As soon as the announcer called the match to order, the various people on the screen blurred away from each other. No one had started with a token, so there was no point in attacking anyone else at this point. Any violence would just be slowing down the ones who were serious about scoring points.
Of course, common sense was far from common, and at least two people hadn’t gone far, waiting beside some trees to attack stragglers.
What WAS surprising was that one of the two attacked was a faction representative. Rorik the elf was strolling amiably through the woods with a calm smile on his face when he encountered one of the first of the straggler hunters.
“Oh.” he said in cheerful surprise. “Hello, new friends. What can I help you with today?”
A massive towering robed figure emerged from the shadow of a tree, or at least it looked like that for a second. After a brief pause the robes fluttered and two figures emerged, the robes somehow shrinking to accommodate the changing size of the remaining form. Had they been standing on each other’s shoulders?
“You’re the best the Fairieland can offer?” Sneered the figure on the right, a tall burly man with silver dog ears on top of his head and long black hair. “Three of us was overkill.”
The second unrobed figure was a silver haired girl with black dog ears. She was tiny and looked a little frail, but I could tell she was dangerous. She was an uncompromising warrior. Or she would have been, if she hadn’t been staring at Rorik with a light blush on her cheeks.
“Sandy!” Snapped the taller man. “He’s the enemy. We need to take him out. Now!”
At the word, the robed figure hurled its hands forward…and collapsed. Not like it fell on the ground, but like someone had diced it into pieces. Blood spurted, the hot liquid steaming the air briefly as the two combatants whirled to stare at their third in horror.
“Oh, bother.” Rorik said sadly. “I do wish he hadn’t done that. My friends can be ever so sensitive about threats.” Holding out a hand, I saw a small silver arachnid float down to land on his outstretched palm. From behind it trailed a single strand of silk, and my eyes widened as I spotted a fucking forest of shimmering silken threads surrounding the dog eared people.
Focusing, I could especially see them around where the robed figure had been, the shimmering threads coated in wet blood making a much more eyecatching picture.
“Please don’t hurt us!” Pleaded the big man. “We’ll surrender. We’re no threat to you. We’re so sorry.” His eyes were wide with panic as he stared at the remains of his friend…and I couldn’t blame him. These were C-rankers. Variance in stats aside, being able to mince a C-ranker just from the force oh his own movements was terrifying.
Rorik gave a sad chuckle. “I’d like to help, but it isn’t really up to me. My friends have already set the trap. You might survive, but that depends how long you can stand perfectly still. Good luck.” He waved warmly, then turned and walked off in another direction, leaving the two figures frozen in abject terror.
Across the arena, Felicity had been one of the first to discover a token. She picked it up, studied it, and then slipped it into her spacial ring. Turning in another direction, I was pretty sure she was going to look for another one, but she stopped abruptly, skipping back gracefully to avoid a wall of white hot flames.
“Pretty fast for a puppet.” Said a lazy voice from the mist as a familiar red haired man emerged. Malkyr the Earl had apparently been right on her heels. “Your creator must be proud.”
Felicity gave a mechanical laugh that didn’t disrupt her expression at all (which was creepy). “You are mistaken. I am no puppet. I am a human person. I find your absurdist humor most entertaining.”
He winced. “Wow that’s creepy. You’re offputting as hell, you know that? You might have been born a human, but there’s no person left in there. Not really. Hand over the token and I won’t bother putting you out of your misery.” His hands extended and a pair of living flame molded weapons appeared in his palms.
A rush of flames expanded, forming more than weapons, they condensed into full physical bodies. Human bodies.
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“Cinder Centurion.” Said Felicity blandly. “A powerful commander variant job involving dangerous fire Skills. That is very interesting. Please remove yourself from my way lest I be forced to do you harm. You may demonstrate your interesting Job for others in the area. Those you might actually defeat.”
Malkyr clearly didn’t think talking was worth the time though, because he blitzed forward, all his fire doubles spreading out to surround Felicity.
One of them got too close, and she gingerly reached out and flicked it. There was a crisp cracking, and a series of faults began to form in the fire. She flicked again and this time the air cracked, then tapped her toe and the ground did the same, reaching down the picked up a series of shards, mixing them together. Her hands flew, piecing together a stained glass window from the browns, blues (the air was light blue) and reds.
Once it was done, she held up a tiny handheld circle of glass shards. On the giant screen I could see it was a stained glass picture of a volcano. The window flashed and a torrent of lava burst out of it like a fire house, tearing through dozens of trees and forcing the fire bug and all his little flame clones back.
He glared at her over the field of lava. “I don’t know what the fuck that was. But I can assure you it won’t work next time.” He glanced around with a curse. “That fucking holy roller is coming. Count yourself lucky.”
Felicity waved goodbye as he turned to leave, renewing her trek through the forest. Above it all, we sat watching from our box, and I was blown away by some of the power on display. “Hey ma.” I called to my mother from a few seats down. “Was that fire thing a technique or just a really specific ability or Skill.”
