The sll of pine needles hung in the air, and regret danced in Elijah’s mind as he padded through the forest. He’d left Norcastle without making the mayor’s guards pay for their transgressions, and he sorely wished he’d taken a different tactic. However, as vicious as his need for justice was, they had done nothing more than inconvenience him. And by all accounts, the mayor was a big part of the reason the city’s residents had survived.
Elijah had no problem with killing. He’d done it enough to get past any compunctions he might have had in that arena. However, he drew the line at senseless violence, which was how he would have categorized killing or maiming the mayor and the people sent to harass him.
So, as much as it galled his pride to let them off without punishnt, he pushed those thoughts away and focused on his surroundings.
Fortunately, his draconid form wasn’t cold-blooded, so he could easily endure the frigid temperatures. Yet, just because the weather wasn’t harmful, it didn’t an it was particularly pleasant. At least he was used to it after spending most of the past two years outdoors.
Still, as he traversed the forest, he was more than a little cranky, which was why he decided to go a little out of his way to revisit the guardian bear and the amanita that had facilitated his Mind cultivation. Perhaps he could spend a few days to see if it could do the sa for the other parts of his cultivation. As powerful as his Quartz Mind was, Elijah couldn’t help but believe that progressing to the next stage of Body would be even more impactful. And if he could do the sa for his Dragon Core? That would be a ga-changer for him.
With those thoughts occupying a few facets of his Mind, Elijah quickly covered the familiar ground between Norcastle and the small town he’d visited on the way to the tower. Soon enough, he reached the stream where he’d caught so many fish, but in the middle of winter, it had mostly frozen over – a testant to the region’s frigid climate.
Leaving the frozen stream behind, Elijah kept going until he caught sight of the small town. It had snowed the night before, so the slice of long-lost Aricana was covered in a white blanket. Yet, it only took Elijah a few seconds to recognize that sothing was out of place. He couldn’t quite put his finger on precisely what was wrong, but still, he couldn’t escape the notion that sothing terrible had happened. So, after embracing Guise of the Unseen, he slipped down the slope and entered the city at a light trot.
Along the way, he noticed a host of unfamiliar slls – animals who’d co through the area, he was certain – but there were two other easily identifiable scents present. The first was the acrid stench of decay that seed to pervade everything in the area, but the second was the all-too-familiar sll of humans.
Elijah’s stomach tied itself into knots as he ca to the most likely conclusion, and yet, he refused to acknowledge it. Instead, he explored the whole town, taking extra ti in every building in a subconscious effort to avoid the inevitable. However, he could only delay so long before he found the old appliance store.
Or what was left of it.
The collection of washing machines, dish washers, ovens, and microwaves had spilled into the street as if they’d been carried out on a tidal wave. Most bore so degree of damage, and a few had been completely ripped apart. Their innards had been scattered across the road and partially buried beneath the snow.
Elijah knew what he would find, but he needed confirmation. His heart pounded in his chest as he crept forward, nimbly leaping from one fallen hunk of machinery to another. anwhile, the stomach-churning odor of oily decay clung to everything, growing more powerful with every step he took into the appliance store.
And then, he saw what remained of the bear with which he’d briefly coexisted.
It was just a pile of offal and bone. The once mighty creature had been skinned, and half its body had been butchered. Whoever had killed it clearly hadn’t had the ability to take everything, though, so quite a bit of the corpse remained intact. Though without the bear’s glorious pelt, it made for a pitiful sight.
Elijah stared at it for a long while, and with every passing mont, his pulse quickened. Rationally, he knew that the bear’s death was no great tragedy. It was entirely possible that it had attacked soone who’d stumbled upon its lair. Maybe the killers had been acting in self-defense.
And yet, Elijah’s anger continued to mount. Perhaps it was because, sowhere in the back of one facet of his Mind, he recognized the signs that soone had deliberately hunted the bear. Or maybe, after his period of peaceful coexistence with the beast, he simply couldn’t look at its death objectively. Whatever the case, his anger reached a crescendo when he saw what had happened to the amanita.
It had been hacked to pieces. What remained had rotted, so the pile of decaying fungus was barely recognizable. In addition, the aura that had surrounded it was almost completely gone, leaving behind only a tiny surge in the density of the ambient Ethera.
