Tyler fell down to his hands and knees, sucking in air, exhausted from helping carry TitanicVoice on a stretcher closer to where his Wagon ended up at the end of crash at the end of his Tutorial. Tyler had pointed Sarge to the general location of his destination, and said that maybe his group could sneak away if the opportunity presented itself. Unfortunately, the Tippin' Top Hats saw what was happening, and dedicated a couple of their group to keeping an eye on the situation, and prevented them from getting any closer to where the Wagon was hidden.
From where Tyler was, he could see the Wagon as clear as day, but when he pointed it out to a guard, the man only looked at Tyler with concern, probably worried about a Confusion debuff. Tyler sighed to himself, but in the end, thought that it was for the best that other Adventurers couldn't see the Wagon.
Looking around him, he realized that Sarge disappeared, and he was nowhere in sight. As he was turning his head to look at his employees again, he felt a buzz in his wrist, looking at his wrist, he saw that a message had just arrived from him. Focusing on his inbox, he brought up his messages and saw he had a message from VI.
VI: Well, this is a fun little distraction, but it's time to move again. Here is a little gift from a few of the Council, why don't you go and start bringing people a dose of reality.
His Companion UI kicked Tyler out of his inbox, and brought up his equipment, and his Log Book was shining. Giving it a mental prod, a new window popped up.
** Congratulations, you have been awarded temporary classes and skills by the AI Council. Awarded skills have been hidden to ensure class requirements to unlock the Magical Alchemist perk. **
** Congratulations, with your unlocked classes and skills, you have unlocked the Magical Alchemist perk. This will give a random chance at triggering hidden effects on your creations. **
Tyler went completely tunnel vision on the screen down on his wrist, the combat all around him falling into the background. Shaking his head, wishing he could disconnect his screen but unable to due to being in combat, he shook his wrist, trying to shake away the obvious prank VI was pulling on him. Taking a deep breath in through his nose, he was happy he was still down on the ground, because all the new smells would have knocked him on his back. Looking around, flowers, weeds, trees, and even a small pile of dung off in the woods became relevant to him.
He focused on the manure, and he knew, even though he wasn't close to it, that it could be used in beauty products or poisons.
Closing his eyes, he breathed in through his nose again, but he followed a feeling that wasn't there before, and he wasn't smelling as many different smells as before. Just as his lungs reached his capacity, he felt a warm sensation from his chest, then suddenly his head was clear, and the battle around him snapped back into focus. He didn't understand, but he realized he just used a skill, he didn't understand how he did it, but his body just reacted and used the skill Magical Filtering to give him the Clear Headed buff.
Looking at TitanicVoice, then looking at JarsForJars, his thoughts started sifting through all the new information that was available to him. Tyler was blown away at the fact that it felt like the knowledge was always there, and it felt like he was trying to solve a math problem, there was an answer to his problem, he just needed to find the right solution.
As he looked around him, and he mentally noted what he had available to him, the potential solutions he had slowly decreased. As he continued to scan, he knew that he had been granted Alchemy and Herbalist, basing that off the ability to determine what plants could be useful with just a look, and the knowledge of all the potions he had available that could at least get his group mobile. It was a pretty common pairing, so Tyler wished he could know what had been unlocked, then he could sell off the requirements for a huge sum of money.
Turning to one of the guards left to watch over him, Tyler began a shopping list. "I need rum, I need some coffee beans, and these two need to be arranged here, with space for me to sit and be within reach of the head." He finished his requests by pointing to a spot nearby. As soon as he finished, he scrambled over to a nearby tree, and started shoving Golden Tipped Wildflowers into his mouth. After a few scoops, he pulled the flowers out of the ground, then ripped off the roots, and with wild eyes, he crawled over to the spot he pointed at earlier.
He turned over from his hands and legs, then sat cross legged while the two unconscious adventurers were placed around him, their heads closest to him. As Tyler continued to chew, he heard a bellow across the battlefield.
"I know you have the driver of that cart! Who else would you be escorting in this area? Hand him over to us, and we'll make sure you go for a walk while we clear up this area for you." JackAttack was literally swing a tree around himself as a weapon, cleaving both Newt and Guard the same, while his clanmates knew his combat style, and made sure to stay clear. He swung the tree around himself, with a Red Newt as the obvious target, and when the tree passed, the Newt was gone. Further down the tree, the Red Newt had grabbed a hold, and was pouring fire out of it's mouth onto the makeshift weapon. JackAttack bellowed as he looked at the Newt, then reacted like any good Berserker should, and launched the tree at a Blue Newt that sneaking up on one of the Guards from the city.
