B3 C63: A Chilling Battle

Realizing that they were brandishing their weapons at their kingdom’s one and only princess, the king’s honor guard and the many soldiers surrounding him all started to lower their weapons, only stopping when their king shouted out an order to the contrary.

“Hold! My daughter would never adorn herself with such shady garb, nor does she have the Dexterity or skills to arrive here as she has. I will not be fooled, wretch. Many skills exist to shapeshift or confound the mind. Do not think such cheap tricks will sway a sovereign.” The king of Ftheran drew his own sword as he spoke, pointing it down at his daughter below.

For Cal’s part, she nearly tore her hair out as the dozens of weapons penned her in. Raising her chin, she addressed her father, though she pitched her voice loud enough for all to hear.

“For fuck’s sake, I’m sorry I didn’t have time to play dress up or get in character, but you know my skills, don’t you? Here.” As fast as she could, Cal activated a number of her healing spells. While her father certainly didn’t know anything about the infiltration side of her class, he was more than familiar with the fake priestess side of it. The many guards nearly attacked on seeing her cast spells, but when waves of healing rolled off of her, they pulled back.

Despite the healing, the king remained unconvinced. “So you’ve done a pittance of research and found copies of her skills. Anyone would know, however, that my daughter does not swear.”

Cal audibly groaned at her father’s pigheadedness. “Fine! What about this?”

Especially at lower levels, most class skills were meant to be used frequently. It was, then, highly unusual that Cal had a skill she’d only used a handful of times. In fact, the last time she’d used this skill had been a year ago to convince her father to let her travel with Tess. Despite its infrequent usage, however, it was unmistakably hers.

False Prophet of the Light.

A flash of light burst out from her, briefly blinding everyone. Curses abounded, and a few bumbling stabs sought Cal out, the soldiers evidently believing the skill to be some form of attack. When their vision cleared, however, they found their princess standing in a column of glimmering light.

One by one, they lowered their weapons.

Honestly, that’s half the reason I took this skill, Cal reflected. More than just tricking her father, the skill came with an awe effect that scaled with her Charisma. Seeing how she had that in spades, the light was more than convincing enough to the average person.

Her father, however, had an entirely different reaction.

“That’s not possible. The tracker hasn’t been able to find you…” He pulled something from one of the folds in his overly regal military uniform. Even as trained as he was in schooling his expressions, his eyes bulged outwards as he consulted his trinket. “It… It is you! Calilah!”

Under other circumstances, the reunion would have been touching. Heartfelt. And make no mistake, the king was relieved beyond comparison.

Even so, his lips drew a firm line as his eyes narrowed. While his subjects were too awed to do anything but stand agape, he had no such troubles, and the scene before him was painting a troubling picture.

“Dearest daughter of mine,” he rumbled, “forgive me for not immediately embracing you, but am I to understand that this lightshow of yours is a class skill and is not what happens when you receive a divine revelation. And what’s all this with my men shouting that the ‘Shadow of Ftheran’ is rushing towards me?” Under his breath, he mumbled something Cal could only barely hear. “Gods above, please don’t tell me she’s turning out like her mother. I thought we were safe.”

Wait, my mother? What the hells?

Knowing next to nothing about her mother, that was a whole can of worms Cal would have loved to open. Unfortunately, now wasn’t the time. Instead, she fought the urge to let loose a deluge of obscenities, settling for a sigh to end all sighs instead.

I guess if I have to blow my secret for anything, this is probably worth it.

“Dad, we have… we have a lot to talk about. But that’s for later. Call a retreat! I’m not going to pretend to understand exactly what led to this, but people are dying over some sort of misunderstanding! Just call everyone back, and we can figure something out that doesn’t involve needless death!” Cal wouldn’t consider herself squeamish. She was hardly a pacifist, and she understood bloodshed. For something like this, though? Both sides were wasting lives for absolutely no reason.

Faced with both the sheer exasperation and scowling anger of his daughter, for the briefest of moments, the king of Ftheran wavered.

And then, utterly resolved, he clenched his jaw.

“No. I’m not sure what’s happened to you, but even if you are certainly my daughter, there’s no guarantee your mind hasn’t been altered. And even then, this is not a battle we can pull back from. I will not sit idly by as that scheming Protagonist builds a foreign army on my border.” The king gazed out across his troops, looking to the front where spells and skills flew with abandon. Nodding to himself, he gave the final word on the matter.

