Description

New Horizons

Beneath the Dragoneye Moons: Book Eight

_____________________________

Selkie Myth

Beneath the Dragoneye Moons

Oathbound Healer

Adventures in the Argo Ranger’s Dawn

Beyond the Wall

Journey to the Center of Pallos

Immortal Moments

Return to Remus

New Horizons

The Gladiator Gauntlet

 

This is a work of fiction, and the views expressed herein are the sole responsibility of the author. Likewise, certain characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

Cover Art by Kart Studios. Cover Typesetting by MiblArt.

New Horizons (Beneath the Dragoneye Moons, Book 8)

Copyright© 2022 Selkie Myth

All rights reserved.

 

 

This story is dedicated to my wonderful wife, Lauren, without whom this wouldn’t be possible. Her endless love and support keeps me going.

This story is also dedicated to my beautiful daughter Flora,

whose smiles light up my every day.

I would also like to acknowledge my beta readers, who put up with my endless typos, fix my mistakes, and help guide the story, so it can be the best story possible.

I’d like to thank all the other supportive authors and writing communities, and all the kind words they have.

Lastly, I’d like to thank Royal Road. My story and success wouldn’t be possible without their website.

Thank you, to each and every one of you.

 

Chapter 1

The Beginning. Once Again

It was once again entirely clear that I was in a new world. The same world, the old world.

Pallos.

I didn’t have time to take everything in. I was in trouble, and as I felt power flood through me once again, I acted. [Bullet Time] wasn’t activating, but my bond with Auri was letting me think faster.

We had landed at twilight, the full moons creeping over the horizon as the sun set. We were deep in an ancient-looking forest, the shadows stretched long.

Monstrous spiders surrounded us, resting on their thick webs. Cocooned animals larger than I was were wrapped in their nests for later. They ranged from a poisonous orange smaller than my pinky nail, to gigantic black-grey specimens that looked like they’d eat Julius for a snack. The spiders looked hungry, and I wasn’t going to wait and see what they did.

We’d appeared in a tiny gap in their webs, somehow not touching a single one.

Also – why was it always spiders!?

The first step was to dismiss the notifications as I landed. I needed to strip everything away except for the essentials, and work from there. The notifications weren’t important right now, and were horribly distracting from the situation at hand.

Speaking of distractions, cool relief washed through me as [Center of the Universe] kicked back in, muting my sense of pain. A quick flick of my eyes glanced at my status, and I saw I had everything back. I hadn’t gotten reset to level 1 or anything stupid like that.

Second step was to assess the threats. I quickly pulled up a dozen of them with [Long-Range Identify], the skill letting me check entire groups.

[Sentry Spider – Lv 278]

[Black Widow – Lv 53]

[Jumping Spider – Lv 148]

[Tyrant Tarantula – Lv 764]

[Brown Recluse- Lv 236]

[Black Widow – Lv 301]

[Baby Spider – Lv 5]

[Spitting Spider – Lv 99]

[Webspinning Warrior – Lv 262]

[Unfriendly Neighborhood Spider – Lv 85]

[Wolf Spider – Lv 210]

[Spider Seductress – Lv 149]

I absorbed the information without getting lost in the details, idly wondering why I was getting numbers and not colors from my skill, but now wasn’t time to wonder about that.

Third step was to assess what tools and people I had.

Artemis, Julius, and I had all worked and trained together extensively. They were some of the most lethal, combat-capable people I knew. I knew how they worked and fought, and how we’d execute things. I also knew they’d see that I was punching harder than I ever had in a fight and adapt to it.

Amber was a small liability. I adored my beanpolish apprentice, but there was no sense in wearing blinders. She was worse than dead weight in a fight, she was someone I actively needed to protect. She had a good head on her shoulders though, and I could somewhat trust her to listen to us.

Auri was a major liability. She thought she was invincible, and would fearlessly attack. No matter how strong we were, I didn’t like her chances if the level 700+ [Tarantula] ate her whole. I’d need to spend effort not only keeping her safe and alive, but also stopping her from diving in.

Plans flashed through my head, getting analyzed and discarded until I settled on one, right as the first spider started to skitter over to us.

It was one of the low-leveled spiders, and with my vitality and [Bullet Time], it looked like it was running through thick jelly.

Unfortunately, my communication was also slow. To tell Auri and Amber anything, I’d need to speak slowly enough that they could understand me, which could give the spiders an eternity to act.

Relatively speaking. Everyone moving at such different speeds was tricky to manage.

I threw up [Mantle] all around us in a great dome, trusting that Artemis would know to turn my snap-shield into a full stone dome. I grabbed Auri with one hand, mentally smiling at my Fire immunity, while the other one grabbed Amber and started to un- ceremoniously shove her face-first into the dirt.

If the spiders broke through, I needed her out of the way.

I noted a few tiny spiders inside the dome and blasted them with prejudice, utterly annihilating their tiny bodies with an overeager application of Radiance.

Normally I’d do a precision shot, but I was shoving Amber onto their remains. Didn’t want there to be a super venom sac or something.

I finally had enough time to work on myself. I flashed [Dance with the Heavens] through my body, fixing my ruined feet, then immediately set up a connection with Auri and reset my [Persistent Casting] with my healing on her.

It was obvious that visiting the land of the fae had reset all of my careful [Persisting Castings]. It was going to be a pain to reset them all, if lacking them didn’t prove lethal to somebody in the short term.

Thick stone walls slammed into existence all around us, Artemis’s Earth walls curving up and over us to form a dome. I flickered [Mantle], changing it from the dome that Artemis used to build her more solid walls, to something like a knee-high wall around us. It’d help against waves of small spiders, while still giving Artemis easy access to the stone walls, so she could expand them.

Amber ate a faceful of soft moss. The inside of the stone dome was lit by Auri’s soft glow, who was just now starting to protest.

“Brrrpt!” She cried out. It hurt, but I ignored her, in favor of keeping us all alive.

“Backs, over Amber.” I called as I whirled up, standing over my apprentice. I quickly felt the comforting presence of Artemis’s back against mine, quickly followed by Julius’s reassuring strength as we formed a triangle.

“Auri, my head, light. No fire. We have limited air.”

“Brrrpt!” She shouted her understanding, and having an Important Mission, would be suitably out of the way.

I drew my short sword and handed it to Julius.

“Julius, close. Artemis -”

“Walls.” She grunted. It was clear that she meant she was spending all her mana and focus on building, repairing, and expanding the stone dome we were in.

“I’m firepower.” I agreed with her, letting Artemis and Julius know that I was to be the heavy hitter for this engagement.

I did a quick look around the dome, lighting it up with a soft Radiance glow to compliment Auri’s flames. A few quick beams of Radiance handled the few spiders that were still inside the dome with us, regardless of how harmless they looked.

I shifted my weight from foot to foot as I stared at the dark walls in front of me, waiting for one of the massive spiders to burst through. With a quick thought, I turned on [Dance with the Heavens] with a terrible image – “heal” – and set it with [Persistent Casting] on both myself, and any human that touched me.

[Wheel of Sun and Moon] was worthless without sunlight or moonlight, and given that we’d entombed ourselves in a dark forest, I didn’t think there’d be that much of a chance of using the skill.

“Artemis. Arcanite in my armor. Use it.” I told her. I was at- tuned to the Arcanite – it had been issued to me, after all – but that didn’t mean Artemis couldn’t use it. It was harder for her to use and she needed to be in direct contact, but it was usable.

Speaking of, those walls had gone up fast. Much faster than I thought Artemis could bring them up.

“Completely out.” Artemis declared after a dozen seconds, and I felt her back shift slightly as her arm came down. We continued our watch, and I was able to slowly process everything that was going on, see and figure out the world around me.

Slowly, because I was on edge. Every part of me screamed to be ready. Be ready to move. Run. Roll. Blast. Heal. Analyze. Adjust. Adapt.

Overcome.

I was a tightly wound spring with enough power at my fingertips to kill most people, most monsters, with a thought.

Sight was practically useless. All I could do was stare at a blank wall. At the same time, it was like my vision expanded as I slowly panned my head back and forth, looking for any little crumbling of stone that indicated one of the spiders slowly tunneling through. Ready for the explosion of noise as the massive [Tyrant Tarantula] crushed the walls, letting a flood of its smaller kin in to kill us and feast on our flesh. Shadows flickered against the wall, Auri’s flames casting gigantic, inconsistent shadows, shifting as I turned my head to keep checking on my parts of the wall.

Useless, and the most important at the same time. A paradox, in a sense.

Sound was next, the most horrifying. Our intrusion – specifically, the stone dome Artemis conjured up, if not our actual presence – hadn’t gone unnoticed, and Artemis’s stone was magically uniform and solid. Perfect for hearing the skittering feet of dozens of spiders with hundreds of legs exploring all over this new object in their midsts. Heavier thuds echoed through as some of the larger, more gigantic spiders walked over our new home. Worse were the noises I couldn’t identify. Screeching, scratching, chewing, clawing, the sound of rocks breaking and falling, crashing.

Screaming. From elvenoid throats or monster, I couldn’t tell. The deep, earthy smell of the woods came to me next, the smell of rich loam and decay. All perfectly natural and somewhat reassuring.

I hadn’t felt the sickening sensation of the Dead Zone coming back.

The air felt humid and warm, making me think it was still summer. Hopefully it was summer, and we’d just been thrown to a nasty forest. I wasn’t looking forward to ‘Operation: Where the hell is Remus?’ again – especially with Amber slowing us down- but I had high hopes for the rest. Especially after the Sentinel debrief where everyone plotted out all the best ways to find Remus when dropped in a random place on the map!

Six months, tops, to make it back home.

We waited, tension steadily increasing. Even then, no matter how tense and dangerous the situation, there was only so much staring at a blank wall I could do.

However, I needed to do it, so I did. After an interminably long time, we broke in unison, and turned to face each other.

“I’ll take first shift.” Julius offered, and I nodded in approval. Artemis reached her hand out, and without looking, Julius took it.

After all, they’d just been spiders. There might be a malevolent intelligence behind them, but we’d shown up and vanished so quickly that the big, important, dangerous spiders might not have noticed us or cared, and were simply expanding their webs and territory to the nice new rock in the middle of the forest.

Who casually broke boulders just because they could, especially when there was no pressing reason to?

For the moment, I thought we were safe. Sure, we were on a dozen timers – the lack of breathable air being the biggest one, water being a close second – but the immediate threat was done.

“Guys. You have to look at the notifications.” Amber’s voice was a whisper of horror.

“Brrrrrpt!!” Auri was shocked.

Well, they had waited until we’d determined we were some- what safe. Might as well see what all the fuss was about. I opened my notifications, and was initially confused. What was going on…?

I realized what the notifications meant. Not just the words, but the implications. The blood drain from my face. My knees got weak, and I fell down onto my butt.

“No…” I whispered, trying to deny the truth in front of me.

“NO!”

 

Chapter 2

The Dingpocalypse

 

I stared at the notifications, reading them, not processing the individual words but the implications. The meanings.

A few of them jumped out at me, the absurd cheerfulness of Genie – who I had to imagine was a genuine, real, three-wishes type contrasting with the utter horror of the combined meanings.

[*whoop whoop!* Allow me to introduce myself! My name is Genie! Couple of you folks have found me over the years, but here’s a wish that’s going to get all of you interested! This historian-ecologist, Hwinthel, wants to know whenever a species is wiped out!]

…

[*ding!* The shimagu have gone extinct.]

…

[*whoop whoop!* You’re in the mix with DJ Genie tonight! Wang Zhao has got something to mix it all up and bring the house DOWN! You’ve heard of basic elements. Yoooooooou’ve heard of advanced elements. WELL! Let me be the first to introduce you tooooo0000000000000 THE TIER THREE ELEMENTS! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, crabs and crustaceans of all ages, we are here! Combine any two advanced elements together to create one of the six hundred and sixty six tier three elements! Hope you still have a class up or two left!]

…

[*ding!* It has been 10,000 years since Creation]

…

[*whoop whoop!* Keepin’ it locked and loaded, we’re back with everyone’s favorite wish-granter, GEEEEEEEEEEENIE! Those pesky tier three elements were too much for this anonymous wish asker, and they’re GONE! Done! I’d say they’ve gone the way of the dino, but you lot still have those around! Great job! Keep them alive. You’ll know why when the moment comes.]

…

[*ding!* Dodos have gone extinct.]

…

[*whoop whoop!* Eeeeeeeeeeeey y’all, it’s ya boy Genie! This little Felix here wants all [Shepherds] to be able to find their sheep! Well, never fear little bo peep, now you’ll always know where to find em! Mutton’s back on the menu!]

[*whoop whoop!” You all won’t believe who it is! GEEEEEEEEENIE IS BACK IN THE HOUSE. Honestly, I never left, this kid Felix is a riot. He’s got a second wish y’all should know about! Identify and Analyze and shit to stop being in COLOR! Dunno why, but I’m the genie, and his wish is myyyyyyyyyyy COMMAND! Status-checking skills now re- turn numbers, not colors! Colorblind rejoice! Let’s see if Felix gets a grand three for three global messages, or if he’s going to ask one for himself!]

[*ding!* Due to the great efforts of [Mage] Felix, you get a +1 bonus to all stats! You also get a passive 2% increase to all experience gain!]

…

[*ding!* Due to the great efforts of [Knight] Chloe, you get a +1 bonus to all stats! You also get a passive 2% increase to all experience gain!]

…

[*ding!* Allerian Highlander Wasps have gone extinct.]

…

[*ding!* Steller’s Sea Cow have gone extinct.]

…

[*whoop whoop!* GOO000000OOD MORNING PALLOS! Genie here with some more announcements! Have I got a doozy for you all today! Ready? You think you are but I bet ya ain’t. This little elf Helediron here’s a bit of a prick. He wants all monsters to gain experience faster, and level up quicker! Pssst. I got a secret for you. He didn’t specify what a monster is.]

…

[*whoop whoop!* Whoa, you won’t believe this one! Thraximundar the Terrible has wished for true, genuine, Immortality. Nothing can kill him! Nothing can stop him! I can’t wait to see what he does! Good luck everyone!]

…

[*ding!* Labrador Ducks have gone extinct.]

