“You still think those exist?” Tomar asked.
“Of course. The opposite doesn’t make any sense to me... And we still don’t know what Ria’s Calling sign is about. Granted, we only tested three kids so far, but if it simply meant that she was too young or something, it would’ve appeared on Pyran’s children as well. What I’m worried about is that the gods might even stop her from getting that Calling when the time comes. I doubt that this is an entirely new one, or that it’s so rare that nobody ever got it. If the gods truly prevented this Calling from coming into existence, they will presumably keep doing that...”
I had wracked my brain for a while already, but I didn’t have a real solution to this problem yet. Luring Gallas here and asking him would be possible, but very risky. And Riala was still over seven years away from her ritual, so we wouldn’t know what would happen for a long time.
“Well, that’s why we’ll do more rituals from now on, right? Maybe we’ll find something next week. After the delivery...” Tomar said.
“Yea, maybe. Actually, a few people seem very eager. We already got three applications,” I said, holding up a few letters that were delivered while we were out. “Curiously, they’re asking to become Charmers...”
For the time being I had decided to only do Fighter, Handiworker, and Researcher Callings, because we had these readily available among our group. We weren’t close with any Charmers, so we would have to find someone first to provide that one, and we would have to include them in the process to a degree.
“Oh, that reminds me!” Reurig said. “I looked into Bren and Fae while gathering information on Grym. Did you know that Fae’s parents are merchants?”
“Huh. That’s good to know!” I said. “I’m fairly certain that we can trust her. And she seems curious about what we’re doing anyway. Maybe that would be an option, assuming she is part Charmer.”
I naturally wanted to provide the citizens with the Callings they wished for, as that would give us the most points with them. But these young adults were apparently also orphans, who lived at the temple’s Raising Site. This was another, temple-like building in the southwest of town, where they and the children of priests were raised. Those kids essentially begging to become Charmers did make me want to help them.
Maybe Fae will be the solution to at least one of our problems.