No words were exchanged, but Ranthia watched as her [Healer] stepped forward, mirrored by a [Healer] from the newcomers.
It all felt more than a little ridiculous after they had just slaughtered the shimagu alongside one another, but the legionaries that faced her people had their hands on their hilts, their spears ready to raise, and arrows nocked. Her own people looked wary, but they were less visibly ready for combat.
Which was wildly misleading—Ranthia hadn’t exactly had time to check the entire army, but from what she could see, her people had a clear level advantage. With the difference, her people could spring into action with far greater alacrity.
Not that Ranthia truly expected anything to happen. She knew her people were clean, and the rigidity of Remus’ Legions was unmistakable.
“Touch or range?” Ranthia’s [Healer] asked once they were within a few feet of each other.
“Touch.” The younger [Healer] that faced him answered.
The two stepped forward. The legionaries that faced them prepared to inflict hostility if anything went awry.
Then the men clasped one another’s arms and, after a terse moment, shook them.
“Clean.” Both men announced at the same time.
And just like that, the tension drained from the atmosphere.
The soldiers were of the 16th Legion and, for whatever reason, the two men in charge seemed to refuse to speak to or interact with Ranthia in any capacity. They were polite and formal about it, but they carefully avoided answering her questions and remained ‘busy’ while she was in the vicinity.
It didn’t take long for her to get annoyed and try sending the Subcommander at them. She wasn’t entirely sure if she was relieved or annoyed that he was able to get answers. Also, apparently his rank wasn’t really ‘Subcommander,’ who knew?
The Tribunes—which were apparently very important and special officers, and Ranthia could not care less—had expressed surprise that Ranthia’s people had “returned to their base” after it had been “destroyed.” This very, very nearly started a brawl—her people were ‘a touch’ displeased to learn that the Legions had formal reports from scouts that their base had been utterly annihilated, with no trace of survivors. It wasn’t like these men had anything to do with it—probably—but gods and goddesses, seriously?! They went through all of that… because someone couldn’t be bothered to do their job?!
The (rather late) lunch at their base was crowded. The shimagu’s fortifications had given them an ample supply of things to burn and there was tyrannosaurus—and other dinosaur meat—being cooked across the base both within and beyond its walls. The legionaries were just too numerous to all fit inside the Unbreakable Image, so the mud [Mages] made multiple openings in the wall to let people come and go.
Not that the bulk of her people wanted to socialize. Ranthia was far from the only person that felt uncomfortable around strangers after years spent isolated in enemy territory. Every unfamiliar face felt like a knife in the back waiting to happen.
Her forces were down to 119 survivors—counting Ranthia. They had more losses that would be inscribed upon their monument after they ate and ‘partied’. Mostly they were stiff and awkward though. Sure, there were those that joined in the festivities in earnest and welcomed their ‘rescuers,’ but many stayed along the wall with Ranthia.
It was hard to enjoy the tyrannosaurus. People kept boasting that it was one of the tastiest things they’d ever eaten, and she usually loved eating monsters and dangerous beasts that she killed—yet to her tongue the food was almost tasteless. It was hard to appreciate food while she was still mired in guilt over Statia’s death.
Help us both escape. Help me save your life. Help gather reinforcements. The ideas she had desperately struggled to come up with on the spot came so damned easily after everything was done. After it was too late. Statia had demanded the mission after a scout brought word of her base’s existence—after she learned that Ranthia was potentially still there. The same compulsion from those damned words Ranthia could never take back drove her to run ahead of her forces when she caught sight of Ranthia.
All so Ranthia could see her.
It was hard to say what any what-if scenario would have truly changed. Would asking something new of her friend have caused the woman to pause? Would it have saved her life? Ranthia had wanted the troll dead for years, but she had never wanted to lose yet another person just to do it. She would trade the troll’s survival for Statia’s if she could.
Yet Statia was gone. Ranthia had successfully avenged her. And there she sat, ‘saved’ by Statia’s acts.
Her armor had been mended with more scraps of her old Adventurer’s armor. She had even managed to find a way to pin the two halves of her Ranger badge to her chest. It wasn’t secure enough to fight, but for walking or sitting, it was fine.
The shimagu were annihilated. The impossible dream they had sought for years had come to pass. And they were saved. Remus was still out there. The alliance—the coalition, apparently—hadn’t collapsed.
And yet… They had been abandoned and written off. A single false report had left them enduring so much and had taken so many lives from them. The final offensive had taken yet more. And it was hard to feel like it hadn’t all been for nothing. A fragment of a legion out on a hunting foray had just happened to find them.
Okay, admittedly, Ranthia was probably projecting her dark mood onto her people a bit. There was genuine revelry from many of them, even if most shied away from the newcomers. Others grieved the most recent losses.
Ranthia hadn’t even gotten to see the list of casualties yet. It was hard to say which faces were missing because they were elsewhere or because they were in one of the funeral pyres. …At least the latest casualties hadn’t needed to suffer the indignity of being stripped before they were consigned to the flames. The need to scavenge was done.
Ranthia’s Subcommander still sat with several important strangers. An elf that looked visibly uncomfortable as he politely picked at a cut of tyrannosaurus, hiding beneath a hooded robe that did nothing to obscure his horns. A female dwarf clad in thick metal armor that hungrily feasted on a large stack of thick chunks of various dinosaurs. A somber human that looked like he was expecting to be executed in the near future. And the two Tribunes who were all kinds of punchably smug.
For the moment, they partied. Before the sun set, they would say farewell to the men and women that came so damned close to getting to escape the Unbreakable Image.
And on the morrow, they would join with the coalition force and begin their long journey back to civilization, after they destroyed the base that had been their home for years.
Early the next morning, Ranthia gathered her people. For the last time, they stood before the stone watchtower and Ranthia led them in prayer as she often did. Once that was done, Ranthia read the names of each person that had been carved into the stone. Helvia was among them, and she hadn’t even known until the Subcommander gave her the list. How could she have missed her self-appointed bodyguard’s sudden absence? The loss stung more than she had expected—she had never considered Helvia a friend, but the woman had been such a consistent presence in Ranthia’s life that her absence felt wrong. They rarely talked much, but there had been something reassuring about the woman watching Ranthia’s back, even if she still remained half-convinced that Helvia somehow never slept. Another harmless mystery that would be forever unresolved, thanks to the shimagu. Adding her to the monument was almost as painful as adding Statia’s name was—though she was still grateful that her people allowed the outsider to join the names of their own. The reading—which Ranthia did not get through with dry eyes—was their final farewell to those that had fallen to defend the Unbreakable Image, even those that fell before it was given its name.