As he stared at the aftermath, Elijah seethed, especially when he saw the remnants of broken spears and arrows lying around. He turned away from the scene, letting his anger envelope him.
It wasn’t that they’d killed the bear. Elijah had killed plenty of animals himself, so he didn’t begrudge soone for hunting. However, what truly set him off was the waste. They’d barely harvested a quarter of the animal, suggesting that the purpose of the kill hadn’t been for food or resources. Rather, it had been an attempt to gain levels.
Or maybe even for the challenge itself.
Worse yet, there was a possibility that they had killed the bear just because they could. Because they enjoyed the act of killing. Perhaps they liked watching the bear suffer, then took joy in hacking the amanita to pieces. Elijah had no idea which camp the killers fell into, but in his anger, he had difficulty imagining that they were justified.
In any case, he didn’t waste much more ti before setting off. But he didn’t head in the direction of the next town. Instead, he looked for the killers’ trail. Soon enough, he found precisely what he was looking for and proceeded to follow it out of town.
Fortunately, the trail was still fresh enough that, through his heightened senses and the increased concentration afforded by his Quartz Mind, he had no difficulty following the tracks. Still, he didn’t catch up to them until well past sunset. When he did, he approached under the concealnt of Guise of the Unseen and watched the murderers who had killed the creature who, in Elijah’s anger, he’d begun to rember far more fondly than was probably warranted.
* * *
Rooker sat on the overturned log, staring at the flickering flas as a bit of bear roasted on a spit. The fat and juices trickled down the juicy hunk of at, and when they hit the fire, they sizzled. It looked delicious, and it slled even better. However, even if it was more nourishing than most at, a couple of als had never been the goal. Instead, he and his boys had been contracted by an elven alchemist nad Breeze to harvest the giant mushroom that had very nearly killed all four of them. If they hadn’t had the benefit of the poison resistance potion, they’d have dropped dead before they even got close to the horrible thing.
But they’d persisted, and they’d filled the specially prepared sacks with bits of mushroom flesh. They’d even had to leave a little behind because they didn’t have enough room. So, their job was done, and in only a few weeks, they’d get the body cultivation potions they had been promised.
Killing the bear had just been a well-deserved bonus.
The dumb beast had put up quite a fight, too, and their Healer, Richard, still hadn’t recovered enough Ethera to completely nd their wounds. Rooker was the only one who’d managed to make it through entirely intact, but that was only because of his high Constitution as well as his Jerkin of Resilience that he’d gotten as the reward for conquering the tower back ho.
He'd been the only survivor of that one, and yet, he’d co out on top. Like always. That was the key benefit of his Vanguard class, after all.
A clatter yanked his attention away from the roasting at to see the pair of damage dealers – Tommy and Vic – fooling around with the bear’s pelt. Tommy, the spell-caster of the group, had the thing draped over his shoulders with its head functioning as a grueso hood.
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“Knock it off, you two,” he growled. He was the highest level among them, so he had taken his position as their leader. And given that he was only a couple of levels from making it onto the ladder, the others respected him in a way they wouldn’t have with anyone else. Still, all three were young and immature, so he often felt like he was babysitting his sister’s kids.
Of course, Michelle hadn’t made it through the apocalypse. Neither had his nieces or nephews. But he didn’t like to think about that. No – the world had changed, and if he wanted to survive more than a few more years, he needed to keep his eyes facing forward. That was why he’d taken the job offered by the alchemist.
Normally, he wouldn’t have even spoken to one of the elves. They mostly kept to themselves, but they’d also refused to help when so many humans were reeling from the world’s transformation. That was hard to forget.
Not for Rooker, though. He was a pragmatist, through and through, and he’d have done the sa thing in the elves’ places. In fact, he had done exactly that when he’d chosen to withhold his own assistance when it might’ve saved so of his neighbors. If they couldn’t survive on their own, then they didn’t deserve his help. More, he couldn’t afford to offer it – not if he wanted to ensure his own survival. The mont the apocalypse had hit – or the World Tree had touched Earth, as he’d learned – it had beco an every man for himself sort of situation. That was especially true after he’d lost his family.
