“Evening,” I said, raising my teacup in greeting, turning and leaning back against the railings. “What’s on your minds?”
“We’re all getting into the Adventure Society for sure after tonight,” said Blackwood.
I looked into his stupid grin that he was wearing with his fellows. I suppressed a sigh, hid my trepidation and adopted a controlled look as best I could.
“Tell on?” I inquired.
The cultists huddled in, as if forming a scrum might somehow contain the smooth-brained idea they were about to unleash.
“Our Lord has informed us of an ambush tonight,” said Blackwood.
“An ambush?” I inquired in a tone asking for clarity.
“Yes!” said Valleron, suppressing her excitement. “Upon the caravan. They’ll surely pass us if we save everyone from an ambush.”
“Quite possibly,” I said, they weren’t wrong. This world was big on trading favours and often didn’t see it as skirting proper procedures. “But back up and explain this all to me. The camp is getting ambushed tonight, you fine folks are going to prevent it and that will be a certain ticket to Adventure Society membership?”
The cultists gave a general murmur of agreement with affirming body language all round. I decided to take the elephant in my head and put it in the room.
“So, uh, how confident are we about not dying horribly when the silver rankers start tossing out powers?”
“Uhhh…?”
“What do you mean?”
“The wha…?
“Ummm.”
I used Stop And Think purely to take the time to compose my thoughts so that I had the mental energy to avoid facepalming with both hands. I shook myself together and let time return.
“We have a silver rank chaperone,” I explained. “Not to mention two bronze rank instructors with us in the camp. Any ambush dangerous enough for the rest of us to need saving from must, by the facts of the situation, contain dangers that two bronzes and a silver ranker can’t immediately solve. No?”
I sipped at my tea while the cultists rolled that idea through their heads for several seconds before each independently decided to smile like they’d understood. I carefully didn’t grind my teeth.
“In the stories, what happens to the iron rankers when they’re caught up in a silver ranked fight?”
“Oh,” said Blackwood, his face falling.
“Yeah,” I said, pulling a glum face.
“Like Bres and the Tuatha Dé Danann,” Blackwood muttered. His companions lit up in recognition - briefly, before understanding reality wiped the smiles off.
I paused time and queried ‘Tuatha Dé Danann’. It was a folk tale. A good man turned bad king, destroying his people as he did himself. Figurative destruction at first, literal soon after. Classic.
“Yeah, and that’s only if this ambush has just the right amount of power,” I said, pressing the point while I felt I could. “If the ambush is too powerful, our silver and bronzes get overwhelmed. Then what about you? You’ll either die in the crossfire or get stuck explaining to the inquest - and you know there’ll be one - why the least-trained of us survived. And they might be a bunch of slimy nobs but that inquest will find something or other pointed straight at that sponsor of yours. On the other hand, if the ambush isn’t powerful enough, we won’t even be involved in it so, no commendations will happen but it still comes with the risk of a random silver rank ability taking our heads off along the way.”
Blackwood screwed up his face as he nodded along. Lefevre bit her lip in frustration and Payne and Valleron both looked troubled.
“I think Lord - our Lord has a good sense of the power to send,” said Valleron, looking to her fellows for support.
“Okay, that’s good but it’s still dangerous,” I said, nodding encouragingly. I had their attention now. “Is there any way to call this off and cancel the ambush in favour of waiting a couple of months to take the trials again?”
They shook their heads as one.
“Okay then, work with me here,” I said, lowering my voice conspiratorially. Thankfully, they were hanging on my words. “Let’s have a chat about what we can all do to make sure everyone survives this ambush, eh?”
I’d only been asleep a few hours when a terrible pressure pushed against me, willing me to wake up. I jumped to my feet, pushing weariness aside and using Stop And Think to quick-switch from my pyjamas into my battle kit. I also looked over the status of my party in my UI before allowing time to return. Hugh and Johan right next to me, Sam a few hundred metres away. I felt a pang of apprehension about Sam. We couldn’t protect her where she was and she couldn’t heal us. Still, it was a good plan.
“What’s happening?” came the groggy voice of Favreau, followed by a rustle as he stirred.
I heard others in the cabin stirring, asking similar questions.
“Must be part of the trials,” Lachapelle muttered, still half-drunk with sleep.
“No, it’s the warning,” replied Favreau, more awake now. “Remember what the instructors said about wandering monsters?”
