by Ivan Kal
Slowly the winning team recovered and accepted the reward. Then, as soon as they had retreated, Ragnor took to the front again.
“Now,” he said. “It is time for the second stage. As I’ve revealed before, this stage is a hunt. There are sixty adventuring teams left, and you will be acting in parties of two teams each.”
Morgan raised an eyebrow, looking at Borodar. If they could choose who they could partner with the Last Vanguards would be the clear choice.
“We have paired you up based on your performances in the dungeons,” Ragnor said.
I guess that that is a nope, then, Morgan said to himself as he shrugged at Borodar.
“We have chosen thirty contracts currently available at the Adventurers Guild, and have assigned each to one of the parties. You will have a week to accomplish them, and just like last time your progress will be recorded, but only while on the hunt. Each team will have one of Ta’elara’s students assigned to them, who will follow them on their hunts to record. The pairings and assignments are posted on the boards behind me.”
Morgan looked to see people in white and red garb placing the boards at the far side of the arena.
“As before, good luck,” Ragnor said simply and walked back, the others following him.
“Let’s go,” Morgan said and they headed toward the boards. There were fewer teams now, so it was easier for them to search, but when they got there they noticed that there was a separate board that had the rankings for the previous stage. Morgan looked at the scores—only those who passed were shown, and Sky Force was in the bottom half of the sixty teams that did pass. He looked at the scores they had achieved. They were scored in five areas and given a score from one to ten with, a maximum of accumulated points being fifty. Morgan winced as he saw how his team scored.
“We knew that it could be a problem, but we passed nevertheless,” Lucius said.
Morgan nodded—there was no point in lamenting what had already transpired. They had a score of thirty-five, with the scores of: 2 in speed, 6 in adaptability, 7 in execution, and 10 in both teamwork and potential. It wasn’t a bad score at all, but their speed was atrocious. To be fair, Morgan wasn’t even sure that they could’ve gotten any faster. They just weren’t strong enough to power through an entire dungeon without rest. Comparatively the winners had a score of 48, the second place 46 and third place 45. Borodar’s team had a slightly better score than them at 37.
But they had passed, and there was no need to dwell on that. The scores just told them what areas they had to work on a bit. He was surprised that their adaptability was only six, as he thought that their classes gave them a wide range of tools to deal with obstacles, but perhaps he was wrong.
Finally they moved to the other boards and found their team’s name. Morgan blinked when he read the team they were being paired with.
“Well, isn’t this a nice surprise,” a voice from behind him said.
Morgan turned and stood face to face with the smiling face of Emily, the person who had left him to die of starvation or by the hand of a manticore.
“Yeah,” Morgan said with a defeated expression. “This seems about right.”
* * *
Several hours later the Sky Force team was sitting across from the Harbingers of Fate in silence, glaring at them. Emily simply looked back at Morgan, meeting his glares with a small curving of her lips and an expression that said: I know what I did and I am not sorry at all.
They were in the inn where the Harbingers were staying—a much more expensive inn by the look of it. It seemed to be completely built out of marble and white wood, with dark tapestries hung all over. Morgan didn’t like it, but the Harbingers had rented a small room so that they could talk privately.
“Ahem,” the giant cleared his throat, which was sounded more like a mountain collapsing. “We should introduce ourselves. I am Evor. I hail from the far north and have come south to find fortune and fame. I joined the Omen Guild two years ago and have been a part of this team since then. If you haven’t already noticed I am a Jourgar, or as most other races call us, a giant.”
Morgan looked at the giant, trying to study him a bit more. Aside from the wide and bland features the man looked stocky. He was wide all over, his shoulders at least twice as wide as Morgan’s if not more, and he was thick, looking as if he was built out of tightly packed muscle and fat. His yellow owl eyes made him seem somewhat predatory, his black horns adding to that image. His hair was brown and straight, pulled back, but it just barely reached his shoulders. In a single word Morgan would describe him as intimidating.
Seeing that the man was obviously waiting for an answer, Morgan sighed. “I am Morgan. I am the leader of the Sky Reach team, and am as you can see a bland little human. These are my teammates,” Morgan said, gesturing to everyone in turn and saying their names.
“Good, good, and these are my teammates. You appear to have already met our great and wise leader Emily Dor,” he said, indicating the orc, who hadn’t taken her eyes off Morgan this entire time. “Then we have Alfiir and Velfiir—brother and sister, obviously Úlfriir—and finally Orhem, our resident elf.”
The two Úlfriir nodded their heads in unison, but didn’t speak. Their wolfish features were much more predatory somehow than those of Gnolls. Morgan had thought that perhaps the two races were related, but when he asked Vrshar he had been told in no uncertain terms that he should not repeat his words near either an Úlfriir or a Gnoll, as the two races apparently hated each other.
The elf didn’t even attempt to hide his contempt as he glared at Ves and Vall. Morgan knew that pure-blooded elves looked down on half-elves, in great part because elves had trouble procreating among their own kind, and an elf stepping outside of their race was seen as something despicable. Ves and Vall both appeared uncomfortable, and were keeping their heads down. Morgan might not be able to get revenge on Emily for what she had done, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to let the elf sneer at them like that.
