CHAPTER 2
Azzimus had fallen unconscious after that, or so he was told when he woke.
His older siblings had been busy working their craft during the day, but when he woke up later that afternoon, he woke to them crowded around his room.
Well, it had once belonged to several of them. These days, though, it was only Azzimus’.
“The knight himself!”
His oldest brother clapped once and brought Azzimus out of his reverie. At once, he recalled what had transpired in the cathedral.
Something that was hard to put words to. But also, it was exactly what he had wanted. Well, to a point.
“Don’t you mean War Knight?” One of his sisters elbowed the loudmouth with a smile.
Above their heads, Azzimus could see their names. This was new to him but not unexpected.
Alicia
Seamstress [24]
Francois
Steward [32]
Alicia had awakened her class when Azzimus was thirteen, and Francois when he was nine.
He couldn’t help but look up to see his own.
Azzimus
War Knight [0]
Aberrant classes weren’t unheard of, but they were rare. Not a mix of two classes like Azzimus suspected his own was, but rather variants to existing classes. Aberrant classes were almost always better.
But he didn’t know how he would compare to an aberrant knight in the future. The ‘War’ was clearly derived from the Warrior class he was first given, while Knight remained, likely as it was the better class.
If the attributes on level up were averaged, he would be weaker than a true knight, but at least, stronger than the warrior he was meant to be. In any case, he’d gotten the essence of what he wanted.
“What are the odds?” Azzimus smiled and laughed.
His other siblings cajoled and carried on like children, even though most of them were adults that had grown into their own careers by now.
“Father would be proud,” Alicia said. It was a bittersweet notion, but it didn’t ruin the mood. It merely transformed it.
“He will be,” Azzimus promised. “Once I go through training, I’ll do my best to become the man that he was.”
Their father hadn’t been a warrior, or a knight, but an archer. A hunter. He’d provided for them until, shortly after Alicia got her class, he disappeared on the hunt.
It was common. Natural, even, when tempting fate against the Neverend.
However, it wasn’t worth dwelling on. His father, a courageous man that brooked no nonsense, wouldn’t appreciate sombre faces.
A heavy knock resounded off the bedroom door, breaking the mood.
“Come on everyone, dinner’s ready!”
With smiles on their faces, everyone quickly charged out of the cramped room and down the steps to the dining room. As it had always been when the family got back together, the table was comfortably crowded.
“It’s rare that I get you all together like this.”
Sienna
Farmer [??]
Their mother was heavy set these days, a result of a slackening metabolism as the years grew on her, but it mattered little. Levels came with the years, and they fought inch for inch with the physical decline that age sought to wrought.
They didn’t often win, but in Sienna’s case, she was a powerful farmer that was a brilliant hand with a hoe, even in her fifties. Even when Azzimus had been dead set on unlocking a combat class so that he could set himself against the monsters that threatened their lives every night, he would help with the farm. He admired his mother’s ability to ‘get things done’, as she’d put it.
Right behind his father, she was his next biggest role model.
“What are you all thinking about? Eat!”
Azzimus smiled and dug in. It was his favourite today; a healthy mix of cottage pie and homegrown vegetables. The cows were breed by the animal breeder, raised by the tamer, and processed by the village butcher. The potatoes were likely from one of his mother’s many fields.
Classes brought with them complexity, but also simplicity. The numbers were always balanced, and there was always a place for anyone of any class to do the job that was ordained for them.
Though, the priest was doing the job of a bishop. A steward – not Francois – was doing the job of the town mayor instead of a lord. A large portion of the town militia was comprised of civilian classes. It couldn’t always work out.
There were also the blacksmiths that acted as their own traders and the traders that had to learn other crafts and trades because they couldn’t always find employment. These things were inevitable, and relatively common.
Still, Azzimus felt that there should be a place for anyone.
“Azzimus.”
“Mum.”
A discreet suppression emanated from his mother’s gaze, an effect born of the charisma that all highly leveled classes would have.
But it was his mother, and the gaze softened as it always did.
“Are you packed and ready for the recruiters?”
A jolt robbed Azzimus of the last of his drowsiness. “Wait, the recruiters-”
“You’re a knight, not a warrior.”
Her words ended all discussion.
Warrior was a low tier class. It was still powerful in its element, that of battle, but it was also very generalized. Warriors could receive skills of many different combat styles and a ton of generally useful skills for battle, but it was difficult for them to specialize. This wasn’t a terrible thing in a village, where a lack of numbers would require the militia to learn radically different skills alongside one another, like archery along with spearmanship.
It would be extremely typical for a warrior to remain in their village with their families and defend it from the Neverend. It would be considered normal.
But it would be questionable for a mid-tier class like a berserker or a sorcerer to remain. Their attributes were high, and their skills solidly in one or two categories. The benefits they’d receive from standardized training would greatly outweigh that which they’d learn whilst staying in a village, and they would be even more useful on return than if they’d never left.