“He’s imperial, so probably the latter. The Job system tends to create lots of niche subskills more easily. Techniques are more common in heroic cultivation.”
I nodded absently, returning my attention to the games as someone stumbled upon the dog eared siblings. “Well now.” Hissed a sibilant voice from beneath Devnay’s robe. The C-rank champion from the Black Sorrow cult sounded positively gleeful. “Look what someone has caught in their web.”
His clawed green hands slithered out, and he flicked a few of the barely visible threads. The siblings groaned as the vibrations tightened the strings, the razor sharp strands digging into their flesh and drawing blood.
“Please.” Pleaded the brother. “There’s no need to do this. We don’t have any problems with you.”
Devnay chuckled. “I’ll be sure to remember that as I’m enjoying your deaths.” His hands blurrd out, plucking a dozen strings in a symphony of twangs that blended into a surprisingly melodic composition as the strands started to tighten. Before they could tighten too much though, Devnay’s claws hit a pair of threads and rebounded explosively, fingers cracking and blood fountaining out.
He dashed back, and the caped form of Aftershock stepped from the shadows on the opposite side of the clearing. “There’s no need for such cruelty.” He said reproachfully. “These poor people are helpless. To kill them simply for enjoyment would be an abominable act.”
“One of the attention seekers.” Drawled the Cardinal of the Black Sorrow cult hypocritically. “Are you sure you want to stick your nose into my business?”
Aftershock just smiled, reaching out to flick one of the threads nearest to him. The spider silk began to hum loudly, somehow skipping the tied up siblings, increasing in volume consistently until there was a twang and a snap and the threads exploded towards Devnay.
Snorting, the green clawed man let out a roar and belched a torrent of flames at the explosion of energy. The fire hit the force and blew up, scattering the silk and flames in all directions. The siblings took the opportunity to run away, calling their thanks to the caped hero as they retreated into the distance.
I was personally just kind of blown away. That had been some sort of vibration manipulation, and he’d completely avoided hurting the innocents when he’d done it. I was guessing that was Perception and Focus. Impressive either way though.
Devnay was snarling at the other man, his robe torn away to reveal a heavily muscled man with green scales and a reptilian face. Behind his back a pair of large wings were folded around him protectively. My mom whistled. “Wyrmkin.” She said appreciatively. “That’s pretty impressive. Don’t see a lot of Wyrms willing to take human form.”
Wyrms were a lesser cousin of dragons, sort of like wyverns, but way more impressive. I’d heard recently about animals taking humanoid form, but this was the first time I’d seen one.
Their fight seemed to be just starting, but I decided to focus back on Felicity, since she would probably be traveling with us. I found her standing in front of Rorik, looking as blank as ever as he smiled pleasantly. “Ah, I don’t suppose you would turn over those tokens to me?” He asked wryly. “I realize it’s an inconvenience but it would be ever so helpful.”
Felicity shook her head. “My apologies.” She said tonelessly. “I’m afraid I require these to accomplish my goals. I see you’ve claimed one for yourself. Might I impose upon you to lend it to me?”
“I’m afraid not.” The affable elf said, his face smoothing out into a cold mask of neutrality. “I’ll have to relieve you of yours the hard way then.”
Felicity held up a brightly colored disk (the volcano image she’d made earlier) and said bluntly. “That is a shame. Please try not to die. You are a very polite person, and I find speaking to you enjoyable.” A volcanic eruption, roughly five times the size of the earlier one, consumed the air between them as it raced toward Rorik.
With a lazy flick of his fingers, Rorik called a dozen more of those silver spiders from the trees around them. The speedy arachnids flashed out so quickly they were barely visible and wrapped the eruption in glittering silver silk, cocooning the lava midair. As it approached Rorik, it came to a halt about a foot from him, restrained by ropes of silk from coming closer.
“That was mildly impressive.” He admitted, his amiable mask back in place. “Some kind of image creation power?”
Felicity shook her head. “Not at all. I was simply practicing my Glazing, the creation of stained glass.” Reaching out, she flicked one of the nearby strands. There was a cracking sound and the silk all collapsed, dissolving into an ocean of silvery glass shards which were propelled outward by the expanding heat of the lava.
Rorik cursed, dodging the rain of shards and molten rock and landing on a tree above the clearing. I could see the silvery spiders gathering on the tree he landed on, getting ready for whatever the next attack would be.
Seemingly uncaring, Felicity leaned down to pick up some of the white shards, breaking some of the lava and air to find more colored shards she began to assemble.
Her hands blurred through the assembly process, and when she was done, she held up a terrifying image of a massive silver armored lava golem with six arms. As it stepped from the glass and gained physical form, I had to chuckle at Rorik’s expression. Yeah, I was pretty sure Felicity would be a useful friend to have.