“The battle continues.”

Fuck. Fuck! Well-versed in her father’s facial expressions and tones, she knew this wasn’t a matter he would budge on. Why did I even bother rushing here then? Briefly, she considered going invisible and trying to knock him out. Unfortunately, she knew better than most that she didn’t stand much of a chance.

Her father hadn’t done too much fighting in his time, but a good deal of his class quests had to do with ruling a kingdom, and a good deal of his class skills drew from the strength of his subjects. Even with how much she’d grown in the last year, Cal had no delusions about being stronger than her father right now.

“You’re my dad, and even if you don’t always get it, I love you, but I’m letting you know you’re on my shit-list right now.” Activating her invisibility, Cal rushed off, hoping to diffuse things on her own if her father wouldn’t.

As she ran off, belatedly, she saw Nadja staggering from side to side, surrounded by a group of soldiers. Feeling the start of a raging headache, Cal shouted out, not even bothering to dismiss her invisibility.

“And don’t kill the bartender! You have no idea how pissed off everyone would be if you did.”

Ignoring all the shouting -- a good deal of it from her father demanding that she come back -- Cal dashed off.

All around her, the war dragged on.

~~~~~~~~~

The clash of metal on metal. The constant, low and steady rumble of spells impacting the cracked earth. The shouts, the cries, the battle!

Rock felt more alive than he ever had before. Even facing down an ancient Protagonist, he hadn’t felt a fraction of this intensity.

There were those who strongly believed a commander’s job was to fight from the rear, a tactician first, a combatant second. Rock would never stand for such an indignity.

At his sides stood a line of shadows, thirty strong and two deep, all of whom marched side by side, spear in hand. To their rear, countless more shadows drew their bows, peppering the enemy with an unending barrage of ranged attacks.

While not all of his kinsmen were capable of such a feat, a few of the Foresters had taken skills specifically relating to creating arrows. A single hand’s tap against a tree was enough for its bark to part, crude arrows pushed out into the waiting hand. While they weren’t as strong as the hand-crafted variety, they ensured there would be no running out of ammunition.

“Stand firm! We have nothing to fear if we stand together!” His shout served a dual purpose -- he meant the words, but more importantly, they were enough to trigger one of his skills, Rallying Cry. With a manic, grisly grimace, he watched as his tribe toughened up, both their stats and their coordination shooting upwards.

Ahh. What a poor choice they’ve made invading us with so few forces. Sensing that Rock was some form of commander -- or perhaps simply noting his abnormal, glowing skin -- three soldiers honed in on him, completely ignoring the shadows to his sides.

While he applauded them for their initiative, it was a laughable mistake. For months now, he’d been sparring with that fool of a bartender, but for the first time in forever, his spear finally moved how he wanted it to.

With a flick, he turned the first enemy’s blow to the side before effortlessly lunging forward, the soldier’s cheap padded armor no match for his spear. In it went, parting cloth and cotton and skin and flesh. When he ripped his weapon out, the soldier fell to the ground wordlessly.

The remaining two soldiers fared slightly better, managing both to fend off the blows of the shadows to Rock’s sides while also finding time to attack him. Even with his battle-high, Rock grunted, knowing he wouldn’t have time to fully block both blows. Choosing to deal with the strike he deemed to be more serious, the commander shifted his spear to the side, throwing his full Strength and weight into the soldier’s weapon. The foe lurched to the side, and Rock didn’t even need to follow up, the shadow next to him delivering the finishing blow.

Tensing, Rock waited for the pain to arrive from the incoming attack of the third soldier. When the spear was only a few centimeters from his side, however, his assailant froze.

With no visible signs of damage, they collapsed, limbs limp and eyes unseeing.

Rock spared a moment to glance behind him where Hartha currently stood, the dark vein-like lines across her body seeming to intensify as he watched. Catching his eyes, she nodded, and despite knowing that she was on his side, Rock had to suppress a shiver.

Fucking scary is what that is. He didn’t know what that goddess had been teaching her for the last year, but he wasn’t sure if he could take her in a fight anymore. On the one hand, that was exactly what he wanted -- the Heart was too important to be defenseless. On the other… Well, seeing someone silently and invisibly kill someone from a far was unnerving even for him.

As he had that thought, vines poked out from the ground beneath him, wrapping around the three corpses of his would-be killers. The earth churned as the bodies were dragged underground and pulled back towards the forest, each soldier offered an instant funeral that kept the shadows’ way forward clear. Along with the bodies, the pools of slippery blood that would have otherwise fouled his footing sank into the earth at an unnatural pace.

