The month the Eventide Eclipse returned from the Phoenix Peaks.
“Stop! Shh!” I held up my hand, Iona instantly cutting herself off midword, muscles rolling and tensing.
I brought all my senses to bear, concerned at how close they all were before I heard anything. I only heard two people, and quickly triangulating their position was… weird. Two people just didn’t walk that distance from each other. They were armed, and they weren’t taking the road up. The noise they were making was so faint, it was like they were trying to conceal themselves - and, frankly, doing an admirable job of it.
“Trouble.” I said, popping into my [Tower of Knowledge] a moment later. We’d gotten everything organized and arranged today just in time. Sure, maybe we could’ve just done it ourselves, but a hundred pairs of eager hands had made re-sorting and reorganizing everything that much easier, on top of weighing on their early class evolutions. It wasn’t something I could do everyday - the reality of having a truly messed-up storage that needed to get rearranged wouldn’t have the same oomph if I deliberately messed it up - but I’d made a tangible impact on their lives.
And tangible organization to my [Tower]. The entire first floor was my armory, the items I’d need fast. Iona’s adamantium alloy armor was in here as well, the convenience of transportation and usually having it near outweighing the occasional awkwardness if she needed it at home and I wasn't around. A brisk round of [Teleportation] got the ribbon out of my hair and snapped my full armor on, helmet and all, with a minor concession to my billowing red cape, just in case I was overreacting - or could intimidate a problem into leaving. A non-violent solution was the best solution, but I loosened the clasp enough to immediately remove it if necessary. Iona’s armor in hand, I popped back out to reality, then [Teleported] all her gear on in an instant. Iona stretched, then her agile fingers flicked over buckles and straps, fixing a thousand minor things.
Less than five seconds after I’d heard the first rustle of chainmail, and we were armed and ready.
“Fenrir.” Iona dashed off to help the wyvern arm up - I didn’t keep his armor in [Tower]. I knew Iona would also be letting Titania, Amber, and Skye know what was going on. Varuna didn’t though, and I left the villa through a side door to the garden.
My poor cucumbers! Ah well, I suppose they were eaten by a guest, and it wasn’t like the unicorn had decided to take a single bite out of them and move on. My mangos were untouched, and therefore I had bigger problems.
“Varuna.” My voice snapped out in the habitual command tones I used when I needed people to listen to me right now. “Possible trouble. Letting you know.”
The unicorn snorted and dashed past me, the doorframe not quite surviving the unicorn squeezing into the villa. Fine - if he was worried about Skye and wanted to protect her or get her out of there, I wasn’t going to complain.A moment later Iona joined me in front of the villa on the terrace, trees cleared out to give ourselves sight lines, and Fenrir remained crouched down in the center garden the villa was built around, protected by thick armor slabs. We faced the way the intruders were going to emerge from the forest.
I could only hear two, but I rapidly caught sight of more.
“I see five.” Iona said in English. “Elf on their stat sheet. We cleanly out-stat them, but they’ve got higher levels.”
I used [Long-Range Identify] on all of them, trying to get a better sense of what we were dealing with.
[?]
Damnit. I’d used deceptive tactics often enough that I couldn’t complain about them rebounding.
“Seven here.” I muttered back, catching a flash of shadows. “Eight now. [Identify] is just returning a question mark. Light them up?”
“Mmmm.” Iona hummed to herself. “No, let’s let them do the first overtly hostile action. Overtly.” She’d read my mind. I’d been about to ask if sneaking around wasn’t hostile or not, and I was sure there were dozens more layers to her actions that she didn’t quite have time to explain.
I trusted her.
Voices called out in High Elvish a moment later.
“Ah, they’ve caught onto us!” One elf laughed.
“It wasn’t like we were trying to be sneaky!” A second one bantered back. “It took them this long to notice?”
Iona clasped her hands behind her back and gave me a tiny tick with her head. I released a soft glow of [A Light Shining in the Darkness], explicitly marking Iona as ‘friendly’ and the elves as hostile. We’d all be able to see - heck, Iona and I could see in the dark - but now it wasn’t threatening, and there was an added layer of deception.
Eight elves emerged from the forest a moment later, although I continuously scanned for more hiding in the woods. If I was up to nonsense, that’s what I would do… but then again, the cursed pride of the elves might not let them do such a crass thing.
Unless, of course, an elf prided themselves on being that good and stealthy, at which point it was possible I’d never detect them, bio-engineered improved senses or not.