Then the process of demolishing the base began. The mud walls were erased, and the stones were scattered. What few supplies and personal items remained that were worth keeping were gathered. Equipment was prepared for travel. Tents were packed away. Junk was burned, as was everything that wasn’t worth salvaging from the shimagu base.
While the others did that, Ranthia remained at the watchtower. She had already gathered her few remaining belongings in her backpack—her chest had been burnt for warmth during the last cold snap, and her iron coins were all melted into some armor patch somewhere. Ranthia had her own task. Carefully—and slowly—she used [Void Edge] to carve free the section of stone that bore the names of the fallen. She would never leave the names of the fallen behind; they were too important to be defiled by the shimagu or weathered away by time, forgotten. But it was surprisingly time-consuming to cut it free without breaking it, even with her dexterity.
Once their final tasks were done and the Unbreakable Image was no more, it was time for them to get underway as the coalition made its way back to their ‘main base’. A base that everyone was cryptic about in that way that promised that they were expecting the reactions of Ranthia’s people to the base to be hilarious.
The journey was long. Not just because of the distance, but because the coalition force moved remarkably slowly. Their base’s memorial was carefully packed on one of the open wagon beds that large dinosaurs pulled. Those were slow. But so were the people.
Ranthia and her forces out-leveled the bulk of the coalition force. The dwarf commander was level 570, which bested the levels of the bulk of Ranthia’s forces—even if a few, like Ranthia, were higher. Only the solitary elf—level 768 in his first and third classes—out leveled all of them. Yet even he seemed to be allergic to the concept of ‘hurry’.
Ranthia’s people swiftly became restless and ended up taking over most of the scouting duties. Ranthia let them despite her own impatience.
The leadership of the Legion members of the coalition were still treating Ranthia with the cold shoulder, absent one man that had worked directly under Tribune Statia—apparently, she had somehow left the Rangers—who was somewhat openly hostile to Ranthia. The man obviously thought he was being subtle. He wasn’t.
Days turned into weeks. Weeks turned into months. And the coalition force continued to make its way through the wasteland. They passed the burnt out remains of other shimagu camps that the force had already punched through—and occasionally a few members of the coalition stopped to remember some fallen comrade or another—but overall, they kept moving by day.
Okay, Ranthia was willing to admit when she was wrong. She was expecting some ridiculously fortified base that the dwarves had turned into a wondrous death trap for the shimagu. Of course, she might have been expecting that because she—and many of her people—mostly hung around the dwarves. They were fun, but they also seemed to understand the discomfort and fear of outsiders that she and most of her people were struggling with in a way that no one else did. The dwarves gave them the space they needed and loudly shared their own stories of past triumphs—mostly against orcs—while they traveled. Dwarves were certainly inventive, so she could easily imagine a steel-covered fortress death trap by the time their journey neared its end.
She sure as chaos was not expecting an entire city.
Ranthia and her people openly gawked as they finally came into view of the massive walled city. Seriously, that had just been a fairly normal looking military base not quite six years ago—how in Xaoc’s glory had they managed to mutate it into a city that stretched across the horizon?! It was somewhat hard to tell from the outside, but the city gave off an impression closer to Ariminum than any other city Ranthia had experienced too!
Normally they would have stopped to make camp—again—but with the proximity to the city they pushed on. Ranthia and her people were given a place of honor in front as the sun set and night spilled over the land.
As if she and her people hadn’t noticed that the coalition Legion forces were sending runners on swifter mounts back and forth the entire time.
Ranthia walked in front, flanked by Amphea and the Subcommander. Behind them was the [Archer] that she had given permission to carry the Unbreakable Image’s standard—and no, she had not been expecting that to be a highly coveted task—and the rest of her forces.
The gates opened for them when they arrived, revealing a welcoming party that had plainly been expecting them.
Pyronox erupted around the gate—a familiar means of screening for parasites, scaled up considerably from those Ranthia had seen in Remus—as it opened. But Ranthia’s eyes were locked on General Mucius and two other men with similar adornment that stood further inside the city. The trio had grave looks plastered on their faces and the area around them was practically swarming with attendants and other self-important figures.
Also, there was the minor detail of the lines of triple-classed Legion soldiers that flanked the space between the gate and the generals, spears in hand. Most of them were barely triple classed, but it was blatantly obvious that the generals had gathered their on-hand elites for this confrontation.
Ranthia felt her own face tighten as she looked upon them. The men that abandoned her and her people—those that had let a lazy scout kill so many. All of the promises and they couldn’t spare so much as a flyby to double-check! …And they were also the men who had helped turn Statia into a weapon, they—and the emperor—were just as much to blame for the good woman’s death as Ranthia was. And they were plainly about to try to stand there in judgment of her?!
“War Ranger Ranthia! A pleasure to see you alive, but you will answer us about what in the name of all of the gods happened out there!” One of the generals ordered the instant she stepped through the Pyronox.
Ranthia struggled to think of her people as she bit off her initial response before it could pass her lips. The urge to curse the man was strong, and it was worsened by the familiar sound of her base’s standard being planted in the ground. Tensions were rising fast and Ranthia only had moments to try to remember how to be diplomatic to self-important pieces of—
A different voice cut through the tension like a knife.
“Gentlemen, you must excuse us, but her initial debrief will be Sentinel business.” The voice was calm and collected. It wasn’t raised, and yet it commanded the attention of everyone present. Heads turned, and the brewing confrontation broke under the quiet force of the new presence.
Sentinel Night stepped forward, passing through the spearmen as if they hadn’t been in his path. In the distance—further up the stairwell he had stepped down from—Sentinel Aurora and three other men that Ranthia didn’t recognize waited.
“This is a military matter!” The same General snapped.
Night held up a fist, then raised a finger. And not the one Ranthia would have preferred him to raise at the generals.
“First, Ranger Ranthia is a Ranger and thus answers to Ranger Command, not Legion brass. The fact that her name was erroneously carved onto the Indomitable Wall already does not change this.”