There were similar conclusions being had around me. Good.
“Right,” said Lachapelle, sitting up and pushing the sleepiness away. “It’s probably that. Armour up, eh?”
I breathed a sigh of relief. The letter I’d sent to Mother Superior Dukas had suggested warning the group about wandering monsters as a true but misdirecting reason for a lecture on a defensive strategy. The damn teen nobs had reacted to the lecture with a cocky attitude, boasting they’d ‘show what we can really do’ while knowing full well that to a small pack of bronze rank monsters they’d become lunch. Thankfully, with the situation really upon them, the bluster was absent. Maybe I could give a small push?
“Well, if that’s the case, everyone back up and I’ll get started,” I said, referencing the start of the strategy. “Come forth, traveller’s rest.”
Paper and frost swirled together, knitting themselves into a sturdy cabin beside the fire. A conjured sanctuary of paper, sticks and ice. I’d eschewed the cabin for tonight in lieu of one of the nobs being ‘generous’ enough to accept my spirit coins and widen the radius of the climate control their banner projected. Unfortunately, the banner had no defensive wards and my summoned cabin could be an acceptable defensive structure. My spell had the desired motivational effect and the other applicants were already clearing the area around it when a presence filled the area to the south. A silver ranked presence. The enemy was here.
That presence expanded, washing over us like an unseen tide, pulling at the very fabric of my being. It wasn’t simply that I felt something—I was being felt. Laid bare beneath an overwhelming, inhospitable gaze and every part of me seemed to shrink inward under its weight. A silent command pressed down on my spirit, stripping away any notion of control or agency, revealing them as the frail illusions they were.
The air thickened, each breath a laborious struggle against an aura that pressed in from without. My thoughts dragged through tar, and an instinct older than mankind whispered: bow, kneel, become less. In the face of such will, there was no other recourse.
This was the tyranny of rank – a distinction so vast it was not merely strength, but a fundamental divide in existence. To a silver, I was not an adversary. Not even prey.
The whisper of its will brushed against my soul: light, casual, dismissive. Yet it left me raw and trembling. It was the sensation of being noticed by something vast and indifferent, like a cosmic eye lingering for a moment before moving on, indifferent to the lesser life under its gaze.
Then a protective shadow fell across the field. The presence of Mother Superior Dukas unfurled like a vast, matronly bulwark, her aura in stark contrast to the enemy’s. Where the enemy’s presence sought to crush, hers rose like a stern barrier of stone between us and that suffocating weight. Under her intervention, the oppressive pressure lifted, and my thoughts, once sluggish, began to return to clarity, as though I’d been pulled from the depths of a suffocating sea.
“Go, go,” ordered instructor Drakos with a baleful look at the applicants, gesturing them into and behind the cabin. We didn’t need telling twice.
“Where’s Sam?” asked Johan, who was dutifully accounting for everyone. He was already fully armed and armoured with Hugh healing the damage that the auto-donning feature of his armour had done to him. Avril, who I’d convinced to join us for the last night to celebrate, had already pulled on her padded jack and breastplate, not bothering with the rest of her fiddly armour.
“She’s gone,” I said. “She’s not here and you can’t find her.”
I know Johan would heroically never leave anybody alone to fend for themselves. That nonsense would probably get him killed if I didn’t remove it from his head someday but now wasn’t the time. He looked pained.
“She’ll be fine,” I assured him. “You know how… confident she gets when people aren’t looking.”
Avril looked confused by this exchange but Johan nodded, picking up the hint I’d put down and ushered Avril and the other applicants ahead of him, into and around the cabin as per their assignment. The wind blew his hair beautifully as he gazed towards the clashing auras to the south before he put his helmet on and snapped down the visor, joining those taking cover behind the cabin.
A flare lit the sky, the silver ball sent hovering by a casual toss from Drakos, and I finally got a good look at our foes. Builder constructs. In the steady glow of the flare trudged a massive, silver-ranked stone golem, thrice the height of a man. It was intimidating in its simplicity. Just featureless slabs of stone animated into a thing designed to crush. Behind it prowled four mechanical constructs of bronze rank; A skeletal, clockwork tiger of cogs and wheels ticked rhythmically as it paced with predatory grace, while a massive, armored hound padded forward, steam venting with every bark. A spined lizard made of interconnecting plates hissed as its gears ground together, while a sturdy automaton with a bull’s head and feet scraped at the ground. Beyond them, dozens of iron rank puppet-like figures. Wooden and metal bodies in shapes that mocked all forms of life jerked and twisted, their crude limbs animated by some unseen force, marching inexorably toward the camp.