But Rooker didn’t like to think about that, so he pushed the thought out of his mind. It was at that mont that he heard a rustle in the nearby bushes. Knowing precisely how dangerous the wilderness could be, he whipped around, yanking his axe from the loop on his belt. “Who’s there?!” he demanded.
At the sa ti, the two knuckleheads left their fooling around behind and leveled their own weapons in the direction Rooker was facing. For his part, Richard quickly retreated behind Rooker. As a Healer, the once-pudgy man was barely capable of defending himself, much less fighting anything more dangerous than a bunny, so he was almost entirely reliant on the others.
For Rooker’s part, he didn’t care about the man at all. But he liked the idea of having a Healer in his pocket in case things got dicey.
“I co in peace,” ca a man’s voice. It was a little rough, but clear as a bell. Then, the owner of that voice stepped out of the wilderness. He held a staff that looked like twined roots, and his clothes were oddly cut but unremarkable, save that the pants ended just above the man’s ankles. He was handso, though a little rough around the edges, with curly blonde hair and a beard that looked like it hadn’t been trimd in so ti. However, there were two true oddities about him that made Rooker look twice.
First, his feet were bare. What would drive soone to walk around the forest in the dead of night without any shoes, Rooker had no idea, but the characteristic was strange enough to make him do a double take. Second, the hand gripping the staff was scarred, and to Rooker, it looked as if he’d been seriously burned. The scarring went past his wrist and disappeared beneath his sleeve.
“Stop right there,” Rooker growled, gesturing with his axe.
The man did. “Didn’t an to sneak up on you. I just saw your fire and figured I’d drop in and say hello,” he stated. Then, he gave a half-hearted wave and said, “So, hello, I guess.”
“What do you want?” Rooker asked.
“I…I just told you?”
Rooker blinked. “What’re you doing out here? It’s not safe.”
The scarred man gave a shrug. “Kind of my thing. I’m looking for my sister. You wouldn’t know where Seattle ended up, would you? I think there’s a city called Tom’s Town a hundred miles or so south of here. I was thinking of heading there first, then seeing if I can find any more information on Seattle.”
“East,” Richard said from his position behind Rooker. He’d relaxed a little, and for good reason. It was just one man, after all. Of course, there could be others nearby, but Rooker didn’t think so. If that was the case, they’d have just attacked without bothering with a ruse. “I heard Seattle ended up east of her. Not even next to the ocean anymore.”
“Really? Wasn’t expecting that,” the newcor said. “Thanks. I’ll probably still head south first since I’m so close, but…yeah. That’s helpful information.”
“You’re a Healer?” asked Vic. He was the only one in the group with the ability to identify people, though it only told him a person’s archetype. How that related to his Stalker class, Rooker had no idea, but it was a useful enough ability to have.
“Oh. Yeah. Why? You need healing?” the man asked.
“You have spare Ethera?” asked Richard.
The stranger shrugged. “Depends on a few things. Like what’s that on the spit right there?” he asked.
“Bear,” grunted Rooker. “Killed this high-level fucker a couple days ago. This is the last of the at we could take. Sha, too. He was big. Only reason we were able to kill him at all is because of this sleep poison we got from an alchemist. It was a pain getting in close enough to get it in him, but once we did, it knocked him right out.”
“Oh. So, were you just hunting, then?”
“No,” blurted Richard. “We were hired to harvest this –”
Rooker cut the Healer off with a glare. “We were on a job,” he said slowly. “That’s it. Details aren’t important.”
The man shrugged again. “Mind if I lower my arms? My Strength is a bit lacking, so my shoulders are screaming at right now.”
Rooker nodded, and the man dropped his arms, then rolled his shoulders. “You want so?” he asked the man, gesturing to the hunk of bear at roasting over the fire. “Plenty to go around. And Richard could use a little help with the healing. The boys over there are –”
Just then, the man pointed his staff at Richard – who’d moved out from behind Rooker. The Ethera in the area shuddered before a thick bolt of lightning erupted from the stranger’s staff, then hit Richard directly in the chest. He was flung backwards with enough violence that, when he struck a nearby tree, the sound of cracking bones echoed through the campsite.
For a brief mont, everyone was stunned by what had happened. And then, suddenly, everyone erupted into motion. Vic yanked his dagger from the sheath at his waist – the idiot’s bow wasn’t even strung – then launched himself at the man. anwhile, Tommy raised his hands high into the air as he began casting a spell.