Tyler shook his head, knowing that he would never be able to reason with the madman, and dreaded any future interaction with the Berserker. He turned his focus to the mush that was forming in his mouth from his frantic chewing, nodding at the soldier who put down a small sack of coffee beans and a small bottle of rum in front of him. Thinking about the recipe in his mind, he reached into the sack in front of him, and shoved a handful of the coffee beans into his mouth. He continued to chew, breaking down the beans in his mouth, when he felt the materials in his mouth began to warm up, a magical effect taking place in his mouth.
Probing around with his tongue, he was satisfied with how blended the two ingredients, he took a long drink from the rum bottle, careful not to swallow anything. As soon as the rum swished through his mouth, he closed one eye as the materials suddenly jumped up in temperature. He knew this part was coming, but how does one fully brace themselves to heat forming up in their mouth to the point of the liquid beginning to boil. His cheeks began to expand as the alchemy process entered its final steps, he closed his other eye, focusing on the movements of his hands. He let his hands flip through different patterns, and when his hands froze in the final shape, he opened his eyes and his mouth at the same time.
The rum had disappeared from his mouth, and when he opened it, a thick green mist began to seep out and gathering between his hands. He spun his hands around the gathered mist, turning and flipping the mist, then expanded his hands outward so they ended up over the heads of his employees. When his hands stopped moving, the mist divided, and followed his arms to his hands, then fell off his hands, flowing up the nostrils of his unconcious employees. Almost immediately, their eyes popped open, and at almost the same time, they said "we have decided."
One of Tylers eyebrows raised, but instead of asking what they meant, he felt that a special effect had taken hold of his creation. The green mist had disappeared, but the mush inside of his mouth was still there. He felt it begin to tingle inside of his mouth, and he immediately stuck two fingers in his mouth, and scraped most of it out and placed it in his other hand. He spat out whatever was left in his mouth, but his teeth continued to tingle, not able to completely flush out the mush.
Opening his hand flat, the small ball of wildflower and coffee mixture sat on his palm, he brough his other hand down, and began to flatten out the mixture. He watched in awe, as a small blue threads began to appear everytime he lifted his hand to flatten out a different section of the mixture. When he was done, he had a hambuger patty shaped clump, with blue threads stick out of it, he knew it was ready, so he surveyed his surroundings. The Newt from earlier that Sarge had executed, was near, and he stood up and began to walk over to it. As he walked, his free hand began once again to make different patterns around it, while his hand shifted through different forms. He pushed his hand towards the mixture, and the blue threads turned red, ready for its last part of the ritual.
He looked down at the Newt, cursing the beast and it's brethren, blaming them for all of his problems in HYTOMA up until now. If the Dragons didn't appear during his tutorial, he wouldn't have had his first encounter with JackAttack, his former friends wouldn't have been recruited by the Tippin' Top Hats, and he would have been happily working away in his Shop in Newbie Alley. He wasn't ready to admit how amazing it was to be doing high level Alchemy so soon after entering HYTOMA, he just wanted to feed his anger. As his emotions began to roil once again, he pushed the mixture into the Newt, and as it approached, he saw the red threads quickly stab into the Newt. The mixture was pulled out of his palm, and it began to eat into the Newts neck, dissovling the skin.
He stepped back, both of his hands settling into the fox symbol, getting ready to use the offensive concoction. As he watched, the Newt continued to be eaten away, and after a few seconds, the Newt had disappeared, and Tyler was left with another gathering of mist, this time it was completely black, but he continued to wait. The black mist shifted around, and Tyler knew it was almost ready, when all of a sudden, red threads began to swirl in the mist, making a completely chaotic pattern inside the mist. Tyler smirked, and began to rotate the fox sign his hands had made around his wrist, and pushed towards the mist, then shortly after pulled his hands back, bringing to columns of the black mist, each one having its own chaotic red thread.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
He looked up and called out across the battlefield. "Sarge! I need you!" He didn't want to call out that it was time to leave, the last thing he needed was for the Tippin' Top Hats to learn that he was planning on sneaking off. Just off to his left, he saw a quick change of movement, and then Sarge appeared, jogging over to Tyler. Sarge eyes widened seeing the two black clouds around Tyler's hands, and stopped a safe distance away, his hand quickly coming up to cover his mouth.
"I know that effect very well, and I don't have any idea how a young one like you is able to control it like that." Sarge stated. "Now isn't the time to explain, but you will be explaining to me once we are out of this mess. HunterBob, get over here double time."
The scout turned from the line of ranged attackers, and jogged over and stopped in front of Sarge. "Sir" was the only thing the Scout said.
"I'm going to be separating from the unit for the time being, I'm leaving you in charge. Any issue with that?"
"Sir, I have no issue with it, can you share any details?"