On the other hand, for a high-tier class like knight? A trained knight was almost too strong to leave to a small settlement like Morza. It wouldn’t just be considered a waste of his potential if he stayed, but it would be like spitting in the faces of all those that wanted to be knights and didn’t get it.
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
Like him, actually. But he got there in the end. Azzimus didn’t know how he’d gotten there, or what had gone wrong in the first place, but he was a knight now.
Perhaps he hadn’t truly had that realization until he now.
“I’m a knight.”
Teldesi, at the far end of the table, stared at him knowingly.
“I’m a knight!”
His siblings smiled, and his mother rolled her eyes.
“You’re a knight, alright.”
…
He couldn’t sleep after dinner. Perhaps because he’d already taken a nap earlier that day, or maybe he was just too excited.
Azzimus’ class day couldn’t have gone much better than it did.
This culminated in Azzimus sitting on the slanted wood roof of his home and scribbling into a thick paper notebook with a chalk pencil.
He’d kept them from his schooling days as a small child. Occasionally, he would scribble his thoughts if he had nothing else to do. He generally had a lot on his plate, self-imposed of course, but contrary to what most thought he did have spare time.
He was writing notes straight from memory.
Warrior
STR: A
AGI: B
END: B
INT: C
WIS: C
CHA: B
Knight
STR: A
AGI: S
END: A
INT: C
WIS: C
CHA: A
On paper, it didn’t look terribly different. That is, if the meaning of it all was absent. Azzimus kept scribbling into his notebook as the noise outside the walls grew chaotic.
It was just the nightly attacks of the Neverend, which anyone would have had to get used to as a babe.
Warrior
STR: A (3 per level)
AGI: B (2 per level)
END: B (2 per level)
INT: C (1 per level)
WIS: C (1 per level)
CHA: B (2 per level)
Knight
STR: A (3 per level)
AGI: S (4 per level)
END: A (3 per level)
INT: C (1 per level)
WIS: C (1 per level)
CHA: A (3 per level)
For some reason, he felt compelled to add his mother’s class.
Farmer
STR: B (2 per level)
AGI: C (1 per level)
END: A (3 per level)
INT: B (2 per level)
WIS: B (2 per level)
CHA: C (1 per level)
That endurance was so high for farmers never failed to bring a smile to his face. It meant that his mother had a long many years ahead of her.
His smile faded, and he looked back to the attributes for the warriors and knights.
The attributes for a class were always the same for everyone. The only differences came in from Special Characteristics, but likewise, they too were more than well-documented. The goddess had been around since all creation, after all.
The only exceptions came from aberrant classes. Like his own. Azzimus had never heard of a War Knight.
He turned his head toward the noise at the village wall, and briefly imagined taking part.
After all, he was a combat class now. He just didn’t have any of the benefit yet.
Inevitably, he shook his head and made to climb back through the window to his room.
Crash.
Azzimus’ ears flicked, and his gaze swept toward an image he wouldn’t soon forget.
It was a great grey fox with piercing cyan eyes and claws. The beast had at some point appeared on the wall, and the sound was a defending blacksmith crashing through the roof of the village barracks.
The shock of it all froze Azzimus. But only briefly.
The Neverend shouldn’t make it to the wall at all, not to mention scaling it.
He ran. Not to safety, but toward the beast. Azzimus was exactly that type of person.
Neverend
Cunning [??]
But guts did not equate to power.
DING! DING! DING!
The town bell rung loudly through the night.
There was surprisingly little that prevented Azzimus from reaching the wall. Militiamen upon it shouted and fought, but they were waylaid by other cunning beasts that climbed the walls and attacked.
He didn’t know if the blacksmith was okay, but their sword had fallen to the streets and Azzimus picked it up in his mad dash.
It was made for one hand, but it was thick and heavy, so Azzimus had to use two.
He was already sweaty from exertion by the time he made it to the wall and alighted the steps. The beast he’d first spotted was now just one of many, assaulting a steadily outnumbered garrison. In this situation, other warriors on the admittedly long, winding wall should have come to assist.
But they weren’t here yet. In the back of Azzimus’ mind, he even feared the worst.
“Azzimus! Get the hell out of here!”
He cleanly ignored the hurried words of an archer stuck amongst the Neverend, ignored the fear that filled his heart and ignored the fact that he was in over his head.
For this to happen on his class day of all days… It brought to mind the myths and legends of the disasters that followed the awakenings of the highest tiers of classes.
The grand and legendary classes that very few could ever awaken, the celebrations that were always followed swiftly by the Neverend. The tragedies that were often swiftly dealt to those unlucky to be blessed.
There was a reason Azzimus didn’t hope for the vaunted classes of the Emperor or the Archmage, or the Paladin or the White Mage.
Even the lower prodigies, kings, and magus…
He naturally felt that something like this was his fault. It didn’t make sense otherwise – it was his class day, and even in his father’s generation, Morza’s walls had forever remained unbreached. It didn’t matter that his class didn’t seem so powerful.
