Nathen wasn’t sure how to feel about killing the kobolds. On one hand they were clearly monsters, willingly tearing into people with tooth and claw like feral animals. Between their willingness to kill humans and the shredded corpses they left in their wake it was hard to argue that the kobolds were just another race of people. But, there was clearly more to them than that. While many of them attacked with the reckless fury of a starving hound, there were those who used tools and weapons, however crude they may be. They might be using stone axes and spears, but what if they could become more? Every civilization had to start somewhere.
Due to his internal conflict on if the kobolds were people or not, Nathen decided that he simply wouldn’t kill them. However, he was still willing to seriously injure them, he couldn’t just sit back and watch as they killed others. So he dove into the melee he’d found outside the gate of Templeholm aiming to injure and disable, not kill. He’d leave that to someone else, at least until he decided on how he felt about Kobolds.
As his Focused Strikes began to build up, he couldn’t help but think, but a few days ago he wouldn’t have even considered sparing these creatures, seeing them as little more than dispensers of experience and loot. Maybe one day he’d be able to laugh about it, but, for the moment, he only felt ashamed. Instead he focused on his sword fighting style. This was the first time he’d fought since realizing the truth of the world, and instantly he realized several things wrong with how he’d fought. Thinking like a video game character he hadn’t fully taken advantage of the buffs provided by Focused Strikes, moving only enough to avoid being hit while attacking at every opportunity.
On one hand that made a certain amount of sense, preserve his endurance through minimal movement and attack when able. But it was restrictive, limiting. Why simply avoid an attack when you could reposition while you dodged? Especially in the mass melee he found himself in keeping moving was a priority to avoid being surrounded and mobbed. The Kobolds may have been half-feral but they had excellent hunting instincts seeking to get into their prey’s blind spots, drag it to the ground and kill it.
The people they had surrounded defended against that by circling up, using each other to guard their backs. A very animalistic instinct, but also an effective one. Almost all herd animals did something similar when menaced. But, unlike true pack hunters, these Kobolds seemed more than happy to send dozens of their own into the grinder and wear their prey down. Anyone could see that the circle of humans was going to collapse at any moment, they grew tired, presumably that weakening curse was affecting all of them, and their injuries were starting to mount.
So Nathen took a more active style, never staying in one place long enough for the kobolds to surround him, he tore through their ranks. Focused Strikes had stacked to the point that he could cut clean through the leg bone of a kobold with minimal effort allowing him to rapidly dispatch opponents. At the same time, it also meant it was chugging through his mana pool. Unleashing his aura didn’t even cross his mind, even though it would have largely offset his mana problems he instinctively shied away from use it for fear of hurting other people.
But it wasn’t just the damage the ability did, it was how it did it. From what he understood instinctively, the aura ripped mana straight out of a person by the easiest path available. This normally meant through wounds or injuries, forcing cuts wider, splitting skin and flesh and drawing forth blood. He knew from his memories what a terrifying feeling that was, the looks of panic in the eyes of the last few Kobolds as their wounds somehow continued to get worse. The fear he’d seen in the people of the village as his aura caused burns as it tried to pull mana from them. More even than the pain of something ripping at their souls, it was the confusion at what was doing it. The aura wasn’t visible, and it didn’t seem average people could sense them. Nathen had been able to feel Gregory’s aura when they clashed, but without an aura to sense and counteract another aura all you would know is that something was hurting you, your wounds were getting worse, and you didn’t know why.
It was a dangerous, brutal ability that he’d felt perfectly fine leaving sealed.
It also meant he was on a time limit before his mana ran out, so he had to move quickly. His first task was to relieve those encircled by the kobolds, so he quickly made his way into the horde and fought through using his enhanced speed and strength to dance around the feral beasts. Quickly reaching the trapped people he began to circle around them, attempting to give them some space to breathe. He only stopped halfway around when he saw a familiar face.
“Fancy seeing you here,” Nathen said with a grin.
“I… what?” Gregory stuttered, but Nathen didn’t stop for long enough for the other man to get his thoughts together, continuing his rampage through the kobolds.
Nathen’s arrival heralded the closing stages of the battle, more and more Templars, Knights and even a few other advancers poured from the city to join the melee. Increasing human forces and dwindling kobolds left only one possible outcome for the combat. The only question was how many would be lost before it was over. Thankfully Nathen’s actions had taken much of the pressure off those who’d been surrounded, minimizing further deaths.
Once the kobolds had been either killed or routed, the priests of the city descended upon the wounded. The most useful seemed to be from a group that bore the symbol of what looked like a holly branch, all of them capable of casting what looked like some minor healing spells. Far from undoing the damage, however, they bound wounds in bands of soft energy, preventing bleeding while holding cuts together to heal better. Some of the elder members of that church even seemed able to perform minor surgeries with that, or a similar, ability, casting bands of energy into someone’s body, straightening broken bones and preventing internal bleeding.