"I cannot, all you need to do is maintain the current situation, and when things kick off, you are to begin distancing the unit away from this location. I would suggest returning to Newbie Alley, but you will be in charge, so where you head is up to you. Dismissed." Sarge released the Scout then turned back to Tyler. "Isn't it funny how we were just discussing how it was the weakest one on the battlefield could determine the outcome, and now here we are."
Tyler could only shrug, practically shaking in excitement with the power he had literally at his fingertips. He held the fox sign on his hands, then he looked up at Sarge with determination written across his face. Remembering that other adventurers couldn't see where the wagon was, his plan was to get to the wagon as quickly as possible, then hope that FairyHammerTime had finished up repairing the wagon, or at least had an answer for any Newt or Tippin' Top Hat that may follow him and his employees.
He looked over at JarsForJars and TitanicVoice with determination in his words. "You're going to have a Foggy debuff for five more minutes, stay close to Sarge, I'm going to lead us to the wagon and see if we can get out of here." He could see the confusion on their faces, not only for a newbie like him telling them what to do, but from crippling status effect of slowing their comprehension of everything going on around them. He saw distress fall on TitanicVoice, with the sound and sights of the combat raging around them in the three way battle.
Rather than waiting for a response, Tyler nodded at Sarge, than began to move in the direction of his Wagon. Sarge grabbed Tyler by the arm and held up one finger when Tyler looked over his shoulder. "Smoke!" Sarge barked out, and immediately, Soldiers threw small pouches to the ground, and then began to stomp on the bags, creating a huge cloud of smoke almost immediately. Winking at Tyler, Sarge gestured for Tyler to lead on, but in a direction not directly at the cart. "Going in a straight line isn't the best idea, if someone sees us head in the smoke, they will just look at the map and head in the direction that lines up with that escape route. Instead, go into the smoke, then change direction and stay low and slow. Hopefully we can get a good distance where we can have a good head start when someone finally spots us."
Tyler looked almost disappointed, looking down on the weapons he had encasing his hands. Sarge chuckled, "don't worry son, we're most likely going to be spotted as soon as we exit the smoke. That being said, never forget in times like these, you need to escape to finish the quest, and going for a walk only leads to failure."
"Fine, I know you're right, but honestly, you're probably jealous right now." Tyler finally letting his youth out a bit. He changed direction and walked into the smoke cloud that had formed, barely able to see his hand in front of him. Confusing enough was that he could still clearly see his Wagon, realizing that one of the perks of his class was being able to see it regardless of the situation he was in. He took a mental note to test the range of this ability.
As he walked through the smoke, he could feel something pass above him, having no idea what it was, he ducked down further. He moved his hands back and forth around him, giving him a feeling of safety in the completely blind situation. He probably looked like a joke to anybody who could see him, but he would cling onto anything that would help him from disappointing Sarge by running off in the smoke in a blind panic.
Before he knew it, he was out of the smoke, and he quickly looked around him, and breathed a sigh of relief not seeing anybody. He began to move to the Wagon, low and slow like Sarge said, and looked over his shoulder. He was greeted with a smiling Sarge, who nodded at him, holding a hand of JarsForJars and TitanicVoice showing them the way.
"I knew it was a good idea to stay out of that mess and stay back and watch." A voice came from a nearby tree. "I just knew some freebies would come here, and catching Sarge here without his troops? Maybe I'll get lucky and get a replacement of one of these." A figure stepped out from behind a tree, drawing out two short swords.
Tyler reacted immediately, he pointed one of his hands at the Adventurer, then opened the fox sign by seperating his ring and middle finger from his thumb. The red threat that was circling in the black mist shot forward, bringing a small black cloud with it. It flew up the adventurers nose, and after a second, her mouth opened to scream in pain, and the red thread flew out of it without any smoke. It returned to the larger cloud on his hand, and when Tyler looked back at the Adventurer, she dropped to the ground, off for a walk. Tyler wasn't expecting so much damage from the Death Wisp to take effect so quickly.
As Tyler was looking at his hand, and arrow hit Sarge in the shoulder. "Time to move!" JarsForJars had shaken free of the Foggy debuff, TitanicVoice freeing his hand from Sarge, and sang "It's time for a quick heal." Instead of the healing rain healing over time, TitanicVoice went for an immediate heal, the effects pushed the arrow out of Sarges' shoulder and stopped the bleeding. While Sarge wouldn't be able to use his arm, at least he wouldn't fall from blood loss.
Tyler turned to an Archer who was knocking another arrow, he used his other hand and opened the fox sign, sending a red thread at the ranged threat. Instead of flying up the Archers nose, it hit him right in the middle of the chest, and instead of being sent for an immediate walk, he coughed up a black sludge. He fell to his knee, holding one hand to his chest, the other reaching into a bag. Bringing a stone to his mouth, instead of eating it, he spoke into it. Tyler couldn't hear what he said, but he knew it wasn't a good sign.