The sight managed to both please and shame him: With the dryad on their side, Rock felt invincible, but he couldn’t help feel she could have managed something far grander had she not burned through so much mana keeping him alive.

No matter. I must simply prove I was worth the tradeoff.

“Come! We push forward!” In the distance, Rock spotted the king atop his steed. It was, coincidentally, the same direction he’d spotted that absolute idiot of a girl running towards. He knew very well that Nadja wasn’t worth botching an entire war for, but if she just so happened to be right where his troops needed to go… well, that was just happenstance, wasn’t it?

In lockstep, the shadows advanced. It immediately grew clear that the troops they’d been facing had only been the very weakest of them, and every centimeter forward was painstakingly hard won. No matter how strong the enemies grew, however, the shadows would not be held back.

Unseen by most, a grand procession of souls flew through the air, gravitating towards the woman who’d called them.

All across the battlefield, vines claimed each felled foe.

And at the very forefront of the action, a stalwart spear found its mark time and time again.

The Heart, the dryad, and the commander.

Forward they advanced, and the enemy broke before them.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If the battlefield in front of the forest had finally taken on some semblance of order, then the rest of the war was still a haphazard, chaotic mess. Nowhere was that more true than surrounding the various buildings that made up the tiny settlement. Just as fire mages had been sent to burn the forest to the ground, so too had they been dispatched to raze the budding city and its architecture.

This, quite naturally, proved rather vexing for its residents.

“I do hate to be a bother, but I’ll have you know it took me quite a while to get used to sleeping in a longhouse, and I have little desire to go back.” Barb stood at the door to his home -- or, at least, the home he shared with a number of other residents -- gazing out on the amassed troops which were buzy burning down his neighbor’s houses. The city’s generally omnipresent ruins had long since been cleared from this area, offering him an unobstructed view of the troops sent to render him homeless.

“Very well then. I suppose it can’t be helped.” He unslung his scissors from their standard place at his back, surveying exactly what he was up against. “Mmm. Mostly around level ten, give or take? A few higher, a few even lower?” Nothing he saw gave the barber pause, and so, after a single moment to steel himself, he dashed out into the thick of it.

Swoosh. The almost comically large scissors lashed out at his first enemy, the soldier wincing as she watched the weapon move towards her head faster than she could react.

Rather than her head falling to the ground however, it was her hair that departed her body.

Shave has activated! You have stolen a portion of your target’s stats.

With his already impressive Dexterity boosted even further, Barb flicked his scissors upwards, clocking the newly-bald soldier on the back of the head. Down she went, falling into a heap beside her hair.

“Do try to act with some restraint. I imagine the Lady Calilah will be rather cross with us if we start killing her subjects, hmm?” Without turning, he shouted the words behind him, receiving an affirmative grunt in response. A jet of water followed, dousing the unconscious woman and the earth beneath her. From there, tendrils of mud climbed upwards and around her body before solidifying, firmly binding her in place.

With a white and winning smile, Barb glanced back to acknowledge his favorite mud mage.

“Delightful, Kex’Stella. If you would continue as such, please.” Knowing he had Kex watching his back, Barb shot forth.

Swoosh. Clang. Over and over again, he delivered quick, precise cuts, first denuding his opponent’s of their hair, second, rendering them unconscious. So rapidly was the enemy falling before him that he began to wonder if Ftheran had even brought stronger troops. Where was the challenge?

No sooner had the thought left his head, however, than said challenge arrived. Doubly so, in fact.

“Oy! You! You think you’re some hotshot, don’t you?” A good twenty meters away, a short, robed woman called out to him. To his sides, two burly fighters loomed menacingly. A quick identification pegged the woman as a fire mage, while the two men were more traditional fighters. Still, each of them was level 15. Slightly lower than his own level, but nothing to scoff at either.

“Well how about this, barber freak?” Before the words were even out of her lips, a blaze of fire erupted from the woman. Rather than move towards Barb, however, it engulfed the three of them. For a moment, he mistook it for some sort of fire armor, but when the conflagration cleared, he understood his mistake.

