The night would be falling soon, so we decided to camp close by. We found some picnic tables covered in moss, and we cleaned them off. Everybody dragged their feet while setting up camp, the weight of new losses settling onto the entire group like a heavy blanket. I kind of knew Tara, I’d been traveling with her and fighting with her all day. I’d trained all of these people in the basics of cultivation, but I never saw the need to really get to know them.
It was different for the others though. I may have been pissed off for not being able to save them, but the people that had been with them from the beginning of the apocalypse didn’t know what to do with themselves. As far as I could tell they honestly all thought that they would make it back to the camp alive and more powerful. Since I’d been living at the camp, we hadn’t lost anyone, so it made sense that we’d all think that. “We could all still die though.” My thoughts moved to Josh and Susan.
They were the only two that weren’t accounted for, and my anxiety burned through me as I thought about them. My knee started bobbing up and down like it did when I was restless, I didn’t notice it at first but my superhuman speed made its way out of this movement and I started stirring up dust. Autumn sat down next to me and placed her hand on my knee, surprising me. When I looked at her, she didn’t look back. It looked like she’d just decided to sit down next to me with no expectation of talking.
I didn’t turn her away, instead just sitting in silence watching as the moon rose. The waves crashed against the shore in the background, and I felt a thin mist hit me on the back of my neck. Even then neither of us spoke or moved just trying to enjoy the scenery and not think about anything. We were joined by Tony, Tina, and Santiago after a while.
“You know that’s the first time I’ve actually seen it happen?” Tony was the first to talk. “Someone dying I mean. You think it’s going to happen again?” He asked. I didn’t know how to respond to the question it hadn’t even been directed at me I don’t think it was directed at anyone.
“I hope not,” Tina responded wrapping her arm around her brothers’ shoulders. We went back to sitting silently again for a while before Autumn got to her feet.
“Come on. We’re the most powerful people out of the group, can’t let the others see us moping around you know?” She held her hands out to pull me and Santiago up.
“Yeah, you’re right, we need to set guard duty anyway.” The other bard said, and he let out a breath and shook out his limbs like he was trying to throw something off of him. The two squad leaders went to work giving each of the members we still had a shift. I wouldn’t sleep that night anyway, instead spending the entire night going through my forms and meditating. I’d pushed my aura to its limit of growth, and it was time to start cycling essence into my core again. This time I would train as it as I cultivated instead of playing the catch-up game.
We were expecting to leave just before dawn, the goal was to meet up with Damien’s squad by mid-morning. Before we left, I wanted to allocate the points I’d gotten after defeating the Shallow Shore Leviathan.
Nathan Schute: Bardic Archer
LEVEL 48
STRENGTH: 15
CONSTITUTION:12
AGILITY:15
DEXTERITY:147
INTELLIGENCE:21
WISDOM:33
CHARISMA:133
PERCEPTION:11
3 Free Stat Points
I placed three points into agility plus 12% from my titles bringing the stat to 20. If I’d been faster, I’d have dodged the tail whip. “Maybe then I would have been on shore to help keep Tara.” I thought. I didn’t have time to wallow though. It was time to move out.
As we traveled through the jungle, we ran into more lizard monsters. I didn’t have to even lift a finger. The warriors and fighters would rip anything that got remotely close to us apart in seconds. Even the casters never got a chance to kill anything. I realized that if it hadn’t been for the fact, I’d been using my performance skills during fights far more than my archery I’d be severely out leveled by these guys, but for now I was keeping up.
The sun continued to rise, and the heat started beating down on the others again. Still, we pushed hard, every one of us wanted to get out of this god-forsaken dungeon. Finally, we pushed through the tropical brush and back out into the chilly Seattle air. From there we ran as fast as we could toward what used to be the space needle. The Aviary quest still showed up in my log, so I knew that it hadn’t been completed yet.
Without the lizards, or the insects we made a much better time moving about the city than yesterday. Still, I continued using my aura to keep watch over the group while we traveled. It wasn’t until we were halfway through the city that we had to slow down again. We were attacked multiple times by flocks of giant bird monsters. This time it was us and the casters who defended the group from attack. We did have to be careful not to drop bird corpses on top of us though.
When the Aviary came into sight my jaw dropped. In the sky above the space needle flew a black hawk bigger than the Umber Bear and Queen Mother together. Lightning crackled through its feathers and struck down at something we were too far away to see. I knew what it was though. Our people were down there. We doubled our pace so that we could join the others in their battle against the colossal bird.
