- Testimony taken after Spring alignment, Cetus, 1079. Source was a 2-Star (Earth) Contractor for the Guild.
“One.” Kya whispered, as the shadows took the aggressive rabbit she’d just killed and made it dissolve away, leaving nothing more than the small spark of light that vanished a heartbeat later.
Looking around, Kya saw that about a quarter of the other combatants had a racial looting ability like hers that would allow for the bodies to be automatically processed and turned into loot. The majority however would leave the bodies as they were, needing to be cleaned up later and manually skinned, gutted, and harvested if they wanted anything out of them.
Taking a deep breath, Kya once more activated her slow fall ability and leapt up, climbing to the top of a nearby tree, and then once more struck out. She landed in the middle of three forrest rats, each the size of a basset hound. Focusing on all three, she pushed, sending them flying, before pulling them back again. Sticking her daggers out to either side, she impaled the two that came at her from the right and left, while she allowed the third to drop to the ground, skidding and rolling until it was only a few feet in front of her. This far from the beachfront, there was still some sand blowing about, but thankfully it was good hard ground. This meant that as the two on her daggers puffed away in shadow, the third rat, still disoriented and as it rose to its feet, was just in time for her boot to kick it up into the air, before both of her daggers slammed it back into the earth.
“Two, three, and four.” She said, rising to her feet before- “Argh!”
She lashed out with her hand, but was two slow for the four winged isela that had flown by, raking at her shoulder with it’s razor sharp talons. The light cloth armor she’d gotten from Meri had prevented her skin from being split open, but the momentum and force of the blow still caused Kya to stumble forwards.
Casting her eyes about, she spotted it circling overhead, about to come in for another dive. Concentrating on it, she was about to pull it towards her when she felt something wrap around her leg.
Jumping back, or trying to, she looked down and found that she was literally rooted to the spot as tendrils of mottled green and brown had coiled around her foot.
“Ah, what the hell?”
She identified it, and while she didn’t have time to read it, luckily the gratingly enthusiastic Narrator read the description out loud as she ducked to avoid the isela and began hacking at the root with her daggers.
- - - - -
*** NEW CREATURE IDENTIFIED ***
- Viper-vine - 1 Star - Uncommon
- Have you ever tripped on a root and thought to yourself “Damn, there’s no way I’m that clumsy, that root must have just popped out of the ground!” First of all, yes you are that clumsy ninety-nine percent of the time, but the Viper-vine is that one percent where you were actually right! Burrowing through the ground like an earthworm, this fun little plant doesn’t have the time to wait for nutrients to come to it, and actively seeks them out! Be careful though, they really don’t like to be touched.
- - - - -
“Why wouldn’t you put the warning at the beginning of the description!” Kya yelled, one hand holding her dagger dripping with what looked like tree sap, and the other holding the severed part of the vine as she tried to untangle it from her foot. With a jerk, she threw it away, and looked at the residue left on her hand.
“If this is another hallucination thing, I’m going to be pissed.” Kya muttered as she wiped her hand on the leg of her pants.
Another of the vines slowly emerged from the soil to attempt another grab at her, but with a quick hop she moved out of reach… and right into the isela’s path as it took another dive at her. Once more stumbling forwards, she was about to respond to that attacker when a trio of aggressive rabbits jumped at her from out of nowhere, kicking at her with their powerful hind legs.
Pushing them away with a powerful blast, Kya realized she was once more ensnared by the vipervine, the isela was coming back around, and the rabbits were getting to their feet. It had only been a couple moments, and already this wasn’t the situation she had hoped for, but she had to find a way out of this. She had to think, she had to-
In an instant, the body of the isela fell with a muted thud, split perfectly in half. The three rabbits sank into the ground like quicksand, and the vine around her leg went limp, falling away lifeless.
Alder was at her side, Wade appearing a moment later.
“I didn’t need the help!” Kya said, trying for a conviction she didn’t quite feel.
“That was not okay, Alder.” Wade said in a low growl. “You know my stance on-”
“Yes, I know. Give me the excommunication papers later, I'm sure the priests of war hate me anyway.”
With another glower at Alder, and a nod at Kya, Wade shot off in search of more prey.