Nathen, however, was out of mana and lacked any real healing knowledge or ability. So after being looked over by one of the holly branch priests he mostly just collapsed against one of the buildings inside the city, watching the work.
“Where did you get that idea?” a voice asked him, and would have caused him to jump if he hadn’t been so exhausted.
“What idea?” he asked, looking to the side where Gregory had approached him from.
“To only injure or wound the Mutts, in order to avoid their mark.”
“Mutts? Mark?” Nathen asked, “you mean the Kobolds?”
“Huh,” Gregory grunted, cocking his head and looking at the sky, “they do kind of resemble eastern Kobolds, don’t they? A little more… mangey and thin though.”
“And by mark, you mean the curse they put on you?” Nathen asked, seeing Gregory nod a moment later, “it linked to killing them or something?”
“Ya, it only applies to their killer,” Gregory replied, scowling and looking at Nathen suspiciously, “didn’t you know that?”
“No, I thought it was just some ability they had, didn’t know when or how they applied it.”
“Then how did you get the idea to not kill them?”
“I didn’t like the idea of killing potentially intelligent creatures,” Nathen shrugged.
“R-Really? That’s your reasoning?” Gregory looked bewildered.
“Yup,” Nathen nodded, turning back to look at the mass of priests fussing over the injured.
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
“You realize you may have revolutionized fighting the Mutts right?” Gregory asked incredulously, “obviously it won’t work in large scale battle, but in smaller engagements working to cripple or injure them rather than kill until they’re under control could make it much easier to deal with them in the future.”
“Huh,” Nathen shrugged again.
“I don’t know how well it’ll work from horseback, of course, but still, any new tactic could reduce casualties in the field,” Gregory muttered to himself, only to shake his head, “all because you didn’t feel like killing them?”
“Yup,” Nathen smiled.
“I take it this also means you are feeling better?” Gregory asked after a long moment.
“I’ve… come to terms with what happened,” Nathen said slowly, his smile fading, “all I can do is move forward and attempt to make up for it.”
“If you’re looking to help, the Mutts… or Kobolds, I guess, will be swarming soon. I’m sure more fighters will be welcomed.”
“No,” he shook his head, “as dangerous as they are I have a… feeling something worse is coming.”
\*\*\*\*
“So, to summarize, you have an in with a high ranking local official who promises us the land and supplies we’ll need to get established here?” the gruff looking man asked.
“Yes sir,” the sergeant replied, “he wants to be king or something, and needs our help with it apparently. I agreed, figure we either have a puppet on the throne, or, if he ends up being trouble, we can dispose of him later.”
“Not a bad plan, any movement on establishing communications with our world? It seems none of our equipment made it through.”
“You’d have to ask the doc about that,” the sergeant sighed, nodding towards another young man, the only one in the group not wearing something vague military like.
“So that really is the doctor then?” the officer snorted, continuing louder so the man in question could hear him, “so, Doctor, any chance we can make contact with our people?”
“Possibly, possibly,” the doc nodded, “this Vituss is far more versatile than I’d imagined. But still limited. I don’t think any stable portal will allow for two-way movement of objects, only information.”
“But you can establish communications?”
“I think so,” the doc said, his eyes scanning over floating calculations only he could see. When he didn’t elaborate the sergeant spoke up again.
“Sir? How important is it that we establish communications? We were told that communicating was secondary to preparing an area to receive refugees.”
“Priorities have changed,” the officer sighed, “the higher ups are nervous about the lack of information, not knowing if you all died or what. When the disaster becomes public they want real, practical solutions. Unless we can establish communications, we’re the last group through.”
“How much longer can they keep a lid on it?”
“A year at most, months more likely.”
“Great,” the Sergeant sighed, “don’t suppose you know what plan they are leaning on now?”
“Scuttlebutt is they are converting some deep earth mines into shelters,” the lieutenant shrugged.
“And that’ll save them?”
“I doubt it, I’ve seen the data and it’s… bad, if you ask me the shelters are just to keep the people from panicking while the politicians escape on some spaceship or something.”
“Well, all we can do is wait on the doc it seems,” the sergeant said, looking at the doctor.
“For now let’s assume he’ll succeed, can we move forward with your plan with that… count?”
\*\*\*\*
“I don’t get it,” Gregory complained, “he took the reward money the Knights gave him and ran off to buy things, not saying where he was going.”
“Ya, ya, your crush is going off on his own,” Lex waved off the complaints, “tell me about this new ability you got!”
“It releases a blast of energy based on the damage I’ve done recently,” he shrugged, “I was hoping it would be more useful but… other than a good follow up strike to catch someone off guard I’m not sure how much use it’ll be.”
“Hmm,” Lex grunted, then shrugged and lifted her spear, “at least show me how it works, maybe we can figure something out.”