The space needle still stood in the middle of The Aviary, but it was not the entire dungeon. Instead, buildings, powerlines, ships, and any other debris that the birds could pick up created an enormous nest around the old landmark. When we got closer Santiago sent out another party request trying to get the last squad to communicate, but they never did. “We aren’t going to make it.” I thought. But just then another large bird passed over us and I had an idea.
The bird came back in for another pass, and I played Tonal Torture. It squawked once then fell to the ground. The fighters were about to spring onto it, but I called for them to stop. Instead, I told Tina to begin keeping it calm. I brought down a few more birds and had Tina and Tony keep changing out soothing them like they had for the giant snake. Most of the squad looked at me like I was crazy, and a few of them yelled at me for wasting time, but at this point, the squad leaders trusted in my insane ideas.
When I finally had enough birds in our flock, I told everyone to climb on. The looks on the people’s faces turned from confusion to horror, so I just rolled my eyes and mounted my own bird. Grabbing onto the feathers on the sides of its face I made sure that I was strong enough to move its head side to side, up and down. Now the others understood my idea and began doing the same.
Tony and Tina were the last ones to mount a bird because they had to continue playing. But when they stopped the riders controlled their feathered mounts by pushing their head into the ground. Once everyone was ready, I lifted my legs off the ground and let the bird lift me into the air. It tried shaking me off for a minute, but when it found that I would not let its head go the bird calmed down. It flew and I steered it by turning its head. We were flying over the edge of the nest in mere minutes. Below us a battlefield lay; corpses of birds littered the ground and scorched craters from the lightning attacks appeared every few yards. I could see Damien’s shadow creatures doing battle against the boss as he flew on the back of a dark Pegasus.
I noticed someone else standing on top of a giant floating shadow jellyfish who appeared to be singing every part of “One Day More from Les Miserables.” I laughed out loud. I turned my bird toward the jellyfish but thought better of it when I saw any monster approaching him dropping out of the sky. “Must be a new skill.” I thought, making a mental note not to make him angry anytime soon.
I pulled out my bow expecting the bird underneath me to attempt to throw me off again, but it must have just been happy to have its head back under control. I let it fly in any direction it wanted to while I joined in doing my best to improvise along with the song. Going full tilt from the beginning I activated Amplify, Up the Octave, and Ritardando at the same time.
The shadow creatures surged forward, attacking with more vigor. That’s when I saw Susan and my eyes went wide. She was jumping from bird to bird kicking off of them hard enough to make the monsters explode. A shadow construct of a large bumblebee followed closely to her and caught her any time she started to fall. I couldn’t help but wonder what those two had been through in the last day and a quarter that would turn them into these badass killing machines.
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The song ended, but before I had a chance to think of another one, I heard a familiar beat and bass line. Tony was set up on the ground surrounded by several glowing circles he was beating the rhythm out on. His sister stood right behind him on the bass. I was grinning from ear to ear, and we started the next song “Footloose by Kenny Loggins.”
I watched as all the other combatants joined the fray either shooting their spells from the backs of their mounts or jumping on the back of the “Level 150 Tribulation Hawk,” the static coming off of the bird, made their hair stand on end but for now none of the lighting appeared to be striking from above. I saw Autumn shower a sparkle of golden light down on the combatants and each of them received a personal barrier. Looking down at my party screen I sent a message out.
“Can anyone clip this thing's wings?” A few seconds later another message popped in the chat.
“I think I’ve got it as long as someone’s got me!” It was the katana wielder, the display called him Jonathan. At that moment I saw someone jump backward off the head of the Tribulation Hawk. After two seconds I thought he might have frozen up, but when he got slightly lower, he drew his sword, and a slash of red energy flew from his blade. It cut through several layers of feathers, and one of the casters steered his mount to catch the falling fighter. The boss started flapping erratically trying to stay aloft, but with just one wing catching air it couldn’t. Fighters and Warriors jumped off of the boss and were caught by shadow constructs and mounted casters.
Our song was coming to an end, but I decided to start “It’s Raining Men by The Weather Girls,” right after. The rest of Underdawn caught on quickly as the Tribulation Hawk landed on the ground. It hadn’t taken any damage from the fall, at least we’d gotten it out of the sky. The casters dropped off the melee fighters below, and the earth mage dismounted as well.
I took my mount into a dive so that I could join the siblings on the ground. Josh and Santiago were aiming at the same area. When I jumped off of my bird, I expected it to try and attack me, but instead, it just tilted its head to look at me curiously, jumped a couple of feet away then took back to the sky in the opposite direction. We continued our performance, and I saw Josh looking at a couple of screens directing the other combatants.