They wore flowing silks in bright colors, most of them having at least a scimitar strapped to their waist. One floated, bare-chested and cross-armed, on a cloud, choosing to fly on a rumbling stormcloud instead of walk. The other seven were on the ground, their clothes and equipment reminding me of every story of Urwa elves I’d ever heard.
Iona’s hands started to rapidly flash behind her back, mixing up Ranger hand-signals I’d taught her with the occasional Valkyrie signal.
Then, of course, were basic numbers.
Slave-go. Iona flashed three times, the limitation of hand signals not allowing for great nuance. Frankly, it was a miracle that ‘slave’ was even a signal. Only the sheer cultural weight of the institution in Remus had gotten it in. It took me a moment to interpret what she was saying, and my hackles went right up.
Slavers. Eight of them sneaking up on our home in the middle of the night wasn’t exactly a friendly social call.
Left. Nullifier. Void. 1029. Mantle. Prison. 1002. Merchant. 1005. Priority.
“Hello!” I waved to them. “What can we do for you?”
The elves laughed at my greeting, choosing to completely ignore me.
One over. Mage. Inferno. Sand. Mirage. Unimportant.
“Hey!” One of the elves shoved another. “Look at that healer chick! She’s probably the source!”
Warrior. Gale. Mirror. Ocean. Mine.
Yup, didn’t want to mess with a Mirror [Warrior], I’d leave that to Iona.
Iona tilted her head, and I could tell she’d automatically put on a pleasant smile, even though they couldn’t see her.
Warrior. Mage. Mountain. Mountain. Mountain. Unimportant.
One of the elves whistled at me.
“Hey missy! You wouldn’t be handing out Immortality gems willy-nilly, would you?” I lifted an eyebrow.
“What if I was?”
Prison. Earth. Unimportant. Nullifier. Void. Priority.
I interpreted the middle Unimportant as having a class we didn’t care about.
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The elves carelessly laughed again. No hands were near weapons, but a knot of tension was building in my gut. I loosened my arms, letting it flow through me.
“Well, girly! If you were, there’s quite the bounty on your head.”
A different elf pushed a third one, pointing to Iona.
“Heya! That’s a Valkyrie! She’s got to be worth something.”
Mage. Storm. Lightning. Sand. Flying. Iona was talking about the bare-chested elf who was floating above the rest.
“I’m priceless and you know it!” Iona’s tone was jovial, but I could see she was getting ready for violence to explode all around us. Pebbles were subtly shifting near her feet as she flashed out the last few people.
I double-checked that my healing was up, included everyone, then explicitly removed the elves from the ‘people to be healed’ designation. No telling when this was all going to devolve.
Healer. Celestial, Unimportant, Unimportant, Priority.
I wanted to bare my teeth and hiss at the sheer gall of a [Healer] working with [Slavers], or worse, more probably, given how they were all acting, being an actual [Slaver] themself. How could they live with themselves?
It broke my heart a little that they were a priority designation. I knew when I stepped onto a battlefield that others would target me first, try to bump me off as a weak support, when all I wanted was to keep people alive.
And now I was targeting the [Healer] first. I suppose, in some ways, it was better than using the [Arbiter’s] aura to suppress their healing, something I didn’t want to do. Which felt overall a little hypocritical of me, and something to think about another day.
Mage. Sound, Unimportant, Poison, Unimportant.
Sound-Poison was Unimportant? His stats had to suck.
I eyed the three targets Iona had labeled Priority while we talked. Or, mostly, we tried to talk and the elves seemed to half-ignore us, paying more attention to each other. Like we were ants, not worthy of hearing what we had to say, like our words were background noise.
Assholes.
The eight elves were spread out in a loose line, Iona’s description of each of them almost reminding me of a Ranger team. They had a strong mix of [Warriors] and [Mages], with a good number of supports and life classes sprinkled. The [Healer] was in the middle, and the other two she’d marked as Priority were on either end. A mental plan snapped into place.
If this devolved into a fight, using about 70% of my mana, I was going to use overwhelming firepower to take out the [Healer], then a smaller amount to take out the two utility mages Iona had marked as my opening blow. That would literally take a second, then my mana was reserved for healing duty.
I couldn’t fight the [Warriors], especially the one Iona marked Mine, but I could run interference and heal at the same time. Five against three seemed like poor odds, but Iona had [Vow], which should keep in with Skye and Amber behind us, and Fenrir was, well, Fenrir. I’d bet on him against the entire group.
“Five whole prizes! We’re going to be eating good tonight!” Another elf sang out in glee. The [Healer] was acting a little nervous.
Hang on - five? They were miscounting. That, or someone didn’t count as a ‘prize’.