Revealed, the golem of stone began lumbering forwards. Mother Superior Dukas moved quickly to meet the golem away from the aspirants. Two hundred metres out she stood primly and met its charge with perfect poise. A magic wall flashed into place before her, stopping the great golem in its tracks. Despite the distance, us aspirants could still feel the power of the collision. The bronze rank builder constructs began fanning out, looking to provide some small assistance to their silver as did the instructors for Dukas, probing forward in their own way but staying careful to avoid being caught up in the battle of the silver demi-gods before them.
In the face of the animate, smooth stone that battered cracks into her magical wall, Dukas used abilities that were beyond my rank to see properly. A couple of control abilities and some kind of affliction? Or a trap? I couldn’t tell. Unsurprisingly, the combat abilities of Mother Dukas were not the kind that won a quick fight. She retreated laterally, in a wide radius from the cabin, allowing the clockwork bronze rank constructs that’d been vying for position to steam past her to engage instructors Konstantinos and Drakos.
Drakos glared at the constructs and, very appropriately I thought, shot eye beams of pure cold energy at them. The constructs attempted to converge on him but Konstantinos, her very arm a thistle flower shield, got in the way and, warding the constructs back with her spear, bought time for Drakos to cast a spell that made increasingly large rocks in the area fly towards a directed point. The instructors also retreated in the direction of Dukas, dragging their own battle along a smaller great radius around the cabin.
And thus, the iron rank constructs lumbered, sprang and lurched towards the cardboard cabin. As a group. At a relatively constant pace.
“Manifest me a bibliomantic meteor!”
The aspirants next to me in the cabin looked strangely at when, after such a grand intonation, the spell had no discernible effect. I held up a finger indicating patience. They looked at the monsters, looked at me, shot their longest range abilities at the monsters and-
THUNK!
The earth heaved with the impact. Bloody bullseye. Right on target.
Turns out, a one kilometer drop does a lot for three tonnes of paper. As did a relatively still night. All that time in the mirage chamber had paid off. Not to mention I’d finally had the obvious idea of angling the fins so that the falling mass would be spin stabilised in flight. Seven of the red dots on my map had winked out of existence immediately upon impact and the heaving ground threw most of the rest off their feet. Or, foot equivalents for some. Unfortunately, I had neglected to warn my own side.
“THE FUCK WAS THAT!?”
“Booker what the fuck?”
There were other, various complaints levelled at me from the other aspirants.
“Sorry!” I shouted. “Just keep shooting! Sorry!”
I led by example and started shooting at a distance with my newest weapon.
It was hitscan, mana efficient and versatile. James had made it for me after I’d jokingly asked if he could make the gravity gun from Half-Life 2. He’d misunderstood what I’d described at first which accounted for the first two push-or-pull modes but when I saw what he was making in the mock up, I liked them better. Better range, better usage. The gravity gun is cool and all but with allies who can hit like Johan and Hugh, yanking the ankles of a charging monster or a shield away from a cultist’s neck lets them do better DPS than what I can make. Still, James asked and once I’d clarified, being clear to explain that what he’d made was actually better, he’d smiled at the wall and told my elbow that the third mode, gravity gun mode, would be easy to add and he’d drawn the formation into the plans. So, I’d ended up with more than everything I’d wanted.
I loved the gun. James had based the magic in it on part of an ability called Force Tether that dragged enemies towards a central crystal for an explosive ending. James had taken inspiration from the dragging aspect which, he said, was a simple and efficient magic. I should have guessed it would be. Grab a thing and move it? Should definitely require less magic-juice than manifesting the concept of cold and shooting a ball of it across space-time.
So, the sceptre cost almost no mana to use in push-or-pull modes and I applied it liberally to the legs of the approaching shambling horde, making them trip or stumble over each other. Much to the delight of my fellow aspirants inside the cabin, my efforts were bunching up the advancing constructs and a noble scion called de Laval was an aspiring fire mage.
“Burning ember ignite!”
A glowing spark left the budding adventurer’s hand, streaked to a stacked group and exploded in a ball of flame.
“Good one!” I said, not stopping my barrage of shots.
“Thanks!” said de Laval. “Shame they’re constructs though.”