The person that I was really impressed with was Damien, his constructs continued to attack and pester the giant bird, but he attacked with vigor as well. He blasted the Tribulation Hawk with bolts of shadow energy and directed all his summons at the same time. I wondered if maybe his mana was inexhaustible. When the Tribulation Hawk raised its head and shot a stream of lightning from its beak directly at the shadow caster, he pulled all his constructs back in and the inky constructs melded into a shield of darkness.
Susan raced across the battlefield coming up underneath the boss monster. Stopping at one of the legs holding it up, she hauled back and punched it. It didn’t seem to do much damage at first, but she continued punching the leg over and over in the same spot. Her fists moved in a blur as she tenderized the spot she’d chosen and after a few minutes of punching the bone underneath cracked. The monster finally noticed her, and he moved his head underneath itself to peck at the painful annoyance.
She’d have been hit if it hadn’t been for Eric, the warrior used some kind of movement skill and took the whole of the attack on his weapon. He still flew back smacking into Susan, but Autumn was already on them casting her healing skills. Susan had done her job well though, the monster began leaning heavily on one leg. It still had a pretty good balance, but we wouldn’t let up.
Each member of Underdawn fell away after a few more songs running out of mana, so we decided we’d join the fray except Josh who stayed behind to meditate. Tina and I began firing at the eyes of the monster and as our first shots hit, another blast of lightning sped toward us. I dodged the bolts and turned to check on Tina only to see a golden barrier disappearing from in front of her. There was no way that Autumn had the reflexes for all of these saves that she’d been making, and checking the party chat I confirmed that Santiago had been distributing information about everyone’s positions. We fired again, adding our attacks to those of the casters.
The fighters and warriors cut, beat, and chopped at the remaining leg until another crack sounded out. They all ran for their lives as the Tribulation Hawk fell, no longer able to walk. Instead, it thrashed its head around spewing lightning as fast as it could. Everyone scattered trying to keep out of the line of fire. As the hawk opened its beak one more time a giant ballista bolt shot passed me and ran straight into the bird’s mouth.
The bolt made it halfway through the boss’s skull. The Tribulation Hawk sat there for a moment, it made a couple of sick choking sounds, and then its head hit the ground sending out a shockwave that stirred up a dust storm. I raised my hands up to guard my eyes against the dust until it passed by me. When the storm cleared, we all stood around looking at each other, not sure if it was over. Then a cry of victory rang out from one of the fighters.
We breathed a collective sigh of relief and cheers started to spread across the battlefield. “We did it.” I thought sinking down to a sitting position I laid back until I was staring up at the sky. For a moment I just let it all sink in, the battles I’d fought over the last few days, the people we’d lost, and the gains I’d made. Upon the last thought, I sat up abruptly and started meditating.
I thought about the Queen Mother firing blades of wind from her wings. The giant snake that threatened to take my friends’ lives and how I could have done more. I remembered the Shallow Shore Leviathan and how I should have been able to get back to shore faster. Then the lightning spat from the Tribulation Hawk, and finally, I remembered the day I’d fought the Umber Bear.
My mind hadn’t been with me then, but now I clearly remembered the pulse that propelled me forward fast enough so that I could destroy the beast from the inside and save my friends. “Sound can pulse with incredible speed and force.” My eyes snapped open, and I felt the insight click into place. I let a small deep pulse thrum from the bottom of my feet, and I felt myself push an inch off the ground.
I’d have to practice it, but I knew that this could be my most powerful ability yet. Just then I noticed that I was surrounded by the entire unit, each of them with a combination of worried and annoyed looks. I felt Josh raise his hand to smack me in the back of the head, but I let it happen.
“You had to meditate right after the battle?” He asked and I looked around confused.
“Yeah? It was important. For training.” I said still confused why everyone was so annoyed.
“You’ve been out for like six hours man.” Someone in the back of the crowd shouted out, making me blush. Everyone else let out a good-natured laugh at my expense but I didn’t mind so much. Still, I decided to play along. Putting on the tone that I used when I was drilling each of them on cultivation, I asked why they hadn’t been meditating. One by one each of the party’s members realized I was right and immediately sunk into a meditative state.
I chuckled to myself and just went through my training exercises again. I spent several hours doing that and nothing else while I waited for each of them to come back from their meditation. The first one to come out of meditation was Damien. He screamed in pain not bothering a single person except me. The others should be able to see them in their essence sight but each of them had seen the process of a racial upgrade before, so no one stirred.
His transformation lasted for only a few moments, but when he stopped expelling the gross black goo I got a good look at him. His skin had darkened, and his hair turned white, his eyes glowed with blue radiance. I held my hand out to him, helping him to his feet. He thanked me and we stood there in awkward silence. We hadn’t gotten along since the day we’d met so there wasn’t much to say, but still, Damien tried.