Gregory paused, then sighed and lifted his Halberd. After the fight he’d gone to return the weapon, only to find the man had died, despite everything. The weapon bore the symbol of the god of protection, which seemed lucky but most of the town guard were followers of him, so several people had suggested he keep the weapon. Eventually he’d relented after Lex told him it was basically a spear with extra bits and he might find that he’s more comfortable with it than a spear.
A day had passed since the battle and as much as he wanted to rest, Lex insisted that they do some basic training, if only to consolidate what they’d learned from the fight. They intentionally avoided more straining exercise, if only to avoid agitating their wounds, minimal as they may have been. But acting while the battle was fresh in their minds was important, apparently.
“Seems like a good starting point,” a voice interrupted their starting point after Gregory used his newest ability on Lex. Looking up he spotted Kyle watching them from the wall around the church’s training grounds.
“Starting point?” Gregory asked.
“You know you need permission to enter the training grounds of another church,” Lex reprimanded the hunter.
“The ability isn’t linked to a Facet yet, right?” Kyle asked, completely ignoring Lex and continuing when Gregory shook his head, “Then it can be improved through… several methods, can you guess how?”
“Linking it to a facet,” Gregory said dryly.
“That’s the easiest way,” Kyle sighed, shaking his head, “but not the only way. Tell me, do you know why the ability will only activate after you’ve scored several hits?”
“No? That’s just how it works… isn’t it?”
“There are things your soul realizes instinctively, like that the Vituss it can utilize on its own is limited, facets help improve that, but there is a whole other source of power,” Kyle explained, jumping down from the wall while continuing to ignore Lex’s glare, “where do you think our bodies get Vituss from?”
“The air?”
“Right!” Kyle smiled, “but, like I said, our souls are limited in how much Vituss they can draw from. So, to augment that, it attempts to draw from the Vituss around us. But there’s an issue!” Kyle paused, straightening to hold up a finger, looking across Lex and Gregory as if they were his students, “Vituss in your soul is part of you, it belongs to you, Vituss in the air, however, is bound to no one. It needs to be ‘convinced’ to help out.”
“Okay,” Gregory said slowly as Kyle paused once more.
“The only way that can happen is if you deliberately impose restrictions on yourself,” the hunter continued, “the reason this works is a much-debated topic, some say the Vituss has a will of its own, demanding certain things of us. Others argue that by imposing restrictions our abilities somehow become more ‘neutral’ allowing unbound Vituss to flow in. Whatever the reason, the more restrictive the conditions the more unbound Vituss joins in and the more powerful the ability becomes.”
“Great, so it only functions because of the restriction?”
“More likely your subconscious mind realized there was Vituss up for grabs and your Soul went for it. The point is that you can impose more restrictions to gain more power, and this is easier while the ability is unlinked from a facet. Once an ability is linked it becomes harder to alter.”
“So… I just need to restrict the useability of the ability even more?” Gregory asked.
“Think about it does and when it’ll be of the most help, what limitations can you place that you can offset with other abilities, that kind of stuff… mmm, an example,” Kyle declared, “one of the abilities you saw me use recently was the homing arrows, that’s an ability called Artillerist’s Hunting Bird. When I first got it, all it did was allow me to target a creature when I fired an arrow, it would then curve slightly to follow the target. Useful, but far from a defining ability. So I thought about when the ability would be most useful, with help from my teacher, and realized it would be best used at long range where hitting the target was harder. Therefore, the first limitation I applied was I would only use the ability on targets I couldn’t see.”
“Your aura,” Gregory said slowly.
“Right, with my aura’s ability to track targets that are out of sight the effects of the restriction were minimized, but it still made the ability far more potent,” Kyle grinned, “Later, when I was more confident in my archery, I placed another restriction that the ability would only activate seconds before landing, meaning I need to get it at least close to the target when firing. But, in exchange, the homing abilities reached another level and the arrow even accelerates just before impact, dealing more damage than it would otherwise.”
“Wow,” Lex said despite herself, “I knew abilities tended to come with restrictions, but I didn’t know you could apply your own. I doubt it’s as easy as just promising yourself to use an ability a certain way.”
“Right,” the hunter agreed, “you have to use your Nature to apply the restrictions. As everyone has their own Nature I can’t really help you there. But now that you are aware it’s possible you should be able to figure it out.”
“If I had a Nature,” Lex grumbled, “that’s why I wasn’t told, I don’t have one.”
“Oh? You’re a local?” Kyle asked, cocking his head, “I figured you were another semi-recent arrival.”
“No, just a priestess looking to become an Ascender.”
“Well, wish I could help you there, but,” Kyle shrugged, “I know how I ascended beyond my last world, but it won’t help here.”
“Same,” Gregory nodded, shuddering at the thought of the chair and the last screams of those who’d were incinerated by it.
“Nothing for it,” Lex shrugged after a moment, “for now, let’s get back to the origin of this conversation. Gregory, your ability, think of any restrictions you can place?”