The sun was high and warm, the road was smooth and peaceful. All the trainee adventurers were relaxing watching the puppy Lucky gambol around the back of the open wagon chasing Danya’s frog familiar. The wagon rolled to a stop and an adventure society official turned around from the drivers seat, dignified streaks of grey winding their way through his magnificent twisted moustache.
‘All right trainees, everyone off’
All the trainees laughed as the frog familiar leapt first from the wagon with lucky catching it in mid air and both tumbled into the dust. The trainees, all flush with their iron rank agility and feeling recuperated after their long ride with the puppy’s Life aura refreshing them jumped, flipped and somersaulted out. They were all out on their Adventure Society assessment, the culmination of their year of training at the ‘Remore Academy, Greenstone Annex’. They were all keen to prove themselves worthy of having their own adventure society badges and being able to go and hunt monsters themselves.
“The contract is for a group of Margols, the report says two, they were last seen working their way along this hedge-row digging out burrows of smaller animals, who wants it?”
Kyra remembered hearing of another outworlder from Greenstone; Jason Asano and how he secured his Adventure society membership by fighting a pack of margols stepped forward.
“I’ll take this one instructor.” She paused and used her power to concentrate on the vibrations in the ground. “It’s very noisy but I can sense four larger creatures at the end of the field after next, all trying to dig out a smaller creature frantically digging.”
“Good, I warned you all that monster reports can often be misleading, preparation and planning before rushing headlong in are critical”
As Trenslow was speaking Kyra was rushing headlong towards the field of margols. The other trainees sighed in disappointment as Lucky appeared to jump in mid air after her and transformed into motes of golden light, the refreshing area disappearing with him, the light rushing towards Kyra’s long plaited hair as she was running, changing it from her long silky ashen to glorious wavy blonde.
As she ran Kyra revised in her head ‘martial skills AND powers, martial skills AND powers, martial skills AND powers!’ She skidded to a stop at the edge of the field of margols. Her lantern familiar appeared and fired a blast at each of the margols, doing no real damage but had their attention from their pursuit of burrowing prey.
“Hey! Pick on someone your own size!” The margols eyesight was famously poor, but between the familiars bolts and Kyra’s theatrics the margols had zeroed in on her position and were snarling and running at a dead sprint towards her, one margol lagging behind having had to extricate itself from the depths of the burrow. As it stumbled to its feet finding its balance she raised her hand and an earthen wall raised from the ground and the margol smashed headlong into it dazing him.
She raised both hands to the sky and just as the three remaining margols reached the middle of the field she intoned; “Find me!” ten copies of Kyra appeared around them all in the same pose.
Ability: [Mirror Maze] (Mirror)
Spell: Duplicate, Illusion
Cost: Low mana
Cool-down: 5min
Current rank: Iron 3 (05%)
Effect: 10 perfect copies of the caster will appear and be able to be moderately controlled within casters aura.
Duration: 3min
The margols stopped dead, looking around. As they did Kyra lowered her hands to the floor, the fight becoming a conductors performance from Kyra. As she lowered her hands the ground swirled around the margols feet, they sank into it then it solidified, it gripped them at the mid calf.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Kyra stood, the opening of her fight going as she planned, she composed herself and swiped the air in front of her sideways, dispelling the illusion and the mirror copies of Kyra disappeared, the margols confusion gone, they made to rush at Kyra, all instinct without thinking, forgetting they were stuck in now solid earth. They all started to fall forward. Kyra continued to conduct their demise at a run towards them. One fist swinging down through empty air, the other in a claw rising through the air. Simultaneously a boulder the size of a pony dropped through the air at one crushing the top of its back into the ground pulverising it, the second fell face first onto an earth spike bursting from the ground at a forty five degree angle and through its face and into the back of its head. She kept moving forward at the third, her iron rank speed, faster than anything she managed before her essences, seemingly straight towards the margol. Inches before she ran straight into the falling monster she juked to the left, her right hand held low and out from her body, it glimmered as a beautiful diamond sword materialised growing from her hand rapidly, the envy of any artificer, it was a straight, double edged, triangle tipped sword. Flawless diamond and sharper than any whetstone could produce. She appeared to jump around the margol, her lithe body twisting in mid air, the sword materialised in her hand directly in the path of its neck, she savagely pulled the sword around, opening its neck and it the monster continued falling forward, spilling its life blood on the ground.