“I don’t know about this, it’s a lot.” He said.
Another elf whirled on him.
“A lot? A lot? Of course it’s a lot! That’s the whole point! We’ve got more people and levels than they do, and we’re elves. Against… humans. It doesn’t get easier than this! Two and a half of them are non-combatants, and oh no, a big, scary bag of coins might try poking us with his horn! Mortals. Are. Nothing.” He emphasized each word to a poke of his teammate’s chest.
Iona and I traded a quick glance. She drew her weapon and got her shield ready. I unfurled my six wings, turned on my halo, and floated up into the sky. I took in a deep breath, letting my voice properly boom, upping [A Light Shining in the Darkness] just a hair.
“I am Sentinel Dawn of Exterreri. Leave now.”
There was a brief pause before the eight elves broke out into rancorous laughter. I started to summon [Six Wings, Six Million Feathers], spinning each one around me in a grand featherstorm, picking up speed. I debated summoning a [Radiant Angel’s Spear of Obliteration], but no. The skill was too low level, and outnumbered against elves that outleveled us, I had to be hyper-efficient. This wasn’t the Gladiator Gauntlet where I could showboat, nor was it a threat we overpowered so much I could experiment.
This was a live, deadly threat to our lives and freedom, and it was time to channel every single bit of Artemis inside me.
I was faced with a relatively new problem, one I’d never truly been faced with outside of a theoretical discussion with Night, more than half my life ago.
How sure did I need to be to attack someone threatening me? My [Oath] didn’t demand I had to be an idiot. If someone was drawing a bow, with a nocked arrow aimed at my heart, I didn’t need to wait until they loosed their arrow to defend myself.
The elves were so fucking unprofessional and confusing that I couldn’t tell if they meant me harm or not. It was clear from implication that they were a bunch of evil slavers, but I was genuinely confused, and couldn’t tell if they were going to fuck off, or attack. It was enough of a grey wiggle room where I found my hands metaphorically tied.
There was a mighty crash behind us as Skye, on Varuna’s back, muscled through a wall - Iona’s weak [My Home is My Castle] skill must’ve gotten a few levels from that - then took off down the mountain in a blur. Things went to shit.
The djinn-like mage, floating on a cloud, snapped a hand out and fired a bolt of Lightning after Skye. The other elves drew their scimitars and exploded into motion.
I promptly sent my [Six Wings, Six Millions Feathers] after their [Healer], following it up with a hefty dose of [The Rays of the First Dawn] through his head. More than half my feathers simply vanished on approach, probably from the [Nullifiers] Iona mentioned. The rest landed, and [The Rays of the First Dawn] landed unimpeded, a benefit of lightspeed magic. He survived the initial hit, but I didn’t relent, the million feathers descending upon him like a localized apocalypse.
[*ding!* Your party has slain a [Custodian of Flesh (Celestial, 1189)]/[Master of Mortal Merchandise (Celestial, 546)]/[The Man Who Sold the Moons (Celestial, 556)]]
Fenrir roared as he took off, the Lightning bolt curving from Skye to splash harmlessly against his armor. He circled once, getting some speed, before preparing to go into a diving run.
A few Mirages briefly flickered into existence before the mage realized my Radiance was overpowering them without any effort. The Sound-Poison mage was backing up from the violence, not obviously doing anything besides drawing his weapon but I didn’t trust that. Sand swirled from both the flying elf and the [Mage], and the two warriors dashed to Iona, trying to catch her in a classic pincer. She kicked up her rocks at the non-Mountain [Warrior], using [Telekinesis] to speed them up, while stones rumbled around the Mountain [Warrior]. Four sets of chains sprang up on Iona’s arms and legs, two made out of stone and two made out of metal.
Just as the [Healer] died, I immediately snapped my [Rays] to the two other targets Iona had called out as Priority, cursing their reflexes. I’d hoped to get them taken out before they could bog her down. Their chains arrested her swing, then the Radiance killed both of them. Iona immediately snapped them and engaged the two warriors, using the swinging chains as an extra set of weapons. The Mirror [Warrior] deflected Iona’s Earth-mage proxy attack right back at her, as the Mountain spellblade started to pummel her with stones.
[*ding!* Your party has slain a [Superior Spellbreaker (Void, 1029)]/[Muzzle of the Unruly (Mantle, 1002)]/[Seller of Spice, Silk, and Souls (Celestial, 1005)]]
[*ding!* [Omniscient Coordinator (Brilliance, 1077)]/[Vanquisher of Hope (Void, 424)]/[Binder of Hopes and Dreams (Earth, 720)]]
I flung myself at the flying mage, then had to spin and abort my physical attack as Fenrir came roaring past me. In Ice and Lightning, the two mages died, then he whirled and chased the third one.