I wasn’t sure what she meant so, realising the constructs were in range for me to select in my HUD, I clicked on one and used Stop And Think and Epistemology to query their vulnerabilities. De Laval was right. Any kind of force damage and plain old blunt force trauma was the best against them. Elemental damage like fire would be less effective. Damn.
Still, less effective AoE wasn’t ineffective damage. After all, quantity is a quality all of its own and a great quantity of monsters can fit in the AoE of a fireball. I let time return.
Stolen novel; please report.
Another fourteen of puppet-like Builder constructs fell during their advance on the cabin, their red dots winking out on my map and at least twice that number were damaged to various degrees. Their advance culminated in a shambling charge on the cabin. A wooden, hinged humanoid construct with knives for hands charged the window I was shooting out of, rushing jerkily towards me. I didn’t even move. I knew what was coming.
Johan, leading the melee group, counter charged the construct horde, hurling a ten-litre barrel of naphtha as he went with Avril, slightly behind, guarding his right flank. Two others with strength abilities also threw the last of my naphtha. Johan’s barrel landed behind the leading constructs and the other two on the flanks. The melee designated aspirants surged into the fire free area directly in front of the cabin and laid waste to the constructs that’d charged. The one in front of me with knives for hands turned its expressionless face to the counter charge for a moment and then redoubled its conviction to kill me, pushing its way through the window I’d stepped back from to avoid the knives.
I inventoried the Yanking Sceptre and used my hotkeys to bring out a new take on an old wand, courtesy of James. I took out what used to be the Wand Of Perfect Falling Icicles - although I’d gotten the handle curved to nestle in my palm more comfortably - I pointed it at knife-hand’s head and discharged the wand. There was a hot flash of silver and knife-hand’s head snapped back so hard that the neck joint deformed. This new version of the wand was a lot of fun.
In its new form, this wand no longer released a half-metre icicle of water but half a kilo of lead that James, with infinite patience, had tweaked to just the right temperature to have the consistency of honey. It deformed when it impacted, pushing between gaps in armour and imparting searing heat as the pliable metal cooled, sizzling flesh.
This version of the wand used slightly larger chunks of mana than it used to but each discharge hit like a twelve-gauge shotgun. Except more mass and less bullet speed meant impacts with less penetration but even more smack than a shotgun. James had made it from the old wand as an example lesson for me in enchanting. Apparently, swapping out the essences of a magic item was easy to do. He’d replaced the ice quintessence with lead, switched out the cold for a very specific amount of fire and added a bunch more swift quintessence into the gravity formation. Then he’d shown me how complicated it was to change the icicle geometry into something as simple as even a sphere. Painstaking, delicate work that required constant monitoring of the type that only James could enjoy.
“Bring them ruin comrades! Quickly!” shouted Johan from the middle of the melee and hewing at the enemy himself.
I could see why. The naphtha fires were burning down and the rest of the Builder forces would be on us soon. I blasted a few more constructs with my new hand cannon that were carefully picking their way around the fires. Their bodies snapped back and went down, covered in smoking lead but, I thought, shouldn’t we have reduced their numbers by now? I took a step back and looked over the battlefield, using Stop And Think at a particularly panoramic moment and started clicking around.
Oh. There. That would do it. I’d just selected a disembodied arm. ‘Scrapling Arm’ it said in the tooltip. I clicked the construct creatures themselves. ‘Scrapling’. I navigated my menu to read the creature’s page and felt stupid that I hadn’t done this earlier. It’s not like I was short on time to read. They had a special ability called ‘reconstruction’. If taken to zero health, they’d deconstruct themselves, leaving behind the damaged parts and self-assemble into new scraplings. Shit. That’d also explain why none of them had sparking loot indicators over them. Easily half of those we’d taken down were trying to stand back up. I sent a Swift Message Of The Mind to Johan.
“Their dead are reconstructing. Tell everyone to crush the chests.”
No torso, the arms and legs can’t attach. No scrapling. The chests had thinner armour and from looking at the downed scraplings, the cracked torsos were being passed over by the creeping limbs.
“Their fallen arise, good fellows!” bellowed Johan. “Crack their breasts!”
Not how I’d have phrased it but effective. Hugh in particular was effective, his head snapping up in understanding, I watched him stomp across the battlefield in earth form, bending and cracking the pieces as his great weight fell upon. And yet, the fires lessened and scraplings armed with slings flicked rocks the size of a fist amongst the victorious aspirants in the melee. Favreau went down, clutching the side of his head.