Sighing and turning to give Kya a look, Alder gave her a weary smile and said “I’m going to be in the hells for a while as far as she’s concerned. Interfering in the fights of others without an invitation is seen as a pretty grave sin on their path, but-” He gave a noncommittal shrug “I needed to talk to you.”
“I agree with her stance, I could have fought my way out of that, I just needed-”
Alder held up a hand, stopping her in the middle of her sentence. “Look, I know we went over the briefing and the plan just before, but that didn’t cover everything. This isn’t like with the crabs who fought you one on one for some weird mating thing, these are all mana-crazed wild monsters.” His look turned icy, and the eyes that always seemed to be telling some joke that only he would get held no hint of humor now. “They will kill you just to watch you die. They will kill you and everyone around you. They will group up, they will fight in pairs, or packs, or swarms. As you grow in power-” he casually kicked at the ground, sending a spear of stone hurtling towards what looked like a small brown bear with thorns along its back like a dinosaur that had been lumbering towards them, then carried on like he hadn’t just killed a massive monster. “You will be able to take on hordes on your own. I alone could fight dozens of 1-Stars, depending on the variety, but for 2-Stars, I want my team with me just in case, and for a 3-Star, I would never fight one alone unless I absolutely had to. It’s all well and good to be on your own for the weaklings, but as the night goes on, the common monsters will stop forming, and give way to the uncommon and rare varieties instead. Depending on how dense the mana gets, we may even see some higher starred beasts. Stick with a team, or at least close to them. Otherwise you could get yourself killed, or worse, get others killed as they try to help you. Now, we’ve stood around long enough, every second we aren’t fighting means more monsters that get away and more problems we have to deal with down the road.”
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Without waiting another moment, he bolted in the same direction Wade had gone.
“Didn’t even give me a chance to respond...” Kya muttered, feeling heat rise on her cheeks. She… She had been reckless. She knew that. She knew that. But when someone calls her out on it… dammit, it made her want to be more reckless, not less. But… this wasn’t about her. Yes she wanted to use this opportunity to increase her abilities and strength as much as possible, but nevertheless, this was about protecting the people around and behind her.
Spotting Tylan’s glowing blue sword some hundred meters to her right, Kya started off in that direction, first at a walk, then a jog, run, sprint, and after activating her power, a bounding flight. She would fight on her own, she didn’t want or need others giving her a hand, but… she would stay relatively close to Tylan and the other students she’d been fighting with for the last few days. Just in case.
In the few seconds it would take her to reach his proximity, Kya once more pulled up her quest screen to see if any of those kills had been credited to her.
- - - - -
Quest: Minor Alignment
- Objective: Slay at least 100 monsters before the alignments ends
- Current Progress: 4/100
- Time remaining: 5h;49m;25s
- Reward: Ability Selection
- - - - -
Good, perfect in fact. She didn’t want the kills to be credited to her if she hadn’t been the one to actually fight them. Not like… like that night in the ritual chamber…
Shaking herself as she landed next to Tylan, Kya watched as he flowed effortlessly from one stance to the next, the sapphire symbols on his blade leaving a luminescent trail as he carved through an entire horde of mutated ducks or-
“They’re void chickens!” Tylan called, flashing her a quick grin before refocusing on the flock of what were apparently void chickens.
“You’re welcome to join in at any time. They can get nasty when there’s so many, but this early on- both in the alignment and in their lives- they’re pretty harmless on their own.”
Grinning from ear to ear, Kya readied her daggers, and fell in beside Tylan for some action. It was time to rack up her body count.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Wade’s pugilist gloves flew with flashed of deepest red, igniting like sparks each time she connected with a monster.
She was thankful for the crabs they’d been able to fight and the training she’d been able to do with Kya. Even now more than a week later, Wade was still not quite accustomed to her newfound strength. As an elf, she’d always been naturally a bit stronger than a human of a similar build. Gaining her first star had exacerbated that, putting her at the very limits of strength, speed, and endurance that an ordinary person could achieve. But now, with her second star, she was truly in a realm beyond. She was able to move her fists faster, move her mind faster. She perceived things all around her in a new way, and her aura was significantly stronger as well. She was thankful as well for the late night sessions she'd had with Alder recently. She didn’t know what they would become after all this chaos settled down, but…
The thought of him made her glower and that annoyance translated into a blow so powerful, the wiggler she’d been fighting lost all of its stripes in one hit and was sent flying back until it virtually exploded on impact with a thick tree.