Night raised a second finger.
“Ranger Command has deferred command decisions on the frontlines to the Sentinels that are present.”
A third finger was raised, and Night offered a smile that, to Ranthia, felt slightly menacing.
“A Ranger. A grand feat. An open seat. When word reached us of her survival, we voted to make her a Sentinel under our emergency authority.”
The General made an angry, incoherent protest, but Night continued as if he hadn’t interrupted.
“Ranger Ranthia achieved a grand feat worthy of the seat over eight years ago. She qualified from her former merits alone. And here she stands, having endured years behind enemy lines, having slain a shimagu twin that eliminated one of the Legion’s brightest stars. We have the authority. For the sake of our future cooperation, I simply ask for a bit of patience. We will handle the initial debriefing and make a thorough report that exceeds the Legion’s own standards, fret not.”
Ranthia had no idea how to process any of this. She and her people had been saved—only to find themselves facing unexpected hostility from those that should have been apologizing and then this?! Her life was changing almost as swiftly as when White Dove visited, which wasn’t at all an alarming thought that increased the panic building in her gut.
And then Night looked meaningfully at her—not that she had any idea how to read the look!
“Come, Ranger.” Night ordered, then turned away.
There was probably meaning in the fact that he called her Ranger instead of War Ranger.
“Oh, yes,” Night turned back, “to all of you from that forward base that fought alongside Ranger Ranthia. The Rangers recognize you as elite and worthy of our organization. If any of you have any interest in joining up as a Ranger or would give us the privilege of having you join our robust support staff, I invite you to follow me to our section of Coalition City. Your obligations to the Legions ended when they recorded each of you as deceased.”
Ranthia took a breath to clear her head, then turned to her people. They still looked ready for a fight—in a subtle way that hopefully meant only Ranthia could tell. They truly were great people. She had no idea what was even happening anymore, but she was pretty damned sure what the best route was.
“I can’t give you orders anymore. I seized command out of necessity and that necessity has ended. That said, I hope you all take the invitation.” Ranthia spoke swiftly, counting on the vitality and levels of her people to let them keep up.
With that, she smiled warmly at them, then turned to follow Night and the other Sentinels.
Every single man and woman from her base followed.
Ranthia felt no small amount of sympathy for the staff of the compound they were in. Housing 119 people out of the blue was not an easy task, but a small army of staff gathered their courage and saw it done. The staff had even promised that they would retrieve her people’s belongings from the coalition force’s wagons, in an effort to keep them away from the Legions for the moment—“It’s best for everyone involved.”
Ranthia was given her own room. Six years ago, she would have called it modest, if she was feeling generous, or spartan, if she wasn’t. Standing there, she wasn’t sure how she’d sleep on something as soft as a cot—it just felt weird after so long deprived of even basic comfort. There was even a bath somewhere further back in their wing, not that Ranthia actually needed it. She removed her armor and set it near the door, hung her backpack near the bed, and shifted to a new body before she pulled on the clean tunic that had been given to her.
It was time to undergo her debriefing; she needed answers more than she needed time with creature comforts.
Ranthia found herself led to a small, oddly comfortable room with five Sentinels. The three that Ranthia didn’t recognize were introduced, but Ranthia was so nervous that she failed to even absorb their code names (as if she would have absorbed them had she been calmer). Her people were taken care of, so Ranthia just awkwardly sank into a too-plush chair and tried not to wiggle uncomfortably.
The Sentinels were practically living legends. …Okay, yes, Sentinel Silver had spat all over the intrigue she had received from her interactions with Hunting, Night, and Ocean, but it was still somehow difficult to think of the people in the room as her peers.
“Okay, before we begin, I’ve got to ask. How did your Ranger badge get split like that?” One of the men asked.
“A caster monster therizinosaurus. Came out of the shadows and put its claws straight through my chest. Didn’t even notice the old badge got cracked by the attack until the salvage team found it. I was more annoyed at the laminar and arcanite that was digging into my skin.”
“Wait, you got skewered through your chest and arcanite poking you was your biggest problem?” A different Sentinel asked.
Night clapped his hands with a surprisingly quiet sound that still, somehow, felt like it echoed throughout the room.
“Ranger Ranthia’s capabilities were discussed by prior Sentinels over eight years ago. She is, effectively, able to recover from any attack that doesn’t instantly kill her. That said, I believe we should get underway with her report.”
He had barely closed his mouth before the Sentinel that asked the first question began to speak again.
“Wait that long ago? She’s like… young! I never heard of any little kid Rangers. When did you become a Rang—”
He was cut off. Night was suddenly there and staring the man down point blank.
Night was fast. She was a higher level than he was, but she still could only barely follow his movem— …Wait.
Her thoughts derailed.
She was higher level than Night!?
…By quite a bit too. He was only level 524 in his lead class, 509 in his second, and level 54 in his third?! How had the man gotten so few levels in almost eight years?
She gave Night an odd look, then shook her head.
“I’m older than I look, I’m thir—” Ranthia started to answer.
Only to be distracted when Night blurred next to her. He hissed quietly into her ear for a single heartbeat of quick, quiet speech—likely impossible to overhear regardless of vitality—before he retreated back to his chair.
“Do not call attention to it, we will discuss immortality in private later.”
How the fuck!?
“She has been in combat situations as an Adventurer since she was eight, high vitality from an early age. But enough dawdling, I would prefer to get Ranger Ranthia’s report started. We still need to come up with her title afterward and prepare the report we will share with our allies.” Night announced with a pleasant smile.
“Right…”
Ranthia took a deep breath.
“Can I begin from the time when Sentinel Aurora delivered me to the base, or do I need to get into the War Ranger stuff and the politics of that?”
“We are familiar with the failed War Ranger program, please proceed from your arrival.” Night answered.
Ranthia nodded and tried to make herself relax in her fiendishly comfortable chair. Soft was such an alien sensation after so many years.
…Wait, ‘failed’? More questions she needed to ask as soon as she got a chance!
“Things started as expected. Shimagu infected ogres, dinosaurs, and humans. Often uncoordinated with a large variety of levels. The base didn’t get resupplied very competently, but we managed relatively easily. I mostly focused on combat; the supply chain wasn’t my problem.