He shook both of his hands, giving a mental command, and the red threads separated from his hands, and began to float towards the noise of the nearby combat bringing the black smoke with it. Tyler hoped that the wisps would leave the guards alone, but he lost control of the threads, giving them the order to go on a rampage hoping to create a long enough distraction. He turned towards his Wagon, and ran through his group and didn't look back, he had to trust his group to follow him. As he ran, he churned through the recipes hoping he could think of something that could do something about their current situation.
All of a sudden, a small Gnome popped into sight, busily working over a table that had steam rising from it. Turning to the group, FairyHammerTime jumped. "Wha? You aren't supposed to be able to make it here? My Sneaky Workshop is supposed to hide anything within the field, but actively direction attention away from the spot."
"I have no idea what you are talking about, I just ran to my wagon." Tyler shook his head, suddenly feeling slower, and couldn't think as clearly. He was hit with a Confusion debuff, and looked around the area not understanding anything around him. He swung his elbow at JarsForJars as she reached for his shoulder. Sarge reached out with his still function arm, and quickly pushed Tyler to the ground.
During the dust up, TitanicVoice walked over to the table and was trying to understand what exactly what was going on. FairyHammerTime joined the Titan, and crossed her arms, obvious pride radiated off of her.
"It's a steam table, I'm using it to bend the wood into shape. I'll insert the spokes to connect to the hub, then throw it on the wagon and it will be good to go. A few more parts to attach, I'd say no more than half an hour and we'll be good to go." She popped some latches on the table, and reached down and pulled out a fully formed wheel. "You've already missed the fun stuff, so watch the show and I'll let you all know when we're ready to head off."
TitanicVoice turned his attention over to Tyler, and saw that he was looking at his Companion UI, no longer having a bugged out look. The TI was curious what the young Adventurer could see, the demonstration of power made absolutely no sense with everything that he had known about HYTOMA. Such a jump in power, and having an attack that he had never seen with his own eyes, which was only available in the hands at top tier raiders, he could only imagine the materials required would require a highly populated guild to gather.
If TitanicVoice could see what Tyler could see, he would probably weep for Tyler.
VI: Well, looks like this test was a success. Yoink.
** You have lost access to your temporary granted classes and skill. No information will remain in your log book. **
** As you no longer have the necessary requirements, you have lost the Magical Alchemist perk. **
As his mind cleared, Tyler realized that he was performing way above what his character was capable of, the wisdom required for everything that was dumped into his head was staggering. Tyler had a brief taste of greatness, and he knew that he wouldn't have another taste for a long time. He reached over, and tapped Sarge on the shoulder, making it clear that he was back to normal. Sarge only grunted, and looked at TitanicVoice, then pointed at his shoulder.
The two walked off while Tyler turned over, and sat up rubbing at his shoulder where Sarge held him down. Looking up, he was greeted with JarsForJars standing over him, looking down with a scowl on her face. Tyler closed his eyes, he prepared himself for an Agent Mason scolding, he knew how she looked when she was looking for an outlet for her frustration.
"So, are you going to tell me what happened?" Ice clear across her words, sure, he helped them through the battle while they were vulnerable, but he was ultimately the reason they were in that situation to begin with.
"Start with when you got knocked unconscious?" Tyler asked, and all he received in answer was a nod. He shrugged, and told her everything that had happened, not holding anything back. He had thought about not telling her about learning the sword, and being granted the temporary abilities and classes. He changed his mind, if he expected them to continue to work for him moving forward, he could at least her the truth. He finally finished with telling her that he lashed out at her because he lost the skills, and the stress on his body performing beyond what it was supposed had taken its toll.
JarsForJars stayed silent for a moment, then said one sentence. "We had a meeting with the AI Council." Before she could say anything else, her attention snapped up, and as Tyler looked up, he could see the Battle had shifted, and ended up right beside the edge of the Sneaky Workshop.
While the battle was close, it was clear that it wasn't shifting over any further, but the proximity concerned Tyler. As he surveyed the action, he eyes froze on a figure that was looking straight at him. With an angry scowl on his face, JackAttack had his full focus on Tyler. Tyler shifted his sitting position to the right, still sitting, but he let out a sigh of relief as it didn't look like JackAttack followed.
"I think he knows something isn't right, but I doubt anything more. If he knew what was going on, I'd bed my sword on him attacking immediately."
"OK! Wheel is on, Wagon is ready to roll. I'll pack up my table, you can hitch up the horses, I should be done by the time they are ready to go."
"Hitch up the horses? What horses?" JarsForJars asked, while Tyler could only lower his face into his hands.