“I can’t see! I can’t see,” he shouted above the din of battle.
Once more, Johan showed his mettle, one-arm lifting the muscle elf with his shield arm across Duval’s shoulders in a fireman’s carry while body blocking several more slung rocks.
“Retreat! Backs to the cabin!” called Johan, last to retreat as he covered his allies and placed himself in front of the doorway where I couldn’t see him from my corner spot.
“Oh, no,” said de Laval next to me, pointing. “There’s more.”
I looked where she pointed and had to control my relief amidst the cries of alarm spreading throughout the iron rankers. It was Sam. She had arrived on the battlefield, advancing out of the darkness as the last of the fires died away bringing a force of animated dead by her side.
The scraplings pushed mindlessly into the defenders of the cabin, melee fighters with their backs against the wall, ranged fighters shooting over their shoulders. Despite the yells of the aspirants, the scraplings gave no indication they knew of the advancing necromancer until Sam and her small army fell upon their slingers.
Her treants had taken the time to find fallen trees, parts of which they wielded as clubs. They were now slugging away at the scraplings and Snowball - made from four intermingled corpses that I just happened to have lying around - snatched up a scrapling in each hand for use as an unwilling flail. Sam herself was back and forth on her own battle line in which the skeletons were guarding the flanks of her big summons.
While I could see her in the dying naphtha light, I also sent her a Swift Message Of The Mind about the reconstruction ability the scraplings had and moments later, saw her skeletons switch to prominent use of the hammer side of their polaxes on the fallen.
While her treants were imposing, Snowball intimidating and her skeletons psychotically energic, in this fight it was Sam herself who was a subtle, devastating force on the battlefield. Her spell Return To The Grave had a low mana cost, short cooldown and did extreme damage to animated creatures, which included scraplings.
“No, no, no!” I shouted to de Laval but ensuring all could hear me. “The mercenary is fighting for us! Look!”
Many took a moment from the frantic fighting to see more of the scraplings turning back to take on Sam, whose giant summons were very much making a mess of their back lines and every few seconds, noticed by the sharp eyed among us, a scrapling would simply fly apart at the joints.
“Honour and glory!” came the bellow of Johan’s voice which I noticed was more resonant than usual. I used Stop And Think and checked his character sheet in my UI.
Oh. One of the rich kids - Avril probably - had given him an enlargement potion. I mentally hovered over the buff to read the tooltip. ‘Double the size by volume…” alright, so a quadruple size Johan - well, this should be good. I let time return.
There was a sound reminiscent of ten-pin bowling from the same direction as Johan’s voice. We had, in fact, not used everything they had the other day when Johan was fighting the bear. We’d used a lot of buffs but I wouldn’t have wasted expensive consumables on a laugh like that even if they were offered. Thankfully, whoever it was today had the presence of mind to not only recognise that this was a different situation and but that the golden haired Adonis among us who was also an expert swordsman was the best person to give their expensive potion to. Good. Oh! And there was another buff on him in my HUD now too; ‘vaulting’. And then The Final Countdown by Europe started playing. I checked his buffs again. He’d just activated Boss Music.
“For Truth and Justice!” boomed Johans voice to the sound of synth-trumpets as I saw him land in the thickest of the scraplings, crushing one with his foot and swinging his now two metre sword in a wide arc cutting straight through four scraplings with a single blow, the residual damage from Farmer Reaps The Field cutting through another six with numerous other scraplings badly damaged by his cleave skill.
Seeing this destruction, de Laval shrugged and cast Flaming Weapon on Johan, the fire going out on her own magic staff and appearing on Johan’s sword, twisting around the blade in an inferno.
“Cut them down, my righteous friends!” bellowed Johan, an unstoppable behemoth of flashing steel and flame in the night.
Avril didn’t hesitate and Flash Stepped to Johan’s side, back-to-back with him. Inspired by Avril’s example, caught up in Johan’s aura, and the epic sound of ‘80’s electronic arena rock, the aspirants shouted their battle cries and charged to Johan’s side as one.
Thirty-five more seconds of huge-Johan, I noted. About half a minute to turn the tide completely in our favour. We had momentum but the battlefield was a chaotic mess and overwhelming damage was needed. Time for DPS, even if it cost me. I switched to the last of James’ latest creations.