“Then the massive army of shimagu came. They ignored us. We tried to get their attention, but outside of a few small groups of shimagu they just kept moving. We tried to send birds back to the alliance’s main base, but they were taken out. Didn’t take long to realize we were on our own.”
She sighed and forced herself to summarize the dark days. No matter how desperately she wanted to ask about what had happened with that force of shimagu, she had to continue.
“Some of the men and women held out hope that when my pickup date came there would be a rescue. Didn’t happen, obviously. We lost a lot of people after that. Especially since one of our three [Healers] seemed to lose his mind around the same time—the most powerful one, of course.
“Shimagu continued to harass us. Then they drew back. With the base commander’s permission, I scouted their camp. Got within earshot and learned that a twin was coming to eliminate us.
“The twin turned out to be an ogress. Stood atop a wheeled tower and threw an adamantium spear to… frankly absurd effect. Every throw left a large crater. I was forced to take an indirect approach while our forces engaged her army. Snuck around, climbed the tower, and killed her before she knew I was there. Level 637. Her elements were Magic Metal, Gale, and Gravity. That alone would have been nasty enough, but her shimagu—her husband, given the class names—was Ooze, Erosion, and Gravity. She could throw that spear and retrieve it between the two of them. Several died when the walls were struck while I was climbing up. Bit of an awkward moment for me—my combat class wants me to dance but dancing and assassinating really, really don’t go together.”
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Ranthia barreled forward before anyone’s attempts at commentary could derail her.
“Killed her guards after. One of them had been a rebel ogre that had classes devoted to battling the shimagu. Guess they captured him and decided it would be funny to make him guard one of their twins. He… thanked me when I killed him.
“Used his big hammer, which turned out to have terrasium in it—that’ll be relevant later—to destroy the wheels of the tower. Took the adamantium spear for myself. Helped my people fight her army, at least until I got hit by a bottle of poison. I returned to base at that point; my lungs were shot in a way I couldn’t recover from at that time.”
She paused and had to calm herself back down. Her heart still thundered at the memory of what was about to happen. She had to reassure herself that it was okay. She had largely withdrawn into herself and was doing her best to not pay any attention to the reactions of others, though the Sentinels were proving to be a surprisingly attentive audience.
“Killing the twin got me to level 512, then slaughtering her army got my third class to level 8 quickly. I reported to the command tent. The base commander and our best available [Healer] were in there with me, along with some of the [Analysts]. …The [Healer], she had a skill that would give me the effects of a full night’s rest if I stayed still for a while. So, I decided to grab a third class for the short term, something to help me survive that I could change later on.”
Another pause while she trembled slightly. She mustered herself and continued.
“While my guide tried to find a quick class option for me, suddenly a class option came from the back, slammed into me, and tried to drive me out of the world within. It was a divine class.”
She could have sworn that she heard Night make a noise, but she ignored him and pushed on. She couldn’t stop, not even for him. Not at that point.
“I believed it was divine intervention from Xaoc or His agents, so I went along with it. I woke up moments before a gigantic rock landed on the command tent. Even with my abilities and stats, I only barely got out in time. …The Commander wasn’t so lucky, and the [Healer]—and others present—died too.”
It felt strange to lie about what that had truly cost her—and what happened next—but Night had warned her to discuss it in private with him. Not that she had any idea how he knew!
“A second twin had arrived in the short time I was out. A troll, even higher level than the ogress. He had literally just grabbed a nearby rock formation and thrown it directly into the heart of our base. I went out to fight him. I didn’t have time to restock my knives—my Void element destroyed weapons quickly—so I had to fight with the adamantium spear. The troll also had the Void element, along with Light—as you would expect—and Forest, which he used to form armor that his shimagu parasite added stone plates to.
“Our first clash ended when he threw a therizinosaurus into my base. I had to peel off to help my people.
“Our Subcommander was unable to take command, so I did. My third class turned out to be magic metal, specifically adamantium, aspected, so I was able to eventually convert the adamantium spear to my current equipment.”
She held up her arms to show off her adamantium bracers.
“The troll twin continued to test us. I reorganized my remaining forces into something that, honestly, was inspired by you all… well, a Ranger’s understanding of the Sentinels anyhow. Individuals that could form flexible small teams to counter threats. The troll sometimes used shimagu troops, but most often we had to fight trained dinosaurs.
“Supplies got bad. We were able to scavenge from the tower I broke to help us. Gave a shieldwoman—Amphea—the terrasium; she got a class after that for the metal and the [Blacksmiths] were able to incorporate it into her shield. Dinosaur meat supplemented the vegetables and stuff that Doc grew in his garden. We held on.
“Sometimes the troll twin reappeared to challenge me. He was trying to use me to hone and refine his combat style. My theory is he was used to punching down and was using me as a ‘safe’ means to develop a way to fight equals or betters. Yet he always disengaged or drove me away after a battle. Even when I was at his mercy, he walked away.
“One of the nastier surprises he pulled was when he seemingly sent a solitary, low level ogre at us. I killed it easily enough. Then got attacked by that caster monster therizinosaurus in retribution. Dark-aspected, it was able to melt into shadows and emerge from them to attack. Was not a fun fight.
“We were prisoners to the troll’s whims for a long time. Then during a nasty cold snap, a—I assume—coalition scout found us. They immediately left, pursued by shimagu forces.
“The cold snap devastated the remnants of our supplies. But the troll had stopped attacking and instead held a fortified camp nearby. We pretty much ran out of wood and our food supplies ended up strained.
“Then the coalition force appeared. A short time later, the shimagu massed against them and sent a large force of dinosaurs after us. Two tyrannosaurs, a dozen therizinosaurs, and a bunch of others. I was the first to reach the dinosaurs. Pissed off the higher-level tyrannosaurus until it got enraged, then baited it into attacking the other one. Used their melee to drive the other dinosaurs in. Let them tear at each other. Made it easier for me and my forces to kill the tyrannosaurs.
“About then I…”
Ranthia stopped. Tears threatened to fall.
“Let me go back in time a bit. Back before we deployed as War Rangers, I spoke to Ranger Statia. We went to the Ranger Academy together, so I knew about her restriction Skill. How it worked. …That the Emperor turned her into a weapon.