“Thank you.” He said so quietly anyone else would have missed it.
“For what?” I asked, not sure what he was talking about.
“Every one of the survivors from the other squads told me about how you saved their lives on multiple occasions. How without you they would have struggled to take down any of the bosses. So, thank you for saving all of the lives that you could.” He finished and I stood there in stunned silence having no words. I gave an awkward nod and he turned and walked away to go study the new changes in his body.
Autumn and Susan were the next to get back up, roughly at the same time. During the operation, I’d overtaken the healer on the cultivation leaderboard probably because I’d gained some major insights into sound. The women walked up to me smiling.
“Sooo? What was your insight?” Autumn asked me. I waited for Susan to cover her ears so that I could explain to the other woman. She rolled her eyes but did as she was asked.
“Sound as a physical force.” She nodded impressed and I asked her the same question. She gave a sly smile before giving her answer. The woman settled close to me and leaned against me whispering her answer in my ear sensually.
“Pleasure through pain.” I felt a shiver go up my spine and I couldn’t tell if I liked it or not, but it didn’t matter all that much. I wanted to immediately have an auric sparring session with her, but first I needed to be polite and ask Sue how her meditation went. She smiled at the question, and I saw her base element aura finally complete over her entire body.
“Relief by fire, it’s not really a healing aura, and it doesn’t do anything super impressive. But it does help with my recovery, injuries that I sustain heal at an accelerated rate, and pain is dulled.” She went on to explain that it wouldn’t heal her in seconds like ability from a healer, but injuries that should take her weeks to heal should only take a matter of days.
It was surprising to hear that a fire-based aura would provide healing properties, and it made me curious about what insight she’d had to inspire that ability. “I missed both of my elemental insights, gotta be more attentive to it.” I thought chastising myself. After she finished her explanation, I congratulated her and then asked Autumn if she’d like to spar. The healer agreed and we walked farther away so that our auras wouldn’t disrupt the meditating group.
This would be Susan’s first time watching us spar using our auras and she bounced excitedly. I let mine out gently exploring hers for weakness as she did the same to mine. In my essence vision, her pink aura probed and whipped out slapping mine attempting to suppress my core. My aura held steady and I blocked every attempt that she made to suppress me.
My defensive control had improved a lot since my first insight, learning how to control what sounds enter and escape my aura had carried over to keeping another aura away from my core. As Autumn went to strike out again, I saw my chance. My aura pulsed disrupting her attack. Taking the opening I slammed my aura into the weak point, before either of us expected it I had suppressed her core making her entire aura dissipate. Autumn went to a knee looking weak and I immediately withdrew from her core.
“Wow! You’ve really improved!” She beamed up at me. Susan began clapping from the side and we both looked in her direction.
“That was incredible! Are you sure you can’t explain that kind of stuff to me?” I shrugged my shoulders and tried. Turns out I was able to, she’d already started working on her second concept, so the system considered her to be close enough to our ability to hear an explanation about suppression. She asked me if I would let her experience it, but I felt a little uncomfortable since her aura wasn’t even as strong as mine was before I’d gained my manual, but she insisted.
When I suppressed her core, she fell unconscious making me freak out a little, but Autumn confirmed she was just asleep. The pugilist woke up a few seconds later, none the worse. Autumn and I spent some more time sparring, and Susan decided to go back into meditation after watching us fight for a while. The healer and I took a break and I finally decided to check my systemic gains from the fight against the Tribulation Hawk.
Nathan Schute: Bardic Archer
LEVEL 50
STRENGTH: 15
CONSTITUTION:12
AGILITY:20
DEXTERITY:171
INTELLIGENCE:21
WISDOM:33
CHARISMA:155
PERCEPTION:11
3 Free Stat Points
I placed two stat points into agility and one into wisdom bringing them up to 38 and 25 respectively. Then I saw the next notification.
“Level Requirements Met View Class Options? Y/N” I chose yes, and the screen changed into a list of classes.
“Bardic Archer (Common): Maintain Current Skill Trees gain 20 charisma and 20 dexterity.
Charming Rake (Common): Unlocks charm skill tree.
Bardic Tactician (Uncommon): Unlocks the Tactician skill tree.
Bard of String and Bow (Rare): Unlocks multiple versions of your soul-bound weapon.
Bard of War (Epic): Unlocks Armory skill tree.”
I read through each option and called Autumn over to ask her about it. I was told it was one of the restrictions of the system. They’d literally been unable to tell anyone. “I wonder why they would restrict that?” Staring at the options for a while I wondered what I should do.