“Hey, dude.” Morgan snapped his fingers in front the elf, channeling his best douche voice. “How about you stop glaring at my amri and her brother and I don’t rip your eyes out?”
Everyone at the table blinked, taken off guard by the sudden change.
The elf looked at Morgan as if he didn’t really understand what was happening.
“What, you don’t understand Basic?” Morgan asked, although he knew that all races on this world did. The elf opened his mouth to respond but Morgan didn’t let him. “Maybe you’ll understand in your own tongue. Stop glaring at them, or I will rip your eyes out.” Morgan said in Elvish. He had learned the language from Ves, mostly because her teaching him was something that they could do together.
The elf looked outraged, his face turning red as he spluttered. “You filthy human! You dare—” the elf started, and then stopped when Evor put his hand on his shoulder. He glared at the giant and Evor glared back. Something seemed to pass between them and the elf huffed, leaning back in his seat and not meeting anyone’s eyes.
The two Úlfriir seemed amused, and Emily looked pensive. Finally the giant turned to look back at Morgan.
“I believe that such provocations will not serve us well in our task,” Evor said slowly. Morgan wondered why it was him that took the lead in communicating with them. Because he know about what Emily did, perhaps?
“I know about your accusation against Emily, but without proof, you can do nothing. I wish to know if you are all able to put your personal feelings aside and work with us in service of our task. If we are to advance to the final stage of the tournament, we will need to work together.”
Morgan let the words settle between them for an extended pause. He understood that they needed to work together, that the rules of this world prevented him from getting the retribution he was owed. Morgan knew that to pass this stage he would need to get past his grudge, but he was greatly tempted to simply sabotage their efforts.
In the end, however, he realized that he couldn’t do
that to the others—they all wanted to climb the Tower, and to them the reality of being ascended was that of the strong taking advantage of the weak. They were all willing to let the past be the past, Morgan and Clara being the only ones who didn’t. This was just one more way in which Oxy had made this world be…unpleasant. Morgan didn’t really expect anything else from someone who believed that he was teaching people a lesson. Perhaps the god was right, and perhaps it was a lesson that had to be learned; perhaps those who took it to heart truly had a better chance of living. But those who didn’t understand, who were just thrown to the wolves to be eaten, they would never have that chance—because this world fed itself on the weak and foolish.
Morgan took a deep breath, his father’s word echoing inside his head once again. The strong thrive, and the weak perish. Still, he had to know. His left hand was resting on his thigh, beneath the table, and as he turned to look at Emily he activated the ability on his ring.
“So, do you really not remember who we are?” Morgan asked, avoiding Evor’s question.
Emily tilted her head, her braided hair slipping from her shoulder to dangle over her chest. “I do remember,” she admitted. Morgan could tell that the others around the table were surprised at her saying it. But most importantly, his ring heated up, letting him know that that was the truth.
“Why did you do it?” Morgan asked. There was no point in trying to get revenge now. There was no law that would accept even her admitting it. They had been beyond the territory of any guild.
“It is the way things have always been done in the valley. If it hadn’t been me, it would’ve been someone else that the guild sent. Supporting new ascended is costly, especially since they are all as fragile as non-ascended. The truth is that I believed that I was doing you a favor. Nearly eighty percent of all ascended die within their first year, either in combat against monsters or because they can’t afford ascension crystals—and the ascended from the valley have even worse odds. They did not grow up with ascended parents, they had not been brought up with knowledge of what it means to be ascended. Taking people like them on serves only to waste resources. You were a chosen, rare, but only because the majority of you die on your first day here.”
Every word she said she believed. It really drove home the point to Morgan of just how warped a sense of morality everyone over here had. Or is it me whose sense of morality is warped? I am the minority here.
“And what about Lucius?” Morgan asked. “He was not from the valley, he knew much about being ascended. Why did you at least not take him?”
Emily glanced at the Roman and then back at Morgan, shrugging. “He is a Corvus. Their name is so black it might as well be considered a curse.”
Morgan saw Lucius wince. The things spoken about his family were not true, as it was not the Corvus family that had betrayed the peace of Amon’Tor and started the war breaking the laws of both the guilds and the Guiding Force. The Corvus family and their guild had been betrayed by their own—Lucius’s brother had sold them out—but that was not known by the general public.
Still, Morgan was taken aback by the fact that Emily was telling him the truth.
“Can you give me your word that you will not attempt anything that might result in harm of my team or me while we are partnered up?” Morgan asked the big question.
“Why would I? We need you in order to pass this stage. In any case, what happened in the past did not impact your lives much. I see that you have all survived and are stronger, perhaps stronger for what you went through. You are ascended. But I supposed that, yes, I give you my word that neither I nor my team will attempt anything that might result in your team’s harm.”
His ring grew warm, meaning that she was telling the truth. Morgan still had a hard time accepting that this was just the way things were in this world, that ascended with power did what they wanted and there was no justice—but he knew that he had to get past it.