Standing there, with reddened skin but otherwise none the worse for wear, were the three fighters.

Quite notably, however, they were now completely bald. Everywhere Barb could see, their hair had been burned away.

Ahh. I do love a clever opponent. Now let’s see. How to proceed?

He could, of course, ask for Kex’s help, but where was the fun in that? Still hopped up on an influx of stats from Shave, he was feeling nigh on invincible. It would be tricky to subdue three fighters at once, but with a little bit of planning, he was confident he could-

WHUMP.

Out of nowhere, a massive glowing rock hurtled through the air, crashing into all three soldiers almost faster than he could follow. By the time the rock -- and along with it, the three enemies -- hit the ground, all of them were out cold.

Arching a single brow, Barb turned his neck towards the origin of the attack, finding a familiar figure. Dressed in nothing but shorts, a tank top, and a polka-dotted party hat, Jason grinned from ear to ear. A few arrows surrounded him, half of them snapped in two from ineffectually bouncing off of his stoney scales.

Schooling himself, Jason shifted into a more somber, serious expression before offering a slight bow to Barb.

“They did not seem like they would make good friends,” he admitted.

Quite so, Barb thought to himself. Stealing a glance at the crumpled forms of his would-be assailants, he was struck with another thought as well. I suppose it’s a good thing we make good friends, though.

Barb would hardly wish to be on the other end of one of those rocks, after all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hive Queen Aval’Kethrid -- Ava, to her friends -- liked to consider herself fairly unflappable. After all, unlike the humans with their strange ears and other bundles of soft flesh, she didn’t have any flaps to begin with. Still, when she was rudely awoken in the middle of the day by all manner of distress, she would have to begrudgingly admit it. She was, regrettably, slightly flapped.

What could possibly have gotten into everyone?

It was standard for the average Hive Queen to take a class with a mental component, and indeed, she had been born with the Mental Magic skill. She’d combined it with the other two most common kexid elements -- earth and dark -- to take the Mind of the Depths class. Truth be told, she rarely had cause to tap into her class’s mental skills. If nothing else, however, they allowed her a stronger connection to her people, enabling them to communicate silently. And more than that, she could also detect some fraction of their general emotions, even from afar.

For the most part, it was an insignificant skill, rarely coming into play. At rare times like these, however, she was jolted into action by the many stress-laden minds pushing their feelings onto her.

“Nothing to do but to have a look-see, now is there?” She expelled herself from the gelatinous sac-filled crevice in the wall that made up her bed before starting off towards the surface. Briefly, she considered waking Edgar, but she decided the deary deserved his beauty sleep.

The closer and closer she got to the surface, however, the more and more concerned she grew. Not only was Ava’s hearing greatly heightened to offset her relatively weaker sight from living underground, but also, she was highly attuned to even the smallest vibrations in the earth.

And presently, the surface was loud! Very, very loud!

They didn’t decide to throw a party without me, did they? How horrifying! No wonder her people were so distressed!

By the time she reached the surface, she’d already planned out all sorts of stern words for whoever had neglected to extend her an invitation. She’d planned on having to spend a good while hunting them down.

It was some shock, then, when she emerged from her tunnel into the center of a large group of spear-wielding humans. They entirely surrounded her in all directions, cutting her off from the main source of noise some distance off.

“Oh! Hello dearies. Would you mind letting me through? Or you wouldn’t happen to know who arranged for these festivities, would you? I don’t mean to be rude, but it’s quite a thing not to invite me! I do love a good party, now don’t I, Edgar?”

Belatedly, she recalled she hadn’t invited the shorter kexid along, finding her mood plummeting quickly. And on second thought, she didn’t recognize any of these humans either. Wasn’t that strange?

Then again, I can’t say I’ve ever been the best with their faces. Ah well.

Incredibly, however, rather than answering her very reasonable questions, the humans started to yell! A few of them even stabbed at her for heaven’s sake!

The disrespect! The indignity of it all! Of course, the spear tips harmlessly slid off her carapace, but still!

“Now dearies, I do try to be a woman of non-violent practices, but I’m afraid you’ve brought this upon yourselves.” She was, after all, fairly peeved, and there had to be some sort of consequences for attacking a queen.