It was expensive but damn, it turned that Wand Of Mage Bolt from an underwhelming splat stick to the plasma gun from Doom. It just poured hateful, burning energy into my enemies as well as my finances. It used coins at a rate that if I used the Wand Overcharger to kill every monster, it would almost negate the income from my looting power.
The overcharger was a simple-looking device despite the complex innards. I’d gotten it when I’d asked James for a way to turn money into kills. It was shaped a lot like a child’s idea of a gun; two handles on one side of a long cylinder made of wood with a hollowed out section, inside which was nestled the Wand Of Mage Bolt. The rearward handle activated the wand inside and the frontward handle activated the device which consisted of a few common, interlinked rituals that made the wand more powerful in various ways, all powered by the spirit coins.
I followed the battle-crazed aspirants, pouring white energy into scraplings that came from odd angles to flank members of the roving mob led by Johan. Sam had fled the battlefield once it became apparent she had turned the tide of battle. There was some talk of following and capturing the necromancer but I was able to draw Johan’s attention to the ‘evidence’ Sam had planted. Chalk writing on the carapace of one of the constructs; ‘next time pay in full’.
“We have enemies enough tonight, gentlepeople,” said Johan’s rich voice as the wind blew his perfect hair and The Final Countdown faded out. “No, my friends. Onwards. Onwards to the instructors!”
Being himself, Johan carried on into the bronze rank fight with zero hesitation. Part of me wondered if it was because he knew what I’d do next but the whole lot of me dismissed the idea. It was just who he was.
I popped a bronze rank spirit coin in my mouth and cast Dead Man’s Lightning Of Accuracy twice, hitting the automaton with the head and feet of a bull which was battling with Konstantinos. It broke in half, cogs rolling away from the wreckage leaving her to contain the metalic, spined lizard construct from moving near the iron rankers herself, which her ability set was good at.
“CHAAAAARGE!” bellowed Johan. Now leading only the incautious into melee with the clockwork tiger automaton that Drakos was fighting.
Some of the aspirants held back but it didn’t matter. The construct tiger casually swatted at Johan, sending him reeling but that was opening enough for Drakos to truly focus his attention on the steampunk wolf which he frosted into place with one spell and then delivered a devastating ball of elemental cold with another.
The other aspirants that followed Johan into melee also got thumped, clawed or shoved away like children but the pressure of their combined assault took enough pressure off Drakos that he could cast more offensively. Avril and Johan practically danced with their swords, each covering the other’s weakness on attacks and stepping in to defend each other’s side when sent stumbling by the bronze rank power of the wolf they could not stand against. Their harrying attacks at the steam-breathing wolf construct allowed Drakos to set up powerful spells.
In the meantime, with precious few seconds of battle worthiness left for myself, I shot from the Wand Overcharger the whole time into the side of the wolf, using the last of my bronze rank boost to do not inconsiderable damage. I contributed. Drakos had almost reduced the wolf to scrap when the crippling spirit coin sickness hit me. My insides scrunched up and a wave of nausea washed across my body. I rocked back on my heels and sat down, clutching the sides of my swirling head and tried to focus on the entire battle instead of the sickness.
Konstantinos’ fight to the side against the remaining bronze rank spined lizard was going slow. That, however, seemed to be how her abilities worked. Definitely some kind of spiky plant thing going on with her ability set. She had a wall spell that was basically a hedge of thorns. Her shield was a mass of thistles. She could cast a spell which made a mass of needle-coated creepers grow out of a patch of the ground. Not a lot of DPS but hard to kill and hard to move away from. Now that she only had one enemy, she was controlling her foe with ease.
Drakos had a style that was spell heavy and favoured subtle control paired with powerful spells. He had a passive ability that would frost the ground under his enemy whenever he stuck with an attack. By this point in the battle, that frost was very much covering the area he’d chosen to fight. Much to the chagrin of the iron rankers trying to help him. However, that frost didn’t impede Drakos at all who walked atop it as calmly as he pleased, slowly organising an avalanche spell that ended the steampunk wolf.