“I did something I regret. I thought it would help Statia survive, so I used her vow to request something that I thought would give her some self-preservation.”
“Do you remember the words you used?” Night asked.
His voice sounded cold.
With the rebuke implied by his tone, the tears that she was fighting against came, but Ranthia pressed through.
“I’ll never forget them: Please, help me to see you again after we finish our training out there.”
Ranthia wiped her face but failed to stop more tears from coming.
“Statia knew that I had been deployed to the base. The damned request, instead of saving her life, forced her to run ahead of her army. It might have even brought her and that army to our base. She ended up engaged in battle with the troll twin.
“It was a bad matchup. As soon as I realized what was happening, I went straight there to help. Her… her blades couldn’t do any real damage to the troll. His weapon erupted in a wave of Void energy with every swing.”
Ranthia broke down and wept for a moment as the memories assailed her. As she watched Statia’s final struggle replay in her memories. As she remembered her helpless despair. No one had the indecency to stop her. Eventually she managed to continue.
“I watched… pieces of her disappear. I begged her to retreat. Took a lot of punishment as I tried to counter attacks and draw attention away from her. She used my distraction to try an alchemical firebomb. Didn’t work, the shimagu used Ooze to nullify the flames.”
Ranthia’s next words were quiet.
“She died soon after. His Void took her head.”
She wiped her tears until they stopped as anger replaced misery. Once she was sure her tears were done, she stuck a mirror image in front of herself and shifted to it. After that, she dismissed her gross, tear-soaked body and sat back down in the chair as if nothing had happened.
“I vowed before Xaoc to kill the troll there. He didn’t understand Creation, but he sure understood it when I said it in the language of the shimagu.”
“Wait, you speak shimagu?”
The question-filled Sentinel clearly hadn’t learned his lesson after drawing Night’s ire earlier. The pale Sentinel gave him a withering look.
“
“The troll twin had used me to refine his combat style. But that meant that I knew how he fought better than anyone. He had turned me into his perfect counter, despite the massive level difference between us. Also, I was really lucky because the shimagu’s final surprises from its classes didn’t really affect me much.
“I fought to destroy his weapon. Mostly succeeded. The rest of it should be with my personal effects. It was carved from some sort of bone, two pieces that had a strip of hide connecting them… somehow, still not sure how the hide’s anchored onto either end. Their movements were tricky, and the material itself seemed to be resistant to Void, though I don’t know how much the Troll’s classes contributed to that. They weren’t immune though. Adamantium, at least when reinforced by my class, was a better weapon.
“We fought until the sun was about to rise. I could cut him, but he just regenerated. When his weapon broke, he distracted me with arcanite, and I got suckered into assuming he was building up to do something big. I took the arcanite from him, denied it to him. Turned out he wanted me to back off so he could retreat. He ran for a mesa, started carving a hole into it as he went. Tried to fake me out with a sandstorm too.
“Managed to get his legs at the last second.”
She left out the how, it was too absurd to imagine [One With Chaos] would ever do anything of the sort again. She had no idea if Xaoc had responded to her prayer or if the Skill had just given her what she needed at the last instant—but in many ways it was an irrelevant question. Xaoc had sent her the class, He had provided the Skill in the first place. She was grateful to Him and had gleefully offered Him as much mana as He would take every chance she got ever since.
“The sun came up. Trolls turn to stone quickly, but the parasite tried to save him. Took his head before the sunlight could kill him. Got both kill notifications. When he died the troll was level 877. Light, Forest, Void. The shimagu had Ooze, Earth, and Sand. One of my people brought the stone head.
“Helped my people and the coalition forces mop up the rest of the shimagu in the area. We ran down the survivors that tried to escape. After that, we came here.”
After that they went through a somewhat muted conversation about what Ranthia could have done better. She had an easy contribution; she should have dumped her free stats into strength or magic power for the fight against the troll—she hadn’t even thought of her massive pile of free stats until they were already making their journey to Coalition City. Not that she expected it to have saved Statia. Somehow a few thousand or so stats had become a drop in the bucket, despite being the whole of her stats back when she was an Adventurer. In the end, she didn’t really learn anything helpful from the Sentinels’ nitpicking.
She was hoping to ask questions at that point, but her (alleged) peers had other plans.
The Sentinels kicked her out of the meeting area and made her wait in a different part of the building while they eagerly tried to figure out her title. She couldn’t hear most of what happened from outside, but she heard a few things as she left. Mostly brawling. Someone had shouted ‘Sexy’ as a suggestion very loudly and she really hoped the crack that sounded after had been a firm refusal.
She might just have to leave Remus if they named her Sentinel Sexy.
…The thought actually intrigued her to a surprising extent. Not of being named Sexy—gods no—but the notion of leaving Remus. What would it be like to explore the rest of Pallos? She imagined seeing the lands of the dwarves or visiting the elves. The idea of getting to see what other races and cultures were around was surprisingly intoxicating.
She suspected that the allure was at least in part due to her frustration over the war and the abandonment of her people and her. It was fun to fantasize about while she was stuck waiting though.
It was nearly dawn before she was called back in.
“We welcome you to our ranks. The Graceful Sentinel, or Sentinel Grace for short.”
[*ding!* Your skill [Ranger’s Lore] has evolved into [Sentinel’s War Supremacy]!]
[Sentinel’s War Supremacy]: The peak of humanity, you stand at the front of humanity’s thrust to counter the threats to your species’ future. You are of the pinnacle, the tip of the spear. 10% boost to all class skills and 10% decrease to mana costs for all class skills. Increased combat prowess and physical fortitude per level. -1536 Mana Regen Rate.
So much for her plans to ask questions. The other Sentinels had lost all semblance of decorum and wanted to throw a party.
Ranthia could think of very few things that she was less interested in doing.
Fortunately, Night noticed her apparent discomfort and threw Ranthia a lifeline. He pointed out that she had been travelling and suggested that she could use an opportunity to rest and recuperate.
She would have rather received answers, but she had waited for them for over five years. What was another day?
She was, admittedly, starting to feel exhaustion worming its way through her being. Her night had been… unexpected and generally unpleasant. She accepted the lifeline.
And failed utterly at all things related to sleep while she squirmed on a far too soft bed and felt naked and vulnerable without her armor on.