…

[*whoop whoop!* You should all know who this is by now! Or not, some of you can barely survive 3,000 years without bumping yourselves off. Geeenieeeeee is BACK baby! With a wish from Gertrude The Grumpy for an ever-flowing waterfall! We’ll just stick it right here. Dunno what you’re going to do with all that water, but hey! I don’t make the wishes, I only fulfill them!]

…

[*whoop whoop!* Humans lose System access. Someone sure doesn’t like them very much! Good luck figuring out who, they asked me not to say!]

[*whoop whoop!* Humans regain System access – That was fast! Goats, take note! This is how it’s done. None of that lazing around for… ah, I forgot how many years it took.]

…

[*whoop whoop!* The Erosion element is now Fossil! Dunno why Sentos wanted the switch, but hey! Who am I to object? His wish, my command! You’re all going to want to do some serious updating. A few of your skills got shuffled around.]

…

[*whoop whoop!* Damn did y’all get every lawyer around to make this wish!? Longest, most complicated wish I’ve ever seen, ya feel me? Just thinking about it makes my head hurt! There’s now a hole at the bottom of the ocean. Where does it go? Jump in and find out!]

…

[*ding!* Great Auks have gone extinct.]

…

[*whoop whoop!* Genie is back! Hug yo kids! Kiss yo wife! Hope you’ve lived a long and fulfilling life because Bob has wished for the world to end! Man, if I was that depressed I’d ask to be happy, not take everyone down with me! End of the world in 3…2…1… and poof! Welcome to the world of tomorrow! New world, looks a lot like the old world! Because times marched on, the old world is dead, the new world is now! Welcome to Pallos, everyone! Hope none of you did anything too rash…]

…

[*whoop whoop!* Genie is here to drop some sick beats that sound like this! Coral, smoral, shit’s boring! And not like making a tunnel! Some of you peeps may remember good ol’ Slag, and now we’re back for round two! Thanks to my buddy Goshman here, Coral is now Magic Wood, and you have no idea how badly it hurts me inside that it’s called Magic Wood. There is a serious imagination deficit going on here, and be careful with the element first thing in the morning!]

…

[*ding!* Dong, the [Witch] is dead!]

…

[*whoop whoop!* Genie here, and y’all should listen up!

We’ve got an interesting wish today! Tang San here wants a challenge. You all see that arrow? Yeah, that’s pointing to a grand arena! There’ll be a tournament in a year, and the winner? Well, you can’t wish for more wishes, but you can wish for someone else to get your remaining wishes. May the most clever win!]

[*whoop whoop! Somebody decided to fix the terrible names! Magic Metal is now Crucible, and Magic Wood is now Sylvan! Rejoice! I let Lancelot get a two for one on this one, be- cause WOW looking at those elements was hurting me deep in- side! Not as much as seeing y’all chow down on mutton, but it was a close second.]

[*ding!* Congratulations! Thanwa Temirak is the first per- son to leave the grasp of the sun!]

[*whoop whoop!* Valesteria has politely requested that void mages stop blowing themselves up! Annnnd done! Not sure why she asked for that; they don’t self detonate in the first place, it’s actually because of – whoa I’m learning some new swears, Genie out!]

…

[*ding!* Congratulations! [Cosmic Presence] has leveled up! 300 -> 315]

[*ding!* Congratulations! [Celestial Affinity] has leveled up! 474 -> 480]

[*ding!* Congratulations! [Center of the Universe] has leveled up! 450 -> 451]

[*ding!* Congratulations! [Mantle of the Stars] has leveled up! 469 -> 470]

[*ding!* Congratulations! [Sunrise] has leveled up! 347 -> 411]

[*ding!* Congratulations! [Oath of Elaine to Lyra] has leveled up! 376 -> 513]

[*ding!* Congratulations! [Pristine Memories] has leveled up! 221 -> 278]

[*ding!* Would you like to upgrade [Pristine Memories] to [Immortal Recollections]?]

[*ding!* Congratulations! [Companion Bond between Elaine and Auri] has leveled up! 44 -> 128]

[*ding!* Congratulations! [Long-Range Identify] has leveled up! 375 -> 376]

[*ding!* Congratulations! [Passionate Learning] has leveled up! 380 -> 381]

I stared stunned at the notifications, wanting to deny it. Wanting to blast it with Radiance and destroy whatever cruel trick some illusionist was playing on me.

Amber was babbling, and Auri was brrpting in the background. Artemis had gone cold and steely-eyed, but I continued to focus on myself, internally.

I wanted to cry, to scream, to kick my feet and flail my fists in denial of what I was seeing. Tears threatened to pour out of my eyes, then I heard the sound of a large spider’s leg landing on our dome.

I shut down my emotions. Bottled them up, tossed them in a chest, locked it, and threw away the key. I’d suffer in the future for this. It wasn’t healthy, but it’s what I needed to do here and now to stay alive and operational.

If I had a meltdown, everyone could die. I had duties. Responsibilities.

Cold analysis, go.

We’d messed with the fae, and they’d messed back. It had been somewhat expected, but the sheer quantity of notifications, no, the mere existence of global notifications, indicated a lot more time had passed than we’d thought could pass in our wildest dreams.

10,000 years since creation. I’d left in 4801, and while the year wasn’t quite aligned with creation – Night had said it had taken a few decades for things to settle enough to start getting the idea of timekeeping, and that was just humans, let alone how everyone else kept time – it implied that we’d been gone at least 5,000 years.

And that notification was near the start. There had only been one grand feat for humans in the first 10,000 years, and there were two more notifications about that after. Given that the name “Felix” appeared in the Genie’s notification twice, and immediately after the Genie’s announcement he’d appeared getting a grand feat along with a second human, I could guess that his last wish was related to that. Sure, it was possible that Chloe had independently achieved a grand feat… but I wasn’t going to put my money on it.

I checked my status, and saw that it said I was 22. I’d left a few weeks after turning 21, so at best I’d spent a little under a year in the land of the fae, and at worst I’d spent almost three. Interesting that it didn’t give me the years since birth – It’d be nice to know exactly how many years had passed.

Given the large, wide-scale changes I saw Genie making, one plan – Plan G at best – was going to be: find the Genie, wish to be brought back to my home. In the correct timeframe. I’d need to work hard on phrasing that wish…

Assuming we weren’t trapped in some horrific fae illusion meant to make us question our sanity. I still had the four leaf clover on me, and it was better to accept the reality in front of me now, and be pleasantly surprised if it was all a lie, than to bury my head in the sand and insist nothing was happening.

For now, I would assume reality was as it appeared to be. I’d do a check with Radiance later, to see if there were illusions around me. Needed all my mana for now just in case we got into a fight.

By the same token, I was going to assume that Genie was as powerful as he claimed to be. I’d need to be clever and specific about making a wish, but I latched onto the small shimmer of hope of getting back home like a drowning woman would grab a floating door.

Ok. Not all hope was lost. I had no idea how viable the plan was, but simply having a plan was enough to alleviate much of my panic.

Things had changed. Some elements had gotten shuffled around, a few renamed. None of them touched my elements, so I didn’t care right now.

[Oath] was next on my list. The skill was famously hard to level, and I’d capped it? It took me a moment to figure out why. Markus’s apprentice, once upon a time, had taken the same [Oath] I had made, and I’d gotten a notification.

[*ding!* Congratulations! A skill you created has been passed along to others! A tiny amount of experience that other people gain with the skill will go to you as well.]

Well, either being resolved to keep healing after all this time was great experience, or my [Oath] had gotten big, and I was reaping the rewards. Given that nothing else of mine had leveled up anywhere near that much? My guess was on the second one. Ok, great. People were still around. People still lived. We weren’t in a perpetual never-ending wilderness. Most likely.

I looked around my notifications and stats and spotted another promising item.

[Sentinel’s Superiority] hadn’t changed. Hadn’t evolved. It wasn’t [The Last Sentinel], [Retired Sentinel], [Former Sentinel], or anything of the like. It hadn’t vanished, the same way [Ranger’s Lore] had poofed when I was being promoted. It was an organizational skill, which implied…

“The Sentinels still exist.” I announced, cutting through the chatter. Amber and Artemis looked at me, while Julius maintained discipline, staying on watch. I swear his ear twitched to better hear me.

“Explain.” Artemis demanded.

“I still have [Sentinel’s Superiority], unchanged.” I told her. She chewed her lip for a moment. I handed her one of my jugs of mango juice, and she shot me a grateful look before uncorking it and downing the entire thing.

Maging was hungry work, especially with the amount she’d just blown.

“Brrrpt!” Auri didn’t begrudge Artemis getting a drink, but she did protest the fact that Artemis was draining the ENTIRE THING.

She put it down, and I briefly debated leaving it behind, be- fore reattaching it to my backpack.

“[Ranger’s Lore] had turned into [Retired Ranger] when I stepped down.” She admitted. “Also, my [Wandering Mage] class just got a ton of levels. I’m practically a senior Sentinel!”

I took a look with [Long-Range Identify].

[Mage – 455].

Yikes, she hadn’t been kidding!

“My command skills morphed.” Julius helpfully added in, never dropping his guard.

“I only have class ups ready.” Amber grumbled. Artemis punched her in the arm.

“Well, what are you waiting for? Let’s get a speedy class up going!”

“Let’s make a plan first.” I objected. “Amber, sorry, but there’s a slim chance our ability to get out of here alive will rely on you taking a specific class.”

She muttered darkly under her breath at that, then brightened up.

“Ok! You just tell me what to do! I got some goodies that practically replace my merchant class anyways.”

Good kid. Hang on, I needed to ask about those goodies.

“Brrpt! BRRRPT!” Auri didn’t want to be outdone. She let me know that SHE had her class up available, and was ready and willing to do whatever needed to be done!

“Brrrrpt!”

Two classes. Her first upgrading, and her second unlocking. I gave her a Look.

“You’re crazy lucky my ‘wandering around looking at cool magic’ class gave you all that experience.”

“Brrrrpt.”

Vain bird. She thought her leveling rate was totally natural.

“The situation is as follows.” Artemis took charge. “We’re in an unknown location, hiding in a rock dome from monsters. We need to stay alive, get out, find people, then find home. Agreed?”

“Find people, then figure out what we’re doing.” Julius objected. “I don’t think any of us have a home anymore.”

Artemis grabbed Julius’s leg, and he stopped. They looked at each other.

“Hev. Speedy. Home is where you are, ok?” Artemis’s voice was dead serious. Julius cracked a smile at her.

“Bad time, bad place, marry me, ok?”

Artemis snorted.

“Of course I’m marrying you, and I’m never. EVER. Going to let you live this proposal down.”

I coughed loudly. Really? Now? Here? This was not the time or place. I also prayed to the gods that “Speedy” referred to him being a speedster, and not something else.

“BRRPT BRRRPT BRRRRRRRRRRRPT!” Auri was super excited over the engagement, and I just wanted to hold my face in my hands.

Instead, I clapped, bringing the attention back to me.

“Congratulations. Julius, I’m going to eternally tease you.

Amber. You said you had interesting things?”

She nodded, eager to be the center of attention.

“Yes! I traded like the gods themselves had empowered me with the fae. Formed a typical merchant’s pyramid. Complicated stuff. See, first I-”

I gave her a Look, motioning with my hand to get on with it, and that the exact details could wait for another day.

“Ok, long, LONG story short. My eye,” Amber pointed to her swirling, purple eye. “Can see value. I have to always tell the truth, but at the same time, I can tell if someone’s blatantly lying to me. And I got a lucky coin, although I have no idea how lucky it is.”

I thought about Amber’s face having neatly landed on the mossy section of the forest floor, and had to concede that she might have something there.

“I’m going to be blunt here.” Julius said. “None of that sounds particularly useful here and now. Value means nothing. We’re working together, truth is an assumed default. And we can’t rely on luck.”

Amber frowned, but I agreed with Julius.

“Relying on luck gets Rangers killed.” I told her. “What did you have to pay for that?”

Amber looked uncomfortable.

“Spit it out. There’s no room to be shy in here.” Artemis’s words were harsh, but true.

“My eye.” Amber admitted. “Part of my ability to walk with my right leg. And my name.”

I sucked in air through my teeth on the last one. No wonder I hadn’t been able to remember Amber’s name.

Wait.

Had it always been Amber?

I thought about it, straining hard. Recalling memories, but feeling them be “fuzzed”.

[*ding!* Congratulations! [Pristine Memories] has leveled up! 278-> 279]

[*ding!* Congratulations! [Pristine Memories] has leveled up! 279-> 280]

…

[*ding!* Congratulations! [Pristine Memories] has leveled up! 299-> 300]

AHHA! I got it! Her name had been Autumn!

[*ding!* Would you like to upgrade [Pristine Memories] to [Fae Remembrance]?]

“Your name was Amber.” I said, my mouth twisting the words as I tried to say them.

More fairy nonsense.

I got some weird looks at that, letting them slide off of me like water off a duck’s back. My emotions were still locked away.

I’d fought them and won on the memory issue, but clearly even speaking the name was off-limits, and clearly I was some- what affected by my short stay. If the worst of it was I couldn’t say Amber’s old name? That I’d gotten 22 levels in a hard to level skill as a result? Sure, I’d take it.

Speaking of, I accepted the upgrade to [Immortal Recollections]. I didn’t want to remember everything that had happened in the land of the fae, and the upgrade seemed solid.

Immortal Recollections: You have made it far past the date of your birth, seeing years that only an Immortal could. Have the perfect memory for such a lifespan, able to recall whatever you need, whenever you need it. Able to organize memories, shade poor ones and highlight important moments. Able to archive memories. -8 mana regeneration.

“We’ve got shelter.” Artemis brought us back on topic. “We’ve got a few days’ supply of food. Air’s our biggest problem right now. I don’t see any solution besides making small holes in the dome.”

I chewed over the idea.

“Agreed. I can’t think of any alternative, and Auri, I love you, but I have no idea if your body of flames is making us burn air at a high rate.”

“Brrpt! BRPT BRPT!” Auri assured me that, yes, she remembered the indoor burning rules, and that things would be perfect if she wanted to hurt us.

Lovely. Inarguably true.