Wade let out a sigh and was about to go on, when a self satisfied, annoyingly charming voice said from right behind her “I’m just saying… might be more efficient to use your massive fuck-off sword…”
Whirling, Wade got right up into Alder’s face. He backed up a step, even as she took another forward and raised both hands “Woah woah woah, easy now, no need for all that.”
“Gods above help me, Damon Alder, I will flay you alive with my sword if you ever breach the sanctity of combat again. That was absolutely uncalled for and unacceptable. I can’t- I don’t-”
And Alder grinned, he actually smiled at her. “Gods, you are so… Ugh!”
She spun on her heel and marched off, face growing as red as her hair. He laughed, following after her. “Oh come on, it’s not even that bad yet! We have at least an hour or two until we have to get serious.”
She didn’t turn to look at him again, and as they began to fight together once more, she couldn’t help but be at least a little bit glad he was by her side.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Koen, Felix, and Markus were all three back to back on the outskirts of Cetus, fighting with fire, lightning, and shadow. After being sent by the Guild Master of Lyra to follow the spacial User, they’d taken up a spot in one of the town's many inns two days ago, and began to immediately prepare for the alignment.
She’d sent back a coded message to the guild master telling him where they were settled and that this was where they’d be fighting, and then simply watched their target as she had hunted crabs, taken morning lessons with Instructor Drake from the Academy, and… well, done normal User things. Koen knew that being a spacial User was incredibly rare, and she was going to be thrown into, as well as the cause of, quite a bit of political turmoil in the upcoming weeks and months. But for the life of her, Koen couldn’t help but think that she was just a normal User.
“Hey, so uh… Pretty soon here you’re going to get your second star, right?” Asked Felix. He always sounded to Koen like he’d just finished drinking a pint and was a bit louder than he should have been. If they hadn’t met in the Academy and been forced to do a project together, she doubted he would ever have even been in her tangential social awareness, let alone her partner.
“Yes Felix” She said, sending out a concentrated dart of white hot flame to ignite a forest dweller rat. “If all goes well tonight, I’ll get it before blues first light. Which means I’ll be counting on you to watch over me for the few minutes I’ll be out cold, got it?”
“Well see, that’s the thing I was just wondering about. What happens if I also get my second star tonight… hypothetically?”
Turning like a gate on rusty hinges, Koen’s brilliant ruby eyes almost seemed to ignite in her skull as she stared at her partner. “Are you telling me… what? You told me last week you were only part way through your third ability!”
“Well yeah I was… Still am I suppose. But now I’m almost done with it. So with the boosted experience from the alignment, it could very well happen tonight. I am a pretty mighty force on the battlefield after all, it would be strange if I wasn’t going to gain a boost of power just when the world needed me most.”
Turning so quickly to Markus she asked “I can’t do anything about that idiot,”
“Hey!”
“-so then if we both are in the middle of our ascensions, will you be able to watch.. Over… why are you making that face? Markus?”
His voice was both rich and a bit nasally like he had a head cold. “I didn’t want to say anything before because I wasn’t sure it was going to happen but uh… I might also get my second star here in a bit… I’m not sure though. It still feels a ways off, but like Felix said, with the increased mana and experience from the alignment..” He shrugged while firing another shadow arrow at an isela that sailed by over head. “You never know.”
Rubbing the bridge of her nose while letting out a breath in between clenched teeth.
“It’s going to be a glorious night, the team of Felix and friends are going to reach new heights of power tonight!” Cried Felix, puffing out his chest and zipping forward with an electric-yellow light in his legs.
“I’m going to kill you. I’m going to kill you and burn your body so no one will know to look for you.”
“Oh come on!” Felix called, before zipping over, holding two dead aggressive rabbits by their tails. He threw an arm over her shoulder and Koen could swear she heard muffled laughter from under Markus’ dark hood. “That’s no way for the friends of Felix to act!”
In a heartbeat, her body grew so warm that Felix yelped and pulled his arm back.
“Just… Just kill things, gods damn you.”
“Yes ma’am!”