She had spent nearly six years under the constant threat of annihilation in an active war zone. She no longer knew how to just… live her life. Back when she had just been an Adventurer or a Ranger, which almost felt like a (second) prior life at that point, she had always eagerly looked forward to a soft bed once she got off the road. A hot bath. All the proper food she could eat.
Now all of that felt alien after she had gone so long without. She had gotten used to eating the bare minimum so there would be more to go around. She had gotten used to her disgusting, over-abused bedroll. She had gotten used to sleeping in her armor, ready to wake up and fight at a moment’s notice. She had gotten used to her only hygiene practice coming in the form of a rough cloth and a bucket of cold water; at least if you didn’t count renewing her body to a perfectly hygienic prior image constantly.
In this alien environment, she had no comfort. Comforts she would have argued that she missed had, ironically, started to discomfit her more than enduring the bare minimum it took to survive under the specter of death.
She was almost relieved when there was the quietest knock at her door.
…At least until she opened it and found Sentinel Night there.
Ranthia admitted Night into her room and the pale man wandered across her room placing wood blocks periodically around it. Each block bore what looked like a mass of inscriptions, not that Ranthia had any idea what their purpose was. Once he was done placing them, he circled to each block a second time and used his finger to make a small etch on each, which made them start to glow.
Moments later, Night settled into the chair in her room while she sat on the bed. She was more than a bit distracted with trying desperately to remember how the hell she was supposed to sit in a men’s tunic without giving her boss a show. This should be something she was used to, shouldn’t it?! She used to wear them all the time! She had even worn them while she was repairing her armor …and either saw no one or remained standing.
“I am sorry for disturbing you, but I thought it prudent that we have this conversation now before there are any further misconceptions. It is hard to miss the fact that you appear younger than you did the last time that I saw you.” Night began.
Ranthia started to nod, before her mind jerked off track.
“Wait, I didn’t see you when I was 25! We never met after that round, just the one two years before that.” Her mouth went rogue. Apparently, conversation with people aside from her forces was another skill she had lost her grasp on. Night chuckled politely.
“Let us just say that I keep an eye on Ranger Convocations, even when I do not make an appearance. The fate of the eight of you drew special scrutiny as well. I am pleased to see that you survived the incompetence of our empire’s leadership.”
Ranthia’s eyes flicked to the far wall of her room, where the stone engraved with the names of all of the men and women that she lost rested—it had been delivered while she was out. She had never actually told anyone—and it was admittedly morbid—but some small part of her had always been tempted to put her own name on the stone. Her true body was gone, after all. She lived on—cursed by the avatar of death herself—but… But it was hard to ignore that something precious to her died that night.
Night followed her gaze and stood. He approached the stone with reverence and examined every name on it.
“You made your own Indomitable Wall!”
There was something in his eyes when he looked back to Ranthia that she didn’t like. The twinkle of emotion, like a man who just discovered a kindred spirit. For some reason, the sentiment made her skin crawl—which was patently ridiculous! She had openly been inspired by the Indomitable Wall!
“I… did it for my people. They seemed to appreciate it.” Ranthia mumbled while she rubbed her arms.
“Thank you for recording young Statia’s name. By the rules, she will not grace the Indomitable Wall since she left the Rangers behind.” Night’s gratitude held a certain measure of pain.
“She deserved better. Just… better than all of this.” Ranthia agreed readily. That pain she was perfectly willing to have in common with the man.
The two fell silent for a time as they stared at the monument and remembered.
“This rock is a fragment from the larger rock that struck the command tent in your report, is it not?” Night prompted at last.
“Yeah. My original body that I struggled so hard to protect and save was crushed by it.”
There was no reason to lie. It was obvious to anyone that knew her powers.
“What curse did you receive?” Night prompted.
He knew.
Ranthia fell silent as she studied the man. She out-leveled him, by a solid margin (seriously, how?!), and he still intimidated her. His red eyes. His stark white hair. The fact that he was—somehow—still far beyond her own speed. Her class qualities were supposed to be solid—okay, admittedly she wasn’t a specialist [Speedster], but… Something felt off.
The System amplified the baseline of your species…
“You’re not human, are you?” Ranthia asked before her better sense could stop her wild accusation.
The man chuckled! Amusement sparkled in his eyes and was writ plain on his features. His mirth confirmed her suspicions before he could utter a word.
“No, I am not. I have the… mixed pleasure of being a vampire.” The man confessed after he finished chuckling, flashing her a fang-filled smile.
Ranthia had no idea why she did it, but she raised her hands to the sides of her own neck, as if she intended to protect the arteries that were there. What was she even doing? She forced her hands back down to her lap.
Something flashed in Night’s eyes, but it was gone before she could make sense of it.
“I suppose it would be polite for me to share my own curse, before I ask you about yours. White Dove’s curses come in two forms. The first are racial curses, which affect those whose entire race are Immortal and bear the same curse. The troll’s sunlight vulnerability that you weaponized, for example. The latter are individual curses, which are inflicted upon those that, like yourself, have seized Immortality.
“Vampires are cursed in a similar vein as trolls are, except instead of facing death in the face of the sun, we merely lose access to the System under the sun.” The way he said ‘merely’ suggested that it had the weight of thousands of deaths placed upon it.
Night settled into one of his customary pauses, but he resumed speaking a moment before she could say anything.
“I will not mandate that you share your curse with me. There will be no order taking away your autonomy on this matter. However, I ask that you consider sharing it with me. I cannot plan your duties around the curse without knowledge. I cannot help you mask it from those that would use it against you.
“To offer further incentive, I am also something of an expert at crafting ways to turn a curse into an advantage. I bear a restriction Skill that prevents me from being beneath the sun in exchange for greater capabilities. In addition, offsetting the harm that the curse can inflict is possible. The emperor’s wife found a clever workaround for her own curse that has, in effect, completely negated it. A feat which I am, admittedly, somewhat jealous of.” He chuckled self-deprecatingly.
The man in front of her was affable, generous, and straight-forward. And yet Ranthia still hesitated to trust him in the extreme. Sentinel Night had, as far as she knew, never truly done anything to her except to make some clumsy attempts to help her. Even when he had stripped her of her secrets in front of other Sentinels, ostensibly he had done so in order to prove that she could have potentially killed the kraken.