Faster than any of the quaint little humans could react, a sphere of darkness erupted outwards from Ava’s position, swallowing the soldiers by the dozens. As fast as it appeared, it vanished, though the scene it revealed was far different than the original.

Everyone in a wide radius around Ava was now entirely entombed, save for their heads. They stuck out from the ground, forming a strange and somewhat macabre garden. Rather than shout or try to free themselves, the humans’ eyes were glassy, staring forward uncomprehendingly.

“Pardon me, dearies. You’ll all be fine in a short while.”

Having witnessed what she’d just done, the humans on the outskirts of her skill were now shouting and gesturing towards her, though most were far too wary to approach. She feared she’d have to repeat the process all over again if nothing changed.

But as it so happened, something did change.

There, in the sky.

A power flared up, far stronger than almost any she’d felt before. Like an endless winter, even sensing it from afar chilled her chitin through and through.

“I do hate to vacillate, but on second thought, perhaps this party is not for me, dearies.” With a haste she rarely summoned, Ava fled back into her tunnel, eager to reclaim the warmth of her gelatinous bed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Ah, I do hate it when that happens.” Barb’s shirt split down the middle, no longer able to contain his enhanced physique. He already made a habit of wearing clothing with a bit of give to it, but it had been quite a long time since he’d stolen so many stats. His body inflated as each head of hair fell to the ground, empowering him, strengthening him.

His body urged him to move forward, but at this rate, he was rather worried he’d lose his pants, too! Still, it was hardly as though he could leave the soldiers be.

Right as he was about to re-engage, however, a chill ran down his spine. He wasn’t the only one either. Everywhere he looked, fighters pulled back, looking to the sky above.

As an uneasy frost began to sink into him, Barb knew one thing above all else.

A rather unfortunate time to lose my shirt, hmm?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rock surged forth, the neat line he’d begun in now forming more of a “V” with him at the forefront. It wasn’t as solid or defensible a formation, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He would not be stopped!

The king was almost in reach! Rock could see the fear in his eyes as they neared. Could taste the victory nearly at hand.

And then, all at once.

Fear.

He jumped back, his many years of battle sense warning him. Even with his lower Perception and small mana core, he could sense as a frightful torrent of power started to amass above him. Just as he had, the enemies before him froze. Logically, he knew it was a perfect time to press his advantage while they were caught off guard, but he couldn’t bring himself to. He turned back to Hartha, hoping that she at least would have some sense of what was happening, but even she simply stared upwards, rooted in place.

What in the hells are we up against?

More than anything else, Rock could only hope the magic above him didn’t belong to the king.

As much as he hated to say it, if it did, he wasn’t feeling good about their odds.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

King Antaiu stared hatefully down at the forest folk who’d colluded to steal his aid before spitting on it and corrupting his daughter. He would admit that they were far better fighters than he’d imagined. The hulking one with cracks of light in his skin was especially so, cleaving through his lesser troops with a berserk ease.

If they thought victory would be so simple, however, they would soon be proven false. Ftheran, sadly, did not boast scores of world-renowned fighters. That did not mean it was filled with only weaklings, however.

The very strongest, the cream of the crop, he had selected as his honor guard. More than that, the king himself was no slouch. True, his class was hardly combat-oriented. True, he had rather little experience in large-scale fights. Nonetheless, he had one of the highest levels in the kingdom, and his skills heavily bolstered him in such a situation. If the vile forest creatures thought they would be taking him down so easily, they were sorely mistaken.

Or at the very least, he was certain he could flee if it came to that.

Even as he had that thought, however, a pit formed in his stomach. An eerie, soul-freezing chill passed through him, and unable to stop himself, he raised his eyes to the sky.

Gods above.

He could feel it. Power far beyond anything he could have planned for.

And he knew what it was, too. There was no mistaking it. It had to be.

The Protagonist. This is her doing, isn’t it? She’s finally come for me.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Lying in bed, Tess tilted her head upwards, unblinking eyes attempting to stare through the ceiling. After a brief pause, she settled back down.

“Yes, there is something up there, isn’t there,” Verin mused. “It feels quite pleasant, don’t you think?”

~~~~~~~~~~~

Presently tied up, drunk, and surrounded by soldiers, Nadja shivered.

“Ooh, it’s kind of chilly isn’t it? Brrrrrr.”