Mother Superior Dukas was still in battle, of course. Some way off. Silver rank anything, essence users or monsters, were difficult to kill. Even for each other but especially for Mother Dukas who didn’t appear to have much in the way of offensive abilities. She appeared to have walled herself in with an AoE ability that made pockets of ground that slowed an opponent’s movement speed the longer they spent inside the area. Her main offensive ability appeared to be one that made ephemeral versions of attacks her enemies made - enormous, ghostly slabs of boulder were hovering in the air all over the place - and she could reposition the ghostly apparition and activate it at a later time to hit her targets with the power that was meant for her. I mulled over it for a second in my lurching mind, appreciating that this was a nice old lady, the type you’d gladly accept an apple pie from, who was making a silver ranked stone construct beat itself to death while she stared at it with folded arms like she was a third grade teacher with a naughty student.
Struggling to walk, I staggered over to Elodie Valleron, leaning on her shoulder for support.
“Take it!” I groaned, holding out a silver coin and pointing at the stone golem. “Big combo. Go!”
Understanding my intent, Valleron nodded, used a couple more spells to set herself up and then popped the coin in her mouth.
“Grow and castigate!” she said, casting a spell that made a tree pop out of the ground behind the golem, branches grasping the golem’s too-slow limbs and crucifying it against the trunk.
“Call down the light of stars!”
Her next spell bathed the golem in silvery light which intensified until a blinding, white object from the heavens cracked into its immobile, rocky body. Mother Dukas repositioned a ghostly slab of granite which then punched it in the head as well for good measure.
Valleron cast two more spells before she too keeled over in sickness but I had already moved on to Adrien Lefevre, getting his attention and holding out another silver spirit coin.
“Get in, hit hard and get out,” I slurred, gesturing at the golem.
His eyes were wide with fear but he nodded anyway, took the coin and drove straight at the golem which was currently in the grip of a magical spell Mother Dukas had cast which, as far as I could tell, seemed to completely remove the sense of balance from a creature. The golem had slipped over and was having trouble coordinating its limbs enough to stand back up. Valleron crashed into it with his magical mono-wheel, landing with a special attack as he did. He cast a spell on it that left a covering of soot in a small area and then spun his wheel on the golem’s chest, digging into the stone as he did, and sped off before he too, felt the effects of the spirit coin sickness and fell from his precarious vehicle.
I went to Charlotte Payne next. She was a healer and wouldn’t be much use trying to hurt the golem but her renewal essence has a good ability in it.
“Payne, you still got Blessing Of Relentlessness?” I asked.
“Yes!” she replied, throwing out another heal.
I held out a silver coin.
“Throw it on Mother Dukas when she waves for you,” I said, hands on knees and trying to ignore my sickness.
Payne nodded and took the coin. Moments later, Mother Dukas summoned an enormous ball of magical energy that floated high above and started pelting the golem with balls of… Fuck that was silver ranked mage bolts! Tons of them. It was like a personal hose of mage bolts firing out of this miniature magic sun. Then Mother Dukas put the golem in another slow field and gestured at Payne who promptly popped the coin in her mouth and cast Blessing Of Relentlessness on her. Mother Dukas proceeded to summon a second magic sun in the sky and nodded satisfactorily at the result. I clicked on the golem. Those bolts were burning through its health at a good speed.
Payne threw out a few healing spells on the instructors before the sickness took her. The bronze rank spined lizard construct had died and the instructors were preparing themselves to support Dukas as the iron rankers had helped them.
“Get back,” Konstantinos was saying to the aspirants, waving them back. “That fight is beyond all of you.”
Johan, thankfully, had no intention of commiting suicide by charging in but was also too much of a hero to do the sensible thing and lead the people following him out of sight to safety. He just stood in front of everybody with his shield up. No doubt trying to protect them while they, in turn, were standing behind him in support of his leadership. A great case of circular reasoning. I had to intervene.
“Wait!” I said, holding up my hands to the instructors and staggering over to Adrien Blackwood with a silver spirit coin. “One hit, make it vulnerable and then immediately join us.” I turned to the instructors, aggravating my inner ear. “Follow his attack. It’ll take more damage.” I fell onto Johan, slinging one arm over his shoulder in an attempt to speak into his ear. “Take us all to a safe distance, mate.”
The instructors looked at the coin and nodded. It’d be safe so long as he was only near the creature while the same rank.
“Retreat!” called Johan. “To the cabin! Let our betters fight without concern for us!”
Blackwood ate the coin and, with silver rank speed, ran up to the floundering golem and hit it with his best special attack; Discordant Strike. The lingering effects of which made follow up attacks cause more damage. Following my advice, he raced back to the cabin, beating the other aspirants there by a large margin and slumping down against the wall with one hand over his eyes, trying to block out the spirit coin sickness.