“One big hole. Bigger spiders can come through. Lots of small holes. More openings to check, and I think we’d need more of them to make it work.” I said.

“The openings to check are less relevant if we cluster them together.” Artemis pointed out.

“While making a larger area of the dome vulnerable to a hit.” I countered.

“If something’s coming through, it’s coming through any- ways.” Julius reasonably observed. “A small, high level poisonous spider sneaking in is our largest reasonable concern that we can afford to mitigate.”

I nodded my agreement. “I’m going to make myself a healing beacon. Anyone touching me will get a full-blast of healing, so even if a spider sneaks in, we’ve got some protection. Should sleep touching me, just to be safe.”

now.”

“Let’s do that then. Artemis?”

“I’ll get on it as soon as – oh yeah, my mana regen’s insane

I smiled, remembering the “holy WHAT” of my stats all jumping. At the same time, I remembered Artemis’s build. Her idea of insane mana regeneration wasn’t my idea of insane mana regeneration… although she likely had more power than I did.

“For the spiders. I saw one [Tyrant Tarantula] over level 700. Did anyone else pick up anything strong?”

“You WHAT?!” Amber shrieked. I gave her a look.

“Why did you think I went with holing up instead of burn- ing them all?”

“Brrrpt!” Auri approved of burning them all.

Amber muttered to herself.

“Pair of small nasty 400ish [Black Widows]” Artemis admitted.

“I didn’t see anything worth concerning ourselves over, except the sheer quantity.” Julius added in.

“BRRPT!” Auri had seen a ton of flying hazards, although she was sure they were flammable.

“Dirt.” Amber added in, entirely unhelpful. Artemis did me a favor and gave her a stink-eye.

“Right. Placate, Kill, Drive off, or Tolerate?” I asked, feeling a small thrill run through me. It’d been a lifetime ago I was sitting with Artemis, Julius, and the rest in Virinum, having the exact same discussion about the nothosaurus. Now we were back, with a slightly different group, sitting in our secure area figuring out how to best handle the monster.

“Can we even kill that thing?” Amber asked. I hesitated a moment, thinking about it.

“If I was alone, and I had to, and it didn’t have some particularly tricky or nasty skills, I might be able to.” I said. Flying while dropping [Kaleidoscope], shielding against skills and healing anything that hit me was a stupid good combination. Which is why I had it. “All the webs around here make me concerned, and we’re not only in their home territory, but it’s got friends. Also, you’d all be in range of their rampage. It might follow me. It might run away. It might have an Earth element and fling the nearest stone at me. We don’t have enough intel.” I concluded.

“Driving off won’t work. We’re in their home.” Artemis said. “They’ll defend this place to the death before running away.”

“There’s nothing to placate. They’re not mad at us, or attacking us.” Julius said.

“Calling in a Sentinel isn’t an option.” Amber’s cheeky contribution to the discussion was technically valid, and I let it slide. “We’re in agreement then. Tolerate them?” I asked, seeing slow nods.

“Brrrrrrpt…”

“Yes, that means no burning down their webs.” I told Auri.

“Brrrpt?”

“Not even a little.”

“Holes for air, and we’re tolerating the spiders.” Julius said. “I’ve got some ideas for what we can do next. Elaine, Artemis?”

I thought about our situation and what resources we had.

I hated to say it, but Amber and Auri weren’t going to be super useful. I could still probably find something for them to do – they’d need something to do, or else they’d become bored and cause trouble – but I didn’t see any of their skills making or breaking our situation. I kept them in mind for grabbing a critical class if we needed them to. For example, an air-generating and purifying class if we determined that we needed to stay entirely encased in stone, for whatever reason.

Julius was in the middle. Excessively competent, well trained, seasoned, and with massive amounts of experience, his skills were around being a speedster, leadership, and command. Spiders were almost one of the worst land creatures he could be paired against, their nets causing him issue, and we were too small of a group for his leadership and command skills to truly shine.

Still. His advice was good, and he could be trusted and relied on.

That left Artemis and I. Anything short of a killing blow I could heal anyone from, and I had powerful mobility, and a dozen utility gems. Artemis was lethality incarnate, Lightning and Earth.

We wanted to tolerate the monsters though, and pointing and blasting wasn’t the answer.

“I’m going to suggest what’s usually a cardinal sin.” I said, putting together what resources we had. “Except I’ve been explicitly trained for it. Artemis should let me out, I fly around, and see what things look like. A river if there’s one, civilization, a village, a town or city would be ideal. If they’re close enough, I might be able to ferry everyone out, one at a time. Artemis last, to keep things secure.”

“BRRPT!” Auri wanted to come.

Julius was shaking his head.

“Sentinel. With all due respect, we’re in a team. Don’t split the team. If you get shot down, trapped, lost, anything, the rest of us are likely dead.”

Artemis punched his arm for that, and they traded a look.

“The biggest concern is honestly you finding us again.” Julius reiterated. “A rod says the spiders have entirely covered us, using the rock as an anchor for their webs. How are you going to find one specific spider-covered rock in a forest?”

He had a good point. My wilderness survival was good. My wilderness tracking?

Literally finding one rock in a forest of unknown size?

“Artemis can always make a tall stone pillar, and that should be plenty visible. However. What do you think?” I asked him.

Julius and Artemis wordlessly swapped, Artemis patrolling around the small dome we had while Julius sat down to explain stuff.

“Well…” Julius said, and we all leaned in to better hear him outline the plan.

[Name: Elaine]

[Race: Human]

[Age: 22]

[Mana: 580,170/580,170]

[Mana Regen: 435,986 (+518,703)]

 

Stats

[Free Stats: 204]

[Strength: 1,004]

[Dexterity: 1,831]

[Vitality: 14,240]

[Speed: 14,272]

[Mana: 58,019]

[Mana Regeneration: 58,120 (+51,872)]

[Magic Power: 22,821 (+585,359)]

[Magic Control: 22,821 (+585,359)]

 

[Class 1: [The Dawn Sentinel – Celestial: Lv 513]]

[Celestial Affinity: 480]

[Cosmic Presence: 315]

[The Stars Never Fade: 11]

[Center of the Universe: 451]

[Dance with the Heavens: 513]

[Wheel of Sun and Moon: 513]

[Mantle of the Stars: 470]

[Sunrise: 411]

 

[Class 2: [Butterfly Mystic – Radiance: Lv 357]]

[Radiance Affinity: 357]

[Radiance Resistance: 357]

[Radiance Conjuration: 357]

[Solar Flare: 148]

[Nectar: 357]

[Sun’s Heart: 357]

[Scintillating Ascent: 337]

[Kaleidoscope: 357]

 

[Class 3: [Beloved of the Wind – Wind: Lv 8]]

[:]

[:]

[:]

[:]

[:]

[:]

 

[:]

[:]

 

General Skills

[Long-Range Identify: 376]

[Immortal Recollections: 300]

[Companion Bond between Elaine and Auri: 128]

[Bullet Time: 513]

[Oath of Elaine to Lyra: 513]

[Sentinel’s Superiority: 513]

[Persistent Casting: 315]

[Passionate Learning: 381]

 

Chapter 3

Slow and Steady

I woke up in a panic, stone inches away from my face. I instinctively tried to lash out, my arms hitting more stone that surrounded me like a coffin.

This is where I’m supposed to be. This is right. I reminded myself, which did absolutely nothing to calm the panic and claustrophobia threatening to overwhelm me. This is the plan. Mole people! We’re mole people!

The thought had a small jolt of hysterical laughter try to go through me, which was an improvement.

Control. I reminded myself. I have enough mana and power to kill everyone here if I lash out. Control. Lashing out does nothing.

I squeezed my eyes shut, focusing on my breathing. Hearing the crackle of Auri’s flames as she slept near me. Hearing Artemis shift slightly on watch, Amber’s deep breaths as she slept peacefully.

I wasn’t alone. This wasn’t the Below Levels. We were following Julius’s plan.

I hated being trapped. I hated being wrapped in stone, unable to escape, to get out. Oh, I knew I could probably get out if I needed to, but I’d spent too many months alone in the Below Levels. Woken up to the crushing weight of mountains above me, woken up to too many creepy crawlies congregating on my shield.

I reminded myself I was Sentinel Dawn. I’d been trained for this. I had discipline. Focus. This wasn’t nearly the worst thing I’d ever encountered, nor would it be the last.

Slowly, I regained control, shifting myself around to my belly. I couldn’t stand up, the tunnel Artemis was making was too low for that. Standing room was expensive, and being fast was better than being comfortable. For an extremely loose definition of fast.

Crawling along as Artemis got enough mana to expand the tunnel was the name of the game.

I was the rearguard. I awkwardly scrunched up as much as I could with my inflexible armor, and reached behind myself to grab… food.

It’s food. I reminded myself as I used Radiance to lightly warm up the already-cooked food, ignoring the sharp bristles on my hand. Food. I chowed down, not thinking about it.

Although food wasn’t the worst topic to think about.

Time didn’t hold much meaning here, and my shifting around and crunching slowly woke everyone else up. I passed more food up to Amber, then gave a few small bits to Auri, who happily flew them down the tunnel to Julius and Artemis. While she was doing that, I passed heftier pieces to Amber, who passed them up in turn to my two former teammates. My apprentice – I hoped she still thought of herself as my apprentice, I still had so much to teach her – had classed up as well during one of the endless stretches of waiting for Artemis to regenerate her mana. She was somewhat cagey about what she’d gotten, but had started insisting that we play various games of chance, with a mental list of IOU’s traded around instead of money. Her eyes were still Celestial, so she’d either gotten a Celestial [Merchant] class, or stuck with a basic element.

With limited entertainment options during our long breaks, I was all too eager to agree to play the games. It was much better than being left alone to stew with my thoughts. I’d already fixed my [Persistent Casting] again, making a wonderful image to permanently heal myself, and any elvenoid that touched me. I’d also made a crude image for Auri, linked through our companion bond.

“Brrpt! BRRPT!” Auri broke the morning silence.

“You’ve done a most wonderful job as always.” I praised the little phoenix. With us not desperately needing a particular class for a specific job, Auri had decided to grab her second class. To absolutely nobody’s surprise, she’d taken a second Inferno mage class. It gave her a number of free slots – she didn’t need conjuration, authority, or manipulation again – but it was low-level, and she was still filling in all the skill slots.

“Brrpt!” Auri preened herself, which had my mind sharply veering into just how disgusting I looked. It started with dirt under my fingernails, and ended with dirt in places where the sun didn’t shine. My haircut was awful, a poor hack job with my knife. I didn’t want to think of the tangles and snarls in it, and I reeked of gore.

I loved my companion bond with Auri, but it did steer my mind in poor directions at times. I knew I had no options but to shut up and put up with it, so with some effort, I put it out of my mind.

“How’d everyone sleep?” Julius asked, and I grunted back.

“Brrrpt!” Auri had slept well, but the nest was only so-so. I didn’t translate that for everyone else, but they got the general

tone.

“Glad you slept well.” Julius told Auri.

“MmmMMMMMMMMMM.” Artemis groaned. With how we were positioned, she’d had to pull an all-nighter to properly do a watch. The air holes were next to her, and we couldn’t quite shuffle around.

“Come here.” I told her, to Amber’s audible groan of protest. Auri had enough room to fly around, the tiny little hummingbird shape perfect for this sort of thing, and her energetic, excited zip- ping around kept the area well-lit.

She was invaluable for keeping our spirits up, if nothing else. To her this was ADVENTURE! EXCITEMENT! Like all of my stories! The rest of us knew better. Didn’t stop Auri from keeping us happy and sane.

Artemis and I gave her a glare in unison, and she knew when to shut up. Reaching over and past everyone else, squishing Amber and Julius in the process, we touched our fingertips together, and I jolted her with [Sunrise]. It wasn’t perfect, but it’d keep Artemis going until we next decided to sleep.

“This next sleep, I need sleep.” Artemis emphasized. “None of this waking me up frequently to expand the tunnel.” Julius caressed her leg.

“I totally get it. Doing it once or twice is one thing, but endlessly? Sleep, Artemis. You’ve earned it.”

I got a grateful look from her.

“Hunting time?” I asked hopefully.

Artemis rolled her eyes, and started ticking points off her fingers.

“High level Sentinel. Bonded with a powerful companion.” “Brrpt!” Auri totally agreed with that assessment.

“Cares about appearance. Likes to go hunting. Are you sure you’re Dawn, and not Hunting in disguise? Did you two, like, swap minds or something in the fae realm?”

I flipped a finger to Artemis, then stared in horror at Auri forming a similar image out of flames.

“Auri! No! Bad!” I yelled impotently at her, as she flew away from me. I swear she was laughing.

“Well, when you show kids Bad Things, they’ll copy you. You shouldn’t do that.” Amber lectured me in an all-too-smug tone. I groaned.

“Just… lemme out, ok?” I asked, shuffling back a bit. I then passed forward the bag of remaining food we had, and waited. Action stopped me from thinking about all the people I’d lost. My mom. Dad. Brother. Albina. Ocean. Hunting. Maximus… the list was endless.

Almost everyone I knew and loved was dead. Again. It was almost enough to make me want to curl up in a corner and die. What was the point. Wh-

“Brrrpt!” Auri realized what was about to happen, and started flying towards me at top speed. I shot her my best evil grin, as Artemis slammed a layer of stone down between me, and everyone else.

For a brief moment I started to panic again, since now I was well and truly trapped in a coffin of stone. No holes. No air. Nothing but thick stone all around me, suffocating me, pressing down on me.

Then AIR! LIGHT! Glorious freedom as Artemis shifted the stone on top of me away, granting me glorious unfettered access to the sky above!

A few clouds were trying to hide the sun away, and the trees of the forest reached out and tried to shade what remained. But the sun, the glorious sun, the bringer of all life, wasn’t to be denied. The rays broke through, and I let them play across my face, feeling freedom and life once again.

I only allowed myself to be distracted for a brief moment. Even then, I knew deep in my bones that it had been wrong to drop my vigilance like that. However, it had been good, needed, for my soul and sanity.

I looked around, and didn’t spot any major threats. Just typical animals, with a slightly higher concentration than normal of spiders. I snapped my wings open, and lifted myself straight up, all while looking around me.

The base butterfly way of flying, combined with studying Auri’s flight, let me pull off neat tricks like that. I half nestled into the crown of the trees, a relatively safe spot to be. Low enough to still see the forest easily, high enough to be a good vantage point, and low enough that I wasn’t broadcasting a beacon to every- thing in the forest. We were almost out of the spider’s home, and we’d probably need to have a discussion later today about the merits of stopping the tunneling method, and just legging it.

Speaking of tunneling.

It was interesting to see Artemis’s tunnel, just a low ridge of stone in the forest, the only thing giving away that it was unnatural was how smooth and uniform the entire thing was. That, and its length. Shuffling stone from the ground was a bit cheaper than conjuring up new stone, which made a long, zig-zagging tunnel through the forest, our path “bouncing” off of trees as Artemis hit each one.

We were like extra-large moles. But we were people.

Fear us, the mole-people.

Ideally, I’d range far out, and not bring angry spiders down on our safe spot. Not fill the air with the stench of burning hair and dying creatures. We’d discussed the relative risks and benefits of it, and had decided that a fight over our heads was a lower risk than me getting lost.

Auri occasionally joined me on these outings, but not this time!

I waited, my head on a swivel, looking down at potential prey, up at the sky for potential hope. I marked a few spiders that looked… well, promising was a bad word for it, but could provide sufficient calories worked, and prayed hard that something tasty would wander in the short timeframe I was here.

Unlikely.

Meanwhile, more of my attention was brought towards the sky. I’d seen a number of people fly by, high up, and I kept hoping to catch their attention. That maybe they could drop down and give us a hand, or directions.

By myself, I couldn’t go far.

Two people? Now we were talking! Artemis and I had discussed making a tall stone tower to use as a base, but for various reasons we’d decided just getting out was a better idea. Now that the spider population was decreasing though, it might be worth thinking about again.

Of course, there could be fewer spiders here because something else was acting as an apex predator, and had their own territory.

I scanned the sky, and spotted a few tiny dots, moving fast. They were far outside the range of [Long-Range Identify], but I tried to flash harmless Radiance beams at them. maximizing the brightness I could summon.

It was brighter than a second sun, but I had no idea if the angle was right, if I was even hitting them at the distance, if there wasn’t too much haze, if they even wanted to bother checking in on whoever was flashing them, if they even recognized it as a signal for help, if…

Either way, nobody came this time either.

I dropped back down, now on a timer. I had lit up our location for anyone to see after all, and while I was hoping for intelligent, helpful life, there was no question that hostile monsters might’ve seen it as well, no matter how tight and well-controlled a Radiance beam I’d summoned.

I blasted a few spiders and a pair of rabbits, carefully drilling through their heads to optimize the amount of edible meat left. There were no obvious berry bushes or fruits in this spot, and I quickly loaded everything back into the open part of the tunnel, the airlock that Artemis had made for me.

Surrounded by still cooling meat, I laid back down in the tunnel, and gave a quick series of knocks on the stone. I heard Amber shouting from the other side of it, and a few moments later, the stone slid back over my head, once again entombing me. I gave one more impatient knock, and the wall of stone be- tween me and everyone else opened up.

“Success?” Julius asked, and I pushed my loot in front of me. “Success.” I confirmed. “Three fliers, no help. Artemis is about to hit a tree, and we’re going to want to take a left.”

We ran a serious risk of going around in circles otherwise. Julius nodded.

“Also, things are starting to clear up a bit. Fewer spiders, some other animals.” I gestured to the rabbits. “I want to discuss just… getting up and walking out of here.”

Julius frowned.

“Alright. We’ll discuss it when we next stop.”

“Speaking of, I think it’s clear enough for a bio break for everyone.” I said.

“Oh gods please yes.” Amber’s relief was palatable. “Please.” “BRRPT!” Auri was annoyed that I’d gone OUT without her! It was soo unfair.

Another day, another few dozen meters tunneling.

I was so sick of it.

“Hey Elaine!” Artemis didn’t have to say anything else. Her gleeful, happy tone was enough.

Well. We were all stuck here with nothing else to do. It beat stewing in my own thoughts or crying to myself, and I was the sucker at the table with the games Amber played. I owed everyone… way more than I liked to think about. Good thing they were just pretend IOUS!

“Once upon a time, in a land far, far away…”

I’d started hanging out with Julius and Artemis by telling stories from Earth.

The more things changed, the more they stayed the same.

I’d been soundly outvoted on the whole “walk out” thing. Being surrounded by stone didn’t bother Artemis, Julius made excellent arguments about safety and how we weren’t in a rush, Amber wanted to stay alive and her top speed was “limping”, so what was the difference – although I still maintained that Julius could just carry her- and Auri, the traitor, wanted to vote on the “winning” team. I wasn’t nearly so cold and heartless as to abandon them all, so I put up with it.

I was out hunting once again, feeling my beloved wind around my arms and legs. Would love to feel it in my hair, but taking my helmet off would be stupid.

Today, I flew up high, straight up from where our tunnel was currently at, seeing if I could spot anything interesting. And spot interesting things I did.

Two notable things jumped out at me.

The first was a clear break in the trees to the west of where I was. A slash through the forest, which just screamed “road” to me.

A place for us to head towards.

The second was some sort of fight. There were trees falling, dirt spraying into the air, and a single large spider getting an impromptu flying lesson, sans half its legs.

Anything killing a bunch of spiders was OK in my books – although I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of encountering whatever apex predator marked this area as their territory – and I judged the distance to be in the goldilocks zone. Or reverse goldilocks zone. Whatever. It was close enough that I was concerned it might end up over our tunnel, which would be bad, but far away enough that I felt like I could participate in the fight safely. Well, as safely as any fight could be.

I flew over, and spent a few moments observing the fight. I had no vested interest in the outcome either way, and if things looked like they wouldn’t boil over to where we were holed up, I was going to leave it alone.

My first thought was Thank goodness we didn’t try fighting the spiders. They were swarming the poor creature stuck in the middle, all of them biting, skittering, webbing, and generally throwing down with this one creature. I even spotted my old friend the [Tyrant Tarantula], down a leg, leaking ichor, locked in mortal combat with whatever that thing was.

I gave it a once-over.

[Vorler – 480]. [Long-Range Identify] brought back.

The more I looked at the thing, the scarier and nastier it looked.

The base body was like a gigantic scorpion, as thick around as I was and maybe two meters long, with a nasty curved tail over its head longer than it was. It had thick segmented plated scales, colored in splotches of dark greens, light browns, and a dozen other forest shades, perfect for natural camouflage in the woods. Barbed spines jutted out from its back, making it hard for a creature to get any sort of footing on it. The other end of the scorpion-like vorler ended in two snapping claws that sheared right through a spider. Its mouth was circular, with dozens of razor-sharp triangle teeth compulsively opening and closing. It skittered around on five barbed legs, although it looked like it was missing one. It had what looked like four eves on one side of its head, although to the spider’s credit, it looked like they’d blinded two of them.

There were dozens of spider carcasses surrounding the vorler, and I spent a few moments watching the fight, realizing with trepidation that the level 480 vorler was fighting toe to toe with the level 764 [Tyrant Tarantula] and all its friends, and not folding like wet cardboard.

Stats and levels improved what was there. A level 10 elephant could easily crush a level 200 mouse under its feet if the mouse wasn’t careful. It was why we still had to train and practice, in spite of having skills and stats. A fit, physical body could do so much more than a lazy, wasting body, even with the same stats.

The giant spider looked to be no slouch with its body, but the vorler had to be in a league of its own. As I watched, one of the spiders pried off one of the vorler’s armor plates, dying to a lash of its tail, only for a second layer of the large, almost scale-like chitin to appear. Another giant spider got onto the vorler’s back and bit down, only to scream and writhe as ichor exploded in its face, eventually curling up in the classic way spiders did when they died.

I never wanted to hear a spider scream again in my life.

The spiders tried to web it down, shooting sticky strands at it, but they just seemed to dissolve when they touched the vorler’s body.

The vorler spun, its tail lashing so quickly I could barely follow, its claws snapping and its mouth biting. Occasionally dark clouds would billow off of it, only for a wind to pick up and blow it away. An Ash skill against a Wind skill? Hard to tell.

Oookayyy. I never thought I’d wake up and say this, but I think I was on Team Spider here. That thing looked fifty different shades of nasty, and the final tiebreaker?

Better the evil I knew. I knew the spiders mostly left us alone. I had no idea what the vorler would do, and everything screamed danger.

Well, it was going to be a little hard to deal with the vorler without a bit of friendly fire, but given how indiscriminately the spiders were throwing themselves at the thing, given how they were getting in each other’s way, I hoped they’d forgive me a bit. Or not notice, but that was a stretch and a half.

Also, it’d be a lie to say I wasn’t going to enjoy getting some experience off the spiders dying.

Still flying high – I had no desire to get in close enough to the mess to use [Radiance Conjuration] – I dropped a number of [Kaleidoscope] butterflies, effectively carpet-bombing the area. I made sure most of the butterflies hit the vorler, briefly wondering if I was helping the creature by killing a number of spiders that were on it.

I spent a few seconds carpet-bombing the vorler, letting up after using about 40% of my mana, dismissing a dozen spider-kill notifications.

Its entire head was charred black, turned to charcoal, and it wasn’t moving nearly as much. The spiders continued to swarm it, then [Bullet Time] activated.

I reflexively threw up a shield under me as the world slowed down. I looked around me, seeing if a giant eagle or something was interested in an extra-large butterfly dinner or something, but there was nothing. I refocused below me, now spotting an entire barrage of vorler spines, made almost invisible by the fact that they were all pointing right at me.

I started to straighten myself, presenting a smaller target. Unfortunately for me, my bare feet were the first thing in the way, and not one of the solid metal pieces of my armor.

They crashed against my shield, the vast majority of them getting stopped cold and falling back down, before the last few broke my shield. I then unleashed a powerful wave of burning Radiance below me, burning away the remaining projectiles, turning them to ash before they could hit me.

Didn’t even hurt with [Center of the Universe] killing my pain.

I did send a few more butterflies the vorler’s way, getting the notification a moment later.

[*ding!* You have assisted in slaying a [Vorler (Decay – 480, Ash – 470)]]

The spiders were still shredding the body, and I decided to leave them to it.

I left and headed back to everyone, ready to give them the good news about the road.

 

Chapter 4

They Meet in a Tavern

I exploded out of the bushes onto the road.

“Oh praise the road!” I dramatically yelled as I fell to my knees, then raised my arms in the air as if in prayer. “Praise civilization! Oh blessed road, I am never, ever leaving you again.” I bent over to kiss the road.

Or rather, the ‘road’. We must be in some backwater, the road was terrible. A wide stretch of pounded dirt, with a thin ridge of rocks indicating the supposed borders, it was nothing like one of Remus’s glorious multi-layered roads that had transported the legions all over the country.

“Brrrpt?” Auri fluttered down to the road, and tried copying me, pecking the dirt road.

“BRRPT!” She thought it tasted awful, and flew up at me, pecking me.

“Ow! Knock it off! I’m fine!” I gently swatted at her.

“Are you sure about that? Seems like you got knocked on the head a bunch.” Amber limped out of the bushes, Artemis and Julius immediately bringing up the rearguard.

I gave her a dirty look, but decided not to get into an argument with her. She’d drag me down to her level then beat me with experience.

“Which way?” Julius asked.

“Is there a difference?” Amber asked. Artemis and I traded looks, we knew what Julius was thinking.

“They still teach it?” Artemis asked.

“Yeah.” I confirmed.

“It’s been a decade since I last had to check tracks.” Artemis shamelessly admitted, which I knew was just her getting out of work.

“Then you can stand guard.” Julius said, as he knelt down with me on the dirt road.

“The packed nature of the road is going to make this hard. Usually we tracked stuff through the forest.” I admitted to him as I glued my eyes to the road, looking for tracks.

“Never did a live one?” He asked.

“Just goblin tracks, and wagons pulled by trainees.” I admitted. “Then it was straight to being a Sentinel, and I wasn’t exactly the top pick to chase monsters.”

“Good thing I spent a bunch of time as the scout on the teams I was on.” Julius said, shuffling forward a bit. “See that there, there, and there? Tracks heading north. Only one set heading south.”

“Head north then?” I asked him.

“If everyone agrees.” He modestly deferred.

Artemis snorted.

“The tracker and one person with experience doing this thinks we should go north, we’re going north.”

Without further ado, we turned and started heading up the road north at full speed. Which was the speed of a limping Amber.

“If nobody objects, I’m going to drop my level.” I said, mentally dropping it to a respectable 240. Or, well, at least it had been respectable in Remus for a woman my age to be level 240. No telling if that was too high, too low, or what here.

“Brrrrpt?” Auri asked me.

“I’m ridiculously high level right now, and armed to the teeth.” I explained to my little companion. “I look like a potential threat, even if my [Healer] tag suggests I’m not. By dropping my level, I’m less likely to cause trouble just from somebody seeing me.”

Artemis snorted, and I grinned.

“You cause trouble just by existing.” I shot at her, having thought of the perfect retort ahead of time. “Even if you pretended to be level 30 you’d still cause disaster in your wake.”

Artemis mimed being hit by an arrow.

“Julius, she’s all grown up and mocking me.” Artemis faux- whined to Julius as I set myself to level 240.

Julius quickly walked ahead, bailing out of the argument be- fore it could begin.

“Hey, we’re kind of like adventurers!” Amber happily ex- claimed, and I paled.

“Noooo. No no NO!” I protested. “No way!” Who’d want to pretend to be a scumbag?

“It’s a sound idea. Propose an alternative.” Julius said. “Roaming around as soldiers from a different country is a terrible look, and you know it.”

Ok, I was impressed by Julius. He’d spent almost his entire life “knowing” there was only Remus, and not having any sort of basis for thinking about international politics and the look of soldiers from foreign countries taking a vacation in all their armor and weapons. Running around announcing that we were from Remus could have terrible repercussions. Maybe the place we were in hated Remus. Maybe they were at war with them. Worth seeing what the lay of the land was like before announcing ourselves.

Like, I still had [Sentinel’s Superiority]. Remus had lasted for thousands of years before I had come along, surely it could’ve lasted a few thousand more. It… could be a home… even if… everyone was dead…

I bit my lip as tears threatened to escape, choking back a sob. I grabbed all the messy emotions, shoved them back into the box they’d escaped from, locked it again, then took a couple of belts to wrap around the emotional chest, cinched them tight, and carried on.

“How about this.” I suggested. “I’m the powerful [Healer] that can fix any problem. You two are my escorts, Amber’s my ap- prentice, and Auri’s my cute pet.”

“Brrrrpt!” I’d been slightly worried that Auri might be offended, but she seemed to like the subterfuge idea.

“Problem.” Artemis pointed at Amber. “You said you couldn’t lie. Also, Amber’s limping, and who’s going to accept ‘oh the fairies did it’ when it looks like Elaine’s just a second rate healer who can’t even fix a limp. How’s this going to work?”

Amber shrugged.

“First off, I’m the apprentice, so I can just not talk. Second, if we reframe things a bit, it’s entirely true! Elaine’s the healer. I’m her apprentice. You two are her guards. Like. The best lie is the truth!”

“Artemis does have a point with the limp though.” She didn’t exactly have a point with the limp, but I wasn’t going to tell Amber that. Pop quiz time! “How does you having a limp work, with me also being a powerful healer?”

Artemis and Julius both shot me a puzzled look. They recognized the tone of voice I was using, and how I’d phrased it.

Amber frowned at that, thinking hard. She finally brightened up, and answered my question.

“Healers fix and restore back to the body’s baseline. If some- one is born with a deformity, healing magic doesn’t fix it. If I was born with a limp, then healing can’t fix the limp.”

I nodded.

“Very good. How would you fix an innate limp?” I asked her. After a few more minutes of thinking, Amber stomped her foot in frustration.

“I don’t know. Can you tell me?”

I gave her a roguish grin.

“I’ve got no idea either!”

Amber said something unkind about my parents.

“You can truthfully say it’s a problem healing can’t fix then.” Julius confirmed.

I was convinced. The arrangement Amber proposed was workable.

“Artemis, take my armor.” I suggested. “It’ll sell the illusion, and you probably need it more than I do.”

“Sure. Should I attune it?”

Bleh. I hated the idea, but…

“Yes, it might keep you alive in a fight.”

With Julius and Artemis helping, we quickly stripped my armor off, and stuck it on Artemis.

“Nobody has a [Perfect Fit] gem or anything, do they?” Artemis complained at the poorly-fitting armor. Downside of a custom fit that was perfect for me? Horribly uncomfortable on Artemis, who had quite a few inches on me. Not enough to make it not work, but enough that she was getting uncomfortably squished and poked.

Also, it was now Artemis’s turn to have the tight, stinky armor on. Phewf. It was rank, and the thought of being in it was making me mentally itch.

“I didn’t anticipate gaining twenty pounds or growing six inches on this trip, no.” I replied, stripping off my under tunic, annoyed by the fact that I was still bare-footed, having danced my sandals into smithereens, ending up stark naked in the road. My Deception Ring also came off, briefly revealing my true level. “Auri. Bath time?” I asked my little pyromaniac.

“BRRRRRRRRRRPTT!!!!” She happily squealed, and my world erupted in cleansing flames. The great thing about fire immunity? Easy ‘baths’, thanks to Auri. She could literally burn every- thing off me, down to the dried sweat, and I wouldn’t feel a thing.

Best of all, I felt clean at the end of it. The only downside was it didn’t help with my clothes, and putting on dirty clothes after getting clean was miserable.

“Thanks!” I grabbed my tunic and put it back on me, along with my ring.

So armed, we started back down the road at Amber’s maximum limp speed. Julius was on scout duty, and since we had an actual road and landmarks to work with, he could afford to range out somewhat. We ate some of what he foraged as we walked, but I was feeling the lack of fresh food. We’d gone through the supplies Artemis and I had brought a while back, and we’d been for-aging for some time.

I couldn’t imagine how terrible this would all be if I’d gone through alone. I probably would’ve curled up, cried, and let some monster eat me.

I had Auri.

I had Artemis.

I had Julius.

And I had Amber.

That was enough, and maybe if I was super lucky, one of the Immortals I knew would still be kicking around.

“Incoming, non-hostile.” Julius announced as he stepped back on the road. “Let’s move to the side.”

We moved to the side of the road, and in no time I heard the sound of thundering hoofbeats. In no time at all, three men and a woman riding on horseback turned the bend, heading towards

us.

They were human. Blessedly, amazingly human. I hadn’t even noticed my concern that there might be no more humans in the world – ok, to be fair, I hadn’t seen a global notification saying humans were no more, but we existed so that wasn’t necessarily a given – but seeing them alleviated that worry before it could even fully form.

The first thing to do was check their levels.

[Warrior – 301]

[Mage – 345]

[Warrior – 128]

[Mage – 128]

Potentially dangerous, but I had confidence if push came to shove. Interesting that two of them were at their 128 classup. I had to imagine they were stalling for various reasons, most obviously to get more accomplishments for a stronger class.

I drank in their appearance. They were clearly two pairs, but how they were paired was hard to tell. The front two, the woman and one of the men, looked like dressed down knights from out of a story. They had stout steel breastplates on, marked with a vivid symbol of a roaring red lion’s face, but their arms were only protected by chain mail, and their helmets were attached to their saddle, among the rest of their bags, and not on their head. Swords were sheathed, kite shields by their legs guarded their left side, and the horses themselves had no armor on. A saddle wasn’t armor.

The two men in the rear looked distinctly younger, and were wearing simple gambesons with a cap and everything. They were sweating hard, miserable in the full heat of summer.

If I had to bet, a pair of knights – probably something like “The Order of the Roaring Red Lion” or some nonsense like that, given the heraldry on the knight’s breastplate and shields – and their squires. Or whatever equivalent this place had.

They slowed as they approached us and Julius hailed them.

“Hello! We’re travelers that got completely lost. Could you give us a hand?” He said, and I decided to leave the politicking and discussions entirely to him. I still remembered Pastos, and from the look Artemis shot me, she also remembered it.

The two knights argued furiously with each other in a language I didn’t recognize, nor did I even have half a hope of understanding what they were saying. It had a strange lilting cadence to it. It wasn’t like it was Creation with a slant or anything, no. It was something completely new.

Completely new until I heard my name! “Something, something something Elaine something Elaine.” Once in a while one of them jabbed a finger at me.

How did they know my name!? Did they have a skill that let them see it? I strained my ears, listening for any mention of Julius, Artemis, or Amber, but nothing. I stared a hole into the back of Julius’s head, and he turned and gave me a tiny nod of acknowledgement before twisting back to face the knights.

The man barked a few words we didn’t understand at Julius, who shrugged slowly, showing his open hands.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand you.” He said back.

The two knights argued some more while the squires stared at us. Eventually the knights came to some agreement, snapped their reins, and were off in a cloud of dust and thundering hoofbeats.

“Well.” Artemis discreetly dropped a few rocks she’d been holding. “That was different.”

Different indeed.

We started walking again, following the direction the knights had gone. The topic of conversation? The incredibly weird armor and set up the knights had.

At least, to Artemis, Julius, and the rest. When I mentioned they looked like they were out of one of my stories, things got interesting.

The road cut through the forest, and we didn’t see anyone else for two days. The next people we saw were some lightly armed guards, frontrunners for a caravan being pulled by parasaurolophus, two of the duck-billed dinosaurs per wagon.

We waved at them, and the guards tensed at Julius and Artemis, before relaxing slightly at seeing me and Amber. I guess anyone traveling with a healer and a teenager wasn’t exactly the spitting image of a fierce bandit. Regardless of the rest of them being filthy. Fire immunity for the win!

It did mean that I had to smell them though, and whooooooof. We were rank.

“Hello!” Julius called, friendly and welcoming from a distance. What words couldn’t say, body language could do.

Interestingly, a bunch of the guards were all exactly at 256, and none of them were higher than that. One or two might be a coincidence, but six of the ten? Something was up with that. Combined with the [Squires] from earlier, and I was sensing a larger cultural shift. Or maybe people had just plain figured out that waiting for accomplishments was better. We hadn’t been jumped by nearly as many monsters as Remus seemed to have, and we were certainly outside of the Dead Zone. Maybe waiting for a class up was now the thing to do?

The caravan started to slow down at us, and one of the [Drivers] yelled something at us, rapid-fire in that same lilting language as the knights from before. Artemis plunged her hands into my backpack, grabbing a few rabbits that Julius had recently caught, and I’d flash-cooked to keep them nice for longer.

The ones Auri had “cooked” had been promptly partially eaten, and the charred remains discarded. She was trying, and we did have a bit of spare to let her practice.

Artemis thrust the cooked rabbits in the direction of the caravan, making a somewhat well-recognized symbol. ‘Hey, we’ve got food, wanna share?’

I looked around, and Amber looked all too eager.

“I seem to remember you had quite a few lessons for me on symbols to communicate my wares.” I quietly said to her. She grinned back at me, made slightly disturbing by the swirling purple mist that had replaced her eye.

“Julius, have you seen their levels?” I whispered to him. He nodded without taking his eyes off the guards.

“I have. It’s weird.”

I looked at Artemis, who shrugged.

“Easier to handle if they decide to cause a problem.”

I rolled my eyes at her brilliant analysis. The wagons circled up, food was broken out, and we all sat down together.

I hated it, but I knew my role in this. Sit still, be quiet, and let everyone else do the talking. Oh, I’d heal anyone who was hurt, and I’d listen to the more experienced social people, but I was playing the part of the slightly shy healer who needed body- guards to walk around.

Ok, given the spiders in the forest, the bodyguards seemed entirely reasonable, but I didn’t speak the language. I was a walking social disaster. Letting Julius – and possibly Amber – run the mime show, while stopping Auri from immolating anything important, or Artemis from being too twitchy was more important.

The conversation swirled around me, and the [Merchants], [Guards], [Drivers], and the rest of the people in the caravan were, from my point of view, weird. Amber was in a gap between two of the wagons, discussing in low, heated words with one of the [Merchants], which was blowing my mind. Somehow, the two of them were talking. That was the more normal part.

The weirder part was when someone came up to me, babbled something, said my name three times in all that, then looked at me expectantly. I felt Artemis looming up behind me – the image of the protective bodyguard entirely ruined as she used my head as a plate for her lunch – but the guy seemed harmless enough.

“Brrpt? Brrrrpt?” Auri wanted to act as a translator, but it wasn’t quite working. Poor bird. I hoped more people could understand her in the future.

After some miming and gesturing, I figured it out when he accidentally brushed me, and he got excited. He grabbed my hand -I let him, I was pretending to be a low level healer, not a Sentinel with five digits of speed – and furiously shook it, the words in- comprehensible except for “Elaine”, but the tone conveying thanks.

I figured it out as he left.

“He must’ve been after healing, and my [Persistent Casting] will heal anyone that touches me right now.” I softly muttered to Artemis.

“MmmMM.” She agreed around a mouthful of food.

Instead of giving her the stink eye, I tilted my head forward, letting Artemis’s lunch slide into my hands.

“Yoink!”

“Hey!” She protested as I took a huge bite of what was formerly her lunch.

“Brrrpt!” Auri thought this was all great fun.

I just shot Artemis a smug look.

A few more people came up to me, calling my name in the middle of their language, and I quickly worked out that they all wanted healing. Weird that they all knew my name. Maybe the first dude had a skill that could see my name, and shared it with everyone? That would make sense, my name usually came up near the start of whatever they were saying, usually followed by a bunch of pointing at some part of their body or another.

A broken wrist was obvious, stomach pains were not. Sadly, I got no feedback as to what I’d actually fixed. Normally, I’d be hauling Amber over here to practice her burgeoning medical talents, but she was busy. I trusted that what she was doing was more important, and there was always tomorrow to teach her more.

The people were an interestingly even mix of men and women, which was a bit unusual, but I wasn’t going to complain.

Before long, one of the guards started calmly shouting – the type of yelling that had the tone of “get moving you lazy shits” and less “AHHH MONSTERS TRYING TO EAT US ALIVE” – and the caravan packed back up with remarkable efficiency. Soon they were on their way, the dinosaur-pulled heavily-loaded wagons still faster than Amber’s top limping speed.

I was fine seeing them go, wanting to hear what everyone else had to say about the encounter.

“You were able to talk with the [Merchant]?” I asked Amber, the question burning to get out. She was holding a roll of red fabric.

“Kind of?” She hedged.

“Explain.” Artemis demanded.

“Well, it’s a weird skill.” She said. “It’s a merchant skill. For me, it’s [Let’s Make a Deal]. It helps when negotiating with other merchants that have a similar skill. It smoothes understanding between us. Usually it helps us all get on the same page for a big deal, so there isn’t some big fundamental misunderstanding be- tween us, but here it let us talk in a limited way.” She explained. “A lack of anything to actually trade hurt me badly though, since it’s only good when negotiating and trading. No trade? No chit chat.”

I pointedly looked at the fabric she was holding, something we hadn’t had before.

“Any useful information?” Julius asked.

“Yeah. We’re in a country called Lyon, and this road goes to a town called Rolland. I think. Also know way too much about the price of wheat, onions, lettuce, and melons.” She rolled her eyes. “It wasn’t even the bulk of what they were carrying, but the other gal must’ve sensed I was poor or something. Didn’t bother with the fancy stuff, just talked about the food she could sell us. Oh! I did negotiate this fancy cloak for Elaine, thanks to her healing everyone. The details weren’t clear, but…” She shrugged, and handed it over to me.

I opened it up, seeing a nice, simple red cape. With pockets! “Good. Elaine, did you pick anything out?”

“They really like my name. Might be a cultural thing? Makes me wonder if checking on someone’s name is now a common skill.”

Artemis hummed.

“It’d be unusual, but then again, what do I know? Clearly there are skills to read other people’s levels, and names are displayed in the status by default. However, I haven’t heard anyone say my name.” She reasoned out loud.

“BRRrrrpt! BRRPT!” Auri flew in dizzying circles in front of me, drawing attention to herself.

“Yes?”

“Brrrpt brrrrrrrrrrrpt brrrpt.” She explained.

“Auri’s going to try and get the skill.” I translated as my little friend landed on my shoulder and scrunched her face up in concentration.

We waited a moment, and she relaxed.

“Brrrpt…” She sadly admitted.

I didn’t need to translate the drooping shoulders and dipped beak.

“My haul was less good.” Julius admitted. “Potentially fruitful for the future. Got a few words sorted out. Ok, now listen…” He started to explain the words as we continued down the road.

We were back in something resembling civilization. Forest gave way to fields of wheat, little villages popped up here and there, and smaller paths merged in with the road we were on. We stopped and chatted with people when we could, slowly getting our bearings.

Artemis and Julius kept getting strange looks, and I was thinking my decision to hide my level had been the right one.

We were walking down the road late in the afternoon when a girl of maybe fifteen half-ambushed me.

“Elaine!” She said, tugging on my arm. She rapid-fire shot out a bunch more words at me, continuing to tug at my arm. “Elaine!” I looked at the rest and shrugged.

“Someone might need a healer.” I said, letting the girl pull me along, Amber trailing in my wake. We didn’t go far, the girl dragging me to a tall, warm, inviting tavern, babbling all the way. We went inside, and I got a brief appreciation of the common room – clean, with few frills – before getting dragged up the stairs to a room.

“I figure I’ll give you first crack at the problem, then I’ll go behind you to make sure it’s all done properly.” I told Amber.

“Standard apprentice pattern.” She agreed with me, hobbling along.

There was a second worker diligently mopping on the second floor, and as the [Barmaid] hustled us past him, I noticed he was mopping up bloody footsteps.

I let the [Barmaid] pull me along faster, leaving the limping Amber behind.

She led me to a room, and pointed at the door, babbling something, along with including my name. The trail of bloody footsteps led to the door as well, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out the issue.

I opened the door, getting hit with a wave of coppery, bloody stench. The patient was immediately obvious – another [Knight] of some sort laying on top of a bed, still in their blood-coated armor. The sheets were still made, but they’d been soaked fresh blood red by their bleeding.

I didn’t have the time to figure out the extent of their injuries under all their armor, but it had to be horrific. No wonder I’d gotten pulled here!

I didn’t wait for Amber, I was too concerned that the knight would drop dead even with my [Cosmic Presence] theoretically providing stabilization. I stepped over, hearing a warning growl from one corner of the room. I glanced over as I kept walking over at full speed, hesitated at the distinctly draconic-looking creature, and threw out a [Long-Range Identify] on the two of them as Auri flew over to the creature.

[Frost Wyvern – 32].

[Warrior – 520].

WHAT. A random knight I’d encountered in a tavern, by themselves, was level 520!? Bloody unfair, that’s what it was.

“BRrrrrrrrrrpt!” Auri scolded the wyvern, making sure I was safe.

Wyvern, not a dragon, and I was helping. I was sworn to, although I kept a leery eye on him. I touched the [Knight], noticing a respectable amount of mana had been used to heal them. Their legs sort of popped up, and a pair of fresh, pale legs appeared under what I now recognized as crude prosthetics. Nice that they moved, and my healing didn’t obliterate them. The same thing happened with her hand, and I shuddered to imagine the sheer depth of injuries she must’ve had. The knight went from having ragged, wheezing breaths to slow, calm breathing, and I saw them settle into a deeper, more peaceful sleep.

I felt the warm glow of accomplishment go through me. This. This right here. This is what I was about. I’d found someone dying, hovering on the chasm with Black Crow circling, and I grabbed them and pulled them back. This was my calling, and I felt the knowledge settle back down into me, reaffirming that I had a purpose to life. That I couldn’t just stop.

There were more people out there that needed help, and I would be there to provide it.

They were still on the blood-soaked bed, but I wasn’t about to try changing it. I knew I would lash out hard when being woken up by strangers, and an injured, isolated, armed and dangerous powerful [Warrior]?

Yeah, I was sworn to heal. I didn’t have [Oath of Comfy Bedtime].

I left the room, finding Amber in deep discussion at the end of the hallway. She waved me over.

“Hey! Didn’t quite get everything, but I think they’re grateful you saved her life, and want to give us a free night sleeping here, along with breakfast, dinner, and a bath. Please?” Amber begged me, and I remembered that she wasn’t exactly cut out for the life on the road. Quite literally.

“We’ll have to talk with everyone else, but I don’t see a reason not to.” I answered.

“Brrrpt!” Auri also wanted to try out the tavern, and with the three of us, we already had a majority vote.

Julius and Artemis had needed no convincing, and we spent the night there.

The home cooked food was a priceless treasure after… what we’d been eating.

I probably spent way too much time preening myself after dinner. Auri was utterly scandalized that I chose to bathe of all things, but heated the bath up for me anyways. With the return of civilization, I could afford the time to make myself feel nice. Bless this place.

Sleeping though?

That wasn’t so easy. I got a room to myself – which was to say, with Auri – and when the doors were closed, and I was in bed, everything came back to me.

I let the chest of emotions in the corner loosen a bit, dealing with and processing some of the emotions. A fraction of the loss I’d experienced.

My family was dead and gone. I’d never hear dad’s laugh again. Never see mom with her spoon. Never see Themis grow up. Every last friend I had. I’d never get my pouch back from Acquisition again. Never hear Bulwark mutter about structural supports. Never see Brawling light up as another one of us came back from a mission, safe and alive. Never fish with Ocean again. Never…

Every last acquaintance.

Every street I knew, house I’d lived in, road I’d traveled was now dust.

I’d lost practically everything.

I shoved my head into my pillow, and let fat, hot tears flow, convulsing as I let full-body sobs loose.

“Brrrrpt…” Auri landed on my head, never mind the rocky support, and was crying as well, little crystal beads rolling down out of her eyes. She’d lost a lot of people as well.

We still had each other, but in this moment, it was small comfort.

I cried myself to sleep.

The five of us were having breakfast the next morning, slowly eating and savoring the food together. Artemis’s head suddenly whipped towards the stairs, and I snapped my head over to see what had startled her so.

There was a giant of a woman standing on the last step of the stairs, the little ice wyvern next to her. How long she’d been there, I couldn’t tell, but at our look, she walked over.

I took a moment to take in how she looked. She had a strange familiarity, like she was the cousin of somebody I knew. Her blonde hair was like straw, a dozen different ragged lengths. A rough-hewn face full of sharp angles with a strong chin framed piercing green eyes like emeralds over a shimmering backdrop of stars, marking her primary element as Celestial. She wouldn’t be remarked as some great beauty, but gods, her arms. It was like a goddess had envisioned the ideal form of a powerful warrior, then carved the woman in front of me out of flesh to look like one. Like a female Adonis. I swear they were thicker than my thighs, and she moved with the liquid grace of a trained, honed warrior. I could go mad trying to articulate all the parts about her; it would take a poet a lifetime to properly describe her. Somehow, in spite of the various mismatched parts, the unconventional takes, she was one of the most attractive women I’d ever seen.

I compartmentalized the feeling, putting it out of my mind so it wouldn’t distract me or influence me. I’d gotten better at that ever since Serondes.

“Brrrpt!” Auri cheerfully greeted and welcomed her.

She sat down at the table with us.

“Hello. My name’s Iona. Thank you for saving my life.” She told me, and I went pale and unsteady at the words, my brain short-circuiting, needing to grip the chair to keep myself stable and upright.

That.

Those words.

Those words were in English.

 

Chapter 5

Major Interlude – Iona

They Meet in a Tavern I

Iona was sick. She didn’t have the fancy words the healers all had to describe the various types of sickness. She had a more practical take on it. Burning-vomiting-oozing pus sick. Useless for any sort of medical diagnosis, great for describing what was happening.

Iona had been utterly shredded by the adult frost wyvern, barely managing to cling onto life with her absurd vitality. It kept her alive, but infection had set in. Acid had eaten away at her innards, melting the edges of some of her organs, and she only had one of her limbs left, using Mallium as crude prosthetics to keep moving.

Staying in the frozen wastes of Modu with Fenrir was a slow death sentence. The only question was if she would feel cold or hot as the end came, and if Fenrir would wait until she was dead to start taking a nibble. Their bond, their relationship, was still new and Fenrir was willing to follow Iona while she remained a source of food.

“Lunaris. Selene. I need help.” Iona begged her patrons.

A distant laugh, and an arrow appeared in Iona’s vision, pointing in a direction. The goddesses had their own sense of hu- mor, providing aid in unexpected ways.

Iona had hoped that becoming their [Paladin] would mean slightly better miracles, but no.

Iona’s injuries were devastating. Her high vitality helped her heal faster, but there was no healing an amputated arm. Bodies didn’t naturally grow back areas scoured with acid, and Iona’s constant movement kept breaking open injuries that were trying to scab over. Her crude Mallium prosthetics kept digging into the stumps of her legs, forcing them open, having blood trickle down her metal leg when it didn’t freeze over before hitting the ground. That didn’t even touch on how many broken bones, sprained joints, internal tears, and battered, half-ruptured organs she had. The fact that Iona could even stand, let alone walk, was both a miracle, and a testament to her determination and grit.

She followed the direction the goddesses had provided, fever clouding her mind, narrowing her focus to a few small points. Fenrir came along, occasionally lapping Iona’s blood from her crimson footprints, trying to fight by her side as they encountered various creatures that called Modu their home. The ones they didn’t run from got turned into food that Iona gladly shared with Fenrir, making sure the baby always had his fill before she took a bite.

Iona never stopped moving, not even when a blizzard howled through. She did have to pick up poor Fenrir and bring him along with her, or else the baby would get lost. She also shielded him from the storm with her body, which was unnecessary – but Fenrir remembered. He saw what she was doing. The clouded vision didn’t matter, the goddess’s divine arrow pointed the path through the blinding, driving snow.

At last, nearly delirious with fever, Iona left Modu behind, entering the Tuvan tribes. Land of the yetis and snow women.

The first tribe of yetis Iona encountered wanted nothing to do with her, keeping a wide berth around the crazed, blood- coated warrior with a wyvern trailing along behind her. The risk of her being some fresh new horror from Modu was too high, and besides. The little apex predator seemed to have dibs on her otherwise.

Iona didn’t press it, simply picking up Fenrir and stagger-running north with all her might on her crude prosthesis. Under ideal conditions – no armor, perfectly healthy, a ton of food, and her [Vow] kicking in the entire time – Iona could cover over 2,000 miles in a day. Of course, such a situation to allow her [Vow] to be permanently active was unlikely to persist as she covered the distance, and Iona wasn’t close to ideal conditions. The best she could do, hobbling along on her prosthetics, carrying Fenrir, was only a few hundred miles.

The second tribe was more willing to hear her out. Iona’s gift of languages and tongue was partially sabotaged by her inability to clearly think and articulate what she needed, but the combination of speaking their own language, and clearly heavily injured had the yetis giving her a hand. However, their [Shaman] couldn’t do much for her. His class only had minor healing, and it was entirely focused on healing members of his own tribe. The paste they gave Iona helped stem the bleeding, and Iona was back on her way north.

The bleeding was stopped until she ripped half of it out the next time a monster ambushed the two of them. The divine arrow that had been guiding Iona so far faded the next day, and she found herself looking at one of the sects of The Great Tang.

Getting closer to home.

Iona couldn’t remember her sects all that well. Some were friendly to the Valkyries, others were hostile, a natural result of Castle Valkyrie being near the border of The Great Tang. It frustrated Iona, how they should all be working together, and instead constantly found cause for bitter, petty conflicts, but those were thoughts for another day.

End of the day, there was an even chance that any sect she found would happily “disappear” her and loot her body, as they would help her. Iona was in no condition to fight people, her fever growing stronger, clouding her mind and thoughts.

She bonded with Fenrir after a particularly difficult fight. Iona would’ve struggled to figure out the right skill to remove if she hadn’t spent more than half her life targeting a skill slot in the first place.

[Dinosaur Husbandry] made way for [Companion Bond Between Iona and Fenrir]. The skill gave her a sense of the wind and the weather. Linked her awareness to Fenrir when she rode him – an event that was going to be far, far in the future, given his small size and slow growth speed. It gave her a supernaturally powerful bite, able to rip and tear with her teeth like she had a Dark skill dedicated to it. Lastly, it made her more savage, and even in the head-in-clouds fever state Iona was in, she recognized the danger of such a line, even though it wasn’t fully explained.

Her blessing let her peek at Fenrir, seeing that he’d eventually be able to speak somewhat normally. That he was smarter – a low bar for the wyvern to clear, to be sure, but a welcome one- and that he’d be unnaturally smooth for Iona to ride. Lastly, in a line that had Iona pucker her lips, he was going to be more of a workaholic.

“I am not a workaholic!” Iona screamed at the clouds, getting some strange looks from the other travelers who were already not getting close to her on the road. Something about being coated in metal and blood tended to turn off other people.

The goddesses just laughed in her ears.

However, she did keep her wits somewhat about her. The Great Tang represented the return of roads and travelers, and she kept glancing at various people she crossed – in spite of them keeping far away from the blood-coated fevered [Warrior] – seeing if any of them was a healer. Even the smallest and most meager of healers could give her a hand. She just needed to find one that had ventured out and was on the road, as opposed to trying to search through a town for one, who might not even heal Iona with her utter lack of money.

The Valkyrie name wasn’t as potent as it used to be, and The Great Tang. Rivalries. Sects disappearing her.

Finally she saw one on the road, and felt her blood run hot, coursing through her.

Want. The thought went, and Iona practically pounced on the poor man.

“HEAL.” She snarled at him, grabbing his shirt.

She didn’t even see the punch that laid her out, the man’s bodyguard stepping in, but she did hear the poor healer running screaming, and felt ashamed of herself.

She was better than that.

She’d let the bond get in the way.

Concussed and feverish, Iona could only keep three thoughts in her head.

Survive.

Protect Fenrir.

And last, her last mission, a place where she knew [Oathbound Healers] congregated, a place where she could be fixed up.

Get to Lyon.

Iona blitzed down the roads, stopped when she or Fenrir needed to. One of the stops was much like any other, an inn near a small village that recognized Iona as a Valkyrie, and had a strong impression of them. One of them had saved the inn owner’s life decades ago, and his doors were always open to one of their Order, marked by their winged helmets.

Iona collapsed into one of their beds after nearly clearing out the pantry with Fenrir’s help.

She woke up the next morning feeling amazing. Her arm was back! Her legs were healed! Sure, her bed was an unholy mess of blood, but that was a usual morning sight for Iona.

“Food?” Fenrir growled at her, Iona only understanding him because of her blessing. His language hadn’t progressed that far yet.

“Soon.” She found herself growling back. It was still weird thinking a word in one language, and her throat making an entirely different sound than the one she expected.

She stretched, marveling at her hand, at her ability to jump and move without pain. Her head was like clear ice, and there was a distinct lack of strange pulls and funny smells coming from her body.

Iona took a moment to pray.

Selene. Lunaris. I got healed! Don’t know if you had a hand in it, but I’m all better. Hope they’re still around so I can say hi and thanks!

Iona’s stomach rumbled, the sort of ravenous, all-encompassing hunger that came from a fever or illness breaking.

She made herself a bit more presentable, manipulating her Mallium to slide the blood off, then had it flow behind her back, effectively packing it away.

The Valkyrie frowned as dozens of frost wyvern scales fell out of the armor, remembering that she’d woven them into her armor to better bulk up and protect herself. With some [Telekinesis], she picked up all the pieces, delighting in how easy it was. No need to manually pick them all up from the floor one at a time!

Mages had it so nice sometimes, and now Iona could dabble in their cool stuff!

Iona walked down the hall, and had to resist snatching away a loaf of bread off of one of the [Barmaid’s] trays. It wasn’t hers, but she felt the impulse to just snatch what she wanted.

It was wrong. It would be dishonorable.

She made her way down the stairs, and took a quick look around the tavern, seeing if she could spot who it was who’d helped her out.

There was a cultivator from the Wandering Wind sect. A trader and his guards, along with his daughter. A few laborers from the village, grabbing a quick drink in the morning before heading off to a day’s work. A party of adventurers, likely employed by the local lord to carefully dismantle an old ruin or wizard’s lair and see what there was to find. A pair from the Hunter’s Guild.

Lastly, five people sitting at a table together. A couple, in their late thirties and early forties, subtly showing each other affection in their own private language of love. Iona glanced through their status, half-raising an eyebrow at the mage’s level.

Both had multiple classes and skills related to being Rangers, an organization Iona wasn’t familiar with. However, it was clear that they weren’t some sort of rogue bandits, even if they were far away from home. Iona made a mental note to check with them to see if they knew what the local [Lords] and [Knights] wanted for documentation, otherwise they’d suffer no end of hassle.

The girl was where it started to get weird. Who had a blank for a name slot?! That just didn’t happen. Well, possibly she had entirely disavowed her name, like some members of the Eventide Establishment or one of the gangs were rumored to do. Even then, the one time Iona had encountered one, their name had been “No one”, not a blank. People found it difficult to dissociate themselves from any identity.

However, a mercantile class combined with a healer class, and a number of truly benign skills, had Iona thinking that she was simply some oddity, and not a ninja.

And that was before her third class was flat-out missing. Iona played with her interface a bit, checking a few more people before confirming that, yes, she didn’t have a third class registered. There were some other oddities going on with her status, words with accents, some skills meandering around instead of being in straight, readable lines.

Iona had a brief moment of doubt. She didn’t quite trust what she was seeing, not even the Race: Human line.

She mentally slapped herself. Her ability to see statuses was a divine blessing from Lunaris and Selene themselves. There was no way it could be displaying something wrong.

Iona disabled [Chilled Mind] and pinched herself on the next status she read, checking that she was actually awake and aware, and hadn’t gone deeper into her fever. A real concern with what was displayed in front of her.

It would be like the goddesses to pull a massive prank on Iona as she died…

Sitting on a random table in a small tavern in a mortal country, staggering around with a belly overfilled with juice, was a bright, colorful phoenix.

A phoenix.

A phoenix. A creature that was supposedly just a legend, over-indulging on juice.

Plus, the legends always had phoenixes as gigantic birds of flame, not a tiny hummingbird. Then again, her age was 1. Brand new, just hatched, and already capped at 128 and 32. Clearly waiting on additional class ups, and already had over 2000 stat points in each of the magic stats.

Her skills were as stupid as her stats, and Iona felt a distinct sense of jealousy as she read over them. She’d had to work her ass off for a decade to get skills that were a fraction as potent as what the little phoenix had gotten, and she seriously doubted the bird had gone through trials of – well, not fire – to get those skills.

Life…

Well, life was sometimes just unfair. Iona reminded herself of all the advantages she’d gotten, all the ways life had been bent unfairly for her, and was about to move on when one last line caught her eye.

[Companion Bond Between Auri and Healer].

She was companion bonded to… healer? What? The abstract idea of what [Analyze] showed other people? Someone with the healer class?

Or had some pair of lunatic parents literally named their kid “Healer”?

She moved onto the last person in the party, and goddesses she was pretty. Delicate features led to a bright smile and sparkling eyes, her skin was clear and unblemished, she was lovely, striking, beautiful, stunning.

Pretty.

Iona had seen plenty of attractive men and women in her time. Shared a bed with a bunch of them. This lady wasn’t the most attractive woman Iona had ever seen, but she was pressing her buttons just right.

Iona felt the urge to throw her over one shoulder, climb back up the stairs, and throw her back into her bed.

She bit the urge back, remembering how the companion bond was screwing with her mind and desires, and how she’d scared off the healer she’d met on the road.

The urge was further quelled as she noticed the feathers braided into her hair.

Angel feathers. Iona felt herself go cold at the blasphemer. Someone who’d use the feathers of the god’s sacred servants as mere ornamentation, likely from a fallen angel.

She paused a moment, waiting for one of her patrons to whisper in her ear. To give her guidance on what to do. Iona was their [Paladin] after all. Solving these sorts of issues was part of what she was now.

Ancient. Selene whispered to her. Angels fallen so long ago as to be gone from history.

Angels… sent to help her? Her friends? It’s unclear. Lunaris breathed into Iona’s other ear.

Not something to handle right now, but Iona still had an initial dislike of the woman because of the feathers.

She peeked at her status, feeling her mood lift at the great joke that was her name. She quietly chuckled to herself as she read the first line.

Name: Healer

The poor girl. Her parents had indeed named her healer, and nothing else. That was a rough way to start life. Usually when professions were in a name, they were appended after the name. So it was easy to tell in a village that you were talking about John the Smith, and not John the Tailor. Nobody would just name their kid Smith though – they needed a name outside the identity.

As Iona started looking over the rest of her classes and skills, she felt like the phoenix wasn’t the craziest thing at the table.

At 22 – the same age as Iona – she also had her third class unlocked, but not yet taken. Still, it was the mark of an utterly ab- surd life that had gotten her so far already. The first class mentioned Sentinel, and it had Iona wondering about the Exterreri Empire vampire Sentinels. Maybe she had been selected – probably by politics or her parents, given her age – to be one of the next generation of Sentinels, and power leveled hard. It made sense with how vampires worked. Once they were turned, their leveling rate slowed to a crawl. It was much easier to get a high level as a human, or something else, then be turned into a vampire.

That would explain her [The Dawn Sentinel] class name. Except…

Except glancing quickly at her capped skills, [The Dawn Sentinel] was a healer class.

The healer had gone for a healer class. It was as absurd as someone getting called “mage” and deciding to become a mage, or someone named “potter” at birth and picking up a pottery class. She never had a chance.

But more distractingly, the healer class was way over 256. Just wandering around mortal lands.

What was she doing?! What were the people with her playing at!?

Why wasn’t anyone else in the tavern freaking out!? Had she bribed them all or something!? Iona carefully read the room.

No, there were no covetous or fearful looks shot the way of the strange healer called Healer. She wasn’t the focus of the room, just a few lecherous looks shot her way. Iona felt an irrational surge of protectiveness and envy, but stamped it down.

Dislike. She reminded herself. An over-leveled healer wearing angel feathers?

There had to be some high level deception measures going on. Likely an artifact some [Enchanter] had made. It was the only thing that made sense, and it dropped her respect for the group by a few notches.

Truth was important. Paramount. It was woven into her very [Vow]. Skulking about, hiding who and what they were meant they were likely up to no good.

Iona deliberately ignored the uncomfortable truth that maybe they just didn’t want to get murdered in their sleep.

She continued looking through the first class’s skills.

[Affinity] wasn’t capped, suggesting a massive number of levels recently without extensive skill use behind it, lending evidence to Iona’s power level theory. That, or she somehow did major Dawn Sentinel things without tons of skill use.

[Cosmic Presence] suggested lots of time with a large number of wounded people around her. Iona was practically certain that she’d been power leveled at this point, people being deliberately injured to help increase her level. Healers could get dramatic amounts of experience that way, although Iona admitted that it was possible that Healer followed Exterreri Empire armies around, and got a number of levels that way.

 

[The Stars Never Fade].

 

Iona read the skill, on one hand not believing what it said, on the other knowing that it was exactly what it said. Her hand reflexively twitched towards her weapon, a lifetime of training ingrained in her to remove the threat. Kill one person, so tens if not hundreds of thousands would live.

She didn’t entirely lose her head, remembering that she was in a safe, civilized location, and murdering people outright was terrible form, especially after they just saved her life.

After all. Iona didn’t see any other healers here. As much as she didn’t like to admit it, healer Healer had saved her and Fenrir.

The twitch didn’t go unnoticed though, and the older woman sitting at the table snapped her head towards Iona; her partner and the healer following suit just a moment later as the air crackled with the smell that air had right before a lightning strike.

That was a twitchy mage.

Iona threw out her “healer got power leveled” idea entirely. The reflexes she’d just displayed were born of great experience in fights and battles, not honed on a drill ground. In retrospect, she hadn’t properly thought about the stats displayed for the levels she was seeing. That math had always made her head hurt.

It was only polite to go over and say hi, and Iona was nothing if not [Adaptable] with a hefty dose of [Magnetic Charm]. Immortal healer hanging out with a phoenix? Sure, let’s roll with it, and be polite. Be honorable. There were more ways of handling an immortality-granting healer than killing her. She started walking over, drinking in the sight of the healer with her eyes. By Selene, she was just so damn unfairly pretty. And, for some rea- son, vaguely familiar.

“Hi hi HI! Come sit!” The little phoenix brrrpted at her, making her feel welcome.

“Hello. My name’s Iona. Thank you for saving my life.” She said, her tongue twisting in strange ways to speak Healer’s – Elaine’s – native language. It was her name, she should think of it in the word it was, not the meaning it had.

 

Chapter 6

Major Interlude – Iona

 

They Meet in a Tavern II

Usually, speaking in a person’s native tongue was great for settling people down. A fantastic conversation piece, as Iona always knew what language a person was most comfortable in, never needing to awkwardly speak in one of the keystone languages.

It wasn’t the case here. Far from being settled, Elaine went pale, needing to clutch at her chair. Iona reflexively shot a hand out to help stabilize her, but caught herself halfway through. Not only had Elaine not fallen over, but the Ranger couple had twitched in a dangerous way.

Iona thought it was entirely reasonable when a high level warrior suddenly went for the person they were protecting, but no. They weren’t the protectors at all, were they? They had to know her level. They were probably smoothers of some sort.

“You ok?” Iona asked, and Elaine gave a tiny nod. “Is there a language you’re more comfortable in?”

“What’s she saying?” The girl with no name asked Elaine.

“She was thanking me for saving her life.” She absently replied in a different language. How Iona knew that, she wasn’t quite sure – just one of the minor benefits of her blessing that made it all work. “In English.”

“Is that a problem?” Iona asked Elaine, sticking to the second language the pretty healer had shown proficiency in.

“It’s – agh, how do I say this? How do you know it? Are you from…” Elaine shook her head to clear it, her hair bouncing around in a way that pressed all of Iona’s buttons just right. It was unfair. Iona wanted to dislike her.

“I’ve got a divine blessing to understand languages.” Iona thought for a moment how much to reveal. [Magnetic Charm] helped give her a small nudge that being open and truthful would help here. She needed to have a talk with Elaine about her skills and classes, and ask her what the hell she was doing.

There were many, many things she wanted to do with Elaine. Getting into a fight – a real fight – was not on that list, but if push came to shove, if handling Elaine stopped another war, saved tens if not hundreds of thousands of people dying?

Iona wasn’t great at math, but she could run those numbers.

“I’ve also got a blessing that lets me read the status sheets of other people.” She admitted, and oddly it was the girl with no name’s turn to go pale. Iona gave her a look.

“You haven’t told them?” She asked, both distracting from her prior attempt at reaching for Elaine, demonstrating in a mostly harmless way that she was indeed telling the whole truth, and showing that she was mostly nice and helpful.

The girl with no name would probably be annoyed with her, but the truth was the best.

“Hang on.” The man – Julius – said. “We’ve had a terrible time with the language here. I think instead of looking through whatever Amber has traded to the fae, we have so many questions we need answered, and frankly, we need help. Could you give us a hand?”

The part about trading System parts to the fae was incredibly distracting for Iona, but she knew how to focus and prioritize, mentally noting to ask about it later. The Valkyrie gave Julius a beaming smile.

Of course she’d be happy to help. Anything to quietly get them merrily on their way, and out of Rolland. Preferably all the way to where the elves lived, anywhere they wouldn’t start a war by merely existing.

here.”

“Naturally! I think it’d be best if you told me how you got

The five of them regaled Iona with the most absurd story she’d ever heard. One of the [Barmaids] quietly served Iona an extra-large breakfast, which she started picking at while listening. The Empire of Remus. A fairy ring. Amber selling things to the fae, and Elaine having unwittingly offended them.

Amber’s messed-up status was what convinced Iona more than anything else that they were telling the truth. Nothing could screw with the System’s status – except the fae had never been told what the rules were, and did whatever they pleased.

“… so together we stepped through the ring the fairy brought us to… here.” Julius finished saying with a wave. “Exited out here, saw dozens of notifications -”

“And spiders. Soooooo many spiders.” Amber shuddered.

“And a lot of spiders.” Julius conceded.

Elaine opened her mouth as if to say something, then closed it.

“Something to add?” Iona prompted, as Auri stole some food off her plate. Iona let the little bandit get away with it.

Elaine shook her head.

“Nothing important.” She said.

“Well.” Iona said as Auri tossed Iona’s pilfered breakfast off the table to a tail-wagging Fenrir. “I have so much to say I don’t even know where to begin.”

“Absolutely anything you can tell us would be invaluable.” Julius leaned forward, intently staring at Iona, showing his sincerity. “We are so lost. We know nothing.”

“Yeah, I can tell that. It’s like you’re children, needing to go to school.” Iona said, her appointment with the School of Sorcery and Spellcraft in her mind. “Hang on, what’s the date?”

The five of them traded looks.

“I mean, we have no idea, don’t ask us.” Elaine flashed a grin at Iona. “Late summer’s the best I can guess given the warmth and the crops, but for all I know magic’s changed everything, and there are super-skills and the world’s gotten warmer. For all I know, this could be mid-winter!”

Iona laughed at that.

“You’ll know when it’s winter here. No, I agree, it’s summer, I’ll ask someone later.”

She kicked back in her chair, putting her hands behind her head.

“Ok, I have no idea where to start with all this.” She said. “Normally half of the important stuff I need to tell you I’d have to tell you secretly, but if what you’re saying is right, nobody can understand us anyways.”

“An old Immortal could.” Elaine pointed out, almost desperately. “Someone who’s been around that long.”

Iona snorted.

“Nobody lives that long. If an accident or just misjudging a single situation didn’t do them in, then an Immortal War would’ve gotten them by now.” Iona spoke with complete confidence, ignoring the multiple glares she was getting.

“Night’s totally still alive.” Elaine grumbled. “And I’ll find Awarthril, Aegion, and Serondes if it’s the last thing I do.”

Artemis squeezed Elaine’s arm.

“You mentioned things to tell us secretly?” She said.

“Yeah. Ok, so. All of you are problematic.” Iona got everyone’s attention with that. Even Auri stopped feeding Fenrir more parts of her breakfast, fluttering over to sit on Elaine’s shoulder.

“First.” Iona pointed to Amber, then hesitated. “Actually, you’re probably fine generally. I’m just hung up on your status.” Slightly embarrassed, Iona quickly moved on.

“You are a phoenix. I don’t need to say anything else.” She pointed at Auri. “But maybe I do. I hate to say it, but people will want to steal you.”

“No! NOBODY WILL STEAL ME! I AM NOT A THING!” Auri yelled, and Iona heard exactly what she was saying.

“Nobody said you were an object, just that others might see you like one.” Elaine soothed the bird’s ruffled feathers. Auri puffed up and pouted anyways.

“It Ok. Iona protect.” Fenrir growled at Auri, the two of them having become fast friends through the power of stolen food. Iona stroked Fenrir’s head, scratching him in exactly that spot under his chin that he liked.

“The odds of it going bad are slim here, especially if you stay quiet about what she is.” Iona reassured them.

“Unless we run into a [Pet Trader] or something.” Amber said, and got looks from everyone.

“Ok, ok, so. Merchants.” She said, fumbling a bit. “Merchants often get skills helping them appraise what they see. But! You need a tooooooooooooon of experience working with something before you get the skill, it’s usually narrow, and it’s not something you couldn’t figure out on your own already. The skill just speeds the process up. It’s why so many merchants focus on one thing. Uh. Used to focus on one thing? Yeah. Anyways! If there’s a [Pet Trader] who knows birds super well, they could glance at Auri and see that she’s super valuable. Or see that their skill doesn’t work on Auri. That might make them take a close look, and BOOM! Problem.”

There wasn’t a ton to say off that, and Iona continued.

“Julius and Artemis are where you’re going to start running into serious issues.”

The way everyone was staring at Iona had her hurry her ex- planation along.

“Generally – not everywhere, but most places – combat Classers are required to be sworn to a lord. Well, only once they’re over 256. Usually happens before then though. To be explicitly clear, this means anyone with the [Ranger], [Mage], or [Warrior] tag. This can manifest in a bunch of ways. The most obvious way is swearing to the service of the local [Lord]. Branches of the Hunter’s Guild can get a number of licenses that they can distribute – but again from the lord. Adventurer parties can be sponsored by a noble, there’s being the [Baron] in question, large Orders like the Valkyries have a number of permits, the town guard is usually flush with them, joining the army if you’re in the Han Empire, etc. There’s dozens of ways of getting permission, but you need permission. Normally, this isn’t an issue. Good luck getting trained as a [Spearwoman] without being a member of the trainer’s organization, and similarly good luck getting taught how to be a [Mage] without another mage teaching you. Usually, the teacher will pull the apprentice into their organization, and it’s rarely an issue. Similarly, it’s hard to find enough fights to level up without being part of a group. The rule, in practice, ends up being more that high level combat Classers need to prominently display who they’re with, or tell anyone who asks.”

Julius relaxed a bit.

“Well, I’m not sure what’s going on, or why you’re saying I’m problematic, but I’m [Leader]-tagged, not [Warrior]-tagged.”

Iona squinted at his highest class.

“You sure about that?”

“What happens if Artemis isn’t sworn to somebody?” Julius asked, ignoring Iona’s question. It had an obvious answer after all.

“At town entrances she’ll be asked to show documents, insignia, or some other mark of your service.” Iona explained, men- tally manipulating her Mallium to form the Valkyrie’s distinct helmet. “Have it? Guards let you in. Don’t have it? They’ll try to arrest you.”

“That’s probably what the [Knights] we met on the road were arguing about.” Elaine speculated. “Debating if they wanted to hassle us for our documents or not. Maybe they saw Julius as a [Leader] and figured we were fine?”

“Why does that exist?” Julius asked.

“Sounds dumb.” Artemis agreed.

“It’s a check on bandits and the like.” Iona said with more confidence than she felt. She never had gotten a strong reason why, it was just the way things were. “When a bunch of [Sailors] turn to a life of piracy, either their classes are already over 256 and not a combat class, at which point putting them down is easier, or they’re starting from the 256 marker, giving us plenty of time to handle them before they grow into a threat that’s too large.”

Elaine got a thoughtful look on her face, her eyes focusing on nothing far away.

“Who are you sworn to?” Artemis eyed Iona’s half-helmet, clearly recognizing that it was her insignia.

“The Order of the Valkyries.” Iona proudly answered. “There’s not a lot of us left, but we’re a mostly independent Order, focused on [Knight-Errants] who travel around, and fix problems that are being ignored by others.”

“Cool!” Amber reached up for Iona’s head, then paused. “Can I touch?”

Iona graciously tilted her head, letting Amber feel the metal wings.

Elaine refocused back to the present, and gave Iona a frankly disbelieving look.

“You sure about your reasoning? It sounds to me like a way for the rich and powerful to stay the rich and powerful.”

Iona paused at that, her mind starting to work. She discarded the thought for the moment, mentally noting to have a deeper conversation with Elaine on the subject, and that she was as bright on the inside as the outside.

“No matter the reason, you’re not going to be let into any towns without an affiliation.” Iona said. “Not unless you borrow whatever Elaine’s using to hide her level.”

Elaine twitched at that.

“How’d you know?” She asked, not bothering to deny it.

“You’re in the most trouble.” Iona frankly told her. “The fact that half the tavern isn’t trying to lynch you is how I know.”

She paused for a moment.

“Could we go somewhere more private to discuss this? I feel uncomfortable mentioning it in a setting this public, different language or not.”

Elaine nodded and got up.

“Sure! Let’s go! Where to?”

“Well, normally I’d invite you to my room, but you saw the mess I made of my bed.” Iona said.

“Can probably use the room I was in last night. I doubt anyone’s claimed it yet.” Elaine said.

“Want me there? As long as money is somewhat involved, I’ve got a skill that helps with privacy!” Amber said.

“Sure. Fenrir, want to stay or come?” Iona agreed.

“Food. Many-color bird. Yummy.” Fenrir hissed. Iona took that to mean he was getting along swimmingly with Auri, who was making a fast friend with fast food.

The three got up and headed back to the stairs. As they walked, Iona took a moment to look over the rest of Elaine’s skills, a few more jumping out at her.

A high level anti-pain skill must be a legacy of unimaginable amounts of pain. Her healing skill looked to be a true panacea. An energy skill, although Iona thought hers was better. Her energy skill was a passive that was always on, as opposed to an active that required mana and thought, though it was applicable to allies.

There were no particularly interesting or special skills in her [Butterfly Mystic] class that Iona hadn’t seen before, although the combination of healer-mage was rare. The amount of schooling that healers needed generally attracted the bookish sort, and they tended not to fight themselves. No, a healer was far more valuable slightly behind the lines, protected by dedicated warriors and [Bodyguards], and the wounded brought to them. It was a poor use of resources for the healer to also fight, especially as they’d use their mana fighting – not healing people.

Plus, people that fought didn’t tend towards having long lifespans. The squires and Valkyries Iona had grown up with that were now no more than a tombstone attested to that.

A beloved class was interesting, and Iona would love to know what Elaine was thinking of taking for her third class. She felt vaguely cheated that she never had time to properly plan it out, taking whatever class was there and powerful in desperation. It had been the perfect class for her in the end, but there was something just fun about discussing and planning it.

[Bullet Time] was the first interesting skill in her general skills. Iona’s blessing gave her the language, not the context.

What was a bullet? The skill description made it clear it was something to dodge.

A capped [Oath] skill almost had Iona trip over herself as she climbed the stairs, enjoying the view. A capped custom [Oath], and a powerful one to boot. Wow. She didn’t know what the standard [Healer’s Oath] was to compare – Iona had always been more interested in weapons, fighting, and escaping chores than studying every other profession under the sun – but she imagined it stacked up nicely.

Also, Elaine literally couldn’t hurt her if she never gave her cause to. That made Iona relax. It wasn’t that she felt threatened by Elaine per se, but it was nice to know the living weapon an arm’s length away was incapable of harming her.

[Sentinel’s Superiority] got Iona’s hackles right up. The skill was blatantly lying!

“Peak of Humanity” her ass. Sigrun was leagues stronger than Elaine was, and entirely human. There were more humans out there significantly stronger than the Valkyrie’s leader to boot! The only thing peak about Elaine was her healing capabilities, but [Sentinel’s Superiority] was clearly combat-focused.

And it was stronger than [Valkyrie’s Valor]. That irked Iona somewhat.

It also mentioned being a guardian of humanity, and a last bastion. It annoyed Iona for a moment more before she remembered the story of the fairy ring.

Had humanity been on the brink of extinction when Elaine had lived? Iona mentally filed that question away, and then they were there, in Elaine’s room, the woman in question sitting on her bed.

“Come here! Sit down!” Elaine patted a spot next to her, and Iona let herself show a smile at the hilarious internal joke.

It hadn’t gone as she’d fantasized about, but she had wanted to get in the same bed as Elaine after all.

Far away, in the divine realm, the home of the gods, two goddesses were lounging, practically on top of each other. Watching the finest entertainment.

“Ooooh! She’s pulled Iona into her room already!” Lunaris commented, watching the going-ons.

“And she did it, not Iona! HA!” Selene laughed, conjuring up a grape and tossing it into her mouth.

“That coin bent things well.” Lunaris said.

“Yeah, didn’t think they’d meet for some time.” Selene said. “Oh for my sake.” Lunaris swore. “That damn overgrown lizard is at it again.”

“Trouble?” Selene could’ve just flexed her senses to check on the issue herself, but it wasn’t as fun or as nice as chatting with Lunaris. They had eternity together.

“Probably.”

Grim-faced, the two goddesses took a closer look at what

Lun’Kat was doing.

 

Chapter 7

Hunted Existence

 

My disappointment was immeasurable and my day ruined. I’d met someone that spoke English for the first time ever since arriving at Pallos, and by my System status, that had been 22 years ago. 22 years of wondering. Doubting. Wondering if my prior life was simply an artifact of a vivid imagination.

It had been so long.

Then came Iona, casually speaking words in a tongue I’d nearly forgotten I had. Hope had exploded at that. Was she from Earth as well? Could she… well, I had a thousand things I’d wanted to know and ask. Confirm. Catch up on mundane, boring stuff, make references that nobody here would understand.

But no.

It was “only” a divine blessing, like priest Demos’s.

Still, we were in my room together with Amber.

“Ok! [Confidential Negotiations], go!” She said. “Oh! Almost forgot. You need to be vaguely somewhat working towards some sort of deal for it to work.”

Iona and I traded amused looks in surprising unison.

“Information in exchange for your prior healing of me?” She offered a hand with the agreement.

“Deal!” I happily shook her hand, feeling her rough calluses. “What? Argh! That’s NOT HOW IT WORKS!” Amber stormed off in a huff.

We both laughed at that. My laugh was closer to a giggle, while Iona had one of those deep laughs.

“English?” I proposed. “Nobody else speaks it.”

“Sure.” Iona agreed.

“Testing. Testing. You can hear this, right?” Iona whispered, so quietly I could barely hear it.

I nodded, enjoying the subterfuge. For once, I was happy that [Mantle of the Stars] lacked its privacy aspect – this was a little fun!

“It’s my skill, right?” I whispered back, not quite able to modulate my voice as well as Iona had. She knew exactly how much vitality I had. I had no idea on hers.

“That’s only part of it.” She said. “It’s – argh, it’s hard to explain. Let me try from the start, even though you’re at the end.”

She flexed her hand, making a fist and releasing it.

“Immortals are… not well liked.” She delicately put, and even I could tell that she disliked them. I felt my heart fall just the tiniest bit, but stayed focused. This was important.

“When people wage wars, soldiers die. Cities are sacked, ransom is traded.” Iona continued on, and I really hoped that she never ended up as a teacher of mine. “When Immortals go to war? They…”

She shook her head at it, missing the words.

“Create tornados, earthquakes, icy meteors, summon creatures of flame and stars, whip up sandstorms, and generally have too much power?” I suggested, thinking about the Guardians’s fight with Lun’Kat.

“Yes! Exactly! The scale is different.” Iona said, and I remembered a dragon pulling down the sky.

“Does it really matter to someone living in a city if an army sacks the city, or if they’re swallowed by a tsunami?” I asked the