Azzimus raised the sword with effort and slammed it down onto the backside of an ignorant Neverend fox.
Due only to the expert craftsmanship of the blade, enhanced by its blacksmith, it sliced cleanly down the beast’s flank. The beast flinched and fell back, it’s reciprocant howls ringing in his eardrums.
Azzimus stumbled, dropping the sword from his unsteady hands, and clenched his eyes shut. Something as simple as the beast’s howl rendered him dizzy and confused.
But he knew that he was still in danger. He knew that his family and the entirety of Morza was still in danger. He heard as the beasts ran past the defenders and leapt onto the streets, he heard the first of the screams, and he felt the chill that spread from his heart.
Azzimus’ eyes opened to the sight of the beast he’d cut laid dead.
[Level 1 Reached!]
Attributes Increased!
STR: 9 » 15
AGI: 7 » 13
END: 8 » 13
INT: 6 » 8
WIS: 5 » 7
CHA: 10 » 15
[Skill Generated!]
Passive: Sword Mastery I
[Skill Generated!]
Passive: Fearless I
Above the body of the Neverend stood a spear-wielding warrior, who only spared him a glance before running into the streets. Perhaps Azzimus was still a pitiable kid, but everyone’s families were in danger.
Despite himself and the situation that evolved around him, Azzimus’ eyes drifted to the space above his head.
Azzimus
War Knight [1]
He clenched his hands and picked up the sword before he followed the spearman into the streets. The fear that the Neverend inspired was no longer so debilitating that a mere roar deprived him of his senses.
The warrior was already long gone, but Azzimus was only aiming for his home. With a vigour to his steps wrought of something more than just his panic, he made it home in only seconds.
“Mother! Teldesi, Vin! Where are you?!”
He pushed the door open unheeding of the lock that cracked and splintered from the frame, only to see his younger siblings climbing into the cellar. Behind them, his mother paused in ushering them down.
Azzimus’ eyes flung toward the unfamiliar short sword tucked into her belt.
She was a level fifty farmer, wasn’t she? Even in her advancing years, her strength would be so many times higher than his. He’d forgotten this in his mad dash for home, his concern for his family overriding his instincts. His worry lessened by half.
“Azzimus? Where have you been! Quickly now, into the cellar! Hurry up and give your brother space, you two!”
But, Azzimus hesitated.
“Mother, I-”
“Azzimus.”
“I can’t.”
“You can’t what?! Now really isn’t the time for-”
He smiled, glad that they were, for the moment, safe. But he turned around and slammed the remnants of the door closed behind him.
The sword that had once been too heavy, hard to carry with even both hands, was now only somewhat unwieldy with one.
Azzimus trudged through the streets. Ignoring the scuffles that erupted around him despite a painful panging in his heart, he climbed the wall and joined the crumbling resistance.
Killing the Neverend in the streets wouldn’t accomplish anything if they kept coming. That, at least, was Azzimus’ thoughts.
In these perilous times, when the defenders were preoccupied by the endless hoard of Neverend that assailed the walls, Azzimus was barely noticed, and he certainly wasn’t ushered away. Right now, nowhere was safe.
Azzimus’ pitiful strength left him ignored by the Neverend that scaled the wall in favour of the warriors that briskly slaughtered them.
This, more than anything, is what allowed Azzimus to survive longer than a minute.
Where he could, he used his pilfered sword to great effect, bloodying backs and crippling legs. He didn’t need to kill the beasts, nor was it his intention. Instead, Azzimus created openings that allowed others to finish them off.
The hoard seemed endless. After what had felt like forever, wherein Azzimus skulked about and drove the dulling blade into the hide of at least dozens of beasts, he felt inundated with a wash of power. His skin itched and his muscles ached, but in a moment, it was but a distant memory.
[Level 2 Reached!]
Attributes Increased!
STR: 15 » 21
AGI: 13 » 19
END: 13 » 19
INT: 8 » 10
WIS: 7 » 8
CHA: 15 » 21
[Skill Generated!]
Passive: Sword Mastery II
[Skill Generated!]
Passive: Surefooted I
The attribute gains were intense, his level two equivalent to a level four or five warrior. Swiftly, as Azzimus’ handling of the sword became natural and nearly skillful, he became more and more useful. Though he still couldn’t be considered a fighter, a weak bystander was better than a helpless one.
But it could not be forgotten that even then, Azzimus was just one of dozens atop walls that stretched far. Many of them had already bailed from their positions to rescue their families, friends, and neighbours from the clutches of the beasts that even now surged past the defenders without much resistance.
Azzimus didn’t know how his mother and his little brother and sister were doing. He didn’t know if they were still okay, and he had no idea if his older siblings were safe.
However, it wasn’t that Morza was doomed. Even Azzimus could see that the Neverend were thinning, and in the distance, the herd of cunning were far lesser than when he’d first climbed the walls.
But that was merely Azzimus being too hopeful. Because soon, the pittance of moonlight that shone upon the streets and homes of Morza winked out of existence.