As both her feet touched the ground the earthen wall she had made appeared to blow into pieces as the fourth margol burst through, a manic, frothing beast bodily charged Kyra to the ground tumbling her backwards across the field. Kyra being much smaller than the margol and weighing significantly less was propelled further than the rushing monster. Kyra rose to a stumbling crouch, a long, deep slash in her quadricep, it was already healing together from the ends, her hand was immediately there, a green pulse of life bolt finished the healing, the speed of it appearing like she stood out of a roll. The margol didn’t stand. The diamond sword was no longer in Kyra’s hand, she mentally dismissed it and it vanished from the fourth margols chest where it now lay dead on he floor.
Her hair cascaded in golden light to the floor leaving her with the shade of ash blonde that was still enviable to anyone outside of Celestines. The golden Labrador puppy jumped headfirst at Kyra’s previously injured leg, the self repair armour closing slower than she had, his tail wagging madly.
Kyra laughed at him, “yes well done, who’s a good boy!”, she straightened looking down the hedge row. “You can come out now”.
Teddy materialised from the shadow like stepping out of a curtain.
“How did you see me?”
Ability: [Seismic Sense] (Earth)
Cost: Nil, passive power
Current rank: Iron 5 (80%)
Effect: User can feel vibrations through the ground and pick up details to form a detailed picture of their surroundings in their mind.
“You only passed your adventurer assessment last month you’re not godlike, yet,” she laughed, “I can’t see or hear you like that but I can feel your tension through the ground, it was only a scratch! Instructor Trenslow will be pissed if he finds you shadowing his assessment.”
“Vincent and I had a drink last night in the bar when you all went to bed, he knew I followed you from the academy at Greenstone. He knew he couldn’t stop me so told me not to interfere and watch for safety. You had this one all by yourself though!”
She leaned back her head then, still unexpectedly, had to slightly go on tiptoes to give him a peck on the cheek. He had gained a few inches on ranking up to Iron and he was still very happy about it.
“Vincent would tell you to stop being so clingy and I need to experience danger for myself.”
“That’s still Deputy Director Trenslow to you cadet,” Teddy jokingly scolded at Kyra, “at least until you get back to the Marshalling yard.”
“You think I’ve passed?”
“Not a doubt in my mind. Now get back to it.” Then he gave her a kiss on the lips and stepped back into the bush and disappeared into the shadow.
Kyra turned around, walking sedately across the field to the other trainees. As she got near she mentally assented and rainbow smoke blossomed behind her. A mirror appeared in her hand, she checked the contents, only visible to her, she could see her reflection and the surrounding lush field, not visible to anyone else she could see four new monster cores, forty iron rank coins and a healing unguent going into her inventory.
“It appears some times after preparation and planning that rushing headlong can be the plan.” Instructor Trenslow said looking down at Kyra as Lucky bounded forward and was running around Danya’s feet trying to get to the frog familiar on her shoulder to play.
Instructor Trenslow and the trainees had been watching through a far-sight crystal. Kyra’s brother in-law James snapped out of a daze. He grinned at Kyra. “I started watching from the blood ravens in the hedge row, you couldn’t see from your side but that fourth margol looked ridiculous when he hit the wall head first. Made him so mad!”
“A good example of facing a physically stronger opponent. Using her essence powers to separate the pack and use their momentum against them, I don’t think however, that she meant to get quite as close to the last margol’s momentum.” Vincent looked down at the very thin line of blood marking Kyra’s armour.
“I generally prefer to stay at the back of the team.” Kyra said sheepishly.
“Nevertheless a very good showing, well done cadet.” They all climbed on the carriage and left the field behind them.