…Okay, yes, he had been a bit of an ass about how he framed her achievements, but that wasn’t enough to justify how hard it was for her to trust him. And, very arguably, it wasn’t entirely undeserved.
It was almost like she had some deep-seated belief that Night was dangerous and impossible to trust. Yet she had no idea why. The man was undoubtedly dangerous—his level and speed plainly announced as much—but why was it so hard to accept that he was an ally? They were peers! She was (somehow) a Sentinel herself (apparently)!
She knew she shouldn’t refuse. He had already told her multiple precious secrets, and she still had enough social sense to know that refusing would damage their ability to work together. Ranthia hadn’t succeeded in lying to him before either.
She weighed her loyalty and logic against her inexplicable terror, and found it wasn’t even a contest.
“White Dove came to me moments after my true body was lost. I don’t understand everything that she said, but I’ve had years of experience to prove what it meant. On the moonless nights—the monthly night when neither moon touches the sky at any time—I lose access to my senses of sight, scent, and taste from the moment that the sun sets to the moment the morning sun rises.”
She had learned that she couldn’t omit things from what she told Night, so she had to pray that she could add things instead. If her terror held a whisper of truth—if the man truly was a danger to her, somehow—she wanted him to have comfort of advantages that weren’t there. She couldn’t realistically fake being unable to hear or feel, but it was easy enough to pretend to be unaware of scents or flavors. She could only hope if Night ever proved to be inexplicably hostile to her that he would overlook an aroma that might warn her of danger. It was the one boon she was willing to throw to her foolish paranoia, it was harmless if she was wrong after all.
“I see… Thank you for doing me the honor of sharing this. We will have to ensure that we keep you in reserve at times to keep this from becoming widely known. Or, perhaps, it would be best to have you present on the night of the new moons and control the environment to give the appearance that you have not lost any senses. At least at this time, I would advise against taking a second restriction Skill to try to capitalize on your curse.” Night decided after a thoughtful moment.
Ranthia exhaled. She was relieved beyond words that her exaggeration seemed to have worked. It was hard to silence the voice in the back of her mind that whispered that he could have identified the truth and was just not informing her that he had recognized the falsities, but she had to believe that it worked. It gave her paranoia some degree of peace of mind, and she couldn’t let new discomforts erase that.
She needed to be able to work with her fellow Sentinels, after all.
“I tried to do that at my base, I stayed in my tent even on some nights that I wasn’t afflicted, even during attacks. It wasn’t easy, but it seemed like the smart thing to do. I’ve also been training to rekindle the lessons that Hunting had once tried to instill in me on fighting blind, but my inner circle refused to let me take the risk.” Ranthia explained, hoping the exhale came off as exasperation at rehashing old problems.
“I believe we can do better than that. I had hoped to utilize you again in the war, but your curse means that you will be best suited to remaining within Remus.” Night answered with a small smile.
“I still want to fight!” Ranthia interjected immediately.
It was hard to say which of them was more surprised. Ranthia hadn’t even thought about it but—gods and goddesses, was she seriously that willing to fight the shimagu again? To endure so much?
The ogre, thanking her for freeing him, with his dying breath. His words echoed through her mind. Her fear of her people being stolen by the shimagu. The risk that some of the names on her monument still lived, prisoners in their own bodies. Hylla, the [Healer] that died right next to Ranthia just because she hadn’t been vigilant enough.
Godsdamnit, she really was still just as determined to stop the shimagu. She nodded to confirm her words.
“I see… We will need to spend some time considering how to reduce the risks that are introduced by your curse, but if that is your wish, I welcome your blades. Relatedly, may I see one of your weapons? I have not had the privilege of studying adamantium before, to the best of my knowledge.” Night requested.
Ranthia wasn’t quite sure if he was changing the subject to avoid discussing her role in the war or if it genuinely came to his mind when he mentioned her blades. Either way she shrugged and broke one of her bracers down to sand, morphing it into one of her curved knives. She tossed the blade—gently and hilt first—to Night once the process was complete.
“Fascinating. Heavier than steel and less lustrous. May I?” Night looked to her.
Ranthia nodded, not entirely certain what she was giving him permission to do.
Night was on his feet almost faster than she could process. He went through several brutal slashes and stabs with the knife, testing its balance, then drew one of his own blades—she wasn’t entirely sure if it was horn or bone, but it plainly wasn’t metal—and attempted to scratch her knife with it. Naturally, there wasn’t a mark, and the vampire was left eyeing his own blade’s edge with mild annoyance.
“Your design is impressive. I am not certain that I would have selected the same grip, but that preference might lie within the differences in our combat styles. The metal itself is exceptional, and I will confess to some minor jealousy. Still, the prize is yours. Especially since, at the moment, you are the only member of the coalition to have two reported shimagu twin kills.” Night returned her blade to her—hilt first—before he returned to his chair.
Ranthia accepted her blade and started the process to return it to its bracer form. And she was thrilled that Night’s words felt like a grand invitation to get some damned answers.
“What happened?!” It wasn’t the question she meant to ask, and a blatant amount of hysteria infected her voice as it came out. It hadn’t been part of her planned queries, but she didn’t take the words back or try to explain. Instead, she gave Night a challenging stare.
“The grand shimagu offensive, as many called it, cost us greatly. A dozen bases were overrun and destroyed. I myself verified the fate of numerous from among them. Half of those affected by the emperor’s ‘War Ranger’ program perished in those days. I never had cause to question it when the Legions’ scouts reported your base lost with the rest. Nor do I have a true explanation for why the shimagu ignored your base when they destroyed so many others. I can conjecture, but the minds of our opponents remain opaque to us all.
“Unfortunately, having Sentinel Aurora do a flyby of each base was not an option. From above, we have no clear way to tell whether there are friends or foes beneath us. The shimagu have attempted to lure her into traps on at least three occasions that we have confirmation of. We are working on means among Sentinels to verify our identities through Skills from afar, but many are incapable of broadly displaying their Skills with sufficient visibility. At the risk of being presumptive, I believe you fall into this category. It is a question that we have not yet found an acceptable answer to that cannot be readily seized by our enemies.”
Night’s explanation was so simple, so reasonable.
She hated it.
“So, because some scout was lazy, almost every name on that died!” Ranthia pointed at her monument, completely losing her grip on her emotions.