[*ding!* Your party has slain a [Magus of the Searing Sands (Inferno, 1161)]/[Dustbowl Drowner (Sand, 775)]/[Avatar of the Shimmering Oasis (Mirage, 545)]]
[*ding!* [Djinn of the Storm (Storm, 960)]/[Muon Trapper (Lightning, 828)]/[Devil of the Drylands (Sand, 796)]]
I dove down to Iona’s fight against the two elves, blows trading so quickly I couldn’t keep up. There was a bubble of Ocean around Iona’s head as one of the Warriors tried to drown her, and she-
Nevermind. It took me a moment to replay what I’d seen. Throwing her shield into the Mountain [Warrior’s] face, she tackled the second [Warrior] around the waist, bringing the two of them to the ground. Grabbing his horns, she slammed his head into the unyielding stone again and again, first cracking his skull before exploding his brains out. One final punch through his face left no doubt to his fate, even with the System notification.
[*ding!* Your party has slain a [The Biting Wind (Gale, 1173)]/[The Untouchable Reflection (Mirror, 813)]/[The Great Drowner (Ocean, 512)]]
The Ocean around her head dropped.
The Mountain [Spellblade] was absolutely pummeling Iona the entire time, from raining heavy blows on her helmet to endless barrages of rocks, culminating in an Earthen pillar that tried to crush her. Her adamantium, biomancy changes, and my healing combined let her shrug it all off until a second pillar blasted her away. Panting, the Mountain [Spellblade] looked around and tried to run.
[*ding!* Your party has slain a [Silencer of Screams (Sound, 1107)]/[The Sweet Sedation (Poison, 1109)]/[The Meditating Monk (Light, 509)]]
Iona swiftly conjured her bow, and a twang later the elf was rolling on the ground. In a pounce, Iona was over him, grabbing his horns and his neck. With a single savage pull she ripped his head off his neck, his spinal column coming along for the ride. A horrified rictus marred his face, before Iona dropped his head into her knee, popping him like an overripe melon.
[*ding!* Your party has slain a [Crustcaster (Mountain, 1123)]/[Earthborne Rockcaller (Mountain, 1190)]/[The Highest Mountain (Mountain, 745)]]
I looked around, seeing Fenrir returning. We’d devastated the area, the place was a mess. Blood and stone littered the area, and most of the fragile objects near the front had gotten broken from a thousand tiny sonic booms. I landed with a sigh.
[*ding!* [The Arbiter of Life and Death] has leveled up! 895-> 896. +400 Strength, +400 Dexterity, +800 Speed, +800 Vitality, +1600 Magic Power, +1600 Magic Control, +1000 Mana, +9000 Mana Regeneration from your Class per level! +1 Strength, +1 Dexterity, +1 Speed, +1 Vitality, +1 Mana, +1 Mana Regeneration, +1 Magic Power, +1 Magic Control for being Chimera (Elvenoid) per level! +1 Mana, +1 Mana Regeneration from your Element per level!]
[*ding!* [Seraph of the Dawn] leveled up! 870 -> 871. +512 Speed, +512 Vitality, +1024 Mana, +1024 Mana Regeneration, +1024 Magic Power, +1024 Magic Control per level from your class per level! +1 Strength, +1 Dexterity, +1 Speed, +1 Vitality, +1 Mana, +1 Mana Regeneration, +1 Magic Power, +1 Magic Control for being Chimera (Elvenoid) per level! +1 Strength +1 Mana Regeneration from your Element per level!]
Eh. Being in a team and splitting experience with Auri made it all safer, but not great experience. I hadn’t really used [Erudite Archmage] at all in the fight, and the ‘downside’ of it being a reader-mage ‘witch studying magic high up in her tower’ class was it didn’t like combat. I was fine with that.
“Let’s go make sure Amber’s alright.” I said.
Amber was fine, and a few minutes later Skye returned with the entirety of Ranger Team Gale behind her, flying in on a roc. I was still sweeping up the broken pottery as Iona built a bonfire, the valuable parts of the elf’s gear already stripped off and put to the side. I waved to the Rangers.
“Hey! Great, you’re just in time to help us clean up! As a concerned citizen, I have some reports to make!”
Livia shot a poisonous glare at Skye, who shrugged.
Good decision making during a crisis, knowing who to find, how to find them, and effectively getting them here in minutes?
Iona beat me to it, calling across the front yard.
“We have to hire her now!”
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