“Fine. I can set my feelings aside, and we can work together,” Morgan said.
“Splendid!” Evor boomed. “It is always better to make friends? Yes?”
Morgan sighed, already feeling drained.
They spoke a bit more, discussing their hunt. They had been given a contract on a water elemental that had been making problems for a fishing village some distance from Al’Valor up in the hills. They spoke a bit generally about it, with mostly the Harbingers talking as they had more experience. They explained what a water elemental was and the best ways to fight them, and then they agreed to meet tomorrow to discuss their plans in depth. After that, the Sky Force team retreated back to their own inn and suite.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Once back in their own room, Morgan and the others sat around in their common room. Morgan and Ves were on one couch, with Lucius taking the chair and Vall and Clara taking the other couch across from them.
“You shouldn’t have antagonized the elf, Morgan,” Vall said as soon as they all sat down.
“But thank you,” Ves said and squeezed his knee before Morgan could answer.
“It was ill advised,” Vall said again. “Pure-blooded elves don’t like half-breeds. Nothing you say will change that.”
“I know,” Morgan said. The truth was that he just needed to lash out at something. Sitting at the same table as one’s nemesis was not an experience Morgan would recommend, especially since he couldn’t do anything about it. “I wasn’t about to let him look down on you two like that. And at the very least now he will glare at me instead of you two.”
Ves turned his head and gave him a kiss.
“Blargh,” Morgan heard Clara say, and he looked over, breaking the kiss.
“What?” he asked.
“Keep that in the room, please,” Clara said.
Morgan showed her his tongue, and hugged Ves tightly against his chest. “You are just jealous because I got to her before you.”
Clara shook her head. Morgan smiled—he was still pretty sure that she had tried to steal Ves from him at least once.
“Perhaps,” Lucius interjected, “we should return to the matter at hand.”
Morgan sobered up and straightened. “Right, so what are we thinking?”
“The elemental will be higher level than us, for sure. I don’t know why they paired us up with a team that isn’t at least comparable to us,” Vall said.
Morgan nodded. The Harbingers were probably in their mid-thirties at least; they hadn’t said anything about their level, but Morgan had gotten good at telling power from a glance. His Life Sense skill gave him the ability to sense all life around him, and the power of that life was part of that.
“True, but you have all been telling me that levels aren’t everything for years,” Morgan said. “I’m sure we will manage.”
“What are we going to do about our capabilities? They have already asked us,” Clara asked.
Morgan grimaced. The Harbingers wanted for them to share what they could do, their abilities and skills. He wasn’t sure that that was such a good idea. “If we tell them everything we can do, then we are possibly giving away our advantages to them. If we pass this stage, we will be competing against each other.”
“The same is true of them,” Ves added, not really disagreeing.
Morgan doubted that the Harbingers would reveal all of their abilities and skills. “Even if they tell us most of what they can do, they are a higher level and probably have abilities and skills that are more powerful than ours.”
“What do you propose we do, then?” Lucius asked.
“We tell them what we can do in the general sense, but keep a few of our most powerful abilities a secret,” Morgan said.
“You mean for us not to use them against the monster?” Vall asked.
“Yes, we hide most of what we can do. I am sure the Harbingers will want to pass, so they will not be able to keep all of their skills and abilities a secret.”
“And if our keeping our abilities a secret results in us not passing to the next round?�
�� Vall asked him.
“I don’t mean for us to keep everything a secret, or for us not to even try and help. I just want us all to keep at least one key ability a secret.”
The others all nodded. They spent the next few hours discussing which abilities they should keep a secret, and how it would be best to approach the hunt.
* * *
Three days later, the two teams gathered at the Harbingers’ inn and prepared to set off on the hunt. They had spent the last few days planning it; Morgan had wanted to plan for longer, but the Harbingers argued that they should go sooner, to leave time in case they failed. The Harbingers, at least according to them, had only one fire-aligned team member, the elf Orhem, who was a magic-based class. The two teams had shared some, but not much with each other. They had made a strategy that revolved around protecting their damage dealers and allowing them to attack the elemental, buying time until they could find its core.
Lucius a few abilities that would be useful, including some new fire alignment attacks, but he was focusing on attacks that were mostly wind based. He had picked up fire alignment mostly because of its aspects: transformation and destruction. He was following a build guide that he remembered from when he was a child, something that all his family members followed. He was now a Sword Lord, but in the future he hoped to become a Thundering Sword, a class focused on extremely fast combat. He was forced to take an ability for this hunt, however—on his last leveling up after the dungeon he had unlocked some fire-based abilities. It was a hybrid ability called Fire Crescent, which allowed him to send the arc of a fire blade by utilizing both his air and fire alignment.
Fire attacks would not be super effective, but they would distract the elemental and slowly deplete down its body. But ultimately they would be a distraction, the only way to kill an elemental was to get to their core.
As far as the rest were concerned they would help in any way that they could. Water elementals cores were similar to the terracotta in the dungeon—except that in a water elemental the core could be anywhere inside its body, and its body was large.