“I would hesitate to ascribe laziness. You speak of the men and women that chose to try to sneak past eights of thousands of shimagu to find those that we could still help. I do not have an explanation for why their efforts fell short in the case of your base. If you insist, I shall have it looked into. But, with that said, I would greatly prefer to avoid challenging the valor of those who risked everything in service to humanity.” Night answered in an unreadable tone.
“…Let me think on it?” Ranthia finally requested after a long silence.
Night offered her a nod, with a small smile.
“So how did this place fend off that many shimagu—including twins—and somehow turn into this madness?” Ranthia asked moodily.
“At the time of the attack, the majority of our legions were in the base, as were eight Sentinels. Our dwarven allies had also joined the war efforts in great numbers by then. The shimagu masses broke on the wall, and we focused on eliminating the twins. A dwarven strike team took out the ogre that was clad in heavy metal armor. Sentinel Edge, assisted by Sentinel Void, managed to bring down a human that used the Arcanite element to devastating effect.”
There was a strange intensity in how Night said the Sentinel’s name. Not that it helped the name stick in her memory.
“A trio of elves brought down an ogre that wielded Lightning. I eliminated an ogre twin that thought to tunnel beneath the city. Sentinels Quake and Torrent were able to break the army itself, along with the Legions and our allies that were present. There were casualties, but ultimately our fortification weathered the attack.”
Night paused a moment, only to offer her a fanged smile before he continued.
“As for the state of Coalition City, the base changed considerably after the elves formally joined the coalition. Not that they have contributed significant resources to the war itself, but they have almost singlehandedly provided the materials that allowed the base to grow to its current state.” He explained.
Somehow, the words came off as a complaint, despite the smile and the tone of voice.
Ranthia just nodded and fell silent. It was a lot to mull over—she hated the idea of letting whoever failed her and her people off, but… Godsdamnit, the man had a point, no matter how hard it was to hear and accept. She really needed to think about it—and possibly talk to the others.
“I believe that I have answered your salient questions to the best of my ability at this time. I await your decision on whether to pursue punishment for the scouts that misrepresented the status of your base. But for the moment, I believe that we could both do with some rest. Thank you for your time, Sentinel Grace.” Night smiled warmly at her—yup, still creepy—as he stood.
“One more question. …Did you know, even back when I told you my Skills, that I was going to become… immortal?” Ranthia asked in a quiet voice.
Night nodded, slightly.
“I believed that there was potential. Given what you had said of your reincarnation and retained knowledge, I had assumed that you were intentionally pursuing immortality. Ordinarily I would have offered you the opportunity to become a vampire—to receive a curse that is a known quantity—instead, but I could not be certain of your intentions without revealing much.” The man answered.
“Ha, no, I had no damned idea until White Dove appeared. Would you believe that, despite dying once, I actually had no idea White Dove and Black Crow weren’t just a metaphor until that moment?” Ranthia bitterly replied, complete with a barked, humorless laugh.
“I see, I supposed I had assumed you had greater knowledge of your past life.” Night seemed pensive for a moment before he spoke.
“No, I don’t remember anything other than vague details of the moments of death. No idea what even killed the Paladin. I’ve had some knowledge, but the further I age, the more obvious flaws and gaps in it that I’ve found. Like I’ve come to realize that my first class shouldn’t have even worked, at least not until I was at levels closer to what I am now at a minimum. Xaoc’s done so much for me…” Ranthia shook her head.
“So, you truly remember nothing of your prior life directly?” Night asked.
“I guess the world within—my class up space—might be a memory from it. But I’ve never even heard of temples with armories that stock short swords that vaguely resemble rougher versions of the blades favored by Remus. It’s just as likely something my mind or soul or whatever made up, possibly off hazy memories of the swords the Rangers had when I first awakened. But hey, you’ve been around for a while, apparently, have you heard of anything like that?” Ranthia asked.
For half of a heartbeat, Ranthia was worried that she was being stared down by the man. He was standing and she was sitting, and she was still jumping at shadows—it was hard not to stare down at someone when you were looking at them from his perspective for Xaoc’s sake!
“To the best of my knowledge, no temple in Remus has ever had a full armory. I cannot say that I’ve enjoyed the privilege of setting foot in every single temple that has stood throughout our nation’s long history, no matter how noble a goal that may sound to those with your level of faith. But I believe that I would have heard something had any temple been so openly militarized at any point. It would have served as a precedent for others to do the same and would have likely enabled others to follow suit.
“Of course, I am quite certain that I could step into almost any temple and locate a few batons and knives, were I forced to do so. But this is a far cry from an armory filled with Reman swords, like you describe. We can speak more on this subject at another time if you wish, yet it is my understanding that the world within our class up space is seldom a literal recollection of any specific place or event. It may just be that the space drew inspiration from your faith and your martial focus or, as you said, the 3rd Legion presence that you saw shortly after finding yourself here.
“But, for the moment, morning has embraced our world, and I am not too proud to admit that I am starting to feel somewhat weary myself. Perhaps we should both focus on resting for the time being.”
And with that, Sentinel Night left her room after she offered him a halfhearted farewell.
The wooden blocks ignited and burned themselves out to a pile of ashes the moment he opened the door, but there was surprisingly little smoke and nothing else ignited. It still nearly made her jump out of her skin.
It was all she could do to not scream after the man as he left for not warning her!
And how in Xaoc’s name was he expecting her to sleep after that conversation anyway!? No matter how exhausting his presence had been, Night had given Ranthia more than a few things to think about. The scouts that failed them. The state of the coalition. Her self-inflicted role in the ongoing war. Her intense paranoia about the man was clearly wildly exacerbated by her time surrounded by the shimagu—she wasn’t sure if she could truly trust anyone that hadn’t lived in the Unbreakable Image alongside her yet—but it was still something she needed to dwell on.
Her thoughts twisted and swirled through her head until, at some point, sleep overtook her without her quite noticing. Instead, her nightmares were fueled by the questions. Dark conspiracies and darker motivations put her and her people into greater peril than ever. Amorphous shimagu twins that were greater than even the troll had ever been. And in every shadow, fangs lurked, waiting for a moment of inattention.
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Nozomi Matsuoka.
Sarah "Neila" Elkins.