He never got the chance.
The Vanguard was already moving to intercept him, but he was far too slow. Rooker watched as the man transford, taking on the form of so sort of scaled nightmare that looked as if soone had crossed a panther with a crocodile, but far sleeker than either of those descriptors would normally indicate.
The man – or creature – hit Tommy like he was shot out of a cannon. With claws and teeth, the monster ripped through the spellcaster like he was made of paper. Blood and other viscera misted into the air, but the monster didn’t stop. Instead, it disappeared into the darkness on the other side.
“What the fuck…w-what the fuck was that?!” Vic pleaded, sliding to a stop. He jerked around, looking this way and that, but he clearly didn’t see anything. The creature’s scales were dark, so it was perfectly suited to hide in the shadows.
“I don’t know,” Rooker said, already using spells and abilities to accentuate his already stout defenses. So of them were intended to protect comparatively more vulnerable teammates, and they had diminishing returns when he used them on himself. However, he almost never blessed anyone else with his defensive abilities.
It was every man for himself, after all. He didn’t care if his teammates survived so long as he walked away. In fact, he preferred it that way because, if he was the only one left, he wouldn’t have to split any rewards.
“Is Richard still alive?”
“Fuck if I know, man!” Vic shouted. “I don’t know. I don’t know…”
“Pull yourself together.”
“You pull yourself together, asshole! It just went through Tommy like it was –”
He slapped his hand against his neck, then tapered off. He was trying to look everywhere at once, but Rooker had already written the man off. So, he backed himself against a tree and set his feet. By that point, he’d layered four defensive abilities, one atop the other to create a veritable cocoon of protection. So, he was ready for whatever that monster was.
anwhile, Vic continued to panic, muttering to himself the whole while. Every now and again, he’d slap his hand against any bit of exposed skin, but Rooker wasn’t certain if that was a nervous tick or if a swarm of mosquitoes had descended upon them. Whatever the case, he wasn’t concerned with a few insects.
Or at least, that was the case until Vic fell to his knees and vomited. In the firelight, it was difficult to tell, but Rooker thought he saw blood in the resultant puddle. He shouted for Vic, but the man pitched forward onto his face, collapsing into convulsions. He went still a second later.
Suddenly, Rooker felt very alone.
So very alone. And tired. He wanted nothing more than to go back in ti and hold his daughter again. Or his wife. They’d had their problems. He’d been a terrible husband back then. But if he could just go back, he would change. No more drinking. No more cheating. He would never lay a hand on her again. He just wanted a second chance.
“Why?” ca a deep, rumbling voice. Rooker looked up to see a monstrosity looming in the shadows. It was enormous, with hints of scales and a face like a spiny lizard. But it was shaped more like an ape, with long arms and squat legs.
“Show yourself, monster!” Rooker bellowed with all the false bravado he could muster.
“I’m not hiding,” the creature growled, stepping into the firelight. It was just as awful and intimidating as Rooker’s first impression had suggested. “Tell why you killed the bear. The mushroom, I understand. But the bear was innocent. Once it was unconscious, you could have left it.”
“Leave it? Why?” Rooker asked, confused. “It was a monster. Monsters give experience. That’s the world we live in.”
“And you? Will you give experience when I kill you?”
“W-what?” the Vanguard asked, his confident façade breaking.
“I was going to let you live,” the monster stated, its gravelly voice rattling Rooker’s bones. “You just wanted the mushroom, and the bear was in the way. But you killed it when you didn’t have to. I won’t let that pass.”
With that, the monster erupted into motion. Rooker used his final ability, manifesting an Ethereal shield a foot in front of him. The monster didn’t even slow down as it shattered the plane of magical force, then crashed into its owner. Rooker’s defenses were useless against the powerful monster, and it ripped through him with ease. Still, he managed to get a couple of blows in of his own, though they clanged off the creature’s skin with the sound of tal on tal.
And then, the creature grabbed his head with one of its massive claws.
That’s when it started squeezing. At first Rooker’s Constitution was up to the task, but the power the monster could bring to bear was absolutely overbearing. And soon enough, the integrity of his skull collapsed, and he knew no more.
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