The remainder of the battle lasted a full minute but the end was conclusively drawn with the addition of two fully healed bronze rankers entering the fray against a severely damaged silver rank construct. Especially with two suns of Luminous Starbolt Sphere above. I’d finally had the presence of mind to go back through my combat log and look that one up. It was good! Whole day cooldown though. Large area of effect and would rain those starbolts - not mage bolts, starbolts were only made of magics associated with the sky - down equally on all enemies in the area. Which was bad news if you were the only enemy in the area. Worse news if there were two spheres.
Konstantinos and Drakos together, despite getting battered by the golem, did help retain the golem in the area of the spheres and with Mother Dukas more free to exert control with less concern for her defense, it soon cracked, little sparkly animations appearing over it.
“Victory!” cheered Johan, raising his arms from where he’d stood in the doorway with shield raised.
The rest of the aspirants joined him in jubilation, rushing out into the night. Whooping and yelling like they’d downed the stone golem themselves.
“Oy!” I called to the cultists gesturing them in. They turned from their celebrations. “Nobody died, no suspicion on any of you, and you made a hell of an impression on the instructors.” I smirked. “I’d say I’ve earned an introduction to that group of yours.”
Blackwood stepped in, grinning bloodily through a chip in his tooth from the battle.
“In? Oh, you’re definitely in, Booker.”
He clasped my shoulder, firmly and deliberately. His face sincere. Even thankful. Valleron lit a smoke with shaking hands, while Lefevre and Payne nodded, still riding the high of adrenaline and survival in a demigod’s battle.
“We’ll make sure you’re properly introduced,” swore Blackwood.
I returned the gesture, clasping his shoulder. I gave Valleron a friendly bump on the arm and my eyes locked for a moment with Lefevre and Payne.
“I feel like we’ve all committed to something… interesting, my friends.”
Dear Mother Superior Dukas,
I hope this letter finds you well. I am writing with some urgency regarding a matter that requires careful consideration. It has come to my attention that an ambush is planned upon the campsite this evening. I have obtained this information through a connection with individuals involved in the ambush plot. For the sake of future warnings, I must maintain my cover, and I ask your understanding for the necessary vagueness. Secrets I do not give cannot be shared.
While I lack precise details regarding timing or tactics, I do know the purpose: to create an opportunity for commoner aspirants to distinguish themselves by “saving” the camp. Please do not lay blame on them. While idiocy is oft the domain of the teenager, the idea has the backing of their seniors within the political faction behind this moronic scheme.
We know the ambush will be potent enough to trouble you and the instructors such that the iron rank attackers will likely engage the aspirants. Your instinct will naturally be to shield them. However, I urge caution. We cannot predict when or how the ambush will occur. Attempting to flee may expose us to attack while vulnerable. On the other hand, engaging alone could leave you overextended against a silver rank threat with enough bronze rank support to disable you thus, jeopardizing everyone.
Instead, I propose a strategy: have Instructor Drakos give a lecture on campsite defense ‘in light of recent world events’. This would set the stage for implementing a defensive strategy known as the ‘rank onion’, a standard tactic in Rimaros and Vitesse:
- Layered Defense: The lowest ranks form the center of the formation, with progressively higher ranks forming concentric layers outward.
- Fighting Retreat: If higher ranks encounter difficulty, they retreat inward in a controlled manner, exposing the next layer to assist. This continues until the threat is neutralized.
- Balanced Force Application: The enemy is forced to commit their forces rank-for-rank. For instance, overwhelming you with bronze rankers would trigger a retreat to involve our bronze instructors, depleting their resources before the silver threat emerges.
The strength of this strategy lies in its organisation and adaptability. The primary risk, however, is that iron rankers may need to fight and thus, face danger. Yet, with calculated preparation, I believe it is a risk worth taking. The ambushers cannot be expecting that we have the two best iron rank duelists on the northern shores of the Byzasian Empire in camp and Sam, who could serve as a formidable secret weapon. Elements that will surely ensure victory on the iron rank front.
With these advantages, I am confident the aspirants can handle the iron rank threats and provide cascading support for the instructors who could, in turn, support yourself.
I trust in your judgment, and regardless of your decision, I stand ready to support you in whatever course you choose.
Yours sincerely